How much you guys know about the Korean War of 1950 ?
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Korean, U.S. Witnesses, Backed by Military Records, Say Refugees Were Strafed
EDITOR'S NOTE -- In reports this fall, The Associated Press told of the killing of South Korean refugees by the U.S. Army in 1950. The following report looks at yet another hidden dimension of the Korean conflict, air attacks on civilians.
By SANG-HUN CHOE
CHARLES J. HANLEY
and MARTHA MENDOZA
Associated Press Writers
In 1950-51, as war refugees flooded South Korea's roads, American jets repeatedly attacked groups of Koreans in civilian clothes on suspicion they harbored enemy infiltrators, according to declassified U.S. military documents and Korean and American witnesses.
Large numbers of refugees were killed in some cases, witnesses told The Associated Press. In one strike, they said, U.S. firebombs killed 300 civilians trapped in a cave.
After-mission reports from the Korean War show that U.S. Air Force pilots, flying in support of retreating U.S. troops in mid-1950, sometimes questioned their targets.
In one, pilots said a Korean group strafed at an airborne controller's instruction "could have been refugees." In another declassified report they said their target "appeared to be evacuees."
Some of those pilots, in recent AP interviews, said they did worry at times they were machine-gunning innocents.
"We were concerned, very concerned," said Air Force retiree Herman Son of St. Louis. He said it "was by no means clear on the surface who these people were."
Some ex-pilots said they remember breaking off attacks when they realized their targets were civilians. The situation was spelled out in an after-mission report six weeks into the war.
"Pilots have difficulty in determining whether personnel in enemy-held territory are noncombatants or not," reads the report by pilots in Son's 35th Fighter-Bomber Squadron. "Leaflets should be dropped on them warning them to keep out of sight or that they will be strafed."
The new information, on which the Pentagon had no direct comment, sheds light on yet another hidden side of the "forgotten war" of 1950-53, a conflict in which U.S. airpower often proved pivotal.
Previous AP articles, in September and October, cited U.S. veterans, Korean witnesses and declassified documents in reporting that hundreds of other South Korean refugees were killed by U.S. Army troops in mid-1950 as the retreating Americans struggled to defend South Korea against a North Korean invasion.
American ground commanders feared that enemy soldiers, disguised in the common white clothing of civilians, were joining South Korean refugee columns in order to penetrate U.S. lines. Documents found in declassified military archives show that some troops were ordered to shoot approaching civilians _ orders that military law experts say were illegal.
"People in white" became Air Force targets as well, according to the once-secret Air Force files examined by the AP.
"Some people in white clothes were strafed three to four miles south of Yusong," an after-mission report by four 35th Squadron pilots noted on July 20, 1950. A spotter aircraft, or controller, "said to fire on people in white clothes," the debriefing report said.
The AP located the declassified debriefings at the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., and at the National Archives in College Park, Md., while investigating what happened at No Gun Ri, South Korea, July 26-29, 1950, when witnesses say U.S. warplanes killed about 100 refugees and U.S. Army troops then killed about 300 more.
The AP reported in September that Army veterans confirmed their unit killed a large number of civilians at the No Gun Ri railroad bridge. The U.S. and South Korean governments immediately ordered investigations. The AP later reported hundreds of other refugees were killed in other U.S. Army operations in mid-1950.
Advised in advance of the AP's report on the air war, chief Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon reiterated that completing the No Gun Ri probe is the first priority. "Then the department will decide if other incidents warrant further study.," he said.
Since the No Gun Ri report was published, the South Korean Defense Ministry has received petitions relating to at least 37 incidents in which U.S. forces allegedly killed South Korean civilians indiscriminately during the 1950-53 war, the ministry says. The petitions ask for investigations, and some for compensation. Most of those publicly reported relate to air attacks on refugees.
"I want to ask the U.S. government why," said survivor Hong Won-ki, who has petitioned Washington for an accounting of a strafing in which his parents were killed. "It was clear that we were refugees."
Witnesses say they refrained from speaking out after the war because they feared reprisals from the South Korean military, which ruled the country until 1992.
Some of the reported U.S. air attacks on refugees occurred in January 1951, another period of retreat, when U.S. forces and South Korean refugees were driven deeper into South Korea by an offensive by North Korea's Chinese allies, but when American warplanes still monopolized South Korean skies.
Local villagers said American bombing and strafing killed about 300 South Korean civilians on Jan. 20, 1951, at a cave where they took refuge in Youngchun, 90 miles southeast of Seoul, South Korea's capital. The Chinese front line was several miles to the north, a U.S. Army history shows.
The area outside the cave was busy with people coming and going, villagers said. An observer plane circled and then four planes dropped incendiary bombs near the cave's entrance, setting fire to household goods just inside, they said. Most victims suffocated from smoke.
"People yelled and cried for their children," said Cho Bong-won, 64. "People choked and fell."
Earlier that week, 60 miles to the west, another 300 South Korean refugees were killed by a U.S. air attack as they jammed a storage house at the village of Doon-po, said survivor Kim In-tae, 58.
Kim, now a Presbyterian minister, said the planes bombed the location after the refugees set a fire outside to keep warm. "I woke up from the piles of corpses after three days," Kim said.
The petition from Hong Won-ki, a retired newspaper executive, describes an air attack on Yong-in, 30 miles south of Seoul, after refugees rushed outside to wave at approaching U.S. planes, and a second strafing the next day, Jan. 12, 1951, after his family left the village and trekked south with other refugees.
As American planes neared, the group crouched down with their baggage over their heads "to show that we were just refugees," said Hong, 14 at the time. But one plane strafed them, killing Hong's parents and other refugees, he said.
On Jan. 15, villagers said, planes returned to Yong-in, still crowded with refugees. They described strafings and apparent napalm attacks. "Each time a plane swooped down and sprayed bullets, about 20 or 30 people fell," said Kim Young-kyu, then 14.
A former AP war correspondent described the aftermath of a large-scale strafing around the same time, a few miles from Yong-in and possibly linked to those attacks.
Jim Becker, 74, said in an interview he saw the frozen bodies of at least 200 Koreans in civilian clothes along a road south of Seoul as he traveled north with U.S. troops on Jan. 26, 1951.
"There were women and children. It was a dreadful sight," said Becker, now chairman of Hawaiian public television.
His AP report at the time noted the U.S. military's contention that the refugee column had been strafed by American planes more than a week earlier because "intelligence learned that Chinese soldiers were hiding among them."
But no weapons could be seen, and an Air Force press officer who returned to the scene with him couldn't point to evidence of infiltrators, Becker said.
American military photographs from that area and time period show Korean civilians badly burned from U.S. napalm attacks. The photos, found by the AP at the National Archives, originally were classified for U.S. Army staff distribution only.
Other South Korean reports have surfaced about air attacks on civilians in July and August 1950, around the time of No Gun Ri, including attacks on a schoolhouse full of children and on refugees heading south near No Gun Ri a few days before the strafing and killings there.
Accounts of attacks on civilians in white in the July-August period are supported by available Air Force debriefings, the reports that intelligence officers compiled in meetings with pilots after each four-plane mission. A sampling from three missions of the 9th and 35th Fighter-Bomber Squadrons:
_"Many troops seen in river areas directly south of Yusong. Could have been refugees because much baggage was seen piled on river banks. Were strafed by order of controller. Number of people hit unknown. Some had uniforms on."
_"Strafed sand bar in river where people and foxholes were seen. People appeared to be evacuees."
_"Strafed white-shirted group in the hills just south of highway causing them to scatter and inflicting numerous casualties."
Besides attacks on tanks and trucks of the advancing enemy, the debriefings tell of strafings and rocketings of fishing boats, houses, schools and entire villages in South Korea. Sometimes controllers assigned the targets, sometimes apparently not.
The young officers who flew F-80 jets for the 35th Squadron, now mostly retired colonels in their 70s, remember their misgivings.
"It was troubling. It truly was," said Alvin L. Wimer of Salem, Ore., an F-80 pilot traced by the AP. He found he had noted his concerns in
his personal log in 1950, next to a mission on which he and fellow pilots reported they "strafed 25 personnel in white civilian clothing crossing river."
"Twice we were directed to strafe these people who were dressed like civilians," Wimer said after reviewing reports on a half-dozen of his missions. "Now whether they were (civilians) or not, we have no way of knowing."
In the war's first weeks, rumors about infiltrators dressed in white "were floating around our operations ready room," he recalled.
"Sometimes we never really did know for sure, because the enemy could wear white," ex-pilot Ralph G. Hall, of Leander, Texas, said of their targets.
Robert H. Dewald said pilots were briefed to be careful to distinguish between civilians and enemy troops, but it's "very likely" refugees were strafed.
The ex-pilot specifically recalled one white-clad group in a dry riverbed. "We very well may have shot at them," said Dewald, of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
The fuel-guzzling F-80 jets, in their first combat tryout, were flying long distances from Japan and often could spare only minutes in the target area. Dropping from 30,000 feet, the 400-mph jets depended on prop-driven controller planes at low altitudes to direct them.
