Post by forcon on Mar 12, 2020 18:45:47 GMT
September 21
The North Korean People’s Army had spent decades preparing for this very moment, and so the initial wave of the attack was excellently planned and organised. Although US and ROK forces were at a higher state of alert than normal, a full-scale attack across the inappropriately-named Demilitarized Zone or DMZ was not seen as a likely outcome of the current tensions.
Thus, North Korean commandos belonging to the 200,000-strong Special Operations Force were able to act with near impunity during the first hour of the war, severely hampering lines of communication. The first attacks began at around 0100 on September 21. Troops delivered by Antonov-2 transport biplanes, ancient aircraft but still capable in their own right, struck at the perimeters of the US Air Force Bases at Osan and Kunsan. The commandos, working on company and platoon-sized elements, poured machinegun and mortar fire onto the Security Forces barracks at Osan, before fighting through the existing guard force and destroying several A-10s and F-16s belonging to the 51st Fighter Wing as well as a KC-46 tanker aircraft which had just arrived from the United States. The destruction of the tanker resulted in a huge explosion which killed sixteen US Air Force ground crew. At Kunsan Air Base, the raid met failure after the assault force was intercepted by US Air Force Security Forces. A heavy gun-battle resulted, in which the North Koreans were eventually driven back. Additional commando teams, operating in Seoul, the South Korean capital, successfully attacked the US embassy in the city and the Blue House, the official residence of the South Korean President. Fortunately, President Moon Jae-in was absent from the building at the time of the attack. However, numerous security guards and staff were killed before the police and troops from the ROK Army’s Capitol Corps arrived in strength. Pusan, a major port city in the south, was hit with a massive truck bomb, destroying numerous buildings and killing hundreds of dock workers.
Missile and artillery bombardments followed the commando raids, with artillery units pounding the South Korean forces patrolling the DMZ with a mixture of howitzers and rocket-launchers. A trio of SCUD missiles fell on Camp Red Cloud, the headquarters of the US 2nd Infantry Division, inflicting losses and collapsing several warehouses full of equipment. The Korean People’s Army poured everything it had into the opening bombardment, raining high explosive death down upon Allied lines all along the DMZ. Everything from ancient World War II-era Katyusha rocket systems to more modern guided missiles was fired at South Korea in an attack which stretched from coast-to-coast. Seoul, while within range of many of the NKPA’s guns, was left largely untouched by the main bulk of the bombardment, although the international airport and the South Korean defence ministry were both hit by FROG missiles. The failure of the North Korean gunners to shift their focus onto Seoul was welcomed by the South Korean government, which had feared the near total destruction of their capital city at the hands of their northern opponents. Nevertheless, this meant that US and South Korean troops received the bulk of the enemy’s attention. Long before dawn broke, the sky to the east was illuminated by thousands of rockets and missiles descending onto hastily-dug defences at the border, while American soldiers cowered in their foxholes beneath the bombardment. The psychological effect of the bombardment was almost as devastating as the tactical one; few soldiers could accurately describe the terror of being on the receiving end of such a barrage. South Korean artillery units quickly regained their footing and initiated salvos of counterbattery fire, scoring successes amongst the mainly towed (and therefore less mobile) North Korean gunners, but failing to bring an end to the shelling in its entirety. Aircraft of the North Korean People’s Air Force crossed the DMZ in swarms, tangling with US and South Korean F-15s, F-16s and F-35s. Predictably, the efforts of the NKPAF were in vein. Allied pilots racked up huge kill ratios using AIM-120 missiles, supported by a pair of E-3 AWACS aircraft hastily scrambled from Japan upon the outbreak of hostiles. While the air battle went solidly in the Allies’ favour, it meant that most Allied warplanes were too preoccupied defending ROK airspace to join in the effort to destroy North Korean artillery units.
