Over at the Marmot’s Hole he has a couple of postings up here and here about the Korean government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report that the US government should compensate Korean civilians killed in an air strike during the Korean War. This is the commission’s first report on what is expected to be a series of reports accusing the US military of criminal actions against civilians during the Korean War and demands for compensation.
Before I even began researching into this incident I was pretty much certain that this war criminal claim would turn out to be no different than the fraudulent accusations made about the No Gun Ri Incident along with the Associated Press’ attempt this year to make another sensational war criminal claim with the USS DeHaven Incident. Both claims ended up being quite easy for me to debunk with a little research which is the same with this issue.
The war criminal claim being leveled by the commission is that an air raid by US Corsair bombers killed 51 Korean civilians in the Yecheon area of South Korea in January of 1951. The commission is claiming that this document proves their claims of war crimes being committed against civilians:
What is interesting about this document is that it is an order from the Commanding General of X Corps General Edward Almond to the Commanding General of the ROK Army’s 2nd Division to destroy enemy forces in the triangle shaped area of operations between the cities of Yecheon, Andong, and Yongju and that the ROK 2nd Division would have maximum air support from the US during the operation. No where in this document do I see anything about targeting civilians or anything else remotely close to a war crime. Additionally you can also see in the order that the ROK 2nd Division was attached a TACP (Tactical Air Control Party) from the US Air Force to coordinate air strikes for the Korean division. These were not just air planes randomly strafing but just like the USS DeHaven Incident the fighters over this area were directed by TACPs who were in direct support and control of the ROK Army.
In this map posted below you can see that the 2nd ROK Division is X Corps reserve located just north of Mun’gyong before moving to clear out the area they were assigned:
Right click and select view image for larger picture or click here.
You can also see in the map that the fighting in this area was quite desperate as the Chinese and the North Koreans were in the midst of a full offensive operation and the capitol of Seoul had been lost again on January 2, 1951. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee makes the claim that the North Korean Army was never in Yecheon thus making the bombing of the Korean civilians criminal. In the above map you can see that a North Korea unit did in fact make it all the way to Andong just east of Yecheon and that the North Korean Army had other plans for dealing with the territory to the west of Andong where the incident happened:
Enemy guerrillas, numbering between five thousand and seventy-five hundred and currently massed around Tanyang and along the twenty miles of Route 29 cutting through a high mountain spur between Tanyang and Yongju, were to displace south and southeast to disrupt the Eighth Army’s Pusan-Andong line of communication. The whole operation, according to the captives, was to be conducted in conjunction with Chinese advances in the west.
If you look on the map you can see that these 5,000 to 7,500 guerrillas are heading straight for Yecheon where the killing of the civilians supposedly took place. Yes, the North Korean may not have been in the area of Yecheon but thousands of guerrillas were. Additionally the document provided by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is nothing new. The fact that General Almond ordered the ROK 2nd Division to this area is available in history books:
Almond concentrated the bulk of the ROK 2d Division at the lower end of the Mun’gyong pass, where it could help bottle guerrillas massed in the mountains to the northeast around Tanyang. Already operating against these guerrillas was part of the X Corps special activities group, a small provisional force recently formed by X Corps headquarters around its special operations company for raids and other missions behind enemy lines. The group so far had been fully committed to security missions in the X Corps’ rear area.
The amount of communist guerrillas operating within South Korea before, during, and even after the Korean War is a fact that many Koreans would rather not have known, but the fact remains that many South Korean communist guerrillas augmented by North Korean cadres fought against the allied forces during the Korean War to include the Yecheon sector. If the civilians that were killed in the air strike were in fact civilians, they would have been killed in an area of operations that the ROK Army was responsible for that was infiltrated with thousands of communist guerrillas not to mention the fact that any air strikes called in would be under the direction of a highly trained US Air Force TACP under the full control of the ROK Army. It is quite telling that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission mentions nothing about this.
To understand why such information is left out and not mentioned, it is important to understand what this commission really is. The Marmot has done an excellent job exposing the possible motives of the leader of this commission Father Song Ki-in:
If you look at history to now, (US assistance to Korea) has been out of US national interests, theyve never really helped us in actual fact If just dialogue with Pyongyang goes well, all the United States needs to leave here is a team of advisers. In a 2005 interview with the Weekly JoongAng, he said, North and South Korea, Seoul and Pyongyang first need to join hands to [get the] US military to withdraw. North and South Korea must closely stick together, even if kept secret from the United States. Hes called the US a barrier to Korean reunification, and has blamed the US for the division of Korea, saying, If you look at the old Katsura-Taft Agreement, doesnt it clearly reveal has the United States has treated our nation? Actually, many US troops were killed during the Korean War, but the 38th parallel was drawn by the Americans, and they provided the cause for drawing the parallel.