But the 35th Squadron's commander in 1950 said he didn't always accept the judgment of controllers, code-named "Mosquitoes."
"I know one time a Mosquito pilot directed me to go in, but I could just tell by looking that it looked more like refugees than anything else, and I just refused to do it," said retired Col. Ray Lancaster of Stephenville, Texas.
The Mosquito unit report for July 1950 said the controllers, sometimes handling 16 fighters at once, lacked good maps and often didn't know friendly from enemy territory.
"We were ill-prepared to fight that war," said the 35th Squadron's Herman Son. "Not only in terms of equipment and personnel, but we didn't have a system and communications network to control and coordinate air and ground operations."
Ex-Mosquito pilot George F. Kroman of Cheyenne, Wyo., remembered the suspicions about "people in white" but said he never targeted them. He added, however, "I'm sure civilians were killed."
American air strikes on South Koreans quietly stirred high-level concern.
A newly declassified 1952 study said a South Korean defense official told the Air Force it should have taken South Korean officers along on combat sorties "to avoid the confusion and destruction caused by mistaken assaults."
The mission reports uncovered by the AP impart "a sense of the chaos and confusion that reigned," said the author of a new book on the Korean air war, West Point historian Lt. Col. Conrad Crane.
Military legal experts note that targeting noncombatants is forbidden by treaties and the customary laws of war, but enforcement was clearly lax in 1950. Duke University's Scott Silliman also said air warfare is a "more ambiguous combat environment" than what faced U.S. soldiers at No Gun Ri, for example.
"You can identify and perceive the difference between combatants and noncombatants more readily when you are on the ground in closer proximity than at 3,000 or 4,000 feet at 500 mph," said Silliman, a retired Air Force colonel.
To Hong Won-ki, however, what happened at Yong-in demands an investigation as much as No Gun Ri.
"I ask you to clarify what happened that tragic day of Jan. 12, 1951," Hong wrote in his Oct. 19 petition to President Clinton. "We need to make sure that this kind of tragedy does not repeat itself."
AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft contributed to this report.
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2000/investigative-reporting/works/AP10.html -
Witnesses Say U.S. Bombs Set Off Cave Inferno, Killed Hundreds
By SANG-HUN CHOE
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -When the American firebombs hit, hundreds of terrified refugees trapped in the cave rushed for the entrance, villagers said. But only a dozen escaped with their lives.
The "Cave of the Crying Stream," its ancient name, was filled that day with the cries of the dying, they recalled.
Survivors and other witnesses said as many as 300 civilian refugees were killed in the U.S. air attack at the cavern near Youngchoon, 90 miles southeast of Seoul, on Jan. 20, 1951, in the seventh month of the Korean War.
The victims were local villagers and refugees from elsewhere taking shelter in the 150-yard-long cave, named for the sound made by a stream that flows through it during monsoon rains. Declassified U.S. military documents show that American pilots sometimes attacked civilian-clad groups in South Korea on suspicion they harbored enemy infiltrators.
South Korean refugees poured into the Youngchoon area in January 1951 as a Chinese offensive pushed U.S. and South Korean forces deeper into South Korea. An official U.S. military history indicates the Chinese front line was several miles north of Youngchoon at the time.
In the dim light of kerosene lamps, the refugees had spread straw mats on the cave floor and huddled there with their luggage. People occasionally moved outside to prepare food. Children dashed in and out to play. From a nearby hill, Kim Ok-yi, then 25, saw an observer plane circling over the cave entrance. Then four American planes flew in and dropped bombs that "looked like fuel drums and sent columns of fire soaring when exploded," Kim said.
They may have been napalm, gasoline-gel bombs heavily used by U.S. forces in the Korean conflict.
The fire quickly spread inside, survivors said, and smoke reeking of gasoline filled the cave. People stampeded toward the narrow entrance. Parents shouted for their children. "People fell over each other. Most of them suffocated," said Cho Byong-woo, then 19. Cho was saved when his father threw him over the fire at the entrance, but he lost two uncles in the cave.
People rushing outside were then strafed by the planes, Cho said.
"An 11-year-old friend of mine, Kang-won, was running with his mother. Then a big bullet hit him. It cut his hand off and slashed his stomach like a razor. His bowels spilled out and he died on the spot," Cho said.
In an unexplained postscript, two American soldiers arrived by helicopter two or three weeks later, went inside the cave and took some photographs, villagers said.
After the bombing, local people pulled out bodies to look for family members. But most bodies remained inside, unclaimed. "When we had floods, we used to see skeletal human remains floating out of the cave," Kim said. "Those who died the tragic death in the cave are still waiting for an explanation
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2000/investigative-reporting/works/AP11.html -
'Kill 'em All': American Military Conduct in the Korean WarBy Jeremy Williams
In September 1999 an investigative team from the Associated Press broke a story that shocked America. Fifty years before, they claimed, refugees caught up in the Korean War were shot and strafed by US forces. Jeremy Williams explores the repercussions of a brutal episode in Cold War history
The Forgotten War
The Korean War was a bloody conflict. It left Korea, North and South, with several million dead and the UN forces involved in the fighting with over 100,000 casualties. But despite fighting as intense and as violent as any other conflict since World War Two, Korea has always been history's 'Forgotten War'.
'...US commanders repeatedly, and without ambiguity, ordered forces under their control to target and kill Korean refugees caught on the battlefield.'
While atrocities conducted both by North and South Korean forces have already been documented, recently a much darker side to the US involvement in the Korean War has begun to emerge. It casts a shadow over the conduct of US forces during the conflict, particularly of officers and generals in command. Declassified military documents recently found in the US National Archives show clearly how US commanders repeatedly, and without ambiguity, ordered forces under their control to target and kill Korean refugees caught on the battlefield. More disturbing still have been the published testimonies of Korean survivors who recall such killings, and the frank accounts of those American veterans brave enough to admit involvement.
Since the original AP report, more documents detailing refugee 'kill' orders have been unearthed at the US national archives. They point to the widespread targeting of refugees by commanders well after No Gun Ri. In August 1950 there were orders detailing that refugees crossing the Naktong River be shot. Later in the same month, General Gay, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division (of which the 7th Cavalry Regiment involved at No Gun Ri was part), actually ordered artillery units to target civilians on the battlefield. And as late as January 1951, the US 8th Army was detailing all units in Korea that refugees be attacked with all available fire including bombing.
Detail from US military instructions New allegations have also emerged of the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Korea. In August 1950, 80 civilians are reported to have been killed while seeking sanctuary in a shrine by the village of Kokaan-Ri, near Masan in South Korea. Other survivors recall 400 civilians killed by US naval artillery on the beaches near the port of Pohang in September 1950, and dozens of villages across southern South Korea report the repeated low-level strafing by US planes of 'people in white' during July and August 1950. A total of 61 separate incidents involving the killing of civilians by US forces are now logged with the South Korean authorities.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/coldwar/korea_usa_01.shtml
A good long read of 8 pages... press next to view each page at the site's bottom. -
what is important is what did you see first!! To those who were brought up with western education, influenced by western media, watching hollywood movies, the red indians are always savages, the communists are always barbarous, the east is mysterious, the west the civilized.....so how can the american commit atrocities???Originally posted by Fatum:One thing I have to say though, people only see what they want to believe ...
the internet is a fantastic tool of course, but you'll only see what you want to see, deep down, ... and you'll filter out the rest ...
they say photographs tells a thousand words ... but how true is that ? ... there's always both sides to a story ...
take, for example, some of the most iconic pictures of the nanking massacre, some of which has been exposed as posed pictures ...
of the most famous picture of the vietnam war ... the one with a south vietnamese colonel executing a captured viet cong officer on the streets ? ... how it has been revealed, years too late, that the viet cong officer was actually a blood thirsty prick responsible for many atrocities and murder ? ...
you can google all of the above to convince yourself of course.
there is no right or wrong in War ... both sides have their own shades of truth ...
People also want to play down the atrocities committed by their allies, for they need them against a common enemy. Did Nanking Massacre occur??? If thousands of pictures, records from both sides could be presented as proof of the event, should a few posed pictures make any difference to the facts? it is true that those who don't want to believe will not believe.
It is not about right or wrong in war, atrocities and massacre committed under any circumstance can never be right.
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Which is why it's dangerous to be even slightly dependent on western forces for our defences. In their own words "Them gooks all look alike so let's just shoot them all." "American-worshippers" best take note of this point.
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hmmm..i just wanna bookmark this thread so i can read this next time.
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No, Russia was then one. China was only involved when the UN had advanced near the Yalu river. China has in fact informed the UN of it's intention if the UN reached a certain distance from the chinese border. Because they knew Gen MacArthur had every intention of invading china.
I probably got my facts wrong. But I clearly remembered China being involved in this war. Not quite sure for Russia. -
As I said it was the Russian who is the one aiding and abetting the NK prior to the war. However, Russian did nothing went NK invaded the south.Originally posted by ndmmxiaomayi:I probably got my facts wrong. But I clearly remembered China being involved in this war. Not quite sure for Russia.
