Admiral Beez
Major
Interesting vid on North Korean airlines. I didn't think air travel was even a thing there.
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8zLXw7SQvAk
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8zLXw7SQvAk
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North Korean Airlines
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I watched that one too. It's a strange little airline. To me, it's a ride for strictly hardcore aviation buffs, excluding NK officials.
- Thread starter
- #3
Admiral Beez
Major
It's a shame NK even exists. At Yalta, instead of the US demanding that the USSR go to war against Japan, they should have told the USSR to MYOB and stay out, letting the US drive the re-establishment of an independent Korea while bolstering a defence against the PRC.
Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian
history.state.gov 3.0 shell
"At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan and all three agreed that, in exchange for potentially crucial Soviet participation in the Pacific theater, the Soviets would be granted a sphere of influence in Manchuria following Japan's surrender. This included the southern portion of Sakhalin, a lease at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou), a share in the operation of the Manchurian railroads, and the Kurile Islands. This agreement was the major concrete accomplishment of the Yalta Conference."
Which led to this, and which takes us to 2024 with a divided Korea.
Soviet invasion of Manchuria - Wikipedia
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special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,651
- May 13, 2018
I would have liked to see a few old prop fighters, bombers and early jets at the airshow. A Yak-9 and an IL-28 flyby at least.
- Thread starter
- #5
Admiral Beez
Major
Agreed. While not prop driven, their fleet of MiG-15s are impressive for museum pieces.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFimfaUzbmM
It was a lot more complicated than Yalta. You need to go back to Nov 1943 and the Cairo Conference 22-26 Nov 1943 & the Cairo Declaration of 27 Nov 1943. At this the 3 Powers were Britain, the USA & Nationalist China. (my emphasis)It's a shame NK even exists. At Yalta, instead of the US demanding that the USSR go to war against Japan, they should have told the USSR to MYOB and stay out, letting the US drive the re-establishment of an independent Korea while bolstering a defence against the PRC.
Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian
history.state.gov 3.0 shellhistory.state.gov
"At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan and all three agreed that, in exchange for potentially crucial Soviet participation in the Pacific theater, the Soviets would be granted a sphere of influence in Manchuria following Japan's surrender. This included the southern portion of Sakhalin, a lease at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou), a share in the operation of the Manchurian railroads, and the Kurile Islands. This agreement was the major concrete accomplishment of the Yalta Conference."
Which led to this, and which takes us to 2024 with a divided Korea.
View attachment 778715
Soviet invasion of Manchuria - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
"The several military missions have agreed upon future military operations against Japan. The Three Great Allies expressed their resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemies by sea, land, and air. This pressure is already rising."
"The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent."
"With these objects in view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan."
This statement was also incorporated into the Potsdam Declaration of July 1945 calling on the Japanese to surrender. While the USSR was not a signitory to that Declaration on 26 July 1945, as the USSR was not then at war with Japan, they effectively signed up to it in the Soviet Declaration of War when they stated:-
"Loyal to its Allied duty, the Soviet Government has
accepted the proposal of the Allies and has joined in
the declaration of the Allied powers of July 26."
A few days after the 1943 Cairo Conference things moved on to Tehran where FDR, Churchill & Stalin met for the first time 28 Nov - 1 Dec 1943.
Tehran Conference Minutes 28 Nov 1943:-
"Marshal Stalin stated that in regard to the
Pacific war the Soviet Government welcomed the successes of the
Anglo-American forces against the Japanese; that up to the
present to their regret they had not been able to join the
effort of the Soviet Union to that of the United States and
England against the Japanese because the Soviet armies were too
deeply engaged in the west. He added that the Soviet forces in
Siberia were sufficient for defensive purposes but would have to
be increased three-fold before they would be adequate for
offensive operations. Once Germany was finally defeated, it
would then be possible to send the necessary reinforcements to
Siberia and then we shall be able by our common front to beat
Japan. "
So the Yalta Conference merely set a timetable for the Soviets joining the war against Japan, something they had already agreed in principle in Nov 1943.
