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Why the U.S. Navy Sent 4 Battleships To Attack North Korea During the Korean
War: In the final months of the Second World War, the battleships of the U.S.
Navy (USN) ranged across the archipelago of Japan, bombarding industrial,
military and logistical targets at will.

The Japanese military lacked enough ships, planes and fuel to defend the nation,
leaving coastal areas at the mercy of the steel behemoths.



Although most of the credit (such that it is) for the destruction of urban Japan
belongs to the bombers of the U.S. Army Air Force, the battleships and cruisers
of the navy contributed their share.

At the end of the war, most of the USN’s battleships were scrapped, sunk as
targets or placed into reserve.

 

When the United States went to war again, earlier than anyone had expected,
three battleships of the Iowa class returned to service, joining their
sister USS Missouri off the coast of Korea. For three years, these ships would
rain terror down upon North Korean and Chinese forces.


RESPONSE AND REACTIVATION

The ferocity and efficiency of the North Korean offensive of June 1950 into
South Korea took everyone, including the U.S. Navy, by surprise. Nevertheless,
local forces quickly responded, including the Oregon City-class heavy cruiser
USS Rochester, which used its eight-inch guns to soften beaches at Inchon and
elsewhere.



USS Missouri, the only U.S. battleship to have remained operational since World
War II, arrived in Korean waters on September 19, 1950.

In a few weeks she would conduct extensive shore bombardments along the coast of
North Korea. Missouri continued to provide fire support after the tide of war
turned in November; in December, she conducted bombardments to ensure the
survival of U.S. troops retreating from the People’s Liberation Army’s surprise
offensive.

Notably, the U.S. Navy decided not to transfer the three heavy cruisers of the
Des Moines class, which mostly remained in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
These cruisers, carrying auto-loading eight-inch guns, could lay waste to a
coastal area nearly as effectively as a battleship. However, they were regarded
as too important to the mission of deterring the Soviet Union to risk transfer
to the Pacific.

Instead, the U.S. government decided to reactivate the three other Iowa class
battleships. Iowa, New Jersey and Wisconsin had all entered the reserve fleet
before the beginning of the Korean War. All three remained in excellent
condition, and required minimal modification in order to return to service. The
most significant change came with the replacement of World War II-era
floatplanes by helicopters.




The navy recommissioned New Jersey in November 1950, Wisconsin in March 1951
and Iowa in August 1951. Several heavy cruisers also conducted tours off of
Korea, but the navy declined to reactivate any of the thirteen other battleships
in the reserve fleet.




OPERATIONS

Each of the four battleships acted as a flagship at one time or another,
contributing facilities necessary to the coordination of broader naval warfare
efforts. More to the point, however, the battleships used both their
sixteen-inch main armament and their five-inch secondary armament to pound
Chinese and North Korean positions along the coast. These positions included
cave systems, concealed artillery and command posts. As with the end of the
Second World War, the battleships also hit strategic and operational targets,
including railways, industrial parks and transport centers. These attacks, which
could range up to twenty miles inland, periodically disrupted but did not stop
Communist efforts to resupply their armies in the field.



Extensive mining reduced the freedom-of-action of U.S. naval forces, to the
extent that the battleships only rarely operated against North Korean and
Chinese positions along the Yellow Sea. Although Communist aircraft did conduct
attacks against major U.S. ships early in the war, UN air and naval superiority
made such sorties difficult as the war proceeded. Other than mines, the main
danger to the battleships came through coastal artillery, which they regularly
sparred against. However, the effectiveness of the USN in bombarding all along
the peninsula showed both countries how vulnerable they were to naval attack.

After a refit beginning in March 1951, USS Missouri resumed bombardment and
escort duties from October 1952 until March 1953. New Jersey carried out her
first shore bombardment in May 1951, and remained in the area until November.
She returned for a second tour in April 1953, and remained through the duration
of the conflict. USS Wisconsin operated off Korea from November 1951 until April
1952, and USS Iowa contributed short bombardment between April and October 1952.




REACTION

The Iowas certainly delivered a great deal of ordnance to target on the Korean
Peninsula over the course of the war. However, the overall impact of their
presence is difficult to assess. Communist forces quickly learned to move
critical facilities and troop concentration outside of the range of the
battleships’ guns, although the transport network was hard to shift inland.
Heavy U.S. bombing of target across Korea contributed to the general
destruction, making it hard to parse out how much the battleships themselves
mattered. The smaller, cheaper heavy cruisers could often deliver similar levels
of destruction to enemy targets. Still, the very presence of the battleships may
have had some degree of psychological effect on Communist and UN forces alike.


WRAP

By 1958, all four Iowas had returned to the reserve fleet. Although they
performed their shore bombardment role effectively, but not really any more
effectively than the smaller, cheaper heavy cruisers. The manning requirements
were significant, however, making them very expensive ships to operate for
extended periods of time. The navy would only reactivate one of the four
(USS New Jersey) for the Vietnam War, and only in partial service. In the
late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States disposed of the remaining thirteen
battleships in its inventory.



The Iowas nevertheless survived, and were finally reactivated (and modernized)
in the 1980s. The legacy of the Iowas’ performance off Korea lived on in North
Korean and Chinese naval doctrine and procurement. Both Pyongyang and Beijing
became aware of their dreadful vulnerability to naval attack, and developed
coastal defense capabilities intended to dissuade any foe from approaching their
waters. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has grown past that stage, but the
navy of the DPRK continues to concentrate on defensive operations in the
littoral.

The Iowas will not, of course, participate in any future conflict on the Korean
Peninsula. However, in the event of conflict USN surface ships will undoubtedly
contribute significantly to the conflict by means of land attack cruise
missiles. Moreover, the navy may yet provide USS Zumwalt and her sisters with
the means to provide gunfire support against land targets. In such a case, North
Korean coastal installations would become very vulnerable, indeed.

Robert Farley is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer
at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the
University of Kentucky.

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Belarus, Russia’s closest ally and a staunch supporter of Moscow’s attack on
Ukraine, will not hesitate to deploy nuclear weapons if it feels threatened by
“crazies in the West,” the country’s president Aleksandr Lukashenko has warned.

In an interview with state-controlled news agency Belta on Thursday,
Lukashenko—who has been Belarus’s head of state since 1994—said his country
would “deliver an unacceptable strike” on any force believed to have threatened
its territorial integrity.  



“If aggression against our country is launched from the side of Poland,
Lithuania, Latvia, we will immediately respond with everything we have,” he
said. “They will receive unacceptable harm, damage.”

He said this would happen despite Belarus being aware that its own forces cannot
compete with the power of NATO, whose member states include Poland, Lithuania
and Latvia—countries with whom Belarus shares a border.

“The nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus will definitely not be used unless we
face aggression,” Lukashenko said. “[But] if an act of aggression is committed
against us … we will use the entire arsenal of our weapons.”

Russia said in June that it had begun delivering tactical nuclear weapons to
Belarus, saying that they had been stationed on Belarusian ground for
“deterrence.”

U.S. President Joe Biden later warned that the threat of Russia using nuclear
weapons is “real.”

According to Lukashenko, the weapons had not been brought to his country “to
scare” anyone—but he said his willingness to use them in the event of perceived
aggression extended to countries beyond Ukraine.

“Leave us alone,” he warned. “We leave you alone and you should leave us alone.
I mean Ukraine least of all. I mean primarily those crazies in the West.”

Representatives for Lukashenko and the Belarusian government did not respond to
Fortune’s requests for comment.

A spokesperson for NATO—the military alliance whose 31 member countries include
the U.S., the U.K., France and Germany—was not immediately available for
comment.





RUSSIAN NUCLEAR THREATS

Lukashenko’s threat about deploying nuclear weapons builds on a series of
warnings from the Kremlin about its willingness to deploy nuclear weapons.



In a television address last September, Putin warned that if Russian territory
came under threat, his government would “certainly use all the means at our
disposal to protect Russia and our people.”

“It is not a bluff,” he warned.

Last month, Dmitry Medvedev—a former Russian president who now serves as deputy
chairman of Russia’s Security Council—said the Russian government would use
nuclear weapons if Kyiv’s counteroffensive was successful.

“Imagine if the offensive … which is backed by NATO, was successful and they
tore off a part of our land. Then we would be forced to use a nuclear weapon
according to the rules of a decree from the president of Russia,” he said in a
post to the Telegram messaging app.

“There would simply be no other option,” he added. “Therefore, our enemies
should pray for our warriors' [success]. They are ensuring that a global nuclear
fire is not ignited.”




WHO IS ALEKSANDR LUKASHENKO?

Belarusian president Lukashenko has long held a reputation as Europe’s last
dictator, thanks to fraudulent elections, accusations of human rights violations
and the imprisonment of political opponents, as well as the persecution of
journalists who criticize his regime.

Under his stewardship, Belarus—a former Soviet state—has seen relations with
neighboring Russia become increasingly close. In 1999, the two countries formed
a “union state” to solidify their economic cooperation.

More recently, Lukashenko has made it clear that Belarus is a loyal political
and military ally to Russia and its president Vladimir Putin.

As Moscow amassed thousands of troops at the Ukrainian border in early
2022—sparking global speculation that Russia was about to illegally invade its
neighbor—Lukashenko deployed special forces to Belarus’s southern border with
Ukraine. Russia and Belarus also carried out joint military drills near Belarus
and Ukraine’s shared border.

After Russia launched its so-called “special operation,” it used Belarus as a
launchpad to send soldiers on their offensive into Ukraine.

Since both countries have been slapped with stringent Western sanctions as a
result of the war in Ukraine, their economic alliance has been reinforced as
trade between the pair has increased.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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