An American military video showing its troops pounding North Korea with heavy artillery in the 1950s has surfaced as tensions between the two nations again escalate.
The footage from the Korean War, fought between the US and its allies against North Korea and China, emerges during America’s annual joint military exercise with the South.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un threatened to turn the US into ‘a heap of ashes’ in response to the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills currently being held in the South.
An American military video shows its troops pounding North Korea with heavy artillery during the Korean War
The footage, first shot in the 1950s, has surfaced as tensions between the two nations again escalate
The footage from the Korean War, fought between the US and its allies against North Korea and China, emerges during America’s annual joint military exercise with the South
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un threatened to turn the US into ‘a heap of ashes’ in response to the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills currently being held in the South
His country then released a propaganda video in which President Donald Trump looked helplessly on as the US territory of Guam, which Kim has threatened to bomb, burned in flames.
Now the US footage shows the force with which its troops fired huge rounds of artillery toward the North during the three-year-long conflict, in which more than 1.2million on both sides perished.
In it, the American voice over actor continually refers to the artillery gun, a 105mm Howitzer, as his friend Joe sent over to help fight the forces of communism.
He says: ‘Joe and I were in the shipping business. Shipping high explosives to communist Korea.
‘This was a little service we supplied the infantry. When they got stopped, we got started.
The historic US footage shows the force with which its troops fired huge rounds of artillery toward the North during the three-year-long conflict
In it, the American voice over actor continually refers to the artillery gun, a 105mm Howitzer, as his friend Joe sent over to help fight the forces of communism
A chilling North Korean propaganda video appears to show Donald Trump staring at the apocalyptic remains of US territory Guam
The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills in South Korea – which themselves are a response to the North’s nuclear tests – are largely computer-simulated
Pyongyang today vowed ‘merciless retaliation’ for the exercises (pictured), branding both the UK and US as weaker states
‘When Joe and I got to Korea, everybody was mighty glad to see us. They needed us bad.
‘Back at the beginning of the war, when the reds had things all their way, our side had few men and even less equipment.’
The video was produced in 1952, two years into the conflict that started when North Korea crossed the 38th parallel and attempted to take the South Korean capital of Seoul.
After intervention by the USSR, the United States and China, an armistice was eventually signed on July 27 1953, the terms of which stated that North and South Korea were to remain separated by the 38th parallel.
More recently, tensions between the nations have been at breaking point ever since Kim Jong-un threatened to level Guam, an American territory around 2,100 miles from the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, said on Monday the drills are defensive in nature
The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills are largely computer-simulated war games held every summer
Today his state run media machine released footage showing North Korea launching ballistic missiles and its troops marching in unison through Pyongyang.
‘Americans should live with their eyes and ears wide open,’ the caption alongside it is believed to read.
The video emerges shortly after the reclusive nation threatened to turn the US into ‘a heap of ashes’ in a typically aggressive response to the American war games in the neighbouring South.
The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills – which themselves are a response to the North’s nuclear tests – are largely computer-simulated.
South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, said the drills are defensive in nature and necessary because of repeated provocations by North Korea.
North Korean state media also lashed out at President Donald Trump, accusing him of ‘spouting rubbish’ on Twitter
But Pyongyang branded the 11-day exercise a ‘reckless’ invasion rehearsal that could trigger the ‘uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war’.
It vowed ‘merciless retaliation’ for the exercises, branding both the UK and US as weaker states.
A statement by the state-run Korean Central News Agency branded the US ‘imperialists’ and South Korea as ‘war maniacs’.