Three survivors of an alleged Korean War massacre by U.S. troops in Danyang, Chungcheongbuk-do (nice town, BTW) testified today that the Americans spent three days in January 1951 lighting some 210 homes in Nodong-ni and Majo-ri on fire and shooting the inhabitants as they ran out. They claimed 103 people were killed and 24 wounded. Some 180 livestock were also killed.
Or so they say. According to the survivors, all this occurred as the Americans were supposedly mopping up remnants of the North Korean army. They also subjected the villages to indiscriminate bombing.
Interestingly enough, they said that despite the bombing, the villagers welcomed the Americans when they arrived, but were greeted by gunfire nonetheless.
They also said this mayhem continued for three days before a Korean interpreter showed up, and in the meantime, the Americans gang-raped the local women.
The villagers have apparently been pressing the government to uncover the truth behind the incident since 1999. They have applied to the national truth and reconciliation committee asking for an investigation into the alleged massacre.
27 Comments
I hope the military does an investigation and have aerial photographs and everything. Probably it will show the dubiousness of the claims, as did the investigation into No-gun-ri (not that it was all completely false, but appears to have been extremely exaggerated, judging by the evidence). Sounds like an attempt at a cash grab with a bit of anti-Americanism thrown in.
there are people in Korea who falsely believe that the Chinese troops did no killing of civilians and raping. Nothing can be further from the truth.
One South Korean teacher once told his all-male class, “Kids, do you know why you should risk your lives to protect your country against a foreign army?”
Well, he answered his own question.
“If you don’t, they’ll kill the men, and rape your women.”
Which is exactly what the Japanese and the Chinese have been doing for centuries.
No doubt the US and the Russians did some of this not only in Korea, but also in Europe.
It’s pretty much the truth that this happens again and again in war. Serbia vs Bosnia.
Even if this is TRUE, the Japanese, Chinese, and Russians are to blame for the chaos leading up to these supposed events.
The only good commie is a dead commie.
–Remort
Remember kids, you can rationalize anything away with sloganeering…
Indeed Wille_G, evil wears many masks.
he took more words to get that point across, than the slogan i substituted. Do I get credit for the slogan?
Where are the investigations of the slaughters perpetrated by North Korea? I’ve heard from my wife and students that Nork soldiers would sweep through an area, pull out the men and shoot them all. Where’s the uproar over such events, which I’m sure were far more numerous than anything the US did.
And what about the raping and looting that South Korean soldiers did in Vietnam? Or was that, “having sex and borrowing things”?
Everyone is an evil asshole when they have the chance. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant.
snow,
there used to be an uproar of North Korean troops doing exactly what you described. I’m sure the KBS and MBC networks are told by the private office of Roh Moo Hyun to tone it down.
I’m telling you, the masses are stupid. Control the tv media, and you can mold popular opinion within 5 years.
Controlling the tv media, other than for the purpose of protecting its people is evil. I’m not so sure what the North Koreans did is far more than what the US did. To the North Koreans, South Koreans are still the same bloodline. To the US troops, these people are people from a far away land, in a place they don’t really want to be, and that are interfering with other plans, better plans, they had for their lives on US soil. True, sometimes, blood relations do far worser things to each other. But, I wouldn’t bet on far more numerous. You’ll be surprised. But, I personally think the US troops in South Korea did something precious for the South Koreans, and that was preventing us living from how the North Koreans live right now. South Korea does live much better than present day Vietnam, right?
Newshound,
Indeed South Korean troops raped, looted, and murdered, in addition to regular combat duties. I have no question about it. But, only the Japanese troops that I know of carried women along the front lines to service their soldiers’ sexual desires. I MAY BE WRONG. But, if you do know of Russian, German, US, Italian, or UK armed forces dragging along a battalion of women who make food, do laundry, and provide sex on the front lines, let me know.
Yes, South Koreans and US
Americans typically are the first to welcome such information out of concern for upholding traditional American values. Indeed, you have to look long and hard to find such isolated, abborent incidents that veer so sharply from American policy, practice, values and character. But there may be something to learn from such things, so the info is welcome.
I see this as two opportunities. 1. Get paid for an event in the past. 2. More of the self-loathing and denial of what really happened during the war.
