Comments on: DMZ Flashpoints: The Blue House Raid

By: JIm Horton

JIm Horton — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 02:04:25 +0000

I was with A Co. of the 122nd Signal Bn out of Camp Howze when all that happened. We were awakened by our section leader to go get a radio truck ready to go to the 2nd Div. entrance on MSR 1 towards Seoul and set up a radio communication system for all the U.S. & ROK units searching for the infiltrators. We looked out our hooch window and the whole sky was lit up as bright as day and thought, wow, this is something big. When we headed out, we never saw so many soldiers and vehicles along the sides of the road. Thought sure we were gonna see some action that night, but it stayed pretyy quiet.

By: Ein Strauß voll Buntes II: Nordkorea-Lesefutter für kalte Herbst- und Wintertage « Nordkorea-Info

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:09:55 +0000

[...] evangelischer Pfarrer. (Zur Geschichte des Angriffs auf den Präsidentenpalast und Kim gibts bei ROK-Drop einen interessanten Hintergrundartikel.) „North Korea’s Clumsy [...]

By: Ken Leighty

Ken Leighty — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:46:57 +0000

I was on SCOSI along the Imjin when, at 02:00 hours, a small convoy of troops and the brigade G2 entered our area. We were told that about 30 NK's had been seen in the mountains near Pobwon-ni and were believed to be heading toward N Korea. We were to post 3 men per foxhole, 1 watching the Imjin and the other 2 watching our rears. That was probably the one time when 'EVERYBODY' stayed awake all night.

A day and a half later, all hell broke loose in Seoul.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:13:37 +0000

I was 2LT assigned to the 2nd Bn 38th Infantry when both incidents occurred. Your write-up is extremely accurate although I recall hearing that they actually told the woodcutters of their plan to cut off the head of Park Chung-hee. Plus I saw the infiltrator they captured and the South Koreans had beat the holy crap out of him.

By: John

John — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:59:03 +0000

I reat that the one UNCOUNTED operative apparently got back to N Korea and welcomed back as a hero. He was made a general eventually.

By: China Trip (or, “How to Spend Your Christmas On a Subtropical Island”) – Evan Bleker

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:21:30 +0000

[...] and shipped them off to the island with the goal of assasinating Kim Il-Sung in response to the Blue House Raid. It is thought that the team was made up of criminals who would have supposedly won their freedom [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:15:12 +0000

I was in the 1/179th Arty at Camp Hartell just South of Munsani when the Blue House Raid happened. We really didn't know what was going on but we drew live ammo and began to sweep the hills around Charlie Block. One of our line Batteries pinned three infiltrators in a paddy and killed them. When one of the troops went down to check them and flipped one over he had a frag clutched and it went off. The troopers name was Conterez and he lost an eye. Another troop, he had been in the 1st Cav in the Nam, was in the thick of it and got the Bronze Star. I remember sitting with him before the ceremony and dumbly asking what the Nam was like? He said, it's just like this but about 100 degrees warmer"!

By: GI Korea

GI Korea — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:11:16 +0000

Peter, no one knows for sure if Kim Il-sung intentionally planned the raid at the same time as the Tet Offensive but I tend to think he probably did. Kim was probably betting that if war did break out on the peninsula after the assassination of Park that the US would be to tied down in Vietnam to send the needed reinforcements to Korea.

When the raid failed I think that is also when Kim made the decision to seize the Pueblo in order to give himself a bargaining chip to prevent any repercussions against his regime.

By: Maruyama Masao

Maruyama Masao — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:50:58 +0000

"So who cares what North Korea thinks, they pirated the ship in international waters to begin with. Blow the damn thing up and lets see them try to start something. I think they know better."

Yeah Gerry, let's make the US look like not only an aggressor state but a petty aggressor state to boot. Marx once said "history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce". Who would've thought little old Gerry would've proved him right.

By: Peter Kauffner

Peter Kauffner — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:31:55 +0000

Judging from the timing, both the Blue House attack and the Pueblo incident where probably timed to correspond with the Tet offensive in Vietnam. The Vietcong attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon was on Jan. 31, only two weeks after the Blue House incident. It seems a poorly thought out strategy that could only take media attention away from Vietnam, which is where the communists presumably wanted it focused. Did the North Koreans make trouble during either the Easter Offensive (April 1972) or the October War (October 1973)?