(Asia - Pacific - Perspectives) Tessa Morris-Suzuki - The Korean War in Asia - A Hidden History-Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2018) PDF

The Korean War in Asia
A Hidden History
Edited by Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Australian National University
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Contents
List of Figures v
List of Tables vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Korean War, the Region, and the World 1
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
1 A Fire on the Other Shore?: Japan and the Korean War Order 7
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
2 The Korean War and Manchuria: Economic, Social, and Human
Effects 39
Mo Tian
3 From One Divided Country to Another: The Korean War in
Mongolia 55
Li Narangoa
4 Victory with Minimum Effort: How Nationalist China “Won”
the Korean War 77
Catherine Churchman
5 The Other Legacy of the Korean War: Okinawa and the Fear of
World War III 109
Pedro Iacobelli
6 A War across Borders: The Strange Journey of Prisoner No.
600,001 129
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
iii
iv Contents
7 The Life and Death of Line-Crossers: The Secret Chinese

Agents of UNPIK 155
Catherine Churchman
8 The United States, Japan, and the Undercover War in Korea 173
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Epilogue: Northeast Asia and the Never-Ending War 193

Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Bibliography 205
Index 217
About the Contributors 225
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 The Japanese Coast Guard during the Korean War. 14
Fig. 2.1 Northern China and Mongolia. 41
Fig. 4.1 Geoje Prisoner-of-War Camp 1952. A Prisoner
Shows His Anti-Communist Tattoos. 92
Fig. 4.2 Geoje Prisoner-of-War Camp 1952. Korean and
Chinese Prisoners with a Replica of the Statue
of Liberty. 97
Fig. 5.1 U.S. Air Force Personnel Preparing Bombs on
Okinawa, 1951. 115
Fig. 6.1 Matsushita Kazutoshi with Frédérique Bieri in
Busan Prisoner-of-War Camp. 131
v
List of Tables
Table 2.1 The output and percentage of heavy industry in

Manchuria in 1949 and 1952 42
Table 2.2 Industrial development in Manchuria in 1949
and 1952 43
vii
Acknowledgments
This book is based on a collaborative research project generously funded by

the Australian Research Council’s Discovery scheme (DP120100801, North-
east Asia and the Korean War: Legacies of Hot and Cold Wars in Contempo-
rary Constructions of the Region). The editor and authors would like to
express their gratitude to the Australian Research Council for this support.
We are also grateful to the Academy of Korean Studies for kindly hosting the
international conference The Korean War and Northeast Asia (November 13,
2013), at which ideas developed in this book were discussed.
The editor would also like to thank Catherine Churchman, Pedro Iacobel-
li, Shin Takahashi, and Adam Broinowski for research assistance; Shinozaki
Mayumi of the National Library of Australia and Fabrizio Bensi of the
Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross for their help in
locating research materials; and Yanagihara Midori for assistance in locating
an important document at the U.S. National Archives and Records Adminis-
tration, College Park.
Chapters 1 and 8 of this book include and further develop some material
earlier published in the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (July 30, 2012;
December 30, 2013; and October 13, 2014) and in the Japanese-language
book chapter “Yamada Zenjirō and Itagaki Kōzō: Kyanon Kikan—Chōsen
Sensō no Kakusareta Kao,” in Hitobito no Seishinshi, vol. 2, Chōsen no
Sensō, 50-nendai, ed. Tessa Morris-Suzuki (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2015).
Chapter 6 is a revised and expanded version of the journal article “Prisoner
No. 600,001: Rethinking Japan, China and the Korean War 1950–1953,” first
published in the Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 2 (2014): 411–32.
East Asian names in this book are given in the East Asian order (surname
followed by given name) except in references to English-language works,
ix
x Acknowledgments
where the author’s name is given in the order used in the publication con-
cerned.
Introduction
The Korean War, the Region, and the World
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
More than sixty years after the end of the Korean War, events in Northeast
Asia provide repeated reminders of the fact that this is, as Sheila Miyoshi
Jager and others have suggested, an “unending conflict.” 1 Insecurity on the
Korean Peninsula, fueled by the absence of a post–Korean War peace treaty,
casts a shadow over the whole region. As North Korea (the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea—DPRK) has acquired the capacity to produce
usable nuclear weapons, this growing military capacity, and the response of
the United States and other powers to the DPRK’s repeated missile and
nuclear tests, have emerged as potentially the greatest threat to contemporary
world peace. Regional tensions are shaped, not only by contemporary diplo-
matic and security concerns, but also by disparate patterns of memory and
forgetting. The people of Korea suffered the most direct and disastrous con-
sequences of the 1950–1953 war, but the conflict also had a profound impact
on the lives of many people in the surrounding countries. Yet these wider
experiences and memories of the war are often poorly understood, and have
sometimes been deliberately concealed.
Over the past couple of decades, shifting contemporary perspectives, to-
gether with the declassification of long-secret documents, have encouraged
rethinking and reinterpretation of the Korean War. The work of Chinese
historian Shen Zhihua has helped reshape our understanding of the back-
ground to Chinese involvement in the war, 2 while the writings of scholars
like Kim Dong-Choon and Sheila Miyoshi Jager have provided vivid new
insights into the meaning of wartime events for the participants, both Korean
and non-Korean, both civilian and combatant. 3 Samuel Perry’s recent work
has explored literature as a window through which to perceive wartime con-
1
2 Introduction
nections between Japan and Korea, and the writings of Japanese and Zainichi
Korean scholars including Ōnuma Hisao, Nishimura Hideki, Kim Chanjung,
and Baek Jongweon have offered fresh perspectives on the complex net-
works of economic and social connections that linked the two countries
during the Korean War. 4 Other studies have shed important new light on the
propaganda dimensions of the war, and on the shaping of war memories in
various countries that participated in the conflict. 5 These researches add to
the insights provided by leading historians including Bruce Cumings and
Wada Haruki. But, despite our expanding knowledge of the historical context
and experience of the Korean War, and of the international political tensions
that shaped the conflict, important aspects of its regional history remain little
known. 6
This book takes a fresh look at the Korean War by highlighting the human
impact of the war on neighboring countries. Its chapters cross both spatial
and temporal frontiers. It places the Korean War within an ongoing history of
conflict in the region, and highlights cross-border social aspects of the war
that have so far received relatively little scholarly attention. It also places the
war in a broader temporal context, tracing roots that go back to the Japanese
empire and the Asia-Pacific War, and highlighting lasting consequences for
the region’s society and politics.
