CDKW00498 - Command Confusion

By May 1952, there were few reports coming in from the front to Ottawa which caused confusion and panic, though news of a dispatch order which indicated a Canadian brigade had been broken up and some of its forces deployed to a prisoner-of-war camp on Koje Island certainly caused panic amongst diplomats. The Canadians were particularly frustrated as it explicitly went against their wishes when the brigade was offered to the United Nations forces. This incident also highlights just how “unified” the Unified Command was for United Nations Forces; rather than asking the United Nations to reverse the order, the Canadians went straight to Washington. It is apparent that the Canadians were deeply frustrated with the Americans regarding the incident, though they received assurances that all endeavors would be made to avoid a similar issue in the future. However, Koje Island’s prisoner-of-war camp would become a larger issue due to violence on the island that summer, in an incident the Canadians were not excited to be implicated with.