When the UN was nearing the Yalu river, Russian assured China that they would intervene and get involved. However, when China did waded across and attacked the UN and pushed them back to the 38th line. Russian did nothing but provide air defense at the China border called the "Mig Alley" by the Americans. Therefore, amazingly, the china pushed back a more advance and numerical superior forces... all with only WWI rifles and mortars. No tanks, air cover in Korean air space or arty support at all. That's why Sino-Russia was smucked bottom after the korean war.
I have watched some american propaganda films and I was amazed that the american actually blamed the Chinese for the totally flatten cities, villages and towns. Clearly the chinese and NK forces do not posseses bombers and napalms.. and that generally the american bombers do even need fighter escorts.. that carpet bombed the cities and towns to nothing standing... totally destroyed. American propaganda is truly scary... they would feed the public with half truth.. then air it constantly... sudden experts everywhere giving learnt opinions. after afew months of media bombardments, many people starts to think that american enemies are equal to the world's enemies, even though nothing is proven... like eerrr.. Iran. -
These are just from the western sites, BTW many interesting sites have become ip blocked and closed. Even an Australian site have some of their photo removed.. but luckily their cache remained.Originally posted by Obersturmfuhrer:Which is why it's dangerous to be even slightly dependent on western forces for our defences. In their own words "Them gooks all look alike so let's just shoot them all." "American-worshippers" best take note of this point.
The woman was shoot by UN on their advance into Nth Korea.. taken by a reporter. I'm sure PLA and NK forces were not near for this photo to be taken. If you go to the main site you will not fing this photo.
if you go to South Korean sites and read thru the korean survivor's testimony .. you will understand why many koreans are rather anti-american and wants then out. Damn descriptive and vivid. But under UN accord the US are entitled to remain and take control of the korean Forces if war erupts.
I don't understand how anyone can stand the the cries and screaming of women and children in bombs shelters, when petroleum pour into the ventilation pipes....? Can you imagine... and what did most GI answered.. they did not sign the Geneva Convention yet came most replies ? I think the Nazi's also did not sign and they were accountable... Sorry, I don't mean the US are Nazis, but I just can't see the difference in method. -
With have DPROK's embassy here?!?! I thought they only have 1 in Beijing?
whats the address? maybe next time can get visa visit N. Korea...
Heard its damn nice scenery cos untouched but cannot anyhow take pictures...
Communist country whaddaya expect... but hey it'll be nice to go to a mysterious land!
All i have to say is, those westerners are also a bunch of idiots la okay... always people tweak the truth a little, its always up to the 3rd party to decide who is right and who is wrong. its just that sadly, the victors get to punish the losers or in the Korean wars' case, the western cos they have more media power.
IMHO i think americans are a piece of shit too. Look beyond the things that they have done. Dont you all think that certain things happened because of the americans?
again it is never 1 sides fault. It always takes 2 hands to clap. so judge for yourself. -
I just read one book written by an American who commandered units at platoon, company and battalion levels in Korea. (Actually all the books I read on Korea were written by Americans except one which detailed the Australian involvement - Diggers in Korea or something.)
The book title is "THIS KIND OF WAR", The CLassic Korean War History written by TR FEHRENBACH. This is the best book so far out of about 5 books I have read on Korea.
I liked the last book best because it offered a more objective view of the war instead of Americans this and Americans that... In fact, I would love to read a book written by Koreans from both sides about the war. The ROK for example, suffered many times the casualties of the Americans yet we hear scant mention of their efforts. Even accounts of the other Allies' involvement are rare. Judging from the ferocious nature of Koreans in general, I am keen to read of their battles.
This book however, only made some passing remarks that the ROK were very formidable fighters but poorly-armed by the Americans - no tanks, old rifles etc - and not well led. He also mentioned that the Turks were very brave warriors often fighting to the last man aginst overwhelming Chinese attacks.
The author also said the often used term of "human wave" attacks to describe PLA assaults is wrong as the term gave the impression of brainless sacrifice aginst heroic Americans with superior firepower.
In fact, the PLA commanders were often brilliant strategists who fought well against the overwhelming firepower of the Allies. And the average PLA soldier was found to be healthy, well-fed, well-trained, highly disciplined and highly-motivated. The so-called human wave attacks were unfortunate necessity because the PLA were operating far from home with limited arty support and few tanks.And these coordinated infantry assaults were often successful especially early on in the PLA's involvement.
And the high ground held by the Allies were often inaccessible to tanks as the troops literally had to climb up the ridges to get overrun the Allies.
Only the NKPA had tanks - T-34. As far as I can remember, the PLA brought none as their logistics were not so good.
Though the book wasn't specifically about the PLA, he mentioned many instances where PLA medics treated wounded Americans after a successful ambush - even though they had scant mdeical supplies. After treatment, the wounded were left there for their own US troops to find as the PLA did not have the capacity to take non-walking wounded as POWs.
American POWs were also well treated. In fact they were so well treated that in one camp they formed a powerful grouping to protest and pressure the camp authorites for all kinds of improvements.
One unfortunate account was that American POWs often suffered malnutrition. But the author explained that this was because what was enough for an Asian was not enough for an American. And being a famine ridden country at that time, China found it ridiculous that their POWs have to be fed better than her own fighting troops.
After the said protests, POW rations were actually increased.
Of course atrocities occurred on all sides.
The PLA feared incendiary grenades (I think WP) and often made loud hailer broadcasts to Allied troops that anyone caught with such weapons will have one stuffed down his trousers and ignited. And they kept true to their words.
Overall, the author rated the fighting abilities of the PLA highly. Entire battalions were able to stayed completely undetectable by air in areas with only shrub cover. They fought bravely and were generally more humane compared to North Koreans.
Therefore, allied troops were more ready to surrender to the PLA and not the North Koreans, who would not juust surely kill them, but killed them brutally.
But Koreans on both sides are brutal. Therefore, it is not unusal that civilians suffered from all sides in such a war with brutality being so commonplace.
The ROK again demonstrated their cruelty when they were sent to South Vietnam. Their brutal killing and torture of South Vietnamese people and fighters were so bad that their AO was the only one completely free of communist activities. The cure worst than the disease.
Most insightful, was the author's description of the US Army in the peacful period between WW2 and Korea. He mentioned that many joined the army after WW2 thinking that it's gonna be a cruise career as all the bad guys had been defeated. So the peacetime US army that entered the Korean War was completely made up of people with the wrong ideas about soldiering. It was only when more and more WW2 veterans came back into the forces and that new training demands made on new US troops that the US finally turned the the tide.
Initial US troops when first faced with PLA assaults actually broke ranks and fled.
Do read the book. Very gripping guts and blood stuff but also a lot of very insightful accounts and many different angles. -
More on the little known Korean war articles....
The Unknown Truth About Korea: U.S. Sanctioned Death Squads and War Crimes, 1945-1953
Excerpts
The mostly unknown record of the brutal U.S. occupation and subsequent control of Korea following the Japanese defeat in August 1945, and the voluminous number of war crimes committed between 1950 and 1953, have been systematically hidden under mountains of accusations directed almost solely against the "red menace" of northern Korea. The Korean War itself grew out of U.S. refusal to allow a genuine self-determination process to take root. The Korean people were exuberant in August 1945 with their new freedom after being subjected to a brutal 40-year Japanese occupation of their historically undivided Peninsula. They immediately began creating local democratic peoples' committees the day after Japan announced on August 14 its intentions to surrender. By August 28, all Korean provinces had created local peoples' offices and on September 6 delegates from throughout the Peninsula gathered in Seoul, at which time they created the Korean People's Republic (KPR)
The United States had a different plan for Korea. At the February 1945 Yalta conference, President Roosevelt suggested to Stalin, without consulting the Koreans, that Korea should be placed under joint trusteeship following the war before being granted her independence. On August 11, two days after the second atomic bomb was dropped assuring Japan's imminent surrender, and three days after Russian forces entered Manchuria and Korea to oust the Japanese as was agreed to avoid further U.S. casualties, Truman hurriedly ordered his War Department to choose a dividing line for Korea. Two young colonels, Dean Rusk (later to be Secretary of State under President's Kennedy and Johnson during the Vietnam War) and Charles H. Bonesteel, were given 30 minutes to resolve the matter. The 38th parallel was quickly, and quietly, chosen, placing the historic capital city of Seoul and 70 percent, or 21 of Korea's 30 million people in the "American" southern zone. This was not discussed with Stalin or any other political leaders in the U.S. or among our allies. Surprisingly, Stalin agreed to this "temporary" partition that meant the Russians already present in the country would briefly occupy the territory north of the line comprising 55 percent of the peninsular land area. On August 15, the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was formed and on September 8, 72,000 U.S. troops began arriving to enforce the formal occupation of the south.