From 1943 the USSR had begun reinforcing its forces in the Far East. Between 1 July 1943 & 9 May 1945 the number of divisional equivalents rose from 46 to 60. That was before the Soviets began the mass redeployment from Europe to the Far East in May 1945 immediately following the German surrender. The Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact was due to come to an end anyway on 13 April 1946. The Soviets denounced it on 5 April 1945 by giving the requisite 1 year's notice. And then they declared war anyway on 8 August 1945, in compliance with the timing that had been agreed at Yalta.
At Yalta FDR's own advisors were telling him that the war against Japan would go on until at least the end of 1946 if not into 1947. The closer to Japan the war got, the heavier US casualties. And this was before Iwo Jima & Okinawa or any invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. The "Bomb" was also in the future & untested. Agreeing to give Sakhalin & the Kuriles to the USSR was seen as a small price to pay for Soviet participation that would reduce US casualties.
So the Soviets would have gone to war against Japan at some point. Yalta probably just accelerated it by a few months. And anyway, for the US to have got to Korea they would first have had to capture much of Japan itself or make landings on the Chinese coast (look at the map and where Korea is relative to the Philippines, Hawaii & the Marianas).
At Yalta a very sick and weak FDR proposed an "international trusteeship" arrangement for Korea until such times as it could become an independent state, as stated in the Cairo Declaration. The Soviets accepted this on 28 May 1945 by which time FDR was dead and Truman was in the Whitehouse. FDR seems to have had a rather more favourable view of Stalin's postwar intentions than Churchill.
The physical problem of occupation only arose in Aug 1945 when the Soviet advance proved so fast, and the Japanese collapse equally fast that the Soviet Army had occupied over half of Korea by 2nd Sept 1945 (their offensive actions went on beyond 15 Aug in a number of areas, Korea included). There was then an agreement amongst the Allies as to who would accept the surrender of Japanese forces across the Pacific Region. In Korea the split was agreed as the 38th Parallel. As Dean Rusk explained it:-
"During a meeting on August 14, 1945, the same day as the Japanese surrender, [Bonesteel] and I retired to an adjacent room late at night and studied intently a map of the Korean peninsula. Working in haste and under great pressure, we had a formidable task: to pick a zone for the American occupation. Neither Tic nor I was a Korea expert, but it seemed to us that Seoul, the capital, should be in the American sector. We also knew that the U.S. Army opposed an extensive area of occupation. Using a National Geographic map, we looked just north of Seoul for a convenient dividing line but could not find a natural geographical line. We saw instead the thirty-eighth parallel and decided to recommend that ... [Our commanders] accepted it without too much haggling, and surprisingly, so did the Soviets."
Without such an agreement the US was in no position to do anything about Korea and the Soviets could have occupied the whole Korean peninsula should they have been so inclined. The nearest US troops were on Okinawa some 600 miles away through mined waters. US reoccupation forces did not leave Okinawa for Korea until 5 Sept 1945 and made the first landings at Inchon (yes, the same Inchon that Macarthur landed at in 1950 during the Korean War) on 8 Sept. IIRC the Soviets actually withdrew to the 38th Parallel in some places across the Peninsula. Would they have withdrawn all the way north to the border if a firmer line had been taken by the US politicians in August 1945, is something that can only be speculated about.
The division of Korea was never meant to be permanent. It was a postwar failure to agree on the governing of a single unified Korean state that divided the country from that time forward.
A similar split happened in French Indochina, where the surrender of Japanese forces below the 16th Parallel became a SEAC responsibility on 2 Sept 1945 while above that line it became a Nationalist Chinese responsibility.
There was one more factor to take into account in the Japanese surrender process in 1945. The weather. Macarthur was insistent that no moves could be made to accept the surrender of Japanese forces until he had signed the main surrender document. The Japanese accepted the surrender terms on 15 Aug but it was two and a half weeks before the surrender documents were signed on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 Sept. In that intervening period, a number of typhoons passed through the area between the Philippines & Japan disrupting the movement of occupation troops. That delay proved costly in post war history as it caused a power vacuum in many places that was filled by various independence groups, many communist backed.
Good one!
