The Korean War

 Picking up where I left off yesterday, here are copies of some of the documents Igor Gouzenko took from the Soviet embassy as he defected.

For the rest of his life, whenever he made public appearances, he was masked.

And so began decades of hostilities that didn't break out into a full war, between what would become the Warsaw Pact and NATO.

When it did turn hot, it was regional in nature, such as what history remembers as the Korean War.

Canadians were part of that war, alongside British, American, and other UN forces, fighting North Korean and Chinese troops on the Korean peninsula. 

This vivid work is Day Break- Gulf of Korea, by Ted Zuber, depicting a Canadian destroyer firing on an enemy train on the coastal railway.

Zuber went to war as a soldier until being wounded in the line of duty. He later turned his sketches into a series of paintings, some of which are found here at the War Museum. Decades later he would go to war again, as a commissioned war artist during Desert Storm.

This is his painting First Kill- The Hook, depicting a sniper's nest.

While here we have Reverse Slope.

These are winter uniforms. A Canadian uniform is at left, while the quilted uniform at right is that of a Chinese soldier.

A three dimensional display of the terrain at Kap'yong, one of the fiercest battles of the war, is found here. Beyond it is a painting by Zuber, depicting that battle.

Armistice broke out in 1953, resulting in partition of the peninsula. North Korea remains a closed society, lorded over by a family of kleptocrats and despots.