Quickly capitalizing on the physical and psychological effect of the barrages, North Korean tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and swarms upon swarms of dismounted infantry began racing across the DMZ. Several South Korean Army light infantry units positioned on the border in battalion strength were simply overrun, hundreds of men dying in their foxholes as tanks and AFVs rolled past, or, in some cases, simply over them. The North Korean attack was organised into three prongs; an eastern prong through the mountains and along the coast was mounted by I Corps and the 806th Mechanized Corps, with the former unit being the easternmost formation participating in the invasion; a central prong operating between Cheorwon and Yeonchon, which was compromised of the 820th Armored Corps along with the V; and a western prong moving towards Seoul directly, consisting of II and VII Corps as well as the 425th Mechanized Corps. Defending the border in the west was the South Korean I Corps, along with the US Army’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, which was at the time serving under the operational command of the 2nd Infantry Division. Elements of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 2nd and 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Teams were also in South Korea as a response to the increasing pre-war tensions.
The NKPA II Corps moved over the DMZ under heavy artillery cover at 0520, clashing with the 9th Infantry Division of the ROK Army. Through little more than sheer weight of numbers, the North Koreans were able to force a crossing of the Imjin River near Munsan. Commandos were able to capture the southern end of the bridge before it could be destroyed by ROK engineers, and by the time artillery fire could be directed onto the bridge, two battalions of T-62s, supported by infantry moving in assault boats had crossed the river. North Korean engineer units rapidly began constructing three pontoon bridges to allow for their hold on the southern banks of the Imjin to be reinforced. These efforts were, however, hampered drastically by artillery and by direct fire from ROK troops. Further east, the NKPA 415th Mechanized Corps mounted a second crossing of the border in strength, engaging the ROK 25th Infantry Division north and west of Yeonchon. Here, the situation for the ROK units quickly became disastrous. A full frontal attack by NKPA armor pouring across the mountains was repulsed with relative ease as South Korean K1 tanks attached to the 25th Infantry Division from the 2nd Armored Brigade fended off vastly superior numbers of T-55s, but North Korean infantry was soon swarming through ROK positions. With their infantry units quickly becoming entangled in hand-to-hand fighting and unable to withdraw, the commander of the 25th Infantry sent out desperate calls for assistance, which resulted in the 2nd Armored Brigade being ordered to fall back to preserve its tanks, leaving two regiments of the infantry division to their fate; one of the regiments was overrun in place with virtually all of its personnel killed or captured, and the other surrendered later in the day. The ROK 1st Infantry Division, along with the 2nd Infantry Division’s 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, were rushed northeast to fill the gap and prevent an NKPA breakthrough. It was, however, between the II Corps and the 415th Mechanized Corps that American forces would clash with the North Koreans on the ground as the VII Corps mounted a centralised offensive of its own. Task Forces 1-18 Infantry and 2-70 Armor, equipped with M1A2 tanks and M2A3 Bradley fighting vehicles, fought off their opponents with 120mm guns, 25mm cannons, TOW missiles, and of course, small-arms fire from dismounted infantry. The lack of on-call artillery severely hampered the Americans’ fighting abilities, and despite destroying 43 T-62s for only a pair of Abrams tanks (both destroyed by ATGMs) and a trio of Bradleys, they were forced to fall back with the ROK 9th Infantry Division to prevent a breach on their eastern flank.
