As North Korea marks the 60th anniversary of what is sees as its victory in the Korean War, we dug into the NBC News archive to see how the commemoration of the 1953 armistice was covered through the years.
The 1950s conflict that some Americans now call the "Forgotten War" began on June 25, 1950, and ended with the two sides signing a truce -- a peace treaty has yet to be negotiated. This 1953 report features first-hand accounts from U.S. soldiers and their recollection of life on the frontline.
After three years of bloody war, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the armistice on July 27, 1953.
As a cease-fire is called in the Korean War, President Eisenhower recalls Abraham Lincoln's famous words, "with malice towards none, with charity for all."
"With special feelings of sorrow -- and of solemn gratitude -- we think of those who were called upon to lay down their lives in that far-off land to prove once again that only courage and sacrifice can keep freedom alive upon the earth," Eisenhower said.
More than two years before that moment, the firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur set off an uproar among the American public. He returned to the United States to a hero's welcome and gave a memorable address.
"I am closing my 52 years of military service," MacArthur said in his 1951 address to Congress. "The world has turned over many times since I took the oath at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have all since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
In his retirement speech, General Douglas MacArthur makes his famous pronouncement, "old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
This 1952 video shows missiles guided by radio and sent directly to their Korean targets, in a move that heralded a new era of warfare. Finally, the 1950 news report below features exclusive footage of the largest refugee camp in the peninsula, with the dire warning that it was just the beginning of a drawn-out conflict that would displace tens of thousands.
North Korea marks 60 years since Korean War with Massive Victory Day Parade
PYONGYANG, North Korea -- Sixty years later, North Koreans have not forgotten the Korean War, as the hermit kingdom marked the anniversary Saturday with pomp and massive celebrations.
The 1950s conflict that some Americans now call the "Forgotten War" ended with the two sides signing a truce on July 27, 1953 -- a peace treaty has yet to be negotiated.
But that did not stop North Korea from celebrating the anniversary with a holiday it calls "Victory Day."
The country's 30-year-old leader, Kim Jong Un, overlooked a massive military parade in the capital Pyongyang, as jets and helicopters roared over Kim Il Sung Square which was packed with tens of thousands of soldiers marching in step. Weapons and mid-range missiles were also on display.
Kim, dressed head-to-toe in black, did not address the crowd but Choe Ryong Hae, his military aide and chief political operative of the 1.2-million-strong army, delivered an uncharacteristically moderate speech.
"Reality shows if peace is sought, there must be preparations for war," he said. "For us with our utmost task of building an economy and improving the lives of the people, a peaceful environment is greater than ever."
According to a military expert in Seoul, the event appeared to display weapons that have not been on show previously in the country, including surface-to-air missiles used for anti-missile defense, Reuters reported.
Leading up to the occasion this year, the country inaugurated a national cemetery dedicated to those it calls martyrs. Among the thousands present at an event on Thursday were war veterans, many now in their 80s.
Small, spontaneous moments managed to break through the pageantry: a widow grieving at the ceremony for her dead husband; a wistful young soldier who said she would travel the world if she could leave North Korea; and proud parents showing off their newborn, telling NBC News' Ann Curry they hope he'd join the military someday.
Kim made an appearance, too, driving the crowds into a frenzy.
He showed up to cut a ceremonial ribbon on the graveyard but did not deliver a speech.
Kim is the grandson of Kim Il Sung, who launched the Korean War on June 25, 1950 -- although North Korea's official stance is that U.S. troops attacked first.
Most historians agree that North Korean troops charged across the border first, launching an assault at 4 a.m. The only thing North Korea agrees with is that war broke out at 4 a.m.
The fighting took more than 1.2 million lives on all sides.
The elaborate and lavish Victory Day celebrations are meant to present Kim's credentials to his people and to the world, said Ken Gause, author of numerous books and articles on North Korea's leadership.
"As he grows older and as he is able to consolidate his power, he will become more and more the supreme leader ... where he controls everything within the regime and all power flows from him," Gause said.