QUOTE I’m not so sure what the North Koreans did is far more than what the US did. To the North Koreans, South Koreans are still the same bloodline. To the US troops, these people are people from a far away land, in a place they don’t really want to be, and that are interfering with other plans, better plans, they had for their lives on US soil. END OF QUOTE
Dear WJK, this is not the case. Actually, there is a great deal of research on massacres comitted during the Korean War by all sides, even though the results are often distorted and seldom find way to the mainstream media. It was indeed a large-scale slaughter, with at least 100,000 people killed (actually, more). In South, most killings was done by Syngman Rhee forces and right-wing paramilitary groups, but the NKs and Communist guerrillas seldom missed an opportunity to slaughter their opponents’ families when they could. Most of the slaughter was done by the Koreans. Americans and Chinese probably killed far more people, but by bombs, shells etc. The incident like described by Marmot were rather unusual. This is understandable: during a civil war at any country people get much more emotional about their cause, and are very willing to engage in mutual killings. They are not just doing their job, like soldiers do during a normal international war. They are engaged in the great fight for the Freedom, Justice, Happiness against the evil agents of Repression, Tyranny etc. In such state of mind people are more prone to kill…
This story will be spun to suit the current needs at hand. I don’t pretend to know the facts but I do understand that this is self-serving history. Nothing positive can be gained from this. This is more U.S. bashing. The little dick syndrome within the walls is so tiresome. The Koreans have the potential to have true quality of life in spite of themselves.
wjk,
I wasn’t bringing up the South Korean Atrocities to negate the crap that Japan pulled during WWII. I mentioned it to show the fact that everyone is evil.
If you would like examples of armies dragging along batallions of comfort women while they go on the warpath, I refer you to every single army in the history of the world before 1900.
They were usually giving the name of “camp followers”.
snow:
> Where are the investigations of the slaughters perpetrated by North Korea?
> … Where’s the uproar over such events, which I’m sure were far more
> numerous than anything the US did.
From 1953 through 1987, atrocities committed by North Korean soldiers during
the Korean War and afterwards were pretty much ALL that South Koreans ever
heard about North Korea. The most lurid stories were endlessly promoted by
the ROK government, domestically and to whomever would listen internationally.
They were detailed in school textbooks at all levels. Monuments were erected
to their victims all over the ROK, you can still find them today (tho they
may be a bit overgrown).
Some of them develop into little ‘cults’ of their own, most particularly the
killing of a little boy named Lee Seung-bok (and some of his family members)
by alleged North Korean commandos in the Taebaek Mountains near Gangneung City.
He was used as a model victim by the government, a model for patriotic South
Korean children. They had to memorize his story in their elementary school
textbooks, they stood in ceremonies saluting him, there were songs about him.
You can still visit the large Memorial Hall at the government must have spent
about $1 million on, showing every detail of his life and grizzly death, it’s
in an obscure deep valley just west of the Odae-san National Park, near the
pass over Gyebang-san. Korean kids used to be brought there by mass fleets
of buses. A mawkish bit of 1960s propaganda-kitsch that you can still view –
nothing in English there, tho; it was never intended for foreign eyes. Lee
Seung-bok has been forgotten now, but ask any older Korean about his cult.
You know that all through those fascist years here this was the most virulently
anti-Communist society on earth, but all that anti-Communist education never
taught much of anything about what communism actually is in either theory or
practice, and why we should be against it on reasonable grounds — it mostly
just depicted cartoon “communists” as savage beasts who kill and torture
good and innocent people for no reason. South Koreans never learned a word
of Marxist, Leninist or Maoist theories and institutions, nor all the (valid)
arguments and evidence why they are wrong, impractical and/or immoral — there
were just classrooms full of kids instructed to make drawings of “North Korean
Communists” with blood dripping from their wolf-teeth and devil-horns. This
is a strategy that eventually prove counter-productive, leading to the dis-
illusioned 1980s generation discovering Marxism on their own, uncritically.
Which is all just to say, there has been no shortage at all of exposure or
discussion of North Korean atrocities (tho a curious lack of accusation of
atrocities by the Chinese soldiers involved). The general South Korean public might be excused for not demanding new “investigations” into such –
it would be hard to believe that there are any left that they have not already
been told way too much about for their entire lives — in fact it was so over-
done and ‘forced’ that many if not most suspect that most of the stories are
exaggerated propaganda, and in some cases entirely made-up (Northerners being
blamed for things that Southern forces actually did). The truth of all that
will get sorted out by professional historians as time goes along…
But the Korean War atrocities committed by the South’s army and units of the
UN forces have been deliberately covered-up by the ROK and USA governments
and militaries for more than 50 years; and so the public demand in the South
for some exposure and investigation of them rather than the northern ones
can easily be understood, I think.
Korea will never move forward if it remains stuck in the past.
Newshound, thank you for mentioning the camp followers. Something I will look into.
Sanshinseon, I was one of those kids who learned about Lee Seung Bok.
Who reportedly said, “Na neun (I) Gong san dang (communist party) ee shil uh yo (hate)!”
Or ” I HATE the COMMUNISTS !”
Right after which, a North Korean soldier literally ripped this boy’s mouth open, and killed everyone.
I forget if Seung Bok said this after the soldiers murdered his parents first. I think they murdered his parents first, and after Seung Bok said this in rage, they tore his mouth with a knife to make him suffer and killed him. And they wiped out the whole family. Or maybe they left some young ones. It’s been a long time since this was compulsory reading in South Korean education.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this somehow got phased out by the Red Wave leaders now sitting in the Blue House.