The attack in the centre began an hour after the westernmost prong crossed the DMZ. It should have been simultaneous, but communications issues combined with Allied counterbattery fire hampered the deployment. Nevertheless, the V crossed the border, with the 820th Armored Corps in the rear to serve as an operational manoeuvre group to exploit the breakthroughs made by the infantry. With the ROK 25th Infantry Division in its death throes to the west, V Corps pressed on against fierce opposition from the 5th and 28th Infantry Divisions, which fought to defend the main highway through Yeonchon, and the mountain passes between that city and Cheorwon respectively. Losses on both sides were heavy. However, V Corps’ infantry divisions were unable to dislodge determined ROK opposition, especially as Allied airpower began entering the fray. A-10s of the 51st Fighter Wing first appeared in the skies above the battlefield at 1030 hours, and continued to provide close air support despite the loss of three of their number to anti-aircraft fire. In defending the central highlands of the Korean Peninsula, the ROK VI Corps prevented North Korean forces from breaking through the mountains and encircling Seoul from the east. The infuriated commander of the Central Prong ordered that the 820th Armored Corps be sent into battle to achieve the breakthrough, ordering his tanks in along with a fresh infantry division. Artillery and airpower broke up the first NKPA armored columns and hampered enemy communications, while ROK tanks knocked out enemy vehicles at long range. The ROKA positions held throughout the day despite a continued onslaught against them.
The situation for the Eastern Prong of the offensive was similar. However, the ultimate goal of the formations running down the coast was not to reach any major land objective, but rather to tie down the ROK forces in the area and prevent them from being manoeuvred into the flanks of the main attack. Four divisions and two armored brigades belonging to the ROK VIII Corps along the coast and II Corps further inland, faced a tough fight against a relentless North Korean advance. Despite this, the mountains provided ample defensive terrain and prevented any real successes for the NKPA’s I Corps, which by the end of the day had seen one of its infantry divisions shattered after several of its frontal attacks were repulsed. Moreover, at midday, an ROK patrol was able to locate the 46th Infantry Division’s headquarters element. The result was the direction of several air raids onto the division’s communications lines, leading to the de facto destruction of the 46th Infantry Division before it had ever even fired a shot against the hated capitalists to the south. With no corridors through the mountains for an advance to be mounted, the Eastern Prong was effectively dead-in-the-water by the war’s first evening and had suffered huge casualties when attack prepared ROK defences.
Additional American airpower entered the fight when the USS John F. Kennedy carrier strike group, deployed in the East China Sea, began steaming northwards. The carrier strike group boasted not only the Kennedy but also two cruisers, six destroyers, and a pair of Virginia-class attack submarines. The F/A-18s of the Kennedy’s air wing mounted an air raid against North Korean staging areas around Kaesong, marking the first Allied air raid on North Korea proper, at 1800 hours local time on September 21. Losses were significant, with two Super Hornets shot down by an enemy SAM, but enemy losses were far more drastic. As the warplanes returned from their first combat sorties, the ASW screen of the carrier strike group detected an attempt by a North Korean Sang-class diesel-electric submarine to infiltrate the carrier group. USS Illinois sank the North Korean boat with a Mark-48 torpedo, while SH-60 Seahawk patrol helicopters mounted additional patrols to ward off any other infiltrators. A second naval engagement occurred in the Yellow Sea shortly before nightfall, when an ROK Navy surface action group consisting of two guided missile destroyers, a guided missile frigate, and a pair of frigates, engaged a North Korean force moving south from Nampo. Using surface-to-surface missiles, ROKS Sejong the Great and ROKS Gwangju sank a pair of Sariwon-class frigates, the NKPN’s only Krivak-class frigate, and a pair of landing craft. It was the largest surface-on-surface naval engagement since the US had initiated Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf in 1988. ROK losses were moderate, with the frigate Busan suffering a missile hit which caused 26 fatalities amongst her crew. United States Air Force and Marine Corps squadrons in Japan also began to fly their first combat missions, mainly providing combat air patrol and close air support over the battlefield. A dramatic political escalation would occur as a result of this; North Korean SCUD ballistic missiles, armed with conventional warheads but still deadly to those chosen as their targets, were fired at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni on Okinawa and Kadena Air Base on the Japanese mainland. The strike at Kadena was largely repulsed, with three of the incoming missiles ‘splashed’ by Japanese Maritime Self Defence Forces’ AEGIS destroyers. The fourth missile got through the air defence screen and struck an empty taxiway at Kadena, causing no casualties. At Iwakuni, however, the story would be very different. US Army air defence troops operating THAAD and MIM-104 PATRIOT missile batteries were present on Okinawa, but they were still in the process of setting up their weapons systems. Two SCUDs crashed into the Sea of Japan after suffering mechanical issues, but four more landed on Okinawa. An ammunition dump at Iwakuni was hit, as was an aircraft hangar. A third missile struck the suburbs nearby, destroying an apartment building and, tragically, killing 87 civilians.