In the chapters that follow we shall encounter the complex cross-border
journeys of Chinese who found themselves caught up in the ideological,
propaganda, and espionage strategies of the combatant powers, and the little-
known stories of the Japanese who participated and sometimes died in the
conflict. We shall consider the ways in which life in northeastern China and
in Okinawa (areas particularly affected by events in Korea) was transformed
by the war. We shall also explore the long-neglected but important history of
Mongolian engagement with the conflict. In every case, as we shall see, these
human experiences of war had long-term political consequences, some of
which still reverberate in Northeast Asia today.
Despite their varied geographical settings, these regional histories of the
Korean War are linked by common themes. The stories traced here reempha-
size and shed further light on a point already articulated by scholars such as
Cumings and Miyoshi Jager: that the Korean War grew directly from earlier
conflicts, and must therefore be understood in the wider framework of twen-
tieth-century regional history. 7 The experience of the Chinese and other Ko-
rean War prisoners examined in chapters 4, 6, and 7, for example, are a
powerful reminder of the fact that the Korean War broke out only months
after the end of the Chinese Civil War, and that key aspects of the violence
on the Korean Peninsula were in fact continuations of that civil war in an-
other form. Deeper still, Japan’s military and imperial expansion in Asia
created forces that continued to be played out in wartime Korea and in
nearby regions such as Okinawa and Inner Mongolia.
Introduction 3
These stories also highlight the spatially uneven impacts of the Korean
War. The war carved heavily guarded Cold War borders through the region,
while at the same time generating and channeling massive regional cross-
border movements of people and goods (including, as we shall see, animals)
between surrounding countries and the combat zone. But its impact on Ko-
rea’s neighbors was very localized. Some parts of China and Japan, for
example, were little touched by the effects of the conflict; other towns or
localities were totally transformed. In China, the transformative effects were
most strongly felt in border towns like Dandong (Andong) and Manzhouli
(see chapters 2 and 3), while in Japan it was port cities like Sasebo, Kokura,
and Yokohama, as well as the island of Okinawa, which felt the weight of
war most heavily (see chapters 1 and 5).
This regional perspective also reminds us of the visible and less visible
effects that the Korean War had on the civilian populations of neighboring
countries. In many places, the most direct impact came in the form of nomi-
nally “voluntary” (but in fact often coerced or semicoerced) contributions to
the war effort. In the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Mongolian
People’s Republic (MPR), ordinary citizens were urged and pressured to
contribute goods and money to the war. In some cases, too, as Mo Tian and
Li Narangoa note, local populations were forcibly moved from their homes
to make way for military needs. In Japan (which was nominally uninvolved
in the conflict), there were no overt government campaigns to collect public
donations, but the government helped the U.S. occupying forces to recruit
civilian laborers, some of whom were then, regardless of their own wishes,
sent to dangerous assignments in the combat zone (see chapter 1). The effects
were psychological as well as material. The war created nightmare visions of
the possibility of expanding military violence: as Masuda Hajimu has also
vividly demonstrated, Chinese (including Inner Mongolians) feared a new
invasion of their country; Japanese, and particularly Okinawans, feared a
third world war (for discussion, see chapters 2, 3, and 5). 8
The war challenged and molded the identities not only of Koreans but
also of their neighbors. Chinese prisoners of war in Korea found themselves
forced to make a choice of allegiance to the People’s Republic or to the
Republic of China (ROC—Taiwan), or sometimes had the choice thrust upon
them. On the other hand, Mongols on either side of the border between China
and Mongolian People’s Republic found themselves brought together by
wartime events, though the longer-term consequences of the war were to
reinforce the boundary that divided them. For ethnic minorities in the combat
zone and surrounding countries, indeed, the effects of war were particularly
profound. The Korean community in Japan, already divided on North-South
lines, became more deeply bisected than ever, with some Koreans protesting
and even engaging in acts of sabotage against the transport of UN Command
troops and weapons from Japan to Korea, while others volunteered for war
4 Introduction
service on the South Korean (Republic of Korea, ROK) side (see chapter 1).
The Chinese ethnic minority in South Korea found itself drawn into the
events of the war in a different way: as we shall see in chapter 4, many were
recruited into undercover intelligence operations jointly organized by the
ROK and ROC. As discussed in the book’s final chapter, some Koreans in
China returned to North Korea to participate in the war, while others found
their path home blocked by the outbreak of the conflict. Meanwhile, ethnic
Russians who had fled to Inner Mongolia and northeastern China following
the Russian Revolution found themselves targets of heightened suspicion and
surveillance amid the security concerns of the Korean War era, and some
were forcibly relocated from their homes or repatriated to an uncertain fate in
the Soviet Union (see chapter 3 and epilogue).
The history of the multinational espionage networks that expanded across
Northeast Asia during the Korean War is little known, and many aspects of
this history remain shrouded in secrecy, but chapters 7 and 8 in particular
show how complex and multifaceted these networks were, involving Chi-
nese, Japanese, and others in ways that sometimes violated both national and
international law. These undercover operations had profound repercussions
for the lives of the individuals who were willingly or unwillingly caught up
in their intrigues. At the same time, Korean War intelligence activities also
laid the foundations for continuing Cold War espionage networks in North-
east Asia.
A final pervasive thread connecting these chapters is the theme of misper-
ceptions. The Korean War, so often described as “the forgotten war,” might
indeed better be called “the misremembered war.” The strange multilayered
nature of the conflict, which was at once a civil, an international, and a global
war, created multiple confusions about the nature of participation and the
identities of the combatants. Neither Japan nor Taiwan, for example, was
officially engaged in the war in any way, but as we shall see in chapters 1 and
4, both were in fact quietly and covertly active in important aspects of the
hostilities. Taiwan cooperated with UN and South Korean forces in intelli-
gence operations and in providing ideological education in prisoner-of-war
camps. Japan made a significant contribution to minesweeping and landing
operations in the war zone. On the other hand, in the case of Mongolia,
discussed by Li Narangoa in chapter 3, the misremembering took the oppo-
site form: other regional governments claimed, and apparently believed, that
the Mongolian People’s Republic had been militarily involved in the Korean
War, despite the lack of evidence for such involvement. These patterns of
misunderstanding and misremembering had tangible effects, one of which
was to delay Mongolia’s admission to the United Nations.
