From commenter lirelou at the The Peking Duck:
The Northern Limit Line is interesting in that neither ROK nor UN forces seized the islands that define the line. They were seized by bands of North Korean anti-Communist guerrillas known as ‘Donkeys’ to the Americans. These “Dong-il” (Reunification) bands were largely composed of pre-war inhabitants of Hwanghae (Yellow Sea) Province who had fought a delaying action against the Communists in the hard winter of 1951, and withdrawn to the islands, where they refused to join the ROK forces and maintained a two year maritime guerrilla campaign in hopes that their homeland would be retaken by the UNC. To free up guerrilla manpower for operations within Hwanghae Province, the islands were garrisoned by units of the ROK Marine Corps, who remain there to this day.
So the ROK has as much right to hold those islands as the North Koreans do to occupy land below the 38th Parallel. North Korean holdings include present day Haeju, which lies just three kilometers beyond PyeongYeong island (referred to as PY-Do), which is within the NLL and where the Spirit Tablets of the North Korean anti-communist guerrilla bands are located.
Never heard that before, so I took a look around, and found a good piece on the Donkey Unit in the Seoul Shinmun (along with the photo above). Sadly, since they didn’t joint the ROK Army and took their orders directly from the Americans, they’ve become something of a “forgotten unit” in a “forgotten war.”
Also very worth reading is Andy Salmon’s piece for the BBC on the history of the NLL.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
There’s an interesting account of the ‘White Tigers”, as they also were kknown, in White Tigers: My Secret War in North Korea – Paperback (May 1999) by Ben S. Malcom. If memory serves, Malcolm was a young US officer assigned to liaise with them. (I’d give the Amazon reference, but I can’t get to the url because of the ridiculous cyber nanny proxy that now plays Nurse RatchettI on the university internet node to which I’m now connected. Apparently, this was recently unleashed, in the form of a mandatory active-x install, to counteract the vulnerabilities with which all the other active-X on student/faculty computers risk infecting the entire uni network and anyone connected to it. Seems a bit like swallowing a pint of hydrochloric acid to counteract a previous ingestation of sodium hydroxide. Anyway, it also slows the network down considerably. Korea- Sparkling efficiency).
I’ve also heard it claimed by one of the White Tigers who used the sauna in the gym where I used to work out years ago that one of Don Gregg’s first CIA assignments was on one of the Western islands, where he claims to have met him; no idea whether that’s true, though.
+1
White Tigers is a good read, and explains why lots of people in the know suspected a (possibly not North Korean) mine when the Cheonan incident went down.
Given the pre-war border at the 38th parallel, have to wonder how many of the guerillas were actually ROK citizens, not North Koreans in the DPRK-sense, fighting to get their homeland back.
White Tigers is a good read, for those interested. For a little more on the unit the guerillas eventually organised under, see the 8240th Army Unit (AU) Association site at:
http://www.sfaxiii.org/0%208240th_army_unit.htm
Pops:
I’m not sure what your point is; but Korean “citizenship” is a murky issue. If memory serves, the first truly operative legislation (there was some late Joseon royal promulgation that never really got carried into effect and soon fell into the ashcan of history with the commencement of the Japanese colonial period) was enacted in 1948. If memory serves, it essentially provided that : (i) anyone (a) whose father, whether dead or alive, was a Korean at the time of birth, or (b) was found abandoned as a child in Korea and otherwise stateless, was Korean and a ROK citizen, and that (ii) anyone married to such a Korean man, (b) acknowledged by his Korean father or mother, or (c) otherwise satisfied the criteria for naturalization promulgated by the Ministry of Justice, including in the case of foreigners those domiciled in Korea, can be naturalized as a Korean citizen.
The law thus made no distinction between those included in the category of citizen on the basis of their domicile north or south of the 38th parallel. It did create a lot of problems, though, for those “Koreans” whose family registers had been lost, or were incomplete, as in practice family registers were the only authoritative evidence of whether one was the child of a “Korean” man; (query: what was the criterion of differentiating that would disqualify someone on a Chinese family registry.) This definitional scheme resulted in problematic status for many, many thousands of ethnic Koreans, who for many different reasons no longer had access to family regsiters or whose registers were incomplete or “corrupt”, especially coincidentally those who were not resident within the boundaries of post-WW2 Korea, including in particular many who were domiciled elsewhere in the former Japanese Empire.
A likely hypothesis is that most, if not all, of the White Tigers were ROK citizens by virtue of the ROK nationality act’s inclusive assertion of jurisdiction – rather akin to th ROK Constitution’s claim to sovereignty over the entire peninsula, the presence of the DPRK notwithstanding. Of course, validating such an hypothesis is another thing.
Sperwer talking with “Pops.” Jieun K might get a kick out of this.
Fascinating.
A good reminder that these isolated islands are actually the last remnant of South Korea’s territory in Hwanghae Province, from 1945 to 1950. The area south of the 38th parallel between Gaeseong and Haeju was ROK territory, as was the Ongjin Peninsula further west.
The mainland fell to the Norks, but the islands remained in South Korean hands–thanks (it turns out) to these guys. And of course, the administrative entity known as “Ongjin-gun” survives, as that selfsame collection of offshore islands.
Haha. Funny to see Sperwer addressing Pops.
Welcome aboard, Pops
And have a great weekend, pops uh Sperwer. LOL
What are “Spirit Tablets”?
okay, I figured it out… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_tablet
You must log in to post a comment.
{ 1 trackback }