News of the war shocked the world as footage from CNN began working its way across Western television screens. There was mass panic across the world, mainly in Asia and the United States but also, bizarrely, stretching as far as Western Europe. The prospect of nuclear war was on everyone’s mind, although weapons of mass destruction had yet to be used by either side. The panic in South Korea was, needless to say, justified, as missiles and shells rained down on the country’s military infrastructure. With enemy commandos running wild and North Korean tanks swarming across the border, South Korean citizens began fleeing southwards in an effort to escape the armies advancing towards them. Seoul, with a population of some ten million people, saw chaos and then total anarchy. People began fleeing down the major highways and the less-known country routes, only to find the roads already jam-packed with refugees going south and troops going north. Looting broke out as people fought for resources such as food and petrol, which they thought might soon become unavailable. The obvious fear of nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare was also present, with many people donning their gas masks. While hundreds of thousands tried to flee the densely-populated city, others went underground in the public transport system, using Seoul’s subways as shelter. Tragically, some 56 people were killed when a stampede broke out in the corridors of one train station. From Washington DC, President Bailey made a television address six hours after being informed of the outbreak of war, in which she called for the cessation of the North Korean offensive and the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of DPRK forces from South Korean territory. However, this was merely a formality required by geopolitics and the international order. US forces had been engaged in combat operations since the first minutes of the war and American troops had already lost their lives at North Korean hands; for all intents and purposes, the United States was at war with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (perhaps an even less appropriate name than that of the Demilitarized Zone). North Korea’s erstwhile allies, Russia and China, offered little comment.
The North Korean People’s Army had spent decades preparing for this very moment, and so the initial wave of the attack was excellently planned and organised. Although US and ROK forces were at a higher state of alert than normal, a full-scale attack across the inappropriately-named Demilitarized Zone or DMZ was not seen as a likely outcome of the current tensions.
Thus, North Korean commandos belonging to the 200,000-strong Special Operations Force were able to act with near impunity during the first hour of the war, severely hampering lines of communication. The first attacks began at around 0100 on September 21. Troops delivered by Antonov-2 transport biplanes, ancient aircraft but still capable in their own right, struck at the perimeters of the US Air Force Bases at Osan and Kunsan. The commandos, working on company and platoon-sized elements, poured machinegun and mortar fire onto the Security Forces barracks at Osan, before fighting through the existing guard force and destroying several A-10s and F-16s belonging to the 51st Fighter Wing as well as a KC-46 tanker aircraft which had just arrived from the United States. The destruction of the tanker resulted in a huge explosion which killed sixteen US Air Force ground crew. At Kunsan Air Base, the raid met failure after the assault force was intercepted by US Air Force Security Forces. A heavy gun-battle resulted, in which the North Koreans were eventually driven back. Additional commando teams, operating in Seoul, the South Korean capital, successfully attacked the US embassy in the city and the Blue House, the official residence of the South Korean President. Fortunately, President Moon Jae-in was absent from the building at the time of the attack. However, numerous security guards and staff were killed before the police and troops from the ROK Army’s Capitol Corps arrived in strength. Pusan, a major port city in the south, was hit with a massive truck bomb, destroying numerous buildings and killing hundreds of dock workers.
