On July 27, 1953, Seoul and Pyongyang were little more than piles of rubble with only a few buildings left standing.
Lt. Paul Fritts, who was in Taegu then, recalled that Korean civilians "were in terrible shape, living in extreme poverty."
"Many felt lucky to build shacks out of our discarded packing boxes and wooden crates," he said. "I remember on Thanksgiving (in 1953) we had turkey dinner in the mess tent. The next day, the Koreans were buying the turkey bones that had been stripped and thrown into the garbage."
Chung Tae-won, a retired Reuters photographer, said young Koreans today have "no idea what life was like then. There was no food and so many people starved."
No one could be found to give a description of life in North Korea in those days. Presumably it was no better; perhaps it was worse.
Today, Seoul is a dynamic forest of chrome and glass high rises with an official population of just over 10 million (unofficial estimates are closer to 13 million). Its buildings are separated by wide thoroughfares packed with traffic 18 hours a day. Sprawling industrial parks that produce electronic equipment, textiles, cars, trucks, cargo ships and tankers compete for space with decreasing acres of rice paddies and vegetable fields. Imported goods pour into Pusan and other ports to fill the shelves of department stores in every city of 100,000 or more.
There are true five-star hotels in Seoul, Pusan and on the resort island of Cheju. Room rates are beginning to eclipse those in other parts of the world. Chic cafes, posh haute cuisine restaurants and foreign fast-food emporiums stand cheek-by-jowl with small, family-owned braised beef, short ribs and noodle shops and sidewalk pub-restaurants in tents.
The South’s just over 47 million people have a per capita annual wage approaching $17,000, favorably comparable to that of the United States. Progress has lifted wages to the point that many South Korean manufacturing firms have moved their operations overseas to find cheaper labor. Many American manufacturers did the same thing in the 1960s and ’70s, moving their operations to South Korea.
Although the wreckage of war has been removed, Pyongyang and the North have not fared as well. Scenes of the city that appear on South Korean TV broadcasts make it appear to be a giant Hollywood movie set with few people visible.
It, too, has high-rise apartments bordering its wide thoroughfares. Their occupants, according to South Korean news reports — and complaints sometimes aired by Pyongyang’s state-operated Korean Central News Agency — must cope with long periods of no electricity as well as limited water and heat.
There are far fewer vehicles. Traffic cops, mostly women, stand on their platforms in major intersections, addressing the empty streets with gyrations that make it seem like they’re practicing aerobics to pass the time.
A pyramid-shaped, 100-story hotel for which ground was broken a decade ago still has not been completed.
Pyongyang’s government buildings are blocky, austere and chic only in a totalitarian sense. The city is dotted with towering sculptures and monuments commemorating the country’s founder and heavy-handed ruler for nearly 50 years, Kim Il Sung. His embalmed body lies under glass in a mausoleum-palace packed daily by the faithful.
During the last six years a chronic food shortage has killed many. Estimates as to how many have died range from the official government figure of 220,000 to international humanitarian aid organizations’ count of more than 2 million. Although footage of the capital shows people who appear well fed, a short time ago, people in rural areas were said to be existing on a single bowl of soup made from grass, leaves and tree bark.
Video brought back over the last four years by international aid groups has been filled with scenes of infants with bellies swollen by malnutrition and bodies of starvation victims. Hidden camera video smuggled out of the country last year showed children eating garbage and drinking from sewers in a rural market near the Chinese border.
What has not changed is that the peninsula still is divided in almost the same place it was when the Korean War began. The armistice has become the longest-lasting armed cease-fire in history. And the deep-seated bitterness left by the war often, in the last 50 years, has turned hot and deadly.
There have been shooting incidents involving North and South Korean soldiers — and often U.S. troops — near the Demilitarized Zone and elsewhere in the South almost every year since the armistice was signed. In the 20 years following the war, as many as 20 major firefights a month were recorded in and well south of the DMZ.
According to U.N. Command records, 90 U.S. troops have been killed in incidents in the DMZ since the end of the war. Another 132 have been wounded.