With total U.S. support Rhee busily prepared for a politically division of Korea involuntarily imposed on the vast majority of the Korean people. Following suppression of the October-December insurrection, the Koreans began to form guerrilla units in early 1947. There were sporadic activities for a year or so. However, in March 1948, on Korea's large Island, Cheju, a demonstration objecting to Rhee's planned separate elections scheduled for May 1948 was fired upon by the KNP. A number of Koreans were injured and several were tortured, then killed. This incident provoked a dramatic escalation of armed resistance to the U.S./Rhee regime. The police state went into full force, regularly guided by U.S. military advisors, and often supported by U.S. military firepower and occasional ground troops. On the Island of Cheju alone, within a year as many as 60,000 of its 300,000 residents had been murdered, while another 40,000 fled by sea to nearby Japan. Over 230 of the Island's 400 villages had been totally scorched with 40,000 homes burned to the ground. As many as 100,000 people were herded into government compounds. The remainder, it has been reported, became collaborators in order to survive. On the mainland guerrilla activities escalated in most of the provinces. The Rhee/U.S. forces conducted a ruthless campaign of cleansing the south of all dissidents, usually identifying them as "communists," though in fact most popular leaders in the south were socialists unaffiliated with outside "communist" organizations. Anyone who was openly or quietly opposed to the Rhee regime was considered suspect. Therefore massive numbers of villagers and farmers were systematically rounded up, tortured, then shot and dropped into mass graves. Estimates of murdered civilians range anywhere from 200,000 to 800,000 by the time the hot war broke out in June 1950.
The hot war allegedly began at Ongjin about 3 or 4 A.M. (Korean time) June 25, 1950. Just how the fighting started on that day depends on one's source of information. It is mostly irrelevant, since a civil and revolutionary war had been raging for a couple of years, with military incursions routinely moving back and forth across the 38th parallel.
For full article - http://www.brianwillson.com/awoltruthkor.html -
More articles -
Korea, Like Vietnam:
A War Originated and Maintained by Deceit
Excerpts
Everything we learned about Vietnam had its forerunner in Korea: U.S. support of a corrupt, tyrannical ruler; regular atrocities; mass slaughter of civilians; torture and imprisonment of dissidents not assassinated; cities and many agricultural areas bombed to total destruction; intense and calculated management of the news about the war; and consistent sabotaging of peace talks throughout the war's duration. Earlier suppressed reports of atrocities committed by U.S. ground and air forces were re-affirmed in 1999 by eyewitness accounts of Korean survivors and American military veterans who had been ordered to kill large numbers of civilians, as well as declassified U.S. Air Force documents. In one case some 2,000 Korean civilians were forced into an open mountain area near Yongdong and slaughtered from the air. In other cases hundreds of civilian refugees were blown up as they fled across detonated bridges or machine-gunned as they sought protection under viaducts
The death and destruction inflicted, especially in the northern part of the Peninsula, defies imagination. It is now believed that more than four million people died in the war, perhaps as many as three million of whom were from the North of a population, at the time, of about nine million.
All major cities, about five dozen, were totally destroyed in the North by U.S. airpower. At the beginning of the war, U.S. General Curtis LeMay asked the Pentagon "to turn SAC [Strategic Air Command] loose with incendiaries" on North Korea. Though Truman rejected such a blitzkrieg, SAC was ultimately authorized to bomb urban and rural areas anyway, "piecemeal." Most villages were destroyed as well, especially if they were "suspected of aiding the enemy." Most dams and dikes were destroyed, wiping out most rice crops. Saturation bombing and scorched earth policies were commonly used throughout the war. U.S. extensively used napalm in Korea long before it became a household word in Vietnam. There is growing evidence to support North Korea's accusations that substantial germ and biological warfare was utilized during 1952 bombings as some U.S. pilots had originally confessed while in captivity. Over a period of about three years, LeMay remarked: "We killed off - what - twenty percent of the population of North Korea." The truth is that the figure may be a staggering one third of its population. In summary, the war wreaked destruction hardly equaled in the worst battles of World War II in Europe. It has left bitter memories.
"We slipped a note...under the door into the Pentagon and said, 'Look, let us go up there...and burn down five of the biggest towns in North Korea -- and they're not very big -- and that ought to stop it.' Well, the answer to that was four or five screams -- 'You'll kill a lot of noncombatants!' -- and 'It's too horrible!' Yet over a period of three years or so...we burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too....Now, over a period of three years this is palatable, but to kill a few people to stop this from happening -- a lot of people can't stomach it."
--Former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay
"One usually hears that the Army never attacks North Korea and is always getting attacked. This is not true. Mostly our Army is doing the attacking first and we attack harder. Our troops feel stronger."
--Col. Min Ki Sik, Assistant Commandant of the Korean School
of Arms and a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School
For full article - http://www.brianwillson.com/awolkorea.html -
Excerpts- Summary Report of U.S. Veterans Delegation to Korea, August 2 - 9, 2001, a project of the Korea Truth Commission (KTC) planned with members of Veterans For Peace (VFP). Yoomi Jeong, Deputy Secretary General, Korea Truth Commission, served as guide and translator. (with Americans war veterans)
Our delegation traveled 1,350 ground miles to Kwangju (South Cholla Province) and to Chinju, Masan, Hamanhn, Eryung, Changnyung, Pusan, Ulsan, Kyongsang, and Taegu (each in South Kyongsang Province). We visited 12 representative sites at which massacres were committed in 1950-51 by U.S. forces, or South Korean paramilitary and military units under the command of U.S. forces, meeting many of the survivors and receiving extensive, riveting testimony from more than two dozen witnesses. Several of these sites have only recently been revealed, including: (1) a rugged mountain location near Kwangju where reportedly a biological (mycotoxin T-2?) or chemical (gas or herbicide?) warfare agent (a "whitish powder" or mist sprayed from light planes) was used causing a dark skin discoloration prior to killing several hundred villagers in the fall of 1951, suggesting death from a type of hemorrhagic fever; (2) a newly discovered second Japanese mine near Kyongsang that served as a depository for hundreds of bodies; (3) the Jin Chi Ryung railroad tunnel near Chinju; and (4) the Wonbuk railroad tunnel near Masan. These latter two tunnels, where civilians were murdered in the summer of 1950, are 90 miles from the now famous No Gun Ri railroad viaduct massacre site.
Full report and image description - http://www.brianwillson.com/awolrevkor.html -
Korea War; Germ Warfare in South Korea?
Excerpts
By the time the Korean "hot" war started, the U.S. already had an operational biological weapons system. In June 1950, prior to the June 25 date used for the start of the war, the Ad Hoc Committee on Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Warfare recommended construction of a new biological warfare production facility, implementation of field tests of biological warfare agents and munitions, and expansion of biological warfare research. By the fall of 1950 advanced testing had begun at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah and a production facility was constructed at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. By July 1951, the U.S. was testing anti-animal biological agents at Eglin Air Force base in Florida.
Also, at the time the Korean War broke out, the Far East Command's Medical Unit 406 included departments of epidemiology, bacteriology, entomology, and viral and rickettsial diseases. Their work required large quantities of small animals -- 20,000 monthly -- for the testing and manufacture of biological agents. Experiments extended beyond Japan to Okinawa and Korea. The Unit 406 was always rumored to be the cover for the integration of Ishii's germ warfare program into the U.S. program after the immunity agreement. Unit 406 scientists were already working on hemorrhagic fever in 1951 before Korea's first fatal case of the unusual disease was reported in April 1951. There had been no history of hemorrhagic fever in Korea but it had been confirmed in Manchuria in China, the areas controlled by Japan in the1930s and up to her surrender in August 1945. By the spring of 1952 there was an outbreak of the often fatal fever among U.S. troops. The monthly technical report of Unit 406 for August 1951 stated: "New activities relate to studies of a disease heretofore considered Leptospirosis, but resembling that described by Japanese as Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever." That part of the report was preceded by noting that "Work of a classified nature, for security reasons, is reported elsewhere." The classified work referred to has never been identified. This report was issued just prior to the September-October 1951 dates of the spraying of the "white powder" in South Cholla Province as described to our delegation in August 2001.
In October 1951, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) hand-delivered a secret order to General Mathew B. Ridgeway, then commander of all U.N. forces, to start germ warfare on a limited experimental scale in Korea. In December 1951, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett ordered that "actual readiness be achieved in the earliest practicable time" for offensive use of biological weapons. The First Marine Air Wing operating under the direction of the Fifth Air Force carried out the secret missions. The U.S. had a number of CIA operatives in North Korea and China collecting data on the effectiveness of the germ warfare program. If uncovered, the U.S. was to fall back on the fact that it had not ratified the 1925 Geneva Protocol on biological warfare, and had not participated in the 1907 Hague Convention that outlawed chemical weapons.
An early study examined the allegations of the use by the United States of bacteriological and chemical weapons in Korea. The Commission of International Association of Democratic Lawyers' Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea, March 31, 1952, concluded that the U.S. used both germ ("deliberate dispersion of flies and other insects artificially infected with bacteria, with the intention of spreading death and disease") and chemical ("use of poison gas bombs and other chemical substances") warfare against both civilians and combatants in North Korea. Established at the September 1951 Berlin Congress of the Association, the Commission consisted of eight lawyers, one each from Austria, Italy, Great Britain, France, China, Belgium, Brazil, and Poland. The Association had been prompted by a Report of the Committee of the Women's International Democratic Federation in Korea, May 16-27, 1951, an international commission of 22 women from18 countries (including Canada and 7 Western European nations) that found systematic war crimes by a number of means were being committed by U.S. forces and South Korean forces under the command of the U.S., though it did not specifically discuss use of bacteriological or chemical weapons.
