Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
[Illustration: _Figure 78: Home-front Morale._ When South Korean
communications were interrupted, leaflets such as this provided on early
boost to Korean civilian morale.]
Each of the corps PsyWar officers had under his operational control one
loudspeaker section (with a varying number of teams) from the L&L
Company.
=Radio Operations.= Radio in the Korean conflict was used jointly as a
strategic and a consolidation medium. From the beginning of the war,
radio was the voice of our military policy. An ambitious network,
supervised in 1950-51 directly by PWS and thereafter by the 1st RB&L
Group, became known and recognized as the Voice of the United Nations
Command. The Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) and the Japan Broadcasting
System (JBS) transmitted on a cooperative basis, with the U.S.
Government buying air time. The 1st RB&L Group's radio unit furnished
programming assistance through key stations in Seoul (KBS), Taegu (KBS),
Pusan (KBS) and Tokyo (JBS). In addition, the Group furnished technical
assistance to KBS in order to keep as many as twelve network stations on
the air.
=Leaflet Operations.= As in World War II, leaflets were delivered
primarily by two means: aircraft and artillery. B-29s of the Far East
Air Force ferried leaflet bombs on night missions deep into strategic
areas. Light bombers and liaison craft in support of EUSAK dropped both
leaflet bombs and bundles on tactical targets. The leaflet bundle was a
Korean war development. It was wrapped, tied, and fuzed in such a manner
that it would open and release its leaflets in mid-air. The 105mm.
howitzer remained the principal artillery piece for placing
propaganda-loaded shells on pinpoint targets.
Tremendous quantities of leaflets were printed. The 1st RB&L Group on
many occasions averaged better than twenty million pieces of printed
propaganda every week. To this, the 1st L&L Company in Korea added an
average of three and a half million leaflets per week.
=Loudspeaker Operations.= The airborne loudspeaker was the object of
experimentation, but the bulk of loudspeaker broadcasts were made from
vehicle mounts, such as tanks, and from emplacements. During the static
battle situation of 1951-53, most of the broadcasts were of the latter
kind. Range of the voice casts was short, something like two thousand
yards under ideal conditions. Personnel and equipment were supplied by
the 1st L&L Company, and scripts were prepared by PsyWar Division, G3,
EUSAK.
=Results of Military PsyWar Operations.= When the question was asked,
"Just how effective was PsyWar?" the answer was vague. Clear-cut
immediate evaluation of the effects of each propaganda campaign was
often impossible to ascertain because of the many intangible conditions
that were prevalent in the target area--conditions that were constantly
changing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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