Missile and artillery bombardments followed the commando raids, with artillery units pounding the South Korean forces patrolling the DMZ with a mixture of howitzers and rocket-launchers. A trio of SCUD missiles fell on Camp Red Cloud, the headquarters of the US 2nd Infantry Division, inflicting losses and collapsing several warehouses full of equipment. The Korean People’s Army poured everything it had into the opening bombardment, raining high explosive death down upon Allied lines all along the DMZ. Everything from ancient World War II-era Katyusha rocket systems to more modern guided missiles was fired at South Korea in an attack which stretched from coast-to-coast. Seoul, while within range of many of the NKPA’s guns, was left largely untouched by the main bulk of the bombardment, although the international airport and the South Korean defence ministry were both hit by FROG missiles. The failure of the North Korean gunners to shift their focus onto Seoul was welcomed by the South Korean government, which had feared the near total destruction of their capital city at the hands of their northern opponents. Nevertheless, this meant that US and South Korean troops received the bulk of the enemy’s attention. Long before dawn broke, the sky to the east was illuminated by thousands of rockets and missiles descending onto hastily-dug defences at the border, while American soldiers cowered in their foxholes beneath the bombardment. The psychological effect of the bombardment was almost as devastating as the tactical one; few soldiers could accurately describe the terror of being on the receiving end of such a barrage. South Korean artillery units quickly regained their footing and initiated salvos of counterbattery fire, scoring successes amongst the mainly towed (and therefore less mobile) North Korean gunners, but failing to bring an end to the shelling in its entirety. Aircraft of the North Korean People’s Air Force crossed the DMZ in swarms, tangling with US and South Korean F-15s, F-16s and F-35s. Predictably, the efforts of the NKPAF were in vein. Allied pilots racked up huge kill ratios using AIM-120 missiles, supported by a pair of E-3 AWACS aircraft hastily scrambled from Japan upon the outbreak of hostiles. While the air battle went solidly in the Allies’ favour, it meant that most Allied warplanes were too preoccupied defending ROK airspace to join in the effort to destroy North Korean artillery units.
Quickly capitalizing on the physical and psychological effect of the barrages, North Korean tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and swarms upon swarms of dismounted infantry began racing across the DMZ. Several South Korean Army light infantry units positioned on the border in battalion strength were simply overrun, hundreds of men dying in their foxholes as tanks and AFVs rolled past, or, in some cases, simply over them. The North Korean attack was organised into three prongs; an eastern prong through the mountains and along the coast was mounted by I Corps and the 806th Mechanized Corps, with the former unit being the easternmost formation participating in the invasion; a central prong operating between Cheorwon and Yeonchon, which was compromised of the 820th Armored Corps along with the V; and a western prong moving towards Seoul directly, consisting of II and VII Corps as well as the 425th Mechanized Corps. Defending the border in the west was the South Korean I Corps, along with the US Army’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, which was at the time serving under the operational command of the 2nd Infantry Division. Elements of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 2nd and 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Teams were also in South Korea as a response to the increasing pre-war tensions.
