May 23, 1980 (Friday, clear but at time cloudy)
- 8:00: Students, citizens asked to cooperate in keeping city clean.
- 10:00: 50,000 citizens gather at Provincial Hall Square.
- 10:15: Student Settlement Committee forms its own Special Forces Battalion and begins collecting small arms.
- 11:45: Lists and descriptions of the dead are posted on walls near Provincial Hall and Provincial Hall Square.
- 13:00: Paratroopers fire on minibus in front of Junam Village, Jiwon-dong. 17 killed.
- 15:00: First pan-citizen rally held; Martial Law Command distributes warning leaflets throughout city.
- 19:40: 33 released prisoners arrive at Provincial Hall Square.
May 24. 1980 (Saturday, rain in the afternoon)
- 13:20: Paratroopers fire on small boys swimming in reservoir at Wonje Village.
- 14:20: Paratroopers engage in mistaken firefight with other martial law forces in Songam-dong.
- 14:50: Second pan-citizen rally held.
2 Comments
# 13:20: Paratroopers fire on small boys swimming in reservoir at Wonje Village.
Hmmm… I don’t remember reading about this happening. Were there any injuries?
In all, 8 civilians were killed near Wonje Village that day, and at least 7 were wounded. The 11th Brigade was being moved through the village in a 54 truck convoy led by an APC and saw a truck with 11 simingun in it and began firing on it. At the sound of firing, the paratroopers in the trucks near the front of the convoy who heard the shots began firing on anything they saw moving, be they children or, uh, turkeys (200 of which were killed by paratroopers at a farm there). Two children were killed (a 10 year old and a 13 year old) and an 11 year old was wounded. Then, another ROK military unit (not paratroopers) stationed on the hills just beyond the village mistook the convoy (as it rounded a corner) for simingun and opened fire on them, apparently destroying the apc and the first 4 trucks, starting a firefight which lasted for half an hour. By the end, 9 soldiers had died, killed mistakenly by each other (in addition to 3 soldiers killed in another mistaken firefight earlier that day, meaning 12 of the 23 soldiers killed during the uprising were killed by friendly fire). Most of the civilians killed in the village that day were young village men dragged out of their houses after the mistaken firefight and shot on the spot.
The father of the 13 year old and the husband of a 50 year old woman killed in Wonje village that day drank themselves to death within a few years. When assessing the effects of the uprising, or the number of victims, it’s worth remembering it affected many beyond those directly killed and injured.