Ethiopia in the Korean War

In total, 16 nations applied troops to the United Nations forces involved in the Korean War. Ethiopia was the only African nation to do so, supplying 6,037 soldiers in total. When the Korean War began Emperor Hailie Selassie sent a battalion of troops from his own elite Imperial Guard Division known as the Kagnew Battalion, named after the warhorse of Hailie Selassie's father Makonnen Wolde Mikael. The Kagnews served with great distinction throughout war, notably being the only contingent that had no prisoners to collect from the North Koreans following the armistice, since no Kagnew soldier ever surrendered. This coupled with the fact that the battalion never left their dead behind, always retrieving the bodies of their fallen led the North Koreans, who had never seen Africans before, to believe that the Ethiopians had superhuman powers and could not be killed.

In total 121 Ethiopians were killed in the Korean War and 536 received injuries. Even after the armistice, a token Ethiopian force remained in the country until 1965. When the Communist Derg took control of Ethiopia in 1974, they did their best to erase all records of the Kagnew Battalion, but since their fall research in the battalion has grown.