The NKPA II Corps moved over the DMZ under heavy artillery cover at 0520, clashing with the 9th Infantry Division of the ROK Army. Through little more than sheer weight of numbers, the North Koreans were able to force a crossing of the Imjin River near Munsan. Commandos were able to capture the southern end of the bridge before it could be destroyed by ROK engineers, and by the time artillery fire could be directed onto the bridge, two battalions of T-62s, supported by infantry moving in assault boats had crossed the river. North Korean engineer units rapidly began constructing three pontoon bridges to allow for their hold on the southern banks of the Imjin to be reinforced. These efforts were, however, hampered drastically by artillery and by direct fire from ROK troops. Further east, the NKPA 415th Mechanized Corps mounted a second crossing of the border in strength, engaging the ROK 25th Infantry Division north and west of Yeonchon. Here, the situation for the ROK units quickly became disastrous. A full frontal attack by NKPA armor pouring across the mountains was repulsed with relative ease as South Korean K1 tanks attached to the 25th Infantry Division from the 2nd Armored Brigade fended off vastly superior numbers of T-55s, but North Korean infantry was soon swarming through ROK positions. With their infantry units quickly becoming entangled in hand-to-hand fighting and unable to withdraw, the commander of the 25th Infantry sent out desperate calls for assistance, which resulted in the 2nd Armored Brigade being ordered to fall back to preserve its tanks, leaving two regiments of the infantry division to their fate; one of the regiments was overrun in place with virtually all of its personnel killed or captured, and the other surrendered later in the day. The ROK 1st Infantry Division, along with the 2nd Infantry Division’s 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, were rushed northeast to fill the gap and prevent an NKPA breakthrough. It was, however, between the II Corps and the 415th Mechanized Corps that American forces would clash with the North Koreans on the ground as the VII Corps mounted a centralised offensive of its own. Task Forces 1-18 Infantry and 2-70 Armor, equipped with M1A2 tanks and M2A3 Bradley fighting vehicles, fought off their opponents with 120mm guns, 25mm cannons, TOW missiles, and of course, small-arms fire from dismounted infantry. The lack of on-call artillery severely hampered the Americans’ fighting abilities, and despite destroying 43 T-62s for only a pair of Abrams tanks (both destroyed by ATGMs) and a trio of Bradleys, they were forced to fall back with the ROK 9th Infantry Division to prevent a breach on their eastern flank.
The attack in the centre began an hour after the westernmost prong crossed the DMZ. It should have been simultaneous, but communications issues combined with Allied counterbattery fire hampered the deployment. Nevertheless, the V crossed the border, with the 820th Armored Corps in the rear to serve as an operational manoeuvre group to exploit the breakthroughs made by the infantry. With the ROK 25th Infantry Division in its death throes to the west, V Corps pressed on against fierce opposition from the 5th and 28th Infantry Divisions, which fought to defend the main highway through Yeonchon, and the mountain passes between that city and Cheorwon respectively. Losses on both sides were heavy. However, V Corps’ infantry divisions were unable to dislodge determined ROK opposition, especially as Allied airpower began entering the fray. A-10s of the 51st Fighter Wing first appeared in the skies above the battlefield at 1030 hours, and continued to provide close air support despite the loss of three of their number to anti-aircraft fire. In defending the central highlands of the Korean Peninsula, the ROK VI Corps prevented North Korean forces from breaking through the mountains and encircling Seoul from the east. The infuriated commander of the Central Prong ordered that the 820th Armored Corps be sent into battle to achieve the breakthrough, ordering his tanks in along with a fresh infantry division. Artillery and airpower broke up the first NKPA armored columns and hampered enemy communications, while ROK tanks knocked out enemy vehicles at long range. The ROKA positions held throughout the day despite a continued onslaught against them.
The situation for the Eastern Prong of the offensive was similar. However, the ultimate goal of the formations running down the coast was not to reach any major land objective, but rather to tie down the ROK forces in the area and prevent them from being manoeuvred into the flanks of the main attack. Four divisions and two armored brigades belonging to the ROK VIII Corps along the coast and II Corps further inland, faced a tough fight against a relentless North Korean advance. Despite this, the mountains provided ample defensive terrain and prevented any real successes for the NKPA’s I Corps, which by the end of the day had seen one of its infantry divisions shattered after several of its frontal attacks were repulsed. Moreover, at midday, an ROK patrol was able to locate the 46th Infantry Division’s headquarters element. The result was the direction of several air raids onto the division’s communications lines, leading to the de facto destruction of the 46th Infantry Division before it had ever even fired a shot against the hated capitalists to the south. With no corridors through the mountains for an advance to be mounted, the Eastern Prong was effectively dead-in-the-water by the war’s first evening and had suffered huge casualties when attack prepared ROK defences.
