peak strength of 932,964: Combat forces South Korea – 590,911 United States – 302,483 Canada – 26,791 Australia – 17,000 United Kingdom – 14,198 Thailand – 6,326 Ethiopia – 6,007 Turkey – 5,453 Philippines – 1,468 New Zealand – 1,385 Greece – 1,263 France – 1,119 Colombia – 1,068 Belgium – 900 South Africa – 826 Netherlands – 819 Luxembourg – 44 Humanitarian aid (not counted in total above) Denmark (hospital ship MS Jutlandia) – 600 India Italy (68th Field Hospital) – 71 Norway (NORMASH) Sweden During the course of the war, UNC was led by Douglas MacArthur, Matthew B. Ridgway, and Mark Wayne Clark. After the armistice was signed, John E. Hull was named UNC commander to carry out the ceasefire (including the voluntary repatriation of prisoners of war). Post Korean War (1953–present) Following the signing of the Armistice Agreement, UNC remained in Korea to fulfill the functions of providing security and stability on the Peninsula, as well as supporting UN efforts to rebuild the war-torn Republic of Korea. Much of the fifties was marked by continuous negotiations in Military Armistice Commission meetings while the international community worked to bolster South Korea's economy and infrastructure. During this period, North Korea maintained economic and military superiority over its southern neighbor owing to Chinese and Soviet support. The sixties proved a tenuous decade on the Korean Peninsula, punctuated by a period of hostilities often referred to as the "Second Korean War." The period between 1966 and 1969 saw a heightened level of skirmishes in the DMZ as well as major incidents including North Korea's attempted assassination of South Korean leader Park Chung-hee and seizure of the USS Pueblo The seventies saw a brief period of rapprochement that later contributed to structural changes to UNC. In 1972, the North and South Korean governments signed a Joint Communique calling for more peaceful ties between the two Koreas. Concurrently, consecutive U.S. administrations (Nixon, Ford, and Carter) sought to decrease the South Korean reliance upon U.S. forces for maintaining deterrent capabilities on the Korean Peninsula. On 7 November 1978, a combined headquarters, the Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command (CFC), was created, and the South Korean military units with front-line missions were transferred from the UN Command to the CFC's operational control. The commander-in-chief of the CFC, a United States military officer, answered ultimately to the national command authorities of the United