Clearly this guy is just another in a long line of fifth column anti-American activists in Korea. The Taft-Katsura Agreement is just more simplistic anti-American propaganda just like the claims made by this commission. To this day I haven’t met a critic that can debunk my view on the Taft-Katsura Agreement and I seriously doubt Father Song Ki-in could either. I also find it interesting that Father Song blames the US for providing the cause for drawing the 38th parallel. What is interesting about that is that the reason the parallel was initially created was because the US military defeated the Japanese during World War II freeing Korea from the Japanese colonizers leading to the nation being occupied by Russia in the North and the US in the South. I guess he would rather had the peninsula occupied completely by the Russians in which case he would never have been a Christian preacher in the first place. Yes the logic from these people is truly mind boggling.
This commission, just like the No Gun Ri issue, Taft-Katsura, and even the General Sherman incident are all just part of a long line of historical revisionism endorsed by leftist Korean politicians and activists that seek to blame the United States for all the failings of the Korean government. If the failures of prior Korean governments was the fault of the big, bad United States, then all the failures of the current Korean government must also be the fault of the big, bad United States now. That is why the Korean government finds it so necessary to create a historical context in order to blame current problems on the US. So when the North Koreans detonate a nuclear weapon, who does the South Korean government blame for it? The United States of course, while totally remaining silent about the fact the South Korean government are the ones that financed the nuclear weapon by giving massive amounts of non-monitored aid and hard cash to the North Koreans.
When the current nuclear deal eventually unravels, which it will, the South Korean leftists will blame the United States again for this and they can point to their built up pile of historical revisionism to provide context that the US is not a friend of South Korea now and never was. This is of course rubbish, but the more and more I read blatant anti-US propaganda from government bodies like this Truth & Reconciliation Commission the more I wonder if the US should be a friend to South Korea now? I guess next month’s South Korean presidential election will go along ways to determining that.
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3:46 am on November 26th, 2007 1
Good post yet again.
The key is the line about the guerrillas. It isn’t so amazing that South Korean society has wiped away the historical fact of one of the North’s key battlefield tactics that played a significant role in its overall strategy. What is amazing is that organizations like the Associated Press has decided that there were no guerrillas too. The use of guerrillas and infiltrators was well-known and documented at the time of the war and figured into all the history books about the war, but since the fall of the Cold War, I guess, certain mindsets have decided those at the scene on the time and after were liars or wrong.
Outside of the war, the South Koreans have decided that there were nothing but freedom fighters/democracy advocates in situations like the Cheju Island massacre and other events. Everyone in total are now defined as fighters for democracy with democracy meaning of the type the South now enjoys rather than the type found in places with names such as the “Democratic” People’s Republic of Korea.
It is really nothing more than a whitewashing of history. There is no truth being found. It is simply a redefining of history.
What is fairly galling is how this commission has gone out of its way to avoid really getting at sore points — like any claims of massacres committed by South Korean troops during the war.
You would have thought having put two former presidents on trial and giving them death sentences for the Kwangju Massacre would have set solid precedent for this commission which came later to go hog wild with claims against South Korean soldiers against “just civilians” during the war, and I have waited patiently over the years for the commission to begin such a hunt, but what have we gotten instead?
Targeting the US for “war crimes”
Rehabilitating the image of all “democracy advocates”
and taking the property away from Japanese collaborators.
That leaves a huge 200 pound gorilla sitting in the room nobody is acknowledging. At some point the commissions refusal to look at it becomes the real story. In all this time, why has it not moved to “set the record straight” on the claims of South Korean war atrocities?
Well, I guess for one thing, that would end up interfering with the redefinition of all guerrillas and North Korean stooges post war was real democracy advocates and freedom fighters……because surely a large section of Korean society would become motivated to fight against the commission —- meaning - engage in a real, honest debate as to the nature of what happened in the past — if the commission sought to tarnish the image of the South Korean military during the war. Suddenly, with most of Korean society animated about “the truth” behind subversive activity in South Korean society before, during, and after the war, suddenly the truth commission would have a harder time redefining the past. — In fact, the commission would end up being obliterated by South Korean society if it dared try to follow through on attacking the South Korean military and government for what those type on the commission have long said their own government did in the past.
Meaning, before these guys got into office, for decades, they did make strong claims against the South’s government - as well as championing things like the Taft-Katsura “Treaty” and claims against the US, but since they have become part of the government and have the power to open up cans of worms officially, they have decided to avoid digging into claims against the previous South Korean government.
6:44 am on November 26th, 2007 2
[...] ROK Drop Shop « The Truth is of Little Concern to the Korean Truth & Reconciliation Commission [...]
7:02 am on November 26th, 2007 3
Good job GI. I just wish I thought someone other than a small internet clique will actually take any interest in this subject.
