"The outbreak of the war in Korea sent stocks tumbling in all important world markets. In N.Y., three months of profits were wiped out. At week's end some stocks rose, but jittery brokers kept an eye on the war news and - an ear turned toward Washington, where announcements of increased U.S. participation in the fighting touched off further waves of selling>"
Click here to read about the Wall Street panic that was brought on by with the election of Abrham Lincoln... "The United Nations defense 'line' in Korea was more like a rubber band. It gave with Red punches, then snapped back. But last week the strain on the elastic was terrific... Neat shifting by the out-numbered defenders met and tossed back each of the blows - first along the southern coast toward Pusan..."
"Christmas in khaki" became the new theme song of thousands of the nation's young men last week when the Army handed Selective Service a new quota... the Army wants 70,000 in November." This editorial was one of the first of its kind and many more would follow on its heels. The opinions expressed would be repeated in American schoolrooms, barrooms, dinner tables and state houses all the way up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was not merely the parents of draftees who wondered aloud as to the whereabouts of the U.N. signatories in times of crises, but practically the whole nation:
"For two months the American and South Korean ground forces fought it out alone. For two months they fought without even the promise of help from other major powers..."
With no other seafaring nation afloat to oppose them, the United States Navy directed it's attention entirely to land-based targets on the Korean peninsula. Navy jets pelted the mountainous terrain in support of UN operations ashore while battleships, cruisers and destroyers served as floating artillery batteries:
"The miracle-man most responsible for this rejuvenated navy is brilliant, 53-year-old Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, the first air officer to serve as CNO..."
This column will give you a quick understanding as to how 1950 ended:
"Russian diplomats made valiant efforts. In Moscow, [Stalin's adviser] Andrei Gromyko called Western envoys, urging Big Four talks to 'unify' Germany. In the U.N., Andrei Vishinsky protested Russia's 'devotion' to peace and to the belief that capitalism and Communism could live in the same world... But while the Reds talked, Chinese Communists had swept into the Korea War. The Soviet military budget had soared . Russia's submarine fleet had multiplied, it's air force had expanded to 14,000 combat planes, its army was millions strong, and still growing."
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War. | 
