This book provides a comprehensive investigation of military interpreting during the Korean War. Chronologically structured, it examines interlingual mediation across the three key phases of the conflict: the post-WWII U.S./Soviet military occupation (1945-1948), the open military hostilities between North and South Korea and their respective allies (1950-1953), and the prolonged armistice negotiations (1951-53). The study reveals that while interpreters were indispensable mediators on the multilingual battlefield, the U.S. military routinely overlooked the strategic importance of interlingual communication. As a result, the military faced severe challenges in effectively communicating with its allies, enemies, and the local civilian population. As the first dedicated study of its kind, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Military History, and readers interested in the dynamic intersections of language, power, and warfare.

Hyongrae Kim is Assistant Professor at Auburn University, USA. He has published articles in Translation and Interpreting Studies and TTR : Traduction, terminologie, rédaction, as well as chapters in Interpreting Conflict: A Comparative Framework (2021) and North Korea: Translation and Transformation in a Global Context (2025).