China convened its own international study, Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare in Korea and China, issued in Peking in 1952, finding significant use by the U.S. of germ warfare.
Of course, the U.S. denied the various allegations and accusations of its use of biological and chemical warfare, and does so to this day. However, thanks to two York University professors in Toronto, Canada, Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, we now have the benefit of their 20-year exhaustive study, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 199
. Carefully researched, their report concludes that the United States experimented with and deployed biological weapons during the Korean War, and that the U.S. government lied both to Congress and the U.S. public in saying that its biological warfare program was purely defensive (for retaliation only). A large and sophisticated offensive biological weapons system had been developed in the post-World War II years, and was used in North Korea. However, their study does not identify any use of germ warfare in South Korea.
Full article/essay - http://www.brianwillson.com/awolgermkor.html -
History of U.S. Sabotage of Korean Peace and Reunification
Long, Long read - very, very detailed history of Korea - a must read
Seemed well researched with references
Examples of war crimes from the air:
Late June-early July 1950, U.S. bombs Pyongyang; over 700 civilians killed, over 100 injured.
July 2, 1950, U.S. bombs Chang-Yun; one civilian killed, 17 injured.
July 5, 1950, U.S. bombs Sok-Cho; 3 civilians killed.
July 11-12, 1950, U.S. bombs Iri train station and adjacent market; hundreds of civilians killed and wounded.
July 14, 1950, U.S. bombs Tong-Chun; 68 civilians killed.
July 19, 1950, U.S. ground forces herd 2,000 civilians into a mountain pass near Youngdong then order bombing by U.S. planes; all civilians believed to have been slaughtered.
July 22, 1950, U.S. bombs Nanam; 227 civilians killed, 177 injured.
July 26, 1950, U.S. bombs Chul-Won; 54 civilians killed.
July 26, 1950, U.S. bombs Sariwon; 107 civilians killed.
July 29, 1950, U.S. bombs Chojang Ri in Konmyong region; 64 civilians killed, 43 injured.
July 1950, U.S. bombs Nampo; 448 civilians killed.
July 1950, U.S. bombs Hwang Hapdo; 48 civilians killed, 27 injured.
July 1950, U.S. bombs Wonsan; 1,847 civilians killed, 2,367 injured.
July 1950, U.S. bombs Hamhung; 297 civilians killed, 446 injured.
August 20, 1950, U.S. bombs Jangji in Kunbuk-myon region; 100 civilians killed, 100 injured.
November 8, 1950, seventy B-29s drop 550 tons of incendiary bombs on Sinuiju along the border with China; Sinuiju virtually eliminated as an inhabitable city.
November 15, 1950, U.S. napalms Hoeryong; virtually total city burned.
By November 25, 1950, a vast amount of territory of the northwest region of North Korea between the Yalu River and southwards toward enemy lines was a "wilderness of scorched earth."
December 14-15, 1950, U.S. drops on Pyongyang 700 (500-lb) bombs, napalm, and 175 tons of delayed-fuse demolition bombs.
January 3-5, General Ridgeway orders the Air Force to burn Pyongyang to the ground with incendiary bombs. U.S. B-29s drop new "Tarzon" bombs on Kanggye. These bombs were 21 feet high and weighed 12,000 pounds. Inflicting enormous damage, they were very inaccurate, and were discontinued.
January 19, 1951, U.S. bombs Sansung Ri and Jinpyong Ri in Bobuk-myon region; 49 civilians killed, 90 injured.
January 20, 1951, U.S. bombs with napalm a 150 yard-long cavern in Youngchoon, 90 miles southeast of Seoul, incinerating 300 civilians who had taken refuge there.
Lunar New Year, 1951, U.S. bombs Cheo Ri in Kumsung-myon region; 17 killed, 21 injured.
Beginning in February 1951, U.S./U.N. warships begin sustained bombardment of the coastal cities of Wonsan, Songjin, and Chongjin that lasting 861 conscutive days, creating a "mass of cluttered ruins," stopping only one minute before the ceasefire hour of 10 p.m. on July 27, 1953.
July-August 1951, more than 10,000 U.S. sorties conduct sustained bombing raids over Pyongyang where the pre-war population of half a million is now reduced to less than 50,000 due to casualties from bombing and attempted emigration to rural areas. Cities such as Hamhung, Chongjin, and Wonsan along the eastern coast on the Sea of Japan, and Sinuiju on the Yalu River bordering with China, are hit as well. Rural villages and surrounding areas carpet bombed as well.
August 15, 1951, Korean Liberation Day, U.S. initiates "Operation Strangle," a relentless bombing campaign intended to sever the Peninsula at the Yalu and Tumen Rivers, and to exhaust the population. From August 1951 to April 1952, the U.S. air forces (Marines, Navy, and Fifth and Twentieth Air Forces) fly more than 90,000 sorties against hundreds of rail lines with their locomotives and trains, bridges, and highways (claiming destruction of nearly 35,000 trucks). Napalm, fragmentation, and incendiary bombs are dropped on virtually anything that moves, including horse and push carts, as well as all buildings and shelters that might function as storage depots. Note: By early 1952, virtually everything in northern and central Korea has been levelled.
June 23, 1952, U.S. bombs 11 hydroelectric plants along the Yalu bordering China, including the 4 most vital dams and power systems in North Korea, for example the huge Suping dam that supplied most of North Korea's power and some of China's as well, depriving North Korea of much of their electrical power for the remainder of the war. Simultaneously, the U.S. attacks numerous factories and mines.
Beginning July 11-12, 1952, continuing through August, U.S. bombers are joined by war planes from Australia, South Africa, and South Korea in carrying out new sustained saturation bombings and burning campaigns on Pyongyang and 77 other North Korean cities and towns; thousands killed. The civilian population of Pyongyang is substantially reduced further to about 40,000. On August 29, 1,403 sorties are involved, dropping 2,700 gallons of napalm "with excellent results" and 697 tons of bombs, with 62,000 rounds of ammunition expended to strafe at low levels.
September 1952, U.S. bombs oil refineries at Rashin near the border with Russia.
May 13-16, 1953, U.S. bombs 5 irrigation dams that supply water for most of the country's rice affecting the cities of Pyongyang, Chasan, and Toksan. Subsequent flooding significantly damages Pyongyang as well as the nation's rice production. Countless numbers of civilians killed from the flooding (number unknown). This is precisely the kind of war crime for which the Allies had condemned the Germans when they bombed the dikes in Holland in 1945. Many of the bombs dropped in Korea were of the delayed-action variety, timed to detonate anywhere from one to forty-eight hours after impact. Thus, repair crews operated not knowing when they, too, would be killed or injured from these delayed explosions.
Examples of war crimes on the ground (sometimes supported by aerial bombings):
July 11, 1950, Euisan; 54 civilians killed, 300 injured.
July 26-29, 1950, Nogun Ri; several hundred civilians killed. (In August 2000, I personally took testimony from survivors in this village).
August 2, 1950, Sa-Chun; 54 civilians killed, 57 injured. (In May 2000, I personally took testimony from survivors in this village.)
August 3, 1950, Yeh-Kwan-Kyo; several hundred civilians killed and injured.
August 3, 1950, Go-Ryung; several hundred civilians killed and injured.
August 3, 1950, U.S. forces detonate the Tuksong and Waegwan bridges crossing the Naktong River, twenty-five miles apart, hundreds of civilians fleeing on the bridges at the time are killed.
August 10-11, 1950, Ma-San; 83 civilians killed. (In May 2000, I personally took testimony from survivors in this village.)
August 21, 1950, Life Magazine reports that U.S. officers ordered soldiers to shoot at clusters of civilians.
August 20-22, 1950, Eui-Ryung; 73 civilians killed, 50 injured. (In May 2000, I personally took testimony from survivors in this village.)
August 1950, 15 days of ground shooting supported by bombings, Chung Gi Ri in Ham-Ahn county; 170 civilians killed, 200 injured. (In May 2000, I personally took testimony from survivors in this village.)
August 25, 1950, Chang Ryung; 60 civilians killed, 20 injured. (In May 2000, I personally took testimony from survivors in this village.)
September 28, 1950, Kumjung Cave in Ilsan, 170 skeletal remains to date. (In August 2000, I personally took testimony from survivors in this village).
September 1950, General MacArthur re-imposes the Rhee regime. A U.S. Embassy official estimated that "probably more than 100,000 civilians were killed by Rhee officials in the South" after September, often with the direct knowledge or assistance of U.S. military. One day in February 1951 in Kochang a massacre took place with some 600 civilians herded into a ditch and murdered with machine guns.
