The following events occurred in August 1950:
August 1, 1950 (Tuesday) The Soviet Union returned to the United Nations Security Council after having refused to send a delegate since January. During the Soviet absence, the Security Council had authorized the United Nations to enter the Korean War, a move that the Soviets could have vetoed."Russia Makes Red China Top Issue of UN", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 1, 1950, p1 The 60,000 inhabitants of Guam became United States citizens with limited self-government, as a United States Territory under the oversight of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Pacific Ocean island had been administered by the U.S. Department of Defense after the Navy Department had controlled it as a naval base."Guam", in Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreement, Volume 2, Edmund Jan Osmanczyk and Anthony Mango, eds. (Taylor & Francis, 2003) p640 The royal question in Belgium was resolved as King Leopold III publicly announced that he would abdicate in favor of his son, Baudouin. Born: Roy Williams, American basketball coach who guided the University of North Carolina to two NCAA championships (2005 and 2009); in Marion, North Carolina Bunkhouse Buck (a/k/a Jack Swagger, Sr.), American professional wrestler, as James Golden in Bucksnort, Tennessee
August 2, 1950 (Wednesday) The Battle of the Notch was fought between U.S. and North Korean forces, resulting in a victory for the United States when the North Korean attack was repelled with heavy casualties. The Helms Athletic Foundation announced that it was creating a "professional football hall of fame" in Los Angeles and announced the names of 25 persons whose photographs would be posted at Helms Hall. The persons, selected by seven Los Angeles sports editors, had their names engraved on a trophy. In 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame (unrelated to the Helms Hall) would be founded; of the 25 Helms' choices, 12 would be in the first group, while Bill Hewitt, Ray Flaherty and Tuffy Leemans would not be enshrined until the 1970s.Pro Football Hall of Fame Born: Lance Ito, American judge best known for presiding over the 1995 murder trial of O. J. Simpson; in Los Angeles Died: Macario Pineda, 38, Filipino novelist and short story author
August 3, 1950 (Thursday) Thirty-five men from the U.S. Army arrived in Saigon as part of the American Military Assistance Advisory Group. Sent to assist the French government in the training of the new Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the group began a nearly 25 year American involvement in South Vietnam.James E. Westheider, The Vietnam War (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007) p5James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (Random House Digital, 2007) p696 The UN Security Council voted 8–1 against a new Soviet proposal to admit the People's Republic of China to the United Nations."Red China Admission Plea Beaten", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 4, 1950, p1 Born: Jo Marie Payton, American television actress (Family Matters), in Albany, Georgia Linda Howard, American romance novelist, as Linda Howington in Gadsden, Alabama
August 4, 1950 (Friday) At a meeting of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong called on the Party to prepare for the People's Liberation Army to enter the Korean War. According to minutes from the meeting, Mao told the Politburo that "If the U.S. imperialists win the war, they would become more arrogant and threaten us... we have to prepare for this."Jian Chen, China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (Columbia University Press, 1994) pp142-143
The Pusan Perimeter, 140 miles in length in southeastern Korea, was established as the line of defense for United Nations forces by Lt. General Walton H. Walker of the U.S. Eighth Army.Paul M. Edwards, American Soldiers' Lives: The Korean War (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006) p20 The first medical evacuation flight in the Korean War was made by a U.S. Marines Sikorsky H-5 helicopter, which transported two unidentified wounded soldiers from a battlefield to a military evacuation hospital."Introduction to Critical Care Transport", by Crista Lenk Stathers, et al., in Critical Care Transport (Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2009) p6 There would be 9,815 MEDEVAC flights that saved the lives of wounded men transported during the war.Walter J. Boyne, How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare (Pelican Publishing, 2011) p63 The U.S. State Department canceled the passport of African-American singer and activist Paul Robeson, after he refused to sign an oath that he was not affiliated with any Communist organizations.Philip S. Foner, ed., Paul Robeson Speaks (Citadel Press, 1982) p553 Counterattack magazine, which purported to identify Communist Party members and sympathizers in the motion picture and television industries, reported that actors Marlon Brando and Burt Lancaster, and director Elia Kazan, were all persons who had a "Communist front record".Darwin Porter, Brando Unzipped (Blood Moon Productions, 2005) p155 Radio Free Europe began broadcasting to Poland and to Hungary, after having started on July 4 with transmissions to Czechoslovakia. Bulgaria was added for transmissions on August 11.Richard H. Cummings, Radio Free Europe's Crusade for Freedom: Rallying Americans Behind Cold War Broadcasting, 1950-1960 (McFarland, 2010) p24 The film noir Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye starring James Cagney and Barbara Payton premiered in New York City. Born: Caldwell Jones, basketball player, in McGehee, Arkansas (d. 2014)
August 5, 1950 (Saturday) The battles of Masan, Naktong Bulge, P'ohang-dong and Taegu all began as part of the larger Battle of Pusan Perimeter. Chinese General Gao Gang was assigned the task of preparing the Northeast Border Defense Force for an intervention in Korea within a month. On August 15, Gao sought and received a postponement, but was ordered to be ready no later than September 30."Gao Gang (Kao Kang)", in China at War: An Encyclopedia, by Xiaobing Li (ABC-CLIO, 2012) p133 A bomb-laden B-29 Superfortress crashed into a residential area near the Fairfield-Suisun Air Base in California, killing 17 people and injuring 68."17 DIE, 60 HURT IN B-29 CRASH!", Milwaukee Sentinel, August 7, 1950, p1 Brigadier General Robert T. Travis was one of the fatalities, and the base would be renamed in his honor as Travis Air Force Base.Mildred Brooke Hoover, et al., Historic Spots in California (Stanford University Press, 2002) p501
August 6, 1950 (Sunday) General Ye Jianying and General Peng Dehuai were able to dissuade China's Mao Zedong from his belief that China could prepare its army for an invasion of Korea within only three weeks. Mao was wanting an immediate invasion because the U.S., UN and South Korean forces were pinned down within the small Pusan Perimeter, while Yu and Peng believed that a minimum of four months would be necessary. Ultimately, the Chinese intervention would take place in a little less than four months.Bong Lee, The Unfinished War: Korea (Algora Publishing, 2003) pp123-124
Born: Winston E. Scott, American astronaut, in Miami Died: William Henry Thompson, 22, African-American U.S. Army private, who would become the first person to be awarded the Medal of Honor in the Korean War. At Masan, Thompson stayed at his machine gun so that his fellow soldiers from the 24th Infantry Regiment could escape an overwhelming North Korean attack.