U.S. records state that except for a few incidents resulting from U.S. aircraft inadvertently straying across the DMZ — poorly marked in some areas — all those incidents were sponsored by Pyongyang. Some have been very significant.
On Jan. 21, 1968, more than 30 armed North Korean commandos infiltrated the South and made their way to Seoul’s northern suburbs, where they were discovered by South Korean police. Gun battles erupted, but some of the commandos ultimately reached the grounds of the Blue House, South Korea’s equivalent to the White House, in the center of Seoul, where one North Korean was captured and the rest were killed.
Two days later, the electronic intelligence-gathering ship USS Pueblo, dispatched by U.S. Naval Forces Japan into the Sea of Japan, radioed that it had been surrounded by North Korean torpedo boats 25 miles off North Korea’s east coast and was being boarded.
The ship and its 83 crewmen were taken to Wonsan. Four U.S. sailors were injured in the boarding, and one died in captivity. The 80 other sailors and two civilians aboard the ship were imprisoned and interrogated for 11 months.
They were released after Maj. Gen. Gilbert H. Woodward, representing the U.N. Command as chief negotiator, signed a North Korean-prepared document saying the ship had illegally entered North Korean waters.
Woodward repudiated the document immediately after the surviving Pueblo crewmen walked across the Bridge of No Return at Panmunjom on Dec. 23. The Pueblo now is a tourist attraction at Wonsan.
On April 15, 1969, two North Korean MiG fighters shot down an unarmed U.S. Navy EC-121 reconnaissance plane in international airspace over the Sea of Japan. President Nixon said reconnaissance flights would continue because they were vital to the security of South Korea. A 23-ship U.S. task force including aircraft carriers began patrolling the Sea of Japan.
On Aug. 15, 1974, Mun Se Kwang, a North Korean living in Japan, infiltrated security at Seoul’s National Theater and shot at President Park Chung-hee, who was making a speech at a Liberation Day ceremony. The bullet missed Park, but hit his wife. In true "iron man" fashion, Park completed his speech before rushing to the bedside of his dying wife.
Mun later was convicted and executed. South Korean officials say the assassination attempt was planned and financed by a North Korean agent in Japan and a high-ranking official of the major North Korean residents group in Japan.
On Nov. 15, 1974, a South Korean army patrol in the DMZ noticed what appeared to be smoke rising from the ground south of the Military Demarcation Line.
"We didn’t have any sophisticated equipment to investigate what was going on, so we used regular medical stethoscopes and heard people below the ground," recalled retired South Korean Brig. Gen. Choi Suk-ku, who was in charge of the soldiers who made the discovery.
Subsequent investigation revealed the 3-by-4-foot tunnel was made of reinforced concrete, had electricity, sleeping and weapons storage facilities, a narrow gauge railway and was capable of housing an infantry regiment.
Five days after the tunnel was discovered, a booby-trap exploded and U.S. Navy Cmdr. Robert M. Ballinger and South Korean marine Maj. Kim Hah-chul, members of a UNC Military Armistice Commission team, were killed. Statements by North Korean defectors to the South said that Kim Il Sung in 1972 ordered more than 20 such tunnels dug beneath the DMZ to infiltrate North Korean soldiers into the South. Four of the tunnels have been discovered.
Asked if he believes North Korea is still digging tunnels under the DMZ, Choi answered with a resounding, "Absolutely!"
In 1976, the Joint Security Area, the official name for Panmunjom, still was operated under rules that allowed both sides to roam the area. While all U.N. Command guard posts were in the southern sector, North Korean guard posts were in both the northern and southern sectors.
Near the Sachon River, the western boundary of the area, tree branches blocked the line of sight between a UNC guard post at the end of the Bridge of No Return and other UNC posts. UNC officials ordered it pruned.
On Aug. 18, two U.S. officers assigned to the UNC led a crew of Korean Service Corps workers to the tree. When the tree-trimming detail began its work, North Korean guards approached and ordered the project stopped. They were ignored.
