North Korea in the Korean War parallel boundary, but they could not agree on whether prisoners of war should be forcibly "repatriated." Finally, after around more than two years of negotiations, the adversaries signed an armistice on July 27, 1953. The agreement drew a new boundary near the 38th parallel that gave South Korea an extra 1,500 square miles of territory; and created a 2-mile-wide "demilitarized zone" that still exists today in the North and South Korean borders, in the bottom and top, respectively. The Korean War was relatively short but exceptionally bloody compared to other wars. Nearly 3 million people died. More than half of
New Zealand in the Korean War was killed in February 1953 when his Hawker Sea Fury was shot down by ground fire. Five New Zealanders took part in Royal Australian Navy missions over Korea from the Australian carrier HMAS "Sydney". Some of these pilots were former RNZAF members, others joining directly the British and Australian forces. New Zealand in the Korean War The involvement of New Zealand in the Korean War began in 1950 as a response to the United Nations Security Council's call for combat assistance in the erupting Korean War. New Zealand was one of the first (of a total of sixteen) nations to