October 17 - December 7, 1950, for 52 days U.S. forces occupy the city of Sinchon, 50 miles southwest of Pyongyang. Over 35,000 civilians are systematically slaughtered, several thousand are burned to death when herded into enclosed shelters and ignited with gasoline.
January 19, 1951, Yeh-Chun; 49 civilians killed, 90 injured.
January 20, 1951, Dan-Yang; 300 civilians killed.
[Note: This list is to be continued with the receipt of further information from research and new revelations.]
http://www.brianwillson.com/awolkoreahist.html -
The south Korean Sources I wanted to post from are down for a while.. don't know why.. will post them when the connection is stable...
In case, you guys didn't check out the link about vietnam war.. I posted to Fatum.. here it is..
Main site - http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=CompletWSI, where you can click thru the confessions of Vietnam Veterans.
CRAIG. My name is Stephen Craig. I'm 23 years old. I entered the service about two weeks after graduation in 1965. I entered the service after high school in 1965. Went to Vietnam in 1966 to serve with Second Battalion, 5th Marine and served there from September '66 to September '67. When I got out of the service I worked as a laborer. My testimony basically covers the maltreatment of prisoners, the suspects actually, and a convoy running down an old woman with no reason at all--no provocation or anything. And bounties were put on our own men in our own companies if they were inadequate in the field. And they were either disposed of, or wounded, or something to this effect just to make sure they were taken away. I was a Pfc. in the service.
MODERATOR. We're going to allow everybody to speak first and after that the press will be allowed to ask questions.
SACHS. My name is Rusty Sachs. I entered the Marine Corps in 1964 after working as a news broadcaster for a network radio station. I was a helicopter pilot. I came out as a Captain. I was in Vietnam with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 362 as a medivac pilot from August of '66 to September of '67 and my testimony concerns the leveling of villages for no valid reason, throwing Viet Cong suspects from the aircraft after binding and gagging them with copper wire, and racism in the assignment of priorities to medical evacuations where white people were given priority over nonwhite people.
CAMILE. My name is Scott Camile. I was a Sgt. attached to Charley 1/1. I was a forward observer in Vietnam. I went in right after high school and I'm a student now. My testimony involves burning of villages with civilians in them, the cutting off of ears, cutting off of heads, torturing of prisoners, calling in of artillery on villages for games, corpsmen killing wounded prisoners, napalm dropped on villages, women being raped, women and children being massacred, CS gas used on people, animals slaughtered, Chieu Hoi passes rejected and the people holding them shot, bodies shoved out of helicopters, tear-gassing people for fun and running civilian vehicles off the road.
CAMPBELL. My name is Kenneth J. Campbell. I'm 21. I'm a Philadelphia resident. I was a Corporal in the Marine Corps. I was an FO, Forward Artillery Scout Observer. I FO'd for Bravo Company, First Battalion, First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division. I was in Vietnam from February of '68 to March of '69. I went straight into the Marine Corps from high school and I am now a student at Temple University in Philadelphia. My testimony will consist of eyewitnessing and participating in the calling in of artillery on undefended villages, mutilation of bodies, killing of civilians, mistreatment of civilians, mistreatment of prisoners and indiscriminate use of artillery, harassment and interdiction fire.
SIMPSON. My name is Chris Simpson. Age 21; of New York. I was a Corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps from '66 to '70. I was in Vietnam from '67 to '68. I'll be talking about maltreating of prisoners, destruction of villages, crops and animals. I was attached to Echo Company, Second Battalion, 5th Marines.
OLIMPIERI. My name is Paul Olimpieri. I entered the Marine Corps about nine months after graduating high school. I was in 1st Battalion, 5th Marines in Vietnam and my testimony is on killing civilians and killing livestock and destroying villages.
NIENKE. My name is Fred Nienke. I joined the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school in 1966. I went to Vietnam and was assigned to Delta, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. My testimony includes killing of non-combatants, destruction of Vietnamese property and livestock, use of chemical agents and the use of torture in interpreting prisoners.
BISHOP. My name is David Bishop. I was attached to Hotel Company Two Five. Before I went into the Marine Corps I was a lab technician. I'm still a lab technician. My testimony is going to consist of my skipper, or my captain, killing prisoners, throwing heat tablets or trioxylene gas to children, four NVA nurses that were captured--were POWs--were raped, tortured and then were completely destroyed--their bodies were destroyed--and free fire zones and health problems in Vietnam.
BANGERT. My name is Joe Bangert. I'm a Philadelphia resident. I enlisted in the Marine Corps for four years in 1967. I went to Vietnam in 1968. My unit in Vietnam was Marine Observation Squadron Six with the First Marine Air Wing and my testimony will cover the slaughter of civilians, the skinning of a Vietnamese woman, the type of observing our squadron did in Vietnam and the crucifixion of Vietnamese either suspects or civilians in Vietnam.
BRONAUGH. My name is Jack Bronaugh. I joined the Marine Corps about six months after getting out of high school. I was 18 years of age at the time. I enlisted for four years. I went to Vietnam in February of '68. I served with Echo Battery 213 attached to 2nd Battalion, 27th Marines. Mainly my testimony is about the indiscriminate murder of, in a sense, civilian women and children, torture of prisoners for fun and other reasons.
KENNY. Michael Kenny. Joined the Marine Corps at the age of 17 in '68. Served in Vietnam '69-'70, Second Battalion, 26th Marines. My testimony mainly concerns the maltreatment and murder of Vietnamese non-combatants and the general maltreatment of the civilian population.
DELAY. My name is Kevin Delay. I entered the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school. I served in Vietnam with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines from October 1969 to March 1970. My testimony concerns the falsification of body count reports.
ECKERT. My name is Ted Eckert. I'm 21 years old and I'm a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. I entered the Marine Corps in March 1968 and was sent to Nam July of the following year. I was attached to Marine Wing Support Group 17, 1st Marine Air Wing. My testimony deals with harassment fire from the air, burning of villages from the air, and black marketeering in Da Nang itself. -
CAMILE. We'd throw the heat tabs in because it was quicker and they'd keep burning. They couldn't put the heat tabs out. We'd throw them on top of the houses. People cut off ears and when they'd come back in off of an operation you'd make deals before you'd go out and like for every ear you cut off someone would buy you two beers, so people cut off ears. The torturing of prisoners was done with beatings and I saw one case where there were two prisoners. One prisoner was staked out on the ground and he was cut open while he was alive and part of his insides were cut out and they told the other prisoner if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know they would kill him. And I don't know what he said because he spoke in Vietnamese but then they killed him after that anyway.
CAMILE. He never said not to or never said anything about it. The main thing was that if an operation was covered by the press there were certain things we weren't supposed to do, but if there was no press there, it was okay. I saw one case where a woman was shot by a sniper, one of our snipers. When we got up to her she was asking for water. And the Lt. said to kill her. So he ripped off her clothes, they stabbed her in both breasts, they spread-eagled her and shoved an E- tool up her vagina, an entrenching tool, and she was still asking for water. And then they took that out and they used a tree limb and then she was shot.
CAMILE. It wasn't like they were humans. We were conditioned to believe that this was for the good of the nation, the good of our country, and anything we did was okay. And when you shot someone you didn't think you were shooting at a human. They were a gook or a Commie and it was okay. And anything you did to them was okay because, like, they would tell you they'd do it to you if they had the chance.
CAMPBELL. The Vietnamese were gooks. We didn't just call the VC or the NVA gooks. All Vietnamese were gooks and they were slant eyes. They were zips. They were Orientals and they were inferior to us. We were Americans. We were the civilized people. We didn't give a ------ about those people.
ECKERT. I think the feeling was pretty wide spread that these people were inferior to us and based on the training we received these people were not looked upon as even humans. If they had slanted eyes they were the enemy and the only good one was a dead one. And that was for the majority of the people in my unit, that was the only way they looked at it. -
BANGERT.He asked me if I would like to accompany him into a village that I was familiar with to see how they act. So I went with him and when we got there the ARVNs had control of the situation. They didn't find any enemy but they found a woman with bandages. So she was questioned by six ARVNs and the way they questioned her, since she had bandages, they shot her. She was hit about twenty times. After she was questioned, and, of course, dead, this guy came over, who was a former major, been in the service for twenty years, and he got hungry again and came back over working with USAID, Aid International Development. He went over there, ripped her clothes off and took a knife and cut, from her vagina almost all the way up, just about up to her breasts and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them out. Then, he stopped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there as a sign for something or other and that was those instances.
KENNY. When a body was found, the general procedure was that if the body didn't have a weapon it was a Viet Cong suspect. If a weapon could be planted on it, it became a Viet Cong and if the body had any other equipment other than a weapon, that is any piece of uniform or other equipment, it became a North Vietnamese and this was the general criterion that our battalion used to discriminate.
SIMPSON. Me myself, I think it's pretty usual over there. Cause you'll be out in the bush and you'll meet women out on the trails. And the Marines over there, just like the Army and the Navy, are human. But they just don't go about it the right way--they might stick a rifle in a woman's head and say, "Take your clothes off." That's the way it's done over there. Cause they're not treated as human beings over there, they're treated as dirt.