August 7, 1950 (Monday)
The Canadian Army Special Force was created by combining units of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) to serve in the Korean War."Allied Nations Providing Troops", in Korean War Almanac, Paul M. Edwards, ed. (Infobase Publishing, 2006) p515 Laureano Gómez was inaugurated as the 24th President of Colombia after winning an election boycotted by the rival Liberal Party; he would be ousted in a military coup on June 13, 1953.Bert Ruiz, The Colombian Civil War (McFarland, 2001) pp58-59 Born: Rodney Crowell, American country music singer and songwriter, in Houston Alan Keyes, former U.S. State Department official and who ran as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator for Maryland (1988 and 1992) and U.S. Senator for Illinois against Barack Obama in 2004, as well as a third party candidate for U.S. President in 2008 for America's Independent Party
August 8, 1950 (Tuesday)
Florence Chadwick of the United States swam across the English Channel in 13 hours, 22 minutes, breaking the women's record set by Gertrude Ederle on August 6, 1926. Chadwick arrived on the shores of Dover at 3:59 p.m. local time, and became only the third woman to cross the Channel, after Ederle and Millie Gade Corson (who made the crossing on August 28, 1926."Channel Record Broken By American Woman", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 9, 1950, p1; "Florence Chadwick", in Outstanding Women Athletes: Who They Are and How They Influenced Sports in America, Janet Woolum, ed. (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998) Born: Ken Kutaragi, Japanese business executive, Chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, known as "The Father of the PlayStation"; in Tokyo Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, Egyptian-born al-Qaeda leader, in Beni Suef Mutulu Shakur, American bank robber, as Jeral Wayne Williams in Baltimore (d. 2023) Died: Nikolai Myaskovsky, 69, Russian Soviet composer known as "The Father of the Soviet Symphony"
August 9, 1950 (Wednesday) Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin ordered the development and deployment of the S-25 Berkut anti-aircraft missile system, to be done within one year, to defend Moscow against the possibility of an attack by American B-29 bombers. When finished, the Berkut system would have "56 missile regiments in two concentric rings around Moscow".Steven Zaloga, Red SAM: The SA-2 Guideline Anti-Aircraft Missile (Osprey Publishing, 2011) p4 Died: Philipp Schmitt, 47, German SS Sturmbannfuhrer who oversaw the deportation to Germany of prisoners in Belgium at the Fort Breendonk concentration camp, near Antwerp. Schmitt was shot by a firing squad and became the last person to be executed in Belgium."Schmitt", in The Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice, Antonio Cassese, ed. (Oxford University Press, 2009) p904
August 10, 1950 (Thursday) One month after General Douglas MacArthur authorized partial Japanese rearmament on July 8, 1950, the National Police Reserve (Keisatsu Yobitai) was formally created.Richard B. Finn, Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida and Postwar Japan (University of California Press, 1992) p265 The film noir Sunset Boulevard starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson was released.
August 11, 1950 (Friday)
Crown Prince Baudouin of Belgium was administered the oath to become Prince Royal, exercising all of the powers of his father, Leopold III, who retained the title of King of Belgium. Earlier the Belgian Senate and the Chamber of Deputies approved Leopold's decision to relinquish power, 349–0 with eight abstentions. Leopold would formally abdicate on July 16, 1951. The Consultative Assembly of the new Council of Europe voted 89–5 in favor of a proposal by Winston Churchill for an eleven-nation United European Army that would be allied with Canada and the United States. The non-binding resolution would eventually be realized to some extent with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Ethel Rosenberg was arrested in New York City, 25 days after her husband Julius Rosenberg had been arrested and charged with espionage. Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, had implicated her as a co-conspirator with Julius in passing on atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Born: Steve Wozniak, American computer scientist and co-founder of Apple Computer, in San Jose, California Gennadiy Nikonov, Soviet Russian weapon designer who created the AN-94 assault rifle; in Ustinov (now Izhevsk), USSR (d. 2003)