Have you been able to find the T&R Commission’s specific report on this incident on the English language version of their website?
I can’t and I think I’ve clicked on every single English language sublink they have. Over at Marmot I accused them of not having an English translation for their website, while not noticing the “English” button in the upper right hand corner of their main page.
Now, since I can’t find anything there in English on this particular incident, I’m ready to revert to my original accusation towards them — one of not releasing such a report in English for political reasons. But I figure I’d better see first if someone else who read Korean agrees that I’m right.
Regardless, in a perfect world the US administration would get out in front of this without waiting for the result of the Korean elections or any other damn thing. The USFK commander and the US Ambassador ought to use their access to go straight to the President, to request a military history team (from both Leavenworth and the National Archives) be detailed to them to begin immediate work on giving the US side of the “215″ incidents.
If such a team can indeed find blatant examples of any US negligence in any or all of the 215 incidents, they ought to recommend that the US pay “reparations” to the survivors. Of course these US reparations should be paid only simultaneously with ROK government reparations paid to its own citizens — ones who are the survivors of ROK govt massacres that occurred at the same time, as detailed elsewhere by the T&R Commission. (BTW I don’t see anything in English on their website about these ROK govt massacres either).
Of course such a US military history task force on the Korean war incidents reported by the T&R commission won’t happen in a million years. Meanwhile this type of thing is a continuous slow acid drip, eating away at the foundations of the alliance; one of these days it’s going to come under too great a strain and give way suddenly — like that bridge in Minnesota.
If it’s going to come apart, better to blow it now under controlled circumstances. Let the chips fall where they may.
7:41 am on November 26th, 2007 4
usinkorea,
What is so ironic about this obvious whitewashing of history is that the Koreans have the nerve to condemn the Japanese for doing the same thing when the Koreans are even bigger historical revisionists than the Japanese and that is no small feat.
Paul,
I found nothing on their website in English about the incident and I don’t expect there ever will be. This report is not for international consumption but to influence domestic opinion. I tried to download the report off their website in Korean and could not even get the Korean file to download. I did download some interesting pictures though that I will put a posting together on once I have time.
I don’t expect the US government to do anything about this because they either don’t care or ignorant about what is going on; most likely both. The fact the US Embassy has said nothing in response to this shows they are probably ignorant of what is going on.
It is a shame because such claims are so easy to debunk with simple historical research but that would mean someone would have to care to actually do something about it. I could be wrong and maybe the US government is just sitting back and waiting for Lee Myung-bak to get elected. Either way the perception is being created and with no one challenging it the perception will become reality just like with No Gun Ri.
7:24 am on November 27th, 2007 5
12:01 pm on November 27th, 2007 6
The South Korean tactic of labeling other countries as enemies, by the atrocities committed goes back to the end of WWII and the Japanese. While justified to a degree, South Korea often found it advantageous in business, to demand concessions for grievences committed upon the people of South Korea. In many respects thier behavior over No Gun Ri is little different. Its mostly about what concessions can be gained through the tragedy. I believe the Roh administration sees it as a bargaining chip.
1:36 pm on November 27th, 2007 7
Should we expect anything less??!!
4:01 am on November 28th, 2007 8
[...] researching my prior posting about the Korean government’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s recommendation [...]
11:35 am on January 18th, 2008 9
[...] was disbanded. ROK Drop readers may remember that this commission recommended the US government pay compensation for supposed war crimes during the Korean War that through simple historical research I was easily able to debunk. It [...]
4:02 am on March 13th, 2008 10
6:13 pm on March 26th, 2008 11
[...] I commend President Lee for deciding to vote for the resolution and even more encouraging is that the South Korean government has decided to start investigating atrocities committed against civilians in North Korea. It is good to see the South Korean government investigating atrocities that probably did happen compared to atrocities that did not. [...]
10:32 pm on May 20th, 2008 12
[...] of what really happened during the Korean War after reading all this? I have already shown their sloppy historical revisionism before and the sloppy work of this committee is sure to continue. I am all for a proper accounting of [...]
9:00 am on June 26th, 2008 13
[...] Korean civilians were also killed by the retreating North Koreans though Charles Hanley and the Korean Truth & Reconciliation Committee would probably agree that US soldiers are really [...]
6:19 am on July 11th, 2008 14
[...] once again relying on the Korean Truth & Reconciliation Commission. I have already shown their sloppy historical revisionism before and the sloppy work of this committee is sure to continue as evident by this latest [...]
4:44 am on July 26th, 2008 15
[...] No Gun Ri Excavation Team at No Gun Ri Comes Up Empty Where is the Forensic Evidence at No Gun Ri The Truth is of Little Concern to the Korean Truth & Reconciliation Committee Rehashing Korean War Era Executions Bones of Korean War Dead Found In [...]