BANGERT. Yeah, I think that in regards to women in Vietnam, first of all, you get this feeling sometimes when you're over there that you don't even think of their sex. This is really disgusting. You don't even think of them as human beings, they're "gooks." And they're objects; they're not human, they're objects. The general rule was a Vietnamese who is dead is confirmed Viet Cong and one who is living is a Viet Cong suspect. And that's the way it was. Back to this specific instance where I talk about the disembowelment of the women--I think the person involved was a freaked out sexist, if that's what you're trying to get at. I think maybe he had problems. He had to be--he was in the Army for 20 years.
CAMPBELL. A particular way that the people I was with got rid of bodies was on Operation Meade River in November '68. There were some mutilated bodies. The Engineers blew them with C-4. They put 40 pounds of C-4 underneath the bodies and blew them. This was done for kicks; not just to dispose of them, but for kicks, to watch them go up. Another thing, I wasn't given a chance to make this clear earlier and I'd like to make this clear now. When we were showing the policies within the same unit changing--from when Scott Camile was there to when I was there a few months later--I mentioned the fact that things cooled down after the incidents that he explained. But they picked up again about three or four months later. And then came the blowing away of vills and the mutilation of bodies and stuff. All the incidents that I described earlier.
BISHOP. I didn't say it in the testimony, but it's written on my testimony sheet. The operation was Meade River, a very large scale operation. ROK (Korean) Marines were involved, U.S. Marines and Army were involved, and the ARVNs were involved. A cordon was set up outside of Da Nang and a big squeeze was put on right outside the airport. There were quite a few body counts as far as the enemy went. It was something like 1,300. The allies had something like 700 or 800 so-called dead--we never knew. On part of the operation, we had just gotten through making heavy contact and we went through a bunker system. It was a large bunker system and we found hospitals. We came across four NVA nurses that were hiding out in one of the bunkers. They were nurses, we found medical supplies on them and they had black uniforms on. The ROK Marines came up to us and one of their officers asked us if they could have the NVA nurses, that they would take care of them because we were sweeping through the area, and that we couldn't take care of any POWs. So, I imagine, that instead of killing them, we handed them over to the ROK Marines. Well, we were still in the area when the ROK Marines started tying them down to the ground.
They tied their hands to the ground, they spread-eagled them; they raped all four. There was like maybe ten or twenty ROK Marines involved. They tortured them, they sliced off their breasts, they used machetes and cut off parts of their fingers and things like this. When that was over, they took pop-up flares (which are aluminum canisters you hit with your hand; it'll shoot maybe 100-200 feet in the air)--they stuck them up their vaginas--all four of them--and they blew the top of their heads off.
The rest of the incident is here - http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/staticpages/index.php?page=20040315221225656 -
hmm.. is it possible that hantaan fever was an american biological weapon?
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Attrocities happen in every war.
As in every war ever fought it is also easy to get conflicting reports,depending of course on who you happen to be talking to.
However, having had family members who fought in the Korean war and heard some of the stories I can assure you that I would much rather have been a prisoner of the allies than the NK/Chinese.
Of course with Singapore having never fired a bullet in anger and with their total lack of support to their so called friends when it comes to putting troops in the line of fire ( lets face it,internationally the Sing defence forces haven't exactly got the"thru the door first reputation)
you guys have had an easy ride.
Also,if any medium to large force ever decided to blow Singapore into the next century,and anyone who has an inkling of defence matters knows that Singapore itself could do little to stop such an attack!
It would only be the likes of the Americans,Brits,Aussies(do these names sound familiar) that would/could stop it.
So before you start gazing into the past and bagging the allies of the Korean war you would do well to remember that the fate of your little P.O.S island could well lay with the countries that you are trying to demeen. -
You know it's anyones guess. But have you notice that SARS and Bird flu came one after the other and had never reached the US. When WHO requested the US for the base samples of the Spanish Flu (which was very similar with SARS), it was rejected. - For all you know, the genes form the Sample are mutate/culltured from there. And notice SARS just faded away when it reached Canada ?Originally posted by SingaporeMacross:hmm.. is it possible that hantaan fever was an american biological weapon?
Germ Warfare
The secret use of germ warfare in Korea and portions of China in late 1951 and throughout 1952 is described in detail in a twenty-year study by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman published in 1998, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets From the Early Cold War and Korea (Indiana University Press). Endicott and Hagerman thoroughly research the best kept military secret of the large biological warfare (BW) program developed on a crash basis between 1951 and 1953. In December 1951, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert A. Lovett, ordered that "actual readiness be achieved in the earliest practicable time" for offensive use of biological weapons. Two months earlier, in October, after some large U.S./U.N. defeats, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had hand-delivered a secret order to General Mathew B. Ridgeway, then commander of all U.N. forces, to start germ warfare on a limited experimental scale in Korea. A later JCS directive on February 25, 1952 authorized a larger field test. The First Marine Air Wing operating under the direction of the Fifth Air Force carried out the secret missions. The U.S. had a number of CIA officers in North Korea and China collecting data on the effectiveness of the germ warfare program. If uncovered, the U.S. was to fall back on the fact that it had not signed the 1925 Geneva Protocol on biological warfare and had not participated in the 1907 Hague Convention that outlawed chemical weapons.
Advanced biological warfare (BW) was developed in Japan (Unit 731) in occupied China during the 1930s and 1940s under the leadership of Lt. General Shiro Ishii. Following the Japanese defeat in World War II, the U.S. granted immunity to a number of Japanese scientists who were war criminals having conducted extensive biological warfare experiments both on Chinese cities, as well as having murdered more than 3,000 prisoners of war, including some U.S. POWs, in the course of carrying out scientific germ war tests. This immunity was granted in return for their cooperation in sharing their advanced knowledge of biological warfare with the U.S., and explicitly not with the Soviet Union. The U.S. Biological Warfare Laboratories, first established in 1943 at Camp Detrick in Frederick, MD, escalated their research and development of biological warfare using the knowledge from the Japanese researchers. By 1949, the U.S. JCS had biological warfare built into emergency war plans. In fact, the U.S. had an operational biological weapons system when the war started, and it was utilized at the very end of 1951 and throughout much of 1952 in both North Korea and portions of China. By 1952 the U.S. was spending nearly half a billion dollars on its BW program. The U.S. military lied to Congress and the U.S. public in declaring that their biological warfare program was purely defensive and only for retaliation.
This program was similar to Operation Paperclip wherein the U.S. freed thousands of German POWs who had been scientists, doctors, and intelligence agents, granting them annonymity and immunity in return for becoming "employees" for the U.S. during the Cold War against "Communism."
However, it is important to remember that Lord Jeffrey Amherst introduced the use of biological warfare in North America against Indigenous Americans in 1763 during the final battles of what became known in "American" textbooks as the French and Indian War (1754-1763). Amherst, commanding general of the British forces in North America, won victories against the French to acquire Canada for England, making the latter nation the world's chief colonizer at the time. During the summer of 1763, Pontiac, an Ottawa chief who had sided with the French, led an uprising against British forces after the French surrender. Pontiac and his men destroyed a number of British forts. Amherst discussed with several of his officers the use of smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to intentionally infect and "extirpate" the rebellious Indigenous near Fort Pitt, east of present day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Historian Frances Parkman, in his book The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada (Boston: Little, Brown, 1886), reported a resident among the Ottawa Indigenous at Fort Pitt who witnessed that during the following spring "small pox had been raging for some time among them." Other historians reported that the disease spread like wildfire among a number of tribes in addition to the Ottawas, and that the toll was over 100,000 dead. In the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army continued the use of contaminated blankets to control, then eliminate Indigenous Americans, especially those living in the Plains. [See Stearn, E. Wagner, and Allen E. Stearn, The Effects of Smallpox on the Destiny of the American Indian (Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1945)].
It is important to note that the U.S. pattern of using chemical and biological warfare has continued throughout the Twentieth Century. In Vietnam, under President's Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, the U.S. used globally unprecedented amounts of chemical warfare when it sprayed from the air 20 million gallons of various herbicides in concentrations far beyond that even recommended by their seven major manufacturers. Agent Orange pesticide alone destroyed 14 percent of South Vietnam's forests. An area the size of the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, (6 million acres/9400 square miles/24,400 square kilometers/2.4 million hectares) was decimated with chemicals that today remain in the Vietnamese food chain, causing a continuing tragedy of elevated cancers and birth defects. And subsequent documents reveal that the chemical companies knew no later than 1965, and that the U.S. government knew as early as 1967, and perhaps earlier, of the long-term health risks and sought to keep that information from the public, and from its own troops.
When President Nixon was in office (1969-1974) the U.S. waged bacteriological warfare against Cuba. First Nixon directed that clouds be seeded over non-agricultural areas to induce torrential downpours causing flooding, while attempting to prevent rains over cane and other agricultural areas to induce draught. Then the CIA introduced African Swine Fever which decimated Cuban pig herds, a major source of protein in Cuba. The Cubans were forced to slaughter 500,000 pigs. This was the first outbreak of this disease in the Western hemisphere in the Twentieth Century. Under President Reagan and Vice President Bush, there were new outbreaks of African Swine Fever, and two outbreaks of hemorrhagic dengue. It was the first eruption of hemorrhagic dengue in generations in Latin America.