Additional American airpower entered the fight when the USS John F. Kennedy carrier strike group, deployed in the East China Sea, began steaming northwards. The carrier strike group boasted not only the Kennedy but also two cruisers, six destroyers, and a pair of Virginia-class attack submarines. The F/A-18s of the Kennedy’s air wing mounted an air raid against North Korean staging areas around Kaesong, marking the first Allied air raid on North Korea proper, at 1800 hours local time on September 21. Losses were significant, with two Super Hornets shot down by an enemy SAM, but enemy losses were far more drastic. As the warplanes returned from their first combat sorties, the ASW screen of the carrier strike group detected an attempt by a North Korean Sang-class diesel-electric submarine to infiltrate the carrier group. USS Illinois sank the North Korean boat with a Mark-48 torpedo, while SH-60 Seahawk patrol helicopters mounted additional patrols to ward off any other infiltrators. A second naval engagement occurred in the Yellow Sea shortly before nightfall, when an ROK Navy surface action group consisting of two guided missile destroyers, a guided missile frigate, and a pair of frigates, engaged a North Korean force moving south from Nampo. Using surface-to-surface missiles, ROKS Sejong the Great and ROKS Gwangju sank a pair of Sariwon-class frigates, the NKPN’s only Krivak-class frigate, and a pair of landing craft. It was the largest surface-on-surface naval engagement since the US had initiated Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf in 1988. ROK losses were moderate, with the frigate Busan suffering a missile hit which caused 26 fatalities amongst her crew. United States Air Force and Marine Corps squadrons in Japan also began to fly their first combat missions, mainly providing combat air patrol and close air support over the battlefield. A dramatic political escalation would occur as a result of this; North Korean SCUD ballistic missiles, armed with conventional warheads but still deadly to those chosen as their targets, were fired at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni on Okinawa and Kadena Air Base on the Japanese mainland. The strike at Kadena was largely repulsed, with three of the incoming missiles ‘splashed’ by Japanese Maritime Self Defence Forces’ AEGIS destroyers. The fourth missile got through the air defence screen and struck an empty taxiway at Kadena, causing no casualties. At Iwakuni, however, the story would be very different. US Army air defence troops operating THAAD and MIM-104 PATRIOT missile batteries were present on Okinawa, but they were still in the process of setting up their weapons systems. Two SCUDs crashed into the Sea of Japan after suffering mechanical issues, but four more landed on Okinawa. An ammunition dump at Iwakuni was hit, as was an aircraft hangar. A third missile struck the suburbs nearby, destroying an apartment building and, tragically, killing 87 civilians.
News of the war shocked the world as footage from CNN began working its way across Western television screens. There was mass panic across the world, mainly in Asia and the United States but also, bizarrely, stretching as far as Western Europe. The prospect of nuclear war was on everyone’s mind, although weapons of mass destruction had yet to be used by either side. The panic in South Korea was, needless to say, justified, as missiles and shells rained down on the country’s military infrastructure. With enemy commandos running wild and North Korean tanks swarming across the border, South Korean citizens began fleeing southwards in an effort to escape the armies advancing towards them. Seoul, with a population of some ten million people, saw chaos and then total anarchy. People began fleeing down the major highways and the less-known country routes, only to find the roads already jam-packed with refugees going south and troops going north. Looting broke out as people fought for resources such as food and petrol, which they thought might soon become unavailable. The obvious fear of nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare was also present, with many people donning their gas masks. While hundreds of thousands tried to flee the densely-populated city, others went underground in the public transport system, using Seoul’s subways as shelter. Tragically, some 56 people were killed when a stampede broke out in the corridors of one train station. From Washington DC, President Bailey made a television address six hours after being informed of the outbreak of war, in which she called for the cessation of the North Korean offensive and the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of DPRK forces from South Korean territory. However, this was merely a formality required by geopolitics and the international order. US forces had been engaged in combat operations since the first minutes of the war and American troops had already lost their lives at North Korean hands; for all intents and purposes, the United States was at war with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (perhaps an even less appropriate name than that of the Demilitarized Zone). North Korea’s erstwhile allies, Russia and China, offered little comment.
