strangely enough, when we came to the pusan perimeter, we had more troops in the pusan perimeter than the north koreans had so when walker attacked the north koreans showed resistance but eventually broke. many people thought as soon as we landed in inchon and secured our way into seoul that the north korean army would collapse but, in fact, it resisted pretty well but ultimately it was forced to fall back. eventually, let me go to the first slide so you can see that again. oops. as the north koreans began falling back, there was a big debate as to whether we should pass the 38th parallel. remember the objective was to restore south korea and that's what the u.n. authorized and that was the 38th parallel but when the u.n. authorized it, it placed matters largely in control of the united states. and macarthur in charge. so the u.s. was largely calling the shots, although a number of other nations had military personnel who were risking and losing their lives in this adventure. we elected to let them cross over and macarthur saw this as a great opportunity. what he now wanted to do was

and there was a question about whether the troops at pusan could actually break out. we were so unrestraint that we had the infantry division from the u.s. army and we had two marine corps divisions to make up a single division and now the first division. those of you who were in this class, of course, read dog company 6 and simmons was in the first marine division and landed at inchon, as you certainly know. what they did was they designated the 10th course 7th infantry -- oops. and allows the 1st marine division to go in and in classic macarthur fashion he pulled it off. you study the career of macarthur, when he's good, he is the best. when he is bad, he is the worst. and in this instance macarthur is at his best and he pulled it out and pulled it off and strangely enough, when we came to the pusan perimeter we had more troops in the pusan perimeter than the north koreans had so when walker attacked, the north koreans showed resistance, but eventually broke. many people thought as soon as we landed and secured our way into seoul that the north korean army would col

>> back to the pusan. you mentioned that the u.s. had more troops in pusan. how did that compare with the numbers? >> i knew i -- i can't tell you hoff the top of my head, but i can get back to you on that. >> like how many troops were actually coming in from china relative to the u.s. forces? >> the pusan perimeter, the chinese forces aren't in. >> once we got to the -- >> oh, i've got statistics on the korean war that are pretty staggering. nope, i didn't bring them. but i brought casualty statistics, which i will read to you next class. as i recall off the top of my head, we lose about 33,000 americans killed in korea. of course, the loss of republic of korea and north koreans, chinese are staggering, staggering. remember, we just -- we upgraded our firepower dramatically, and we were really punishing them. andrew. >> -- firepower, why was that -- [ inaudible ] >> well, for example, we had bazookas that were world war ii vintage 2.36-inch bazookas. then we upgraded them to a 3.5-inch bazooka, so larger rounds, better penetration. one of the interesting thi

warheads young chick bongs thank you very much indeed for your time what robert kelly from south korea's pusan national university believes this launch will trigger to south korea and japan to further boost their civil defense systems. regular south koreans are like my friends my family my students really have no idea what to do at all and i think you're probably going to start to get that you may recall that the government of guam handed out flyers about what to do if there was a nuclear blast near guam i think that's coming here japan has already started with civil defense and putting people in shelters i also think missile defense is the future of the north koreans are going to build missiles then i think japan and south korea going to build missile defense you know something of a measure for countermeasure kind of arms race but you know missile defense is expensive it doesn't really work very well so the north koreans don't stop building missiles missile defense ultimately won't be enough and then there will be pressure for air lots more so it's coming on al-jazeera including the latest ta

robert kelly from south korea's pusan national university believes this launch will trigger south korea and japan to further boost their civil defense systems. regular south koreans are like my friends my family my students really have no idea what to do at all and i think you're probably going to start to get that you may recall that the government of guam handed out flyers about what to do if there was a nuclear blast i think that's coming here japan has already started with civil defense and putting people in shelters i also think missile defense is the future of the north koreans are going to build missiles then i think japan and south here are going to build missile defense and something of a measure for countermeasure kind of arms race but you know missile defense is expensive it doesn't really work very well so the north koreans don't stop building missiles missile defense all won't be enough and then there will be pressure for air turning out to some of the day's other news eisel says it was behind coordinated attacks in southern iraq at least sixty people died and dozens more w

joining us now from pusan in south korea, is professor robert kelly, expert in inter—korean affairs. thank you for talking to us this morning. what do you make of this? what stage we're now in terms of escalation of tension? think these tests are putting japan in the firing line. we never have these missiles, this is the second time they have fired overjapan. there is really no reason for north korea to threaten japan. it really no reason for north korea to threatenjapan. it is not a direct enemy of the state like the us or south korean is. this is north korea holding japan hostage. they are pointing out that they can hit japanese citizens as well as those of the us and south korea. japan has reacted saying that this was an outrageous act. what more do you seen the terms of japan reacting or retaliating? i think the future for both japan and south korea is now missile defence. it is not perfect. it is leaky and expensive. it is much easier to make missiles and to make missile defence but it is a stock gap medium term measure to respond to north korea. if the north koreans do not stop