Signs and banners reading "victory" line the streets of Pyongyang, the country's capital. The events are expected to culminate with a huge military parade and fireworks, one of the biggest displays since Kim took power in late 2011.
But 60 years on, there is still no peace on the Korean Peninsula.
"They wanna be a strong and prosperous state," Gause said. "That means a strong and independent country that operates along their own lines, in terms of guaranteeing their own security, and being able to develop their economy that they can provide for their people."
This year, Kim made the pursuit of nuclear weapons a national goal, calling it a defensive measure against the U.S. military threat.
"The new regime is increasingly isolating itself with its nuclear and missile behavior," said Victor Cha, director of Georgetown University's national resource center for Asian studies.
Cha said observers will keep an eye on Kim as he consolidates his hold on North Korea.
"It has been a year and a half since he's taken power," Cha said. "The question is whether he knows how to use that leadership for the good of the country. Right now, he appears to be following an old script that has put North Korea in the current position as a distressed economic country and a renegade nuclear weapons state."
Perhaps Kim will signal his plans for North Korea's future Saturday.
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North Korea's Cold War prize, USS Pueblo, set to be displayed for 'Victory Day'
North Korea's Korea Central News Agency via AP
North Korean soldiers look at the USS Pueblo near the Taedonggang river in Pyongyang in 2006.
With a fresh coat of paint and a new home along the Pothong River, the USS Pueblo, a spy ship seized off North Korea's east coast in 1968, is expected to be unveiled this week as the centerpiece of a renovated war museum to commemorate what the North calls "Victory Day,’" the 60th anniversary this Saturday of the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War.
One U.S. sailor was killed when the Pueblo was strafed by machine gun fire and boarded by North Koreans. The remaining 82, including three injured, were taken prisoner and spent 11 months in captivity.
US Navy via AP
Crew members of the USS Pueblo hold up their hands while in captivity in North Korea in 1968.
Many of the crew who served on the vessel want to bring the Pueblo home. Throughout its history, they argue, the Navy’s motto has been “don’t give up the ship.” The Pueblo, in fact, is still listed as a commissioned U.S. Navy vessel, the only one being held by a foreign nation.
AP
Crew members of USS Pueblo while in captivity in North Korea in 1968.
Gregory Bull / AP
Former USS Pueblo crew member Earl Phares speaks to the AP in Ontario, Calif., on June 21, 2013.
Although the ship was conducting intelligence operations, crew members say that most of them had little useful information for the North Koreans. That, according to the crew, didn't stop them from being beaten severely during interrogations. Phares said "The Koreans basically told us, they put stuff in front of us, they said you were here, you were spying, you will be shot as spies."
Gregory Bull / AP
Former USS Pueblo crew member Robert Chicca speaks at his home in Bonita, Calif., on July 17.
Chicca, a Marine Corps sergeant who served as a Korean linguist on the Pueblo, said "I got shot up in the original capture, so we were taken by bus and then train for an all-night journey to Pyongyang in North Korea, and then they put us in a place we called the barn." -- The Associated Press
Elizabeth Dalziel / AP file
A North Korean sailor poses for a picture with Chinese tourists aboard the USS Pueblo, docked in Pyongyang, in 2007.
For U.S. veterans of the Korean War, a solemn anniversary
Jung Yeon-Je / AFP – Getty Images
John Merrell, center with American flag tie, was part of a group of veterans who fought in the Korean War under the United Nations flag who visited the Korean National Cemetery in Seoul on Friday.
SEOUL, South Korea – It was a solemn and low-key ceremony.
The American veterans Friday walked slowly along a broad path lined by flag-bearers at the National Cemetery in Seoul. They stopped in front of a Memorial Tower where 80-year-old John Merrell, wearing a dark suit and stars and stripes tie, placed three pinches of incense into a furnace in memory of those who died during the Korean War.
The 25-strong American contingent are among 200 veterans from 21 countries who fought under the banner of the U.N. and have returned to Korea – some for the first time since the war – for the 60th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended hostilities.
Unlike in the North, where the anniversary will be marked Saturday with a massive military parade, the South sees little to celebrate, preferring to mark the occasion by remembering the dead and thanking the surviving veterans.
