Overcrowding & Incompetence

The overcrowding combined with an ideological battle within the camp made living conditions increasingly unbearable. The POWs segregated themselves into gangs that either believed in communism or capitalism and even further divided themselves by religion as Christianity was increasingly accepted by the prisoners. The gang like atmosphere in the prison bares a striking similarity to America’s prisons today by how prisoners segregate themselves into gangs based on ethnicity. The different gangs regularly fought for turf and influence in the prison camp.

The guards that secured the compound rarely if ever went inside the compound. Most of them were rear echelon troops bored and uninterested in duty on the island. The prisoners pretty much ran the prison themselves with the American soldiers standing guard outside the wire.

Due to the lax security within the compound the communist block was able to intimidate and crush opposition and when they had accumulated enough strength within the camp, they decided it was time to start waging war against the Americans from within inside the camp as well. They knew they couldn’t begin a conventional fight against the Americans because they would all just eventually be shot and killed. They decided the best way to open up another front against the Americans was to begin a propaganda war from inside the camp. This campaign would have better results than they ever could have imagined.

Colonel Lee Hak-ku

On the morning of May 7th, 1952, the commander of the communist faction North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku requested that the commander of the prison, Brigadier General Francis Dodd urgently come and meet with him for an important reason. BG Dodd had met with COL Lee before and didn’t expect anything unusual from this request. In a well rehearsed and coordinated move COL Lee’s men surrounded the General and his guards and quickly subdued the guards and pushed them out of the compound and grabbed the general and moved him deep within the compound. The prisoners all pulled out their home made weapons and threatened to kill the general if any attempt to enter the compound was made. The seizure of the American general made instant headlines. Americans woke up to headlines of torture and abuse at Goje Island because the prisoners made demands that the US stop torturing, abusing, and starving them if they wanted their commander back. This was of course nonsense but to other nations around the world who didn’t know any better they of course began to wonder, “What the heck are the Americans doing on Goje Island?”

Additionally the communist block had a field day with the propaganda value of the Goje Island uprising. Here is what Pravda in Moscow wrote in response to the uprising:

Koje Island! Again the gloomy shadow of Maideneck (a Nazi extermination camp in Poland) has come upon the world, again the stench of corpses…… the groans of the tortured…… we learn that “civilized” Americans can be yet more inhuman, yet more infamous than the bloody Hitlerites. Dachau was a death camp, Maidenek was a death factory; Koje is a whole island of death. The American hangmen are torturing, tormenting, and killing unarmed people here. They are experimenting with their poisons on them….

This Kind of War
Page 398

To echo the communists claims the Red Cross condemned the treatment of prisoners on Goje Island as well. They condemned the over crowding, violence in the camp, and the lack of food reaching some prisoners because the communist leaders would store the food for themselves and only hand it out to prisoners loyal to their movement. The Red Cross also would not condone any force to put down the uprising and regain control of the camp in order to meet acceptable humanitarian standards. The Red Cross could provide no advice on how to meet acceptable standards, but was quick to criticize the Eighth Army forces guarding the prison for not meeting those standards.

COL Lee had scored a massive propaganda victory by claiming torture and abuse after capturing the general that was repeated and endorsed in newspapers across the globe. He even scored a bigger victory when another General, BG Charles Colson arrived to take charge of the camp and agreed to demands made by the prisoners to stop torture and abuse in exchange for General Dodd. Before releasing Dodd, the North Koreans put him on trial for war crimes and forced him to the statement that Colson had approved earlier.

After the release of General Dodd, General Colson retracted the signed statement made by Dodd, but by agreeing to the demands in the first place it had the effect of legitimizing the North Koreans’ claims of torture and abuse to the world’s media. The global media was having a feeding frenzy over the Goje Island story and it began to directly effect the truce negotiations being waged at Panmunjom. The US military brass was furious at what was going on at Goje Island and at General Colson for agreeing to the prisoner’s demands.

There was problems on Goje Island, but the prisoners were always fed and did what they wanted in the camp.ÂThe biggest problem on the camp was the overcrowding, because no one expanded the camp because everyone thought the war would end any day and all the prisoners would go home. The problems in the camp was not from torture or abuse, but from incompetence of the people running the camp. This incompetence would end once a man named Brigadier General Haydon Boatner was chosen to operate the camp.

Next Posting: The New Commander Takes Charge

Prior Posting: The Geoje Island Incident