Australia in the Korean War
No. 77 Squadron converted to P-51D Mustang fighters before arriving in Japan in February 1946 to participate in the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. Occupation duties proved uneventful, and No. 77 Squadron was preparing to leave Japan for Australia when the Korean War broke out in June 1950. 77 Sqn was immediately dispatched to Korea, where they became the first UN air unit to enter the war, primarily in ground support, combat air patrol, and escort missions.
20th-century events
Two wars and a near-war in the 1950s became the focus for capitalist versus communist struggle. The first war was the Korean War, fought between People's Republic of China-backed North Korea and mainly United States-backed South Korea. The Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony between 1910 and 1945, when Soviet and American troops invaded and divided it along the 38th parallel. A communist government controlled the territory north of the border and a capitalist one controlled the South, with both authorities considering the other one illegitimate and claiming sovereignty over the entire peninsula. North Korea's invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950 led to United Nations intervention. General Douglas MacArthur led troops from the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and other countries in repulsing the Northern invasion. However, the war reached a stalemate after Chinese intervention pushed U.N. forces back, and an ended hostilities in July 1953, leaving the two Koreas divided and tense for the rest of the century.