Merrell, from Knoxville, Tenn., had served as a corporal and then lieutenant in the 8th Field Artillery of the Army's 25th Division between August 1951 and June 1952.
He was been part of a smaller group of veterans whom we joined earlier this week as they toured the DMZ and some of the battlefields that claimed 34,000 American lives in combat in just three years of what's often called the "Forgotten War."
NBC News
John Merrell, an 80-year-old from Knoxville, Tenn., pays tribute to those who died during the Korean War during a ceremony at the National Cemetery in Seoul on Friday.
Merrell had shrugged his shoulders as he looked out from an observatory overlooking the green and deceptively peaceful no-man's land that now divides the two Koreas.
"North Korea, huh!" he said. "It seems so strange. There weren't any trees when I was here. It’s all grown up now."
The area we traveled through was known as the Iron Triangle, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. Our bus passed by modern-day tank traps and check points as Jamie Wiedhahn, who runs the Korea Revisit Program, provided a running commentary.
"Again, on our right, we have an active mine field, as indicated by the red triangle," he said.
Bob Hnizval looked out across what are now lush paddy fields: "As a 20-year-old kid here we had no comprehension of what we were doing or why we were doing it," he said.
Hnizval, now 85 and living in Arizona, served as a corporal with the Observation Battalion of the 1st Field Artillery from November 1952 until February 1954. He told me he'd never wanted to return, but curiosity got the better of him.
Courtesy of Dan Peters
Dan Peters had been promoted from private when he came to Korea in March 1953 to sergeant first class in the 17th Infantry Regiment of the 7th Division by the time he left a year later.
"I think that probably with the Korean War we prevented World War III," he said.
During a break at a hotel in Chorwon, a town close to the border and overlooking a steep valley and raging river, I sat down with Dan Peters, who'd been promoted from private when he came to Korea in March 1953 to sergeant first class in the 17th Infantry Regiment of the 7th Division by the time he left a year later. He explained the drudgery, but also the horrors of trench warfare.
"Sometimes it was plain boring, for days on end," he said. "But when the attacks came, there would be bodies everywhere."
By the time he was in Korea, the Americans were fighting the Chinese, who'd come to the aid of the North.
"That's where the Chinese were," he said pointing at a map of a warren-like complex of trenches. "They were within 300 yards of us. They didn't show themselves, and we didn't show ourselves either."
Old photos showing Peters and his comrades smiling from the trenches, seem to belie the horror of it all.
Peters took part in the battle for Pork Chop Hill, the first phase of which was depicted in a movie starring Gregory Peck.
Today it seen as a pretty aimless battle over just 30 acres of land, now marooned in the DMZ. The battle was fought largely for leverage at the negotiating table. But the attrition rates were astounding. The hill was eventually lost to the Chinese.
Ian Williams/ NBC News
Dan Peters, right, and his brother David outside the remnants of the Communist Party headquarters near Chorwon, South Korea. The two were part of a group of U.S. veterans who returned to Krea – some for the first time since the war – for the 60th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended hostilities.
"Company after company went up to try and take it back, but didn't get the job done," he recalled. Eventually the Americans pulled back and air force pulverized the place.
After the war, Peters worked in the forests and mountains of Colorado for 25 years, and looks nowhere near his 81 years.
After a visit to one observatory, curious South Korean soldiers approached our group, breaking out into broad smiles as soon as they realized they were meeting veterans.
"I can't find the words to thank you so much," said one of the South Korean soldiers, speaking through an interpreter.
The soldiers then removed stars from their uniforms, pressing them onto the shirts of the Americans.
"Thank you so much. You're doing good," said Hnizval.
Lee Jin-Man / AP
Korean War veterans visit the National Cemetery in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday.
Another of Peters’ photographs showed a bullet-scarred building in Seoul, which he photographed on a journey though the capital near the end of the war. "It was the tallest building I saw standing," he said.
The new bustling and prosperous Seoul has come as a shock to all of them. "It's changed so much. Oh yeah!" Peters said.
And to these American vets, that's a vindication of all they fought for.
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