Third Battle of Seoul 1950
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 31 December 1950 – 7 January 1951 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1950 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | South Korea | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Korean War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United Kingdom, United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 37.5689, 126.9770 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Third Battle of Seoul was a battle of the Korean War, which took place from December 31, 1950, to January 7, 1951, around the South Korean capital of Seoul. It is also known as the Chinese New Year's Offensive, the January–Fourth Retreat (Korean: 1·4 후퇴) or the Third Phase Campaign Western Sector (Chinese: 第三次战役西线; pinyin: Dì Sān Cì Zhàn Yì Xī Xiàn).
In the aftermath of the major Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) victory at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, the United Nations Command (UN) started to contemplate the possibility of evacuation from the Korean Peninsula. Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese People's Volunteer Army to cross the 38th Parallel in an effort to pressure the UN forces to withdraw from South Korea.
On December 31, 1950, the Chinese 13th Army attacked the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA)'s 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th Infantry Divisions along the 38th Parallel, breaching ROKA/UN defenses at the Imjin River, Hantan River, Gapyeong and Chuncheon in the process. To prevent the PVA forces from overwhelming the defenders, the US Eighth Army now under the command of Lieutenant general Matthew B. Ridgway evacuated Seoul on January 3, 1951.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Third Battle of Seoul (revision 1378580714), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Browse more: battles in South Korea · Asia · Post-1945 battles