In bringing these stories together, we aim to offer a broad regional per-
spective on the political, social, and cultural meaning of the war. This per-
spective is particularly important as twenty-first-century Northeast Asia
Introduction 5
struggles to find a peaceful point of exit from its “unending conflict.” The
book’s epilogue explores some of the multiple ways in which the violence of
the war has continued to echo through the region long after the signing of the
Panmunjom armistice. Discrepant memories of past conflicts can easily fuel
the fires of new international tensions. Interweaving the divergent memories
of the region’s wartime experience may provide a starting point for the
creation of shared transborder memories of a war that has so long been
misremembered.
NOTES
1. Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea (New York:
Norton, 2013); see also Ra Jong-il, ed., Kkeutnaji aneun Jeonjaeng (Seoul: Jeonyeweon, 1994).
2. Shen Zhihua, Mao, Stalin and the Korean War: Trilateral Communist Relations in the
1950s, trans. Neil Silver (London: Routledge, 2012).
3. Dong-Choon Kim, The Unending Korean War: A Social History, trans. Sung-Ok Kim
(Larkspur, Calif.: Tama Vista, 2008); Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War.
4. For example, Samuel Perry, “‘The Blue Flower of Pusan Harbor’: Engendering Imperial
Continuities during the Korean War” (paper presented at the 28th Association for Korean
Studies in Europe Conference, Charles University, Czech Republic, April 20–23, 2017);
Ōnuma Hisao, ed., Chōsen Sensō to Nihon (Tokyo: Shinkansha, 2006); Nishimura Hideki,
Ōsaka de Tatakatta Chōsen Sensō: Suita Hirakata Jiken no Seishun Gunzō (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 2004); Kim Chanjung, Zainichi Giyūhei Kikan sezu: Chōsen Sensō Hishi (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 2007); Baek Jongweon, Kenshō Chōsen Sensō: Nihon wa kono Sensō ni dō
Kakawatta ka (Tokyo: San-ichi Shobō, 2013).
5. For example, Steven Casey, Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics and Public
Opinion in the United States, 1950–1953 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Charles S.
Young, Name, Rank and Serial Number: Exploiting Korean War POWs at Home and Abroad
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Suhi Choi, Embattled Memories: Contested Mean-
ings in Korean War Memorials (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2014); Grace M. Cho,
Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy and the Forgotten War (Minneapolis: Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press, 2014); Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and
the Postwar World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015).
6. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vols. 1 and 2 (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 1981 and 1990); Bruce Cumings, The Korean War: A History (New York:
Modern Library, 2010); Wada Haruki, The Korean War: An International History, trans. Frank
Baldwin (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
7. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, vol. 1; Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War, chs. 1 and
2.
8. Masuda, Cold War Crucible.
Chapter One
A Fire on the Other Shore?

Japan and the Korean War Order
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Following the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, sixteen coun-
tries 1 sent combatants to fight on the Southern side under the United Nations
Command (UNC). Among them was Australia, which dispatched more than
seventeen thousand troops to the Korean front over the course of the war. 2
Most of the Australians (and many of the other foreign troops fighting in
Korea) spent a substantial amount of time during their war service in Japan,
and because of this, the vaults of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra
contain a wide and fascinating range of photographs and souvenirs brought
back by Australian servicemen both from Japan and from Korea between
1950 and 1953.
One of these souvenirs is a scarf bought by an Australian soldier in Tokyo
in 1953. Inscribed with the words “The United Nations,” this shows a map of
the war zone and the flags and symbols of the countries fighting with the UN
Command. At the center of the design are images of Mount Fuji, a cherry
blossom, a pagoda, and the torii gateway of a Japanese Shinto shrine. The
torii and Mount Fuji—quintessential symbols of Japanese national culture—
recur in the insignia of the countries and units contributing to the UN military
effort in Korea, and the whole design appears at first glance to be surrounded
by the flags of the UN Command countries. In fact, though, a closer look
reveals the flags of the members of the UN Command plus one other coun-
try—Japan—which was neither a member of the United Nations nor, in any
officially acknowledged way, a participant in the Korean War. I do not know
who designed and made this scarf, but whoever it was seems to have been
aware of a fact that was semiconcealed at the time and has often been forgot-
7
8 Tessa Morris-Suzuki
ten since: the fact that Japan was centrally, actively, and indeed militarily
engaged in the 1950–1953 conflict in its former colony, Korea.
The Korean War is the only war from 1945 to the present day in which
Japanese, sent overseas in combat and combat-support roles with the knowl-
edge of their government, have been killed or injured. Today, Japanese soci-
ety is embroiled in intense debates about “collective self-defense.” The issue
at stake is reinterpretation of the constitution to allow for Japanese participa-
tion in overseas military ventures. Yet this debate is being undertaken against
a background of widespread amnesia about the role that Japan played in the
Korean War and the impact that this had on Japanese society. A deeper
understanding of what this war meant to the Japanese people most directly
involved is essential to any informed debate on the question of collective
self-defense.
RETHINKING “JAPAN’S MARSHALL PLAN”
The Korean War is described, with monotonous regularity, as the “forgotten

war,” but in the Japanese context the problem is not really one of forgetting,
but rather of the way in which the war is remembered. All too often, memo-
ries of the conflict seem hermetically sealed in the capsule of a safe and
comforting narrative. The Korean War (according to this narrative) was an
explosion of violence from which Japan remained almost entirely insulat-
ed—a “fire on the other shore” from which Japan fortuitously reaped the
benefits of war procurements. It is acknowledged that the war accelerated the
U.S.-led “reverse course” in the Allied occupation policy toward Japan, fa-
vorably influenced the terms of the San Francisco peace settlement in Japan’s
favor, and set the nation on the path to high growth. A number of writers on
Japan and the conflict quote Chalmers Johnson’s description of the Korean
War as “in many ways the equivalent for Japan of the Marshall Plan.” 3
Whether or not Johnson himself intended to convey this image, the repetition
of his words highlights the benign, growth-inducing impact of the war, often
casting into shadow other more violent aspects of Japan’s relationship to the
conflict. The same emphasis appears in Japanese history textbooks, where
students are told, for example, that
Japan became a base for the UN forces, whose core was the US army. Facto-
ries, ships and railways were mobilised to the maximum extent to transport
and repair weapons and provide material needed by the military. Because of
Korean War procurement, Japan’s economy . . . revived in a single bound. 4
Reinhard Drifte, 5 Roger Dingman, 6 Ōnuma Hisao, 7 Nishimura Hideki, 8

Wada Haruki, 9 Baek Jongweon, 10 and others have challenged this image by
emphasizing Japan’s deep involvement in the conflict; yet their important
A Fire on the Other Shore? 9
contributions to history writing too often seem to slide like raindrops off the
impermeable surface of the dominant narrative of postwar Japanese history.
A recent study reflects the perception that remains pervasive: “While Japa-
nese minesweepers provided a valuable (albeit understated and infrequently
commented on) supporting role for allied United Nations forces . . . Korea’s
impact on Japan during this period was primarily economic.” Japan’s rela-
tionship with Korea and its turmoil was an “indirect” one, a mediated rela-
tionship that served above all to pull the Japanese economy out of the “slug-
gishness of the postwar occupation period.” 11
This, in a sense, is true. There can be no doubt that the war’s impact on
the Japanese economy was profound and growth creating. But this truth is
only one facet of a complex reality, and the strong and steady light focused
on this single facet—the economic impact—has rendered other aspects of the
complexity invisible. This narrative obscures the subtle but profound ways in
which Japan was embroiled in a war that permeated every facet of Japanese
society. Above all, it renders invisible the violence of the war—a violence
that was inflicted both by and on Japanese participants in the conflict in
Korea. The war experience of those participants, and the way that this experi-
ence played out within the complex political and social world of early post-
war Japan, remains little understood.
The dominant narrative of Japan’s involvement in the Korean War is, in
other words, a narrative devoid of dead or injured. Many people in Japan are
entirely unaware that Japanese were killed in the Korean War: a lacuna in
public memory that became evident in 2011, when Miyazaki Gorō’s anime
film Kokurikozaka Kara (From up on Poppy Hill) was released. The narra-
tive, set in 1960s Yokohama, features a heroine—Umi—whose father was a
Japanese seaman killed when his ship was sunk during battle in Korea, and
although the film was a popular success, this aspect of the plot was greeted
with surprise and bemusement by many of its viewers.
In the weeks following the film’s release, the fate of Umi’s father pro-
voked much discussion on Internet question-and-answer sites among the mo-
vie’s (mostly youthful) viewers. A blogger on MSN’s Sodanbako (Question-
box) site praised the movie, but also expressed bewilderment: “Umi’s father
is a crew member on an LST (Landing Ship Tank) during the Korean War,
and it is sunk when it hits a mine. But Japan was officially not a participant in
the Korean War. It seems as though some civilians must have been em-
ployed. Can someone who understands explain this to me?” 12 Similarly, a
contributor to Yahoo Japan’s Chiebukuro question-and-answer site asked,
“Did Japanese really die in the Korean War? I saw Up on Poppy Hill the
other day, and in it the main character’s father died in the Korean War. If it’s
actually a historical fact that Japanese died in the Korean War, can someone
explain to me why it was that they died?” 13
In this chapter I highlight three aspects of Japan’s direct involvement in

the war that are neither secret nor unknown, and yet that remain strangely
absent from public memory, both within Japan and internationally. First, I
focus on the significance of the fact that a large part of the war was com-
manded and directed from Japanese territory, and consider the implications
of this fact for the involvement of Japanese people in the war. In doing so, I
emphasize the very uneven geographical impact of the war on Japan, which
meant that some cities and regions were much more exposed to the effects of
the war than others. The second aspect is the substantial presence of Japanese
in the war zone, engaged in military related tasks that, for some people, led to
death or serious injury. Thirdly, I turn to a neglected story that concerns the
presence of bodily destruction and injury within Korean War–era Japanese
society, in the form of the bodies of dead and injured servicepeople, and of
the production of weapons of war on Japanese soil. All these semisecret
aspects of Japan’s involvement in the war were also closely linked to, and
intensified, political divisions in Japan. They led to ideological battles, heat-
ed parliamentary debates, and protests that sometimes developed into street
demonstrations and acts of insubordination. These conflicts, too, have impor-
tant relevance to contemporary controversies about constitutional reinterpre-
tation and collective defense.
THE FLOATING WORLD—MAKING JAPAN INVISIBLE
The souvenir scarf that places Japan at the center of the Korean conflict is
symbolic on many levels. Japan, of course, lay at the center of a massive
movement of people and military material that flowed across the Pacific
from the United States and elsewhere into ports like Yokohama, and then
through Japanese territory and out again through the western ports of Mōji,
Sasebo, and Kokura, or through airfields in various parts of the country to the
Korean Peninsula. Special instructions issued to local branches of the Japan
National Railways ensured that U.S. military supplies were given priority
during the war. 14 Japan’s factories and farms provided an estimated $2.5
billion worth of goods for the Korean campaign—the all-important procure-
ments that helped to restart the Japanese economy. 15 The goods they supplied
included motor vehicles, tents and ration kits, millions of printed propaganda
leaflets, dictionaries and toothbrushes for use in UNC-controlled prisoner-of-
war camps, and also weapons such as mortar shells, napalm, and fuel tanks
for fighter aircraft. 16
Studies of procurements tend to focus on the inanimate: on the tonnage of
steel, ships, textiles, and chemicals supplied to the war effort; but there was
also a crucial human dimension. “Procurements” included the labor of more
than two hundred thousand workers employed by U.S. forces within Japan: a
U.S. memo of early 1953 observed that much of the labor of these workers
was “directly connected with the war in Korea.” 17 Many more were em-
ployed by the Japan-based British Commonwealth Forces Korea, and by
firms producing goods for the war. And not all the Japanese war workers
remained in Japan: thousands were sent to the war zone. We shall examine
their experience in this chapter.
The Korean War on the Southern side was commanded from the Dai-Ichi
Building in central Tokyo, which housed the headquarters of the United
Nations Command. Key military decisions were taken there; major interna-
tional meetings about the war took place in Tokyo, as did press conferences
about the UN Command’s victories and defeats; and though the management
of all these things was American, they inevitably involved Japanese people in
a multitude of subordinate roles. Though theoretically a multilateral body,
the UN Command was in fact firmly under the control of the United States, 18
and was very closely integrated with the U.S. occupation of Japan, since the
head of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan was
also the head of the UNC. The UN Command in turn was not just a body that
directed the conduct of the war, but also the means by which (as U.S. ambas-
sador to Korea Ellis O. Briggs vociferously complained) the United States
“ran Korea from Japan.” So, in Briggs’s words, more than seven years after
the end of Japanese colonial rule, whenever any important decision on Ko-
rea’s future was to be made, “no-one [in Korea] knows where to turn, except
that he knows that all roads lead to Tokyo, and thence to the Pentagon.” 19
Japan, of course, was an occupied country when the Korean War broke
out, and in that sense lacked real sovereignty and had little choice in these
matters. But the fact that the Japanese government cooperated enthusiastical-
ly with these arrangements, and continued cooperating in many ways after
Japan regained its independence, complicates the question of Japanese in-
volvement. The presence of multiple participants with varying degrees of
power and command indeed made the Korean War a “hall of mirrors,” where
reality and illusion intersected in multifaceted and dizzying ways.
This mixture of reality and illusion becomes particularly evident when we
consider the question of the participation of Japanese in the conflict in Korea.
In August 1950, two U.S. congressmen tried to secure the passage of laws
allowing the U.S. military to recruit Japanese volunteers for service in the
Korean War. Some Japanese public figures, including the president of the
upper house of Japan’s parliament, also urged that Japanese volunteer sol-
diers should be sent to fight in Korea; 20 but none of these moves succeeded,
and the U.S. command repeatedly insisted that there were no plans to use
Japanese soldiers in the war. Allies who raised concerns about the issue were
reassured that, although some Japanese might be used as “ships crews carry-
ing freight to Fusan [Busan] . . . no Japanese were to be employed with the
army in Korea as plenty of Korean labour was available.” 21
The reasons for these denials were clear. The Potsdam Declaration, which
formed the basis for the Allied occupation, stated that Japan was to be dis-
armed. Any military or quasi-military involvement by Japanese in a new war
could be seen as a violation of its terms. Very few Koreans, North or South,
wished to see a return of the former colonizers to their soil, and in war-weary
Japan itself there was widespread resistance to any direct involvement in the
Korean conflict. 22 Japanese prime minister Yoshida expressed public opposi-
tion to direct Japanese participation. At the same time, though, evidently
seeing this as an opportunity for Japan to become more active on the interna-
tional political stage, he was willing for Japan to support the UNC action in
less noticeable ways. A further crucial factor behind the emphatic public
denials of Japanese involvement in the war was the Sino-Soviet Treaty,
signed in February 1950. One clause of the treaty stated that China and the
Soviet Union would come to the other’s aid in the case of a war with Japan.
There were serious fears among U.S. allies that any direct Japanese involve-
ment in the Korean War could provoke a full-scale Soviet entry into the
conflict, potentially sparking a nuclear world war. 23 As we shall see in chap-
ter 6, by late 1950 the Soviet Union was indeed protesting to the international
community that Japan was militarily involved in the war, in violation of the
Potsdam Declaration.
But the U.S. military command, taken by surprise at the speed of the
North Korean advances, was desperate for additional manpower, and Japan
was the obvious source. Their solution was to mobilize Japanese in a range of
military support roles, but to make sure that they were used in ways that as
far as possible made them invisible and deniable. This meant ensuring that
Japanese participants officially retained their civilian status, and that they
were deployed in places where they were unlikely to be taken prisoner of
war. The seas surrounding the Korean Peninsula were the ideal place. Japan
had a large pool of underemployed seamen whose skills were urgently
needed, and who were less likely than land-based troops to encounter the
enemy face-to-face. This offshore presence also conveniently allowed the
UNC, if challenged, to deny the presence of Japanese on Korean soil.
The diary of one Japanese war participant perfectly captures the nature of
the Japanese role. Its entries, written in meticulous handwriting on board a
minesweeper in 1951–1952, are accompanied by careful ink sketches of the
Korean landscape—but always of the coast seen from the sea, with the faint
outlines of towns and villages appearing as mere specks on the distant shore-
line. 24 Japan’s direct participation in the war had become a floating world,
moving quietly and often unnoticed through the maritime fringes of the con-
flict.
Though no official figures have ever been compiled, the best estimate is
that around 8,000 Japanese were sent to the Korean Peninsula to carry out
war-related tasks. 25 In purely numerical terms, this may be compared, for
example, with the 7,420 Filipino, 4,720 New Zealand, and 3,421 French
troops who served with the UN Command in the war. 26 The vast majority of
the Japanese were engaged in maritime work—minesweeping or crewing
transport and landing vessels. A smaller number, perhaps one to two thou-
sand, were repair workers and stevedores providing support for UN troops.
Though a few of these land-based contract workers were kept semiconfined
within UN bases in Korea, most were accommodated offshore, living in
converted cargo vessels moored off Korean ports like Incheon and Busan. An
urgent U.S. military request for Japanese freighters in September 1950 ex-
plained that these were needed because “existing policy does not allow the
Japanese to go ashore on Korea, therefore, it is necessary to provide floating
housing to accommodate these personnel.” 27 As we shall see, a smaller num-
ber of Japanese did end up on Korean soil, sometimes on the front line; but
the nervous reaction of the U.S. military command to their presence makes
clear how seriously they took the need to keep the Japanese presence invis-
ible. Yet the line between land and sea could be a fine one. During the
Wonsan landing of October 1950, “the Japanese LST commanders brought
their ships in as close as possible to the beach, which still left a gap with
water about 5 feet deep between the end of the ramps and the shore.” 28 This
proximity amplified the obvious risks of death and injury.
The number of Japanese killed or wounded in the Korean War is un-
known, although one official report records forty-seven deaths of seamen and
others engaged in war tasks in the first six months of the fighting alone. 29 No
official estimate of the total death toll has ever been produced, and most of
the dead remain uncommemorated, except by their families and friends. Rel-
atives of the dead and wounded were firmly instructed to keep the circum-
stances of the deaths a secret. 30 At a time when the U.S. forces in Japan
seemed almost all-powerful, these orders were taken seriously. The brother
of Nakatani Sakatarō, a twenty-one-year-old sailor killed when his mine-
sweeper sank off Wonsan, would later recall that he and his family really
feared drastic punishment from the occupation authorities if they revealed the
true circumstances of the young seaman’s death. 31
CONFLICTS IN KOREAN WATERS:

THE MINESWEEPING MISSIONS
Recent intensifying debate in Japan on the issue of “collective self-defense”

has helped to dissipate some of the clouds of forgetting that once surrounded
Japan’s Korean War minesweeping mission. Supporters of a greater Japanese
military role in Asia today sometimes hail the mission as an example of
Japan’s historical commitment to regional security, and as a model for future
engagements. In the words of one, “Japan’s timely provision of minesweep-
Figure 1.1. The Japanese Coast Guard during the Korean War. Source: Werner
Bischof, courtesy of Magnum Photos.
ing capabilities was integral for a short-handed U.S. Navy that relied on a
handful of wooden auxiliary minesweepers. . . . More than 60 years later, the
importance of Japanese support for U.S. operations around the Korean penin-
sula remains unchanged.” 32 But those who participated in the operation often
saw its history in a more complex and ambivalent light.
Ariyama Mikio grew up in Fukuoka during the years of the Asia-Pacific
War, and, on his graduation from naval college in March 1944, became an
officer in the Japanese Imperial Navy. When Japan was defeated in the war
he, of course, expected to be demobilized. But between March 1945 and
Japan’s surrender in August of that year the United States had dropped thou-
sands of mines into the seas around the Japanese coast as part of a siege
strategy known as “Operation Starvation.” Massive tasks of minesweeping
faced the defeated country, and some members of the former Imperial Navy,
including Ariyama, were retained in service to carry out these tasks under the
command of the U.S. occupiers. In May 1948, when the Japanese Maritime
Safety Agency was established, minesweeping activities were placed under
its control. By then, the clearing of mines from Japanese waters was virtually
complete, and Ariyama was expecting to be purged. Instead, he found him-
self involved in a new and totally unexpected mission. 33
On October 3, 1950, some three and a half months after the outbreak of
the Korean War, Ariyama and the ship he commanded, the MS06, were
ordered to go to Shimonoseki. At first, they were told that they were being
sent to carry out minesweeping in the Tsushima Straits, to protect Japanese
ships carrying troops and supplies to Korea, but it soon became clear that
their task was to be a much more dangerous one. UN forces were planning a
landing behind North Korean lines at Wonsan, but North Korean forces, who
were in control of much of the Korean Peninsula, had created a barrier of
underwater mines to protect major ports. At this point in the war, the U.S.
Navy had only ten minesweepers in East Asian waters. So, although Japan
had officially been fully disarmed, was not a member of the United Nations,
and (under the terms of its own constitution) was not supposed to be in any
way directly involved in the Korean conflict, U.S. admiral Arleigh Burke
ordered the head of Japan’s Maritime Safety Agency, Ōkubo Takeo, to as-
sign Japanese minesweepers and their crews to the U.S. minesweeping force
in Korean waters. Japanese prime minister Yoshida gave his consent on
condition that the mission was kept strictly secret, and in all fifty-four Japa-
nese-crewed minesweepers, including Ariyama’s, were sent to serve in the
war. 34
Taken by surprise, many of the minesweeper crew members adamantly
opposed this redeployment. Ariyama Mikio expressed dismay that Japan
risked again being involved in war, and at the dangers to the seamen under
his command. He and the crew of his ship disembarked, and threatened to
refuse to obey orders, but were eventually and reluctantly persuaded to re-
board their minesweeper. They were told that the mission would not only
help to save Japan from Communism but would also help to restore the pride
and reputation of the Japanese navy, and it was implied that only those who
took part in the mission would be given a place in any new postwar Japanese
maritime force. 35
On October 7, four Japanese minesweepers and four coast guard escort
vessels sailed for Korea under cover of darkness, to rendezvous with the U.S.
fleet near Tsushima. The mission was conducted under a blanket of intense
secrecy: so much so that the ships did not even use radio communications,
but communicated with one another by means of flares and semaphore sig-
nals. The minesweeping mission began on October 10, with the vessels
working in pairs, and trawling wires to locate the mines, but on the third day
of the operation two U.S. vessels struck mines and exploded, killing thirteen
American sailors and injuring seventy-nine. 36 The operation was temporarily
suspended, and helicopters were brought in to conduct further minesweeping,
while U.S. ships launched a massive artillery assault on Wonsan. Watching
the distant shore at night, as flares from the U.S. battleships lit the sky and
the port city exploded in flames under the rain of artillery, Ariyama thought
that it seemed “less a scene of ferocity than one of splendour.” He would
later reflect that “war is a thing that can numb the human heart’s aesthetic
sense. For beneath that rain of artillery Korean soldiers were being cruelly
decimated.” 37
On October 17 the Japanese ships resumed their minesweeping tasks.
Ariyama’s MS06 was paired with another Japanese vessel, the MS14, when a
little after three in the afternoon, the MS14 was suddenly blown apart as it hit
a mine, and sank instantly. Ariyama’s ship launched a lifeboat in an effort to
rescue the crew, but this was just a small rowing boat, and was quickly
driven off course by the fierce winds. In the end, U.S. vessels dragged the
Japanese crew of MS14 from the water, but they failed to find any trace of
one crew member, Nakatani Sakatarō. Eighteen of those rescued were in-
jured. One had a broken back and arm, and another’s coccyx had been
fractured and his ear severed in the explosion. 38
Vigorous protests again broke out among the Japanese crew, some of
whom pointed out that they were supposed to be public servants, not mem-
bers of a military force, and that they had not volunteered for service in
Korea. Attempts to negotiate an arrangement where the Japanese vessels
could be assigned to less dangerous duties were rebuffed by the U.S. forces,
and the captains of the three remaining minesweepers were warned of pos-
sible dire consequences if they failed to continue their mission. All three,
though, decided that they were not willing to expose their crews to further
risk. The standoff between the U.S. forces and Japanese minesweepers came
close to the exploding point when Rear Admiral Allan E. Smith, commander
of the UN Command’s blockading and escort force, was presented with the
captains’ decision. He reportedly berated them for being a disgrace to the

force, and threatened that, if they did not either return to duty or leave port
within the next fifteen minutes, his ships would open fire on the Japanese
minesweepers. 39 In the end, though, the threat was not carried out, and the
Japanese captains chose to set sail for Japan, leaving behind their escort
ships, which were later joined by one further minesweeper dispatched from
Shimonoseki.
Maritime Safety Agency chief Ōkubo Takeo subsequently apologized to
the U.S. military for the behavior of the Japanese crews, and promised to
discipline those responsible. The three captains who had brought their ships
home and their immediate superior, who was held responsible for their be-
havior, were sacked by the agency, but were not (as Ariyama had feared they
might be) put on trial for insubordination. 40 The U.S. military command
apparently softened its stance on punishment when Japan agreed to continue
sending minesweeping missions to the war zone. The occupation authorities
also responded to the mission by suspending a purge of former Japanese
Imperial Navy officers from public office. 41 Major Japanese minesweeping
operations continued off the ports of Incheon, Gunsan, and Chinanpo until
the end of the year, and some Japanese minesweepers remained in Korean
waters at least until the middle of 1952. Around 1,200 Japanese sailors,
almost all of them former members of the Imperial Navy, took part in the
minesweeping missions, and many in turn went on to become core members
of Japan’s postwar Maritime Self-Defense Force.
But the complexities of the mission have continued to haunt Japanese
political debates. Ōkubo Takeo, who commanded the mission from onshore
and who went on to become a government minister in the 1970s, continued to
regard the mission as a model of Japan–United States military cooperation,
and was fond of telling colleagues and subordinates that, as a result of his
role in Korean War mine clearing, he still felt himself to be “an honorary
member of the United States Navy.” 42 But Nakatani Tōichi, whose brother
was killed in the operation, sees this history and its implications for the
present in a somewhat different light. Interviewed by a local Japanese news-
paper in 2014, he observed that the current move toward collective self-
defense was progressing “without sufficient discussions among the peo-
ple. . . . Is the entire nation determined to accept the possibility that not only
will we once again be faced with war dead, but that the SDF [Self-Defense
Force] members will kill people overseas?” 43
CIVILIANS AT WAR 1:
JAPANESE SAILORS IN THE KOREAN CONFLICT
Sannomiya Kazumi, meanwhile, still recalls the horrors of the scene on Wol-
mido, the island just off the port of Incheon, where the September 1950
landing began. Sannomiya was not involved in minesweeping, but was a
crew member on one of the thirty-seven Japanese-crewed landing vessels
that put U.S. and South Korean forces ashore in this decisive battle of the
war. The first phase of the landing was carried out by a force of forty-seven
ships, of which thirty were crewed by Japanese sailors. 44 According to fig-
ures obtained by Socialist Party parliamentarian Aono Buichi soon after the
event, about 3,922 Japanese sailors took part in the Incheon landing. 45 When
Sannomiya and some of his fellow Japanese sailors came ashore on Wolmi-
do, they were immediately confronted by the sight of an abandoned bunker,
still containing the blackened body of a North Korean soldier, burnt beyond
recognition by a flamethrower. 46
Having survived the Asia-Pacific War as a sailor, Sannomiya had em-
braced Japan’s peace constitution, and believed that he would never have to
go to war again. He found work on one of the huge landing vessels operated
by the Civilian Merchant Marine Committee to carry Japanese returning
from the lost empire, as well as Koreans being repatriated from Japan to
Korea. But after the outbreak of the Korean War, U.S. forces were desperate-
ly short, not only of minesweeping vessels, but also of landing craft, so most
of the landing ships (including the ship on which Sannomiya worked) were
placed under U.S. control for use in the war zone. Many of the sailors, having
served in the Incheon landing, went on to take part in the Wonsan landing
and in the evacuation of U.S. and Korean troops from Heungnam in Decem-
ber 1950.
After the end of the Korean War, Sannomiya was to become an energetic
peace campaigner and later a member of Fuchū City Council. In 2003 he
sought unsuccessfully to sue the Japanese government on the grounds that,
although a civilian in a country that had renounced war, he had been ordered
into a combat zone, where he and his fellow sailors had been exposed to
danger and war trauma. The risks had been multiple. As Sannomiya stated in
his testimony, “In the confined space of the ships, tuberculosis spread from
one vessel to the next, and many of my comrades, aged 23 or 24, died or had
their health permanently damaged as a result.” 47
Large numbers of privately owned merchant vessels were also temporari-
ly requisitioned by U.S. forces. On September 26, 1950, a flotilla of two
hundred small motorized sailing vessels, acquired mostly via the private firm
Tōzai Kisen and carrying around 1,300 crew members, set sail from Japan
for the port of Busan, where they were to be used as lighters, carrying troops,
explosives, ammunition, and other cargo between larger vessels and the
shore. The arrangement between the company and the American military
empowered the U.S. Counterintelligence Corps to investigate the Tōzai Ki-
sen sailors to ensure that they were not “known or probable members of the
Communist Party, or sympathizers.” 48 Immediately after the Incheon land-
ing, these ships were ordered to go to Incheon to help unload supplies at the
newly captured port. But this provoked resistance among some of the crew.
Kitamura Masanori, a sailor on one of the vessels, recalled that there was a
heated all-night debate, in which senior officers sought to persuade reluctant
crew members to accept their deployment to Incheon, where fighting was
still raging. In the end, 190 ships sailed for Incheon, but some sailors refused
to take part in the mission and returned to Japan. Among them were the
captain and engineer of the Dai-37 Gokoku-maru, who demanded a transfer
to another ship on the grounds that the mission they had been ordered to
perform violated the Japanese constitution. 49
Many of the Japanese seamen sent to the war zone were experienced
sailors, often former members of the Japanese navy, but as Akeboshi
Mutsurō, who worked on Korean War landing vessels, recalled, “A mass of
LR [Labor Required] seamen who were almost completely inexperienced
were also recruited. It seems there were quite a few cases of drifters who
gathered in Yokohama (for at that time there were many unemployed people,
known as ‘futarō’) being semi-forcibly brought on board. In some cases,
these people joined the crew only to disappear later.” 50 The world they
entered on their recruitment for war service was often bewilderingly multina-
tional. One Japanese sailor who served on a U.S. vessel carrying explosives
and other cargo from Japan to Korea was amazed to find that the crew
included Latin Americans, Filipinos, Indonesians, Samoans, and a Norwe-
gian. 51 In hard economic times, the pay (which included a substantial ele-
ment of “danger money”) was attractive. Ordinary seamen serving on the
landing ships could earn about four times the average monthly wage, and
there were also other, less official opportunities for moneymaking: U.S. na-
val vessels were officially alcohol-free, so Japanese sailors could buy cheap
bottles of Torys whiskey in Japan for 90 yen and sell them for the equivalent
of 500–700 yen to American sailors in Incheon. 52
But the dangers were very real. Toward the end of November 1950, for
example, twenty-one families in Japan received the news that many parents
had dreaded during the Asia-Pacific War, but that most had ceased to fear
since Japan’s surrender: their sons had been killed in the war zone. In all,
twenty-two Japanese sailors had been killed when their vessel the LT636,
transporting supplies to the front line, hit a mine off Wonsan, but the family
of one of the sailors could not be located, and so were presumably not
informed. The sailors were officially “civilian laborers” working for the oc-
cupation forces, and their direct involvement in the conflict was a potential
source of deep embarrassment to the U.S. military authorities and to the
Japanese government, so their deaths were not made public. The written
notifications sent to their families listed the sailors as “missing,” and the only
commemoration of their deaths was a secret ceremony attended by a small
group of officials at a temple in Kanagawa. The families were not invited to
the ceremony, but instead received a photograph of the event and a “casket”
supposedly containing the ashes of their loved ones, but in fact empty, be-
cause the bodies had never been recovered. At the same time, they were
given a compensation payment and strict orders never to reveal the story of
the sailors’ deaths. 53
Some injuries and deaths were also caused by “friendly fire”: in July
1950, for example, a young Japanese seaman named Yasuda Yōhei was shot
in the leg, and another Japanese crew member slightly injured, when a U.S.
soldier on their ship fired his gun at Yasuda after finding him smoking a
cigarette in defiance of the rules. 54 The incident evoked protests from the All
Japan Seaman’s Union; and in 1953 the union went further, threatening to
withdraw its workers from the task of transporting troops and war material to
Korea, after a Japanese seaman on Korean War duties was killed by fire from
a South Korean vessel patrolling the “Rhee Line.” 55
CIVILIANS AT WAR 2: BASE WORKERS AND ENGINEERS
Despite U.S. attempts to keep Japanese war support efforts at sea, some
Japanese did in fact find themselves engaged in the conflict on Korean soil.
Some months after the end of the Allied occupation of Japan in 1952, the
Asahi newspaper published an article about a twenty-nine-year-old Tokyo
man named Hiratsuka Shigeharu, who had died fighting with U.S. forces in
the Korean War in September 1950. 56 Hiratsuka, a painter employed at a
U.S. military base in Japan, had gone to Korea with U.S. troops from his base
following the outbreak of the war, and was believed to have been killed in
action not far from Seoul. Hiratsuka’s father sought an explanation and com-
pensation from the U.S. occupation forces, but was told that his son had
traveled to Korea illegally, and had never been an official member of the UN/
U.S. forces in Korea. His family was therefore not entitled to any military
benefits. Another article published in the Asahi the next day reported that
Yoshiwara Minefumi and two other young men from Oita Prefecture had
also disappeared after going to Korea with the U.S. forces. 57
The occupation authorities were very well aware of the stories of Hiratsu-
ka and Yoshiwara. Since U.S. strategy had determined that Japanese in the
Korean War zone were, as far as possible, to be kept at sea, reports that
Japanese were in fact accompanying U.S. military units onto Korea soil, and
that some might have died in land battles on the Korean Peninsula, evoked
alarm. As one army memo put it, this had the potential to cause “serious
international complications,” and around the end of 1950, a top secret U.S.
military investigation was launched to examine the matter. 58
The inquiry confirmed the death of Hiratsuka, but was unable to deter-
mine the fate of Yoshiwara, who had apparently been killed, wounded, or
captured near Daejeon on July 20 while working for the U.S. Twenty-Fourth
Infantry Division. 59 All U.S. divisions in Korea were then ordered to find out
whether they had Japanese nationals in their ranks, and if so to place them in
“protective custody” and repatriate them to Japan. On their return, the repa-
triated Japanese were questioned, fingerprinted, offered jobs with the occu-
pation forces on Japanese soil, and firmly instructed never to tell anyone
about their experiences in Korea. Declassified U.S. records show that by the
middle of 1952, 118 Japanese serving with U.S. units in Korea had been
repatriated.
Most of these Japanese base workers had been “houseboys” (a term then
widely applied to adult male servants), cooks, drivers, repair workers, or (in a
few cases) interpreters in Japan. But when they got to Korea, a number of
them found themselves carrying weapons and engaging in combat. One man,
for example, was taken along by the U.S. military unit for whom he worked
because his employers thought he might be able to help them as an interpret-
er. After landing in Busan, he traveled with the American troops to Daejeon,
where “the unit was hit by the enemy and about half were killed or
wounded. . . . At eight o’clock at night I lay down in a rice paddy because of
the enemy all around. . . . I stayed in the rice paddy all night.” He then
walked for three or four days, by which time he had lost contact with his unit,
with whom he was only reunited several days later. At some point in his
journey he was “grazed across the face by two burb gun bullets” and treated
on the spot. He told his interviewers that he had been issued a carbine, and “I
used it all the time. I don’t know how many North Koreans I killed.” 60
Particularly disconcerting testimony came from five children, most of
them war orphans, who had been adopted by U.S. military units in Japan as
“mascots” and followed the U.S. forces to the Korean battlefront. One of
them was a child known to the Americans as “Jimmy,” whose parents had
been killed in the bombing of Tokyo, and who had been taken to Korea at the
age of ten by an American soldier whose name he did not know. After about
one month he was abandoned by this soldier, and went to work as a houseboy
for an officer in the Twenty-Third Infantry. He moved repeatedly from one
unit to another, and was at some point supplied with a gun with which he
claimed to have killed “three or four Chinese.” He also said that he had been
slightly wounded in one of the encounters. On his return to Japan, he was
given $104 and (like all the others) an order never to speak about his experi-
ences. He had no known family in Japan, and it is unclear what happened to
him afterward. 61 Another young orphan, nicknamed “Peanuts” by U.S.
troops, was about fourteen when he participated in the Incheon landing with
his American employer; he too reported using a gun in battle. 62 A third child
was taken from Shimane Prefecture to Busan early in the Korean War, when
he was nine years old, and accompanied U.S. forces as far as Pyongyang,
where he was abandoned. He was picked up by another American soldier,
who left him in an orphanage in Seoul, from where was returned to Japan and
an uncertain fate. 63
A much larger, but still uncertain, number of Japanese engineers and
military support workers were recruited via shipping, salvage, and other
firms and sent to work for the UN Command in South Korea. In January
1953, an Asahi newspaper journalist managed to interview a group of forty-
seven Japanese employed on a U.S. military base near the front line in
Incheon. Some had been in Korea for as long as two years, moving back