ABSTRACT
Hamhung was the industrialized city in North Korea. During the few months of the occupation in North Korea, the author found many cases of smallpox, typhus the dreaded louse-borne scourge typhoid, and diphtheria. When the final remnants of the North Korean army had been defeated, General MacArthur had received instructions to make a token occupation of all of the provinces of North Korea. The instructions from the United Nations through the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to General MacArthur were that he was to hold elections for governors and for the mayors of local communities. The United Nations proposed to keep North Korea under its direct supervision for a time until it felt North Korea could be united politically with the Republic of Korea. The United Nations Commission, which had been appointed to supervise the political unification of North Korea in 1945, was never permitted by the communists to enter North Korea to hold elections to elect these hundred delegates.
