July 27 comes round every year, bringing the Korean people the memory of the jubilant V-day in the Korean war (June 1950 - July 1953).

The Korean war, or the Fatherland Liberation War, was the one in which the Korean people inflicted serious defeat on the United States which had been boasting of its being the "strongest" in the world and invaded the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea.

The US ruling circles provoked the Korean war, reckoning that their numerical and technical superiority over the young DPRK would earn them an easy victory. They employed huge armed forces in the war, including one-third of their ground force, one-fifth of their air force, the greater part of their Pacific Fleet, troops of 15 of their satellite countries and the south Korean puppet troops and Japanese militarist forces, numbering over two million altogether in strength. They also brought into the war B-29 strategic bombers and other cutting-edge war material.

The war between a small two-year-old country and a big power crowned with over 110 war victories made the international community only apprehensive of the DPRK´s defeat, a likely outcome viewed from the point of established ideas and the balance of armed forces.

The US brass hats at first declared to the press that the Korean war would be finished within 72 hours, that is, three days: however, the war lasted for three years and the US troops suffered endless defeat in battles.

"Smith´s special attack" unit, the first of the American infantry units committed to the Korean war, was smashed to bits in a moment, and in the wake of it, the US 24th Division, which had boasted of its being "ever-victorious", was completely routed. Its commander Dean was captured by a KPA soldier, while he was fleeing in a US private´s uniform.

The myth of the United States´ "mightiness" was shattered to pieces not only on the ground, but also in the air and on the sea. On July 2, 1950, the four torpedo boats of the KPA attacked US heavy and light cruisers on the East Sea of Korea, sinking and damaging them. It was a brilliant victory unprecedented-in the world history of sea battles. And on October 30, 1951, three of the B-29 bombers under cover of 90 fighter-bombers were dropped and five of them damaged, while violating the territorial sky of Korea. Within a week afterwards 20 "air fortress B-29" bombers were downed.

Colossal damages and successive defeats in the Korean war brought about a miserable scene of the US leaders blaming one another for the failures. Five-Star General MacArthur was sacked, and his successor Ridgway, Commander of the US Far Eastern Forces and the UN Forces concurrently, soon followed suit, charged with the defeat.

On July 27, 1953, the United States signed the armistice agreement, thus ending the three-year-long Korean war in a victory for the Korean people.

In the war the Korean People´s Army killed, wounded or captured over 1,567,000 troops of the US, south Korea and 15 of the American satellite countries: they also damaged or captured over 12200 airplanes, 3250 tanks and armoured vehicles, 13 300 autos, over 560 warships and other vessels, 7 600 guns, and 925 100 small arms.

The loss suffered by the US in the Korean war was nearly 2.3 times greater than what they had in the four years of the Pacific War.

The result from the Korean war was almost incredible. The Koreans´ victory was neither a divine will nor a fortuitous outcome, but an inevitable win. Fighting the war, they had assurances: They had Kim Il Sung, who had brought about Korea´s liberation from the Japanese rule through the 15-year-long armed struggle. He had waged the struggle, without any support from homefront or a regular army, against the Japanese imperialists who were harbouring an ambition of global supremacy.

Endowed   with   matchless   courage   and   pluck,   unexcelled   military   stratagem, Kim Il Sung issued an order of immediate counteroffensive against the US imperialists when they provoked the war. As a result, three days after the start of the war the Korean people´s Army drove the enemy out of Seoul, south Korea, and liberated 90 % of south Korean  areas  in  a  month  and  a  half.  When  the  war  assumed  a protracted nature, Kim Il Sung put forward original fighting methods. His strategies and tactics proved to the source of the Korean people´s confidence in victory and courage, and the basic guarantee of the KPA´s victory in every battle, while humbling the haughty US imperialists.

Mark Clark, the then Commander of the UN Forces, after signing the armistice agreement, lamented that he gained the unevitable distinction of being the first United States commander in history to sign an armistice without victory. He confessed the success of the north Korean army, the KPA, was attributed to excellent command  of  General Kim Il Sung.

The US brass hats, who much vaunted of their sure victory at the start of the war, had lament over their bitter defeat in the war.

US Defense Secretary Marshall confessed that the myth was broken and the United States were not so strong as others thought. And Bradley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, mourned that  the US waged "the wrong war at the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy."