“South Korean jets and U.S. attack helicopters set the skies alight today as the two nations conducted spectacular live fire drills,” the London Daily Mail reported June 22, “the biggest since the Korean War.”

Two thousand South Korean and U.S. forces conducted the drills at Poncheon near the North Korean border, involving jet fighters, tanks, Apache attack helicopters, “tank-killer” aircraft and multiple rocket launchers. One of the operations had a North Korean flag as its target.

A second joint military exercise Aug. 20-31, called Ulchi Freedom Guardian, involved some 30,000 U.S. troops, more than 50,000 South Korean troops, and smaller contingents from seven countries that fought with them in the 1950-53 war against North Korea.

Pyongyang denounced the military provocations, calling them “an all-out war rehearsal” against the North.

—EMMA JOHNSON