Thus the notion of disease as a weapon, an example of biological and/or chemical warfare, is historically rooted in the policies of the U.S. government through its military and CIA.
See the bolded section - Does the scene looks familar in SARS in Asia ? -
Cheju Uprising in Response to Rhee's Plans for Separate Elections Leads to Cheju Massacre
Rhee, with total U.S. support, was busily preparing for a political division of Korea involuntarily imposed on the vast majority of the Korean people. Following suppression of the October-December 1946 insurrection, in 1947 Koreans began to form small guerrilla units that conducted sporadic activities for a year or so. On March 1, 1948, a large nonviolent demonstration on Korea's Cheju Island took place to celebrate the anniversary of the Korean people's 1919 mass demonstrations against Japanese occupation. Using the occasion to protest Rhee's planned separate elections scheduled for May 1948, the crowd was fired upon by the KNP. The police arrested 2,500, a number were injured, and several Koreans were tortured, then killed. Cheju, Korea's largest island located 70 miles south of the mainland, had been governed by popular local peoples' committees since August 1945, and had been left relatively alone up to that point. The vast majority of its inhabitants were poor farmers and fisherpeople living a marginal existence. General Hodge even acknowledged that Cheju was a "truly communal area that is peacefully controlled by the people's committee without much Comintern influence." But Cheju's democratic period was brutally terminated. The March 1 incident provoked a larger people's rebellion that erupted on the island on April 3.
As matters seemed to be getting out of hand, a number of leaders from throughout Korea attempted one last effort at peaceful reunification. An emergency national conference was convened on April 19-23, 1948, in Pyongyang, attended by most political leaders on the right as well as the left, except for Rhee. Conferees opposed Rhee's scheduled plans for separate elections in the south on May 10, about to be sanctioned by the U.S./U.N. However, the convention was unable to dislodge the U.S./Rhee position, and the elections proceeded as scheduled. This was a further depressing development for most Koreans, closing any space for democratic participation that might lead to a reunified Korea. This was the last time representatives from organizations both south and north of the 38th Parallel were to meet in Korea to discuss reunification until the historic summit between the two respective leaders nearly fifty-two years later, June 13-15, 2000. But dramatic escalation of armed resistance to the US/Rhee regime was about to begin.
The U.S. military commander in Cheju, Colonel Rothwell Brown, ordered an indiscriminate scorched earth campaign as the Cheju uprising escalated. The U.S. Navy blockaded the island with eighteen warships, while bombarding it with 37mm cannons. U.S. planes conducted regular reconnaissance missions and dropped grenades and small bombs. U.S. mortars, machine guns, rockets, and M-1 rifles were provided to the NKP, the Constabulary/military, and right-wing paramilitary units. U.S. advisers conducted daily counterinsurgency briefings, interrogated and tortured prisoners, brought Japanese officers and soldiers to aid in the suppression efforts, and contributed U.S. combat troops at critical moments. All this suppression effort was applied despite the fact that officials of the USAMGIK had acknowledged prior to the uprising that the Cheju islanders had been treated cruelly by the NKP and Rhee's right-wing units.
While the Cheju insurgency and the responding U.S./Rhee "suppression" campaign were raging, on October 19, 1948, elements of the 14th and 16th Regiments of the ROK Army in the southern port city of Yosu refused orders to head for Cheju to suppress the guerrillas there. This mutinous rebellion quickly spread to other areas in the southern part of the mainland. The cities of Yosu and Sunchon, among others, were taken over by the guerrillas, and local peoples' committees were immediately restored in a number of other villages, including on some of the smaller islands off Korea's southern coast. However, within two weeks this mutiny was contained by a brutal campaign coordinated by U.S. military adviser Captain James Hausman and intelligence officer Captain John Reed, and carried out by young Korean colonels with the aid of U.S. reconnaissance and transport aircraft, firepower, and ground troops as necessary. The numbers of civilians massacred dramatically escalated. All Koreans suspected of those thought sympathetic with the uprising were executed. The only rebels spared were those who agreed to collaborate with the U.S. officers to aid in identifying and hunting other participants in the rebellion. One of the collaborators apparently was Park Chun Hee, later to become dictatorial ruler of South Korea, who escaped execution by helping in the identification of his former associates, including his own brother. More than 1,000 Yosu rebels fled into the Chiri mountains in November where they joined with other guerrillas. At the time, the CIA estimated there were 3,500 to 6,000 guerrillas in the southern part of the mainland, not counting rebel activity on the Island of Cheju.
It is important to note that most of Cheju's residents, like the vast majority of mainland Koreans, experienced a marginal existence under the thumb of a traditional tiny elite who owned most of the land and businesses. The Japanese occupation had strictly maintained this disparity. It is within this socio-economic context in which the majority expressed their unhappiness with the status quo, often leading to desperate guerrilla activity as the only alternative available to them.
The success of the Yosu suppression gave the state security forces more confidence as they stepped up their repression efforts. Rhee quickly pushed a National Security Law through the National Assembly. The law included ambiguous language, "disturbing the tranquility of the nation," to define crimes against the state. Any reference by citizens in the south to or about their neighbors in the north, including desires for reunification, was interpreted as threatening the tranquility of the new nation of the Republic of Korea headed by the dictatorial Rhee. The U.S./Rhee police state went into full force throughout South Korea, regularly guided by U.S. military advisors, and often supported by U.S. military firepower, intelligence, and occasional ground troops. Using the new security law, Rhee's forces had more than 90,000 people arrested. On the Island of Cheju alone, within a year, as many as 60,000 of its 300,000 residents were murdered, while another 40,000 fled by sea to nearby Japan. Over 230 of the Island's 400 villages were totally scorched with 40,000 homes burned to the ground. As many as 100,000 inhabitants were herded into government compounds, while the remainder apparently became collaborators in order to survive. The repression grew in its sadistic dimensions. Suspects were often stripped naked, tortured, forced to have sex before being beheaded while loved ones were forced, first to watch while clapping with their hands, then to parade in front of their torturers carrying the severed heads of family members. U.S. Captain James Hausman, who had earlier advised in the regions of Ch'unch'on and Seoul, called himself "the father of the South Korean Army," and was officially recognized for his successful leadership in the "suppression" campaigns in both the Cheju and Yosu uprisings.
http://www.brianwillson.com/awolkoreahist.html#haan -
Originally posted by digger:
Thats true, but it's not right either. We usually only hear it about what the other side has done. That doesn't gives them the right to atrocities in the reason of defending and very often is for their own bnational self interest.
Attrocities happen in every war.As in every war ever fought it is also easy to get conflicting reports,depending of course on who you happen to be talking to.
That much is true..
However, having had family members who fought in the Korean war and heard some of the stories I can assure you that I would much rather have been a prisoner of the allies than the NK/Chinese.
Of course with Singapore having never fired a bullet in anger and with their total lack of support to their so called friends when it comes to putting troops in the line of fire ( lets face it,internationally the Sing defence forces haven't exactly got the"thru the door first reputation)
you guys have had an easy ride.
Also,if any medium to large force ever decided to blow Singapore into the next century,and anyone who has an inkling of defence matters knows that Singapore itself could do little to stop such an attack!
It would only be the likes of the Americans,Brits,Aussies(do these names sound familiar) that would/could stop it.So before you start gazing into the past and bagging the allies of the Korean war you would do well to remember that the fate of your little P.O.S island could well lay with the countries that you are trying to demeen.
And I am grateful... but they should also watch their conduct and should not be a part of the problem. -
You haven't done diddly squat to earn the rights to preach or criticise anyone.Originally posted by digger:Of course with Singapore having never fired a bullet in anger and with their total lack of support to their so called friends when it comes to putting troops in the line of fire ( lets face it,internationally the Sing defence forces haven't exactly got the"thru the door first reputation)
you guys have had an easy ride.
Why should we join in when America goes and invade other people?
If you feel so heroic about it you're welcome to go to Iraq. We won't stop you. But just because you are stupid and ignorant enough to go where you are not wanted much less needed, don't assume we must follow you. We never have a habit of following idiots and we are not about to start now.Also,if any medium to large force ever decided to blow Singapore into the next century,and anyone who has an inkling of defence matters knows that Singapore itself could do little to stop such an attack!
Hahaha... should I quote WW2? No, because I have no quarrels with Australians, British or Americans.
It would only be the likes of the Americans,Brits,Aussies(do these names sound familiar) that would/could stop it.
Don't assume to speak for Australia. What you said would make most Australians CRINGE!!!
So before you start gazing into the past and bagging the allies of the Korean war you would do well to remember that the fate of your little P.O.S island could well lay with the countries that you are trying to demeen.
Finally, you idiot, there is probably just one or two guys here - MobyDog especially - whom is posting all these vile stories about atrocities - and you fail to notice that very few people are replying or even reading these stories - and yet you call my entire country a "P.O.S. island".