The North Koreans returned a short time later and again demanded that the work be stopped, saying the tree had been planted by Kim Il Sung. When they were ignored a second time, the North Koreans grabbed axes and other tools being used in the pruning and killed the Americans.
The United States immediately ordered a squadron of F-4 fighter aircraft from Okinawa, three B-52 bombers from Guam and a squadron of F-111 fighter-bombers from Idaho to South Korea.
The aircraft carrier USS Midway and five other warships were ordered to Korean waters. On Aug. 21, with those forces on station, the fighters and a 300-man quick-reaction force orbiting in helicopters just south of the DMZ, a 110-man UNC task force entered the truce village and cut down the tree.
Following the incident, rules were changed at Panmunjom, putting all North Korean guard posts in the northern sector and all UNC guard posts in the southern sector. The demarcation line through Panmunjom was marked with a 2-inch-high, 10-inch-wide concrete slab, and soldiers from both sides were no longer allowed to cross the line at will.
In October 1983, then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan made a state visit to Rangoon, Burma. On Oct. 7, North Korean army Maj. Zin Mo and two other officers left a bomb in the roof of the Martyrs Mausoleum at the Burmese National Cemetery.
Two days later, as South Korean officials began to arrive at the mausoleum for a ceremony, Zin detonated the bomb. Seventeen South Koreans, including four cabinet ministers, two senior advisers to Chun and the South Korean ambassador to Burma, were killed. Chun survived only because his motorcade was delayed by traffic.
Burmese authorities arrested the North Korean officers responsible. One made a full confession, saying the operation had been ordered personally by Kim Jong Il, now North Korea’s paramount leader. Later, Kim Il Sung conveyed his regret for the Rangoon incident to a South Korean official.
In 1987, final preparations were being made for the 1988 Seoul Olympics and tens of thousands of international athletes, officials and tourists were about to see the economic miracle of South Korea.
The North Korean regime, which had rejected Seoul’s invitation to field a joint Korean team and, perhaps, host a few of the events, did not let the celebration pass peacefully.
On Nov. 29, a Korean Air plane exploded on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Seoul, killing all 115 passengers and crew. North Korean agents Kim Seung Il, 76, and Kim Hyon Hui, 25, had left a time bomb in a portable radio in an overhead luggage bin when they flew on the plane from Baghdad to Abu Dhabi.
They intended to catch a flight after the bombing from Abu Dhabi to Rome, then to Vienna where North Korean diplomats were to get them back to the North.
They were captured, and both swallowed cyanide suicide pills, with which all North Korean agents are supplied. One agent died, but the other, a woman, lived. She was brought to Seoul, where she told interrogators that the mission was ordered by Kim Jong Il.
She was sentenced to death. She was pardoned, however, and since has become a millionaire, writing books and giving lectures about her life. That incident caused the United States to put North Korea on its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
Kim Il Sung died of a heart attack July 8, 1994. At the time, South and North Korean negotiators were holding meetings aimed at setting up an inter-Korea summit brokered by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Preparatory meetings for the summit were postponed until after Kim’s funeral and when they resumed, they immediately fell apart.
South Korean President Kim Young-sam refused to send official condolences to the North and threatened to jail anyone in the South who tried to send condolence messages. That so angered Pyongyang that North Korean delegates stormed out of the meeting after Kim’s death threatening to "drown (Seoul) in a sea of fire."
Although no action ever was taken to make good on that threat and the North Korean official who made it reportedly later was disciplined by his government, relations between the two Koreas reached their lowest levels in years.
There was a sharp increase in deposits by South Koreans in American banks. Many South Koreans who had the wherewithal moved to the United States, and many in Seoul began buying gas masks.
On Sept. 18, 1996, a 110-foot-long North Korean submarine was found stuck on rocks near the South Korean city of Kangnung. South Korean troops and police launched a search of the area and found the bodies of 11 North Koreans. All had been shot in the back of the head, probably with their consent to keep from being captured.
A few hours after the bodies were found, South Korean police arrested North Korean navy Lt. Lee Kwang Su, a crewmember on the sub. He told interrogators the submarine carried 24 infiltrators and crewmen. It had landed infiltrators a few days earlier to photograph a South Korean military base and radar facilities at Kangnung airport.
