AntonH2
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Joined: 16 Jul 2008
Posts: 11
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 Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:32 pm Post subject: Korean War survivors tell of carnage inflicted by U.S. |
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/21/asia/incheon.php
| Quote: | WOLMI ISLAND, South Korea: When U.S. troops stormed this island more than half a century ago, it was a hive of Communist trenches and pillboxes. Now it's a park where children play and retirees stroll along a tree-shaded esplanade.
From a hilltop across a narrow channel, General Douglas MacArthur, memorialized in bronze, gazes at the beaches at Incheon where his troops splashed ashore in September 1950, changing the course of the Korean War and making him a hero here. At the harbor below, rows of cars, gleaming in the sun, wait to be shipped around the world - testimony to South Korea's economic might and a reminder of which side ultimately emerged the victor in the conflict that ended 55 years ago.
But inside a ragged tent at the entrance of the Wolmi park, a group of aging South Koreans want to tell the world of a hidden side of the U.S. military's triumph, a story of burning carnage not mentioned in South Korea's official histories or textbooks.
"When the napalm hit our village, many people were still sleeping in their homes," said Lee Beom Ki, 76. "Those who survived the flames ran to the tidal flats. We were trying to show the American pilots that we were civilians. But they strafed us, women and children."
On Sept. 10, 1950, five days before the Incheon landing, 43 U.S. warplanes swarmed over Wolmi, dropping 93 napalm tanks to "burn out" its eastern slope, according to declassified U.S. military documents reviewed by South Korean government investigators.
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Wolmi was not the only target. Starting last November, the government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission began releasing a series of reports on Wolmi and two other sites where residents said large numbers of unarmed civilians were killed in indiscriminate U.S. airstrikes. Calling the attacks violations of international conventions on war, the commission recommended that the government negotiate with the United States to compensate the victims.
The government has not disclosed its plans, while the commission, established in 2005 to examine outstanding grievances from South Korea's history, continues its investigations.
According to the commission's other findings, on Jan. 19, 1951, at least 51 villagers, including 16 children, were killed when U.S. planes napalmed Sansong, a village 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, southeast of Seoul.
A day later, it said, at least 167 villagers, more than half of them women, were burned to death or asphyxiated in Tanyang, 35 kilometers north of Sansong, when U.S. planes dropped napalm at the entrance of a cave filled with refugees.
"We should not ignore or conceal the deaths of unarmed civilians that resulted not from the mistakes of a few soldiers but from systematic aerial bombing and strafing," said Kim Dong Choon, a senior commission official. "History teaches us that we need an alliance, but that alliance should be based on humanitarian principles."
Under South Korea's earlier authoritarian and staunchly anti-Communist governments, criticism of U.S. actions in the war was taboo. But when the government set up the fact-finding commission, citizens came forward with more than 210 cases of alleged mass killings by U.S. forces, mostly in airstrikes. Their demands for recognition tap into complicated emotions underlying South Korea's alliance with the United States.
"We thank the American troops for saving our country from Communism, for the peace and prosperity we have today," said Han In Deuk, chairwoman of a Wolmi advocacy group. "Does that mean we have to shut up about what happened to our families?"
Major Stewart Upton, a Defense Department spokesman in Washington, said the Pentagon could not comment on the reports pending formal action by the South Korean government.
The airstrikes came during desperate times for the U.S. forces and for the South Koreans they came to defend.
The war broke out in June 1950 with a Communist invasion from the north. In September, when the U.S. military planned the landing at Incheon to relieve United Nations forces cornered in the southeastern tip of the peninsula, it decided it must first neutralize Wolmi, which overlooks the channel that approaches the harbor.
"The mission was to saturate the area so thoroughly with napalm that all installations on that area would be burned," U.S. Marine pilots said in one of their mission reports on Wolmi, retrieved by the commission from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
They also reported that "no troops were see (sic), but the flashes observed on the ground indicated the intensity of the fire to be accurate enough to destroy any about."
The reports describe strafing on the beach but make no mention of civilian casualties.
The Incheon landing helped UN troops recapture Seoul and drive back the North Koreans. But the tide turned again when the Chinese entered the war. |
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