Lankov, I’ll buy that. Rhee was as bloody as Kim.
I do indeed remember wondering who was able to supply the testimony that he
bravely resisted the torture and continued to shout “I HATE the COMMUNISTS!”
if “they wiped out the whole family”…
I wonder if by now any solid scholarship has been done on the Lee Seung-bok
case and its government-sponsored cult, whether any aspect of the original
story can be verified? It might well be military/government propaganda created out of thin air like the Jessica Lynch case used to bolster American
public support in the first year of the Iraq adventure… or the “Kuwaiti
babies thrown out of their incubators onto the floor by Iraqi soldiers” BS
back in 1991… Or it might be all true, dunno if we’ll ever know.
All governments do this, most of the time when they want a war; wars are so
horrible and costly that may probably couldn’t be conducted without it.
that “they” probably
And of course it’s not only governments that do this, but very much “civic
activist” groups also — going back to the origin of this topic, the reported
account of this alleged US massacre in Danyang (SUCH a pretty area) do sound
like they are quite exaggerated at the least…
wjk,
You can probably find a lot of stuff by reading about the Boer War. There was also a large “camp follower” culture during WWI, because the lines were so static. Once we get into more modern, fast-moving wars - and more modern morality - the culture has dropped off a lot. Of course, in battle areas world wide you can always find whore-houses and prostitutes. Even in, maybe especially in, places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Korea and Japan actually share a lot of cultural similarities in this regard. Prostitution and sexual slave trading are rampant in both countries, and in fact, according to some studies, worse in Korea because of the comparative geographical ease of smuggling people in.
I just think that people should look to their own crap before they start yelling at other people about crap that was done a while ago. And I’m aiming this towards all sides of the argument.
Newshound, You got it right.
QUOTE but all that anti-Communist education never taught much of anything about what communism actually is in either theory or practice END OF QUOTE
Dear Sanshinseon, I’d probably disagree. If you are a Korean (and you talk pretty much like a college-educated Korean in his late 20s to early 40s), you might be influenced by the way these “anti-Communist” subjects were actually taught in the times you chooses to describe as “those fascist years” (IMHO, wrongly - but I would not go to this argument which will be useless). It indeed might be hysterical, but, of this practice, I know nothing. But I’ve read enough 국님윤리 textbooks of the 1960s, even supervised an MA thesis on this, to disagree with this statement. In spite of hostile and “non-academic” tone, they give a surprisingly good picture of North Korean socicety. Not theory, perhaps, but practice. Unfortunately, these cannot be said about what hacks from “말”, KTU and simular minded places produce nowadays.
QUOTE I wonder if by now any solid scholarship has been done on the Lee Seung-bok case and its government-sponsored cult, whether any aspect of the original story can be verified? END OF QUOTE
This is what I wanted to do since long ago. A good case study about how both Korean Left and Korean Right used, distorted, lied about what appears to be an “ordinary war crime” (have to be careful, since so much needs to be clarified about even the most basic facts in regard to Lee’s death).
QUOTE Lankov, I’ll buy that. Rhee was as bloody as Kim. END OF QUOTE
Dear WJK, In final count, no. By no means. You cannot even compare the murderous achievemtns of these two dictators. Even if you do not include the Korean War and Great Famine, Kim Il Sung is well, well ahead. If you do include these megadeaths, for which he is at least partially responsible, and take into account the relative popualtion sizes, he might be second only to Pol Pot in the entire world history of the 20th century. But somewhere between 1948 and 1951, due to a multitude of reasons Rhee’s supporters had many more opportunities to slaughter the Reds, at least in what is now South Korea. And they did not miss thess opportunities.
Thank you, Mr Lankov for your insightful comments. Yes, the military governments of SK were at times appalling, but NK was worse, no matter which way the left in Korea try to spin it.
Sanshinseon, I can understand that things were probably often over the top propoganda during the years of military regimes in SK, but now the pendulum seems to have shifted in the complete opposite direction. Now, so many seem willing to beleive the best of NK and the worst about the US. Where’s the balance? It is fine to investigate possible US crimes, but ridiculous and against the best interests of SK to continue to demonize the best friend Korea has in the world.
Andrei,
Yes, i would think WJK was only talking about 1948-53 or so in that reply.
If you include the Great Famine, Kim Il-sung & Jong-il are clearly way
ahead in the “murderous” field…
> This is what I wanted to do since long ago.
I hope you can do it someday!
> you talk pretty much like a college-educated Korean in his late 20s to early 40s
Don’t know if I should take that as a complement or an insult, as i’m a ‘white’ American approaching 50!
and on SK textbooks, i’ll accept Lankov’s word on them.
> Where’s the balance?
Still yet to come, as the pendulum stops swinging so widely…