Over the next 48 days, more than 40,000 South Korean troops and police searched the east coast mountains. They killed 11 more infiltrators in firefights. Fourteen South Korean soldiers and civilians also died, killed in firefights or by infiltrators trying to make their way back to the North. One infiltrator was never found.
As a result of the incident, President Kim Young-sam threatened to withdraw from the 1994 Geneva agreement between the United States and North Korea that would provide Pyongyang with two light-water nuclear reactors in return for the North freezing its nuclear program. He also threatened to back out of planning for a four-power conference aimed at replacing the armistice agreement with a peace treaty unless North Korea apologized.
Finally, on Dec. 29, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official broadcast over Pyongyang’s official international news outlet a "statement of regret" over the incident and said there would be no more similar incidents.
North Korea shocked the world Aug. 30, 1998, by firing a three-stage Taepodong-I missile. The first stage landed in the Sea of Japan, the second stage in the Pacific after crossing the northern tip of Honshu (the main Japanese island), and debris from the third stage was found not far from Alaska.
The rocket’s third stage appeared to be solid-fueled — technology the Pentagon didn’t know the North possessed. With solid fuel, the Pentagon said, the North could build missiles with intercontinental range that could threaten Guam, Hawaii, Alaska and some parts of the U.S. mainland.
Because of the missile launch, Tokyo and Seoul threatened to pull out of the deal to provide Pyongyang with nuclear reactors. Japan threatened to impose stiff economic sanctions on the North. The United States strenuously protested the launch.
President Clinton assigned former defense chief William Perry to work out a new policy toward the North. That policy offered economic and diplomatic concessions to Pyongyang if it agreed to fire no more missiles.
The North ultimately agreed not to fire another missile so long as talks on improving relations with the United States were going on. The talks continue.
In June 1999, South and North Korean warships had the latest and most significant of 30 years of confrontations over the sea extension of the Military Demarcation Line.
Called the Northern Limit Line, it was not mentioned in the armistice agreement. Although it was unilaterally established by the UNC after the war, Pyongyang observed it until the 1970s.
A rich crab fishing ground lies largely south of the line in the Yellow Sea, which both Koreas call the West Sea. In the mid-1970s, Pyongyang announced it did not recognize the line, and its fishing boats, guarded by military patrol craft, began routinely violating the line. Each time they were challenged by South Korean patrol craft, the intruders always hurried north. That changed during crab fishing season in June 1999.
On June 15, after a week of daily confrontations, a South Korean patrol boat nudged the bow of a North Korean torpedo boat and began pushing it back across the line. The torpedo boat opened fire, South Korean authorities say. Pyongyang says the South Korean boat fired first.
In a 10-minute battle, the torpedo boat was sunk and two other North Korean craft were damaged. No South Koreans died, but at least 30 North Korean sailors are believed to have died.
In the episode, North Korea lost not only a vessel and several lives, it suffered a severe loss of face and prestige among its few remaining friends.
Pyongyang vowed revenge.
Not long after the incident, the North announced unilateral establishment of a new limit line, 60 miles south of the original line. That puts most of the fishing ground and the five South Korean islands inside what it claims as its territorial water. Both Seoul and the UNC have rejected that.
Earlier this year, Pyongyang also established what it calls navigational zones leading to five islands in the area, although it acknowledges the islands are under South Korean control. It has vowed to take action against any U.S. or South Korean ships or planes that violate those zones.
A summit meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, agreed to in early 2000, could lead to a brighter future, if 50 years of hostility and distrust can be overcome.
North Korea appears to be trying to move very cautiously out of its long isolation to join the community of nations. But it still is on the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism, and suspicions remain that Pyongyang may still be conducting a clandestine nuclear weapons program.
North-South talks continue on other issues, but negotiations for a peace treaty to replace the armistice agreement have been suspended.
Today the guns are silent, but without a peace treaty, the 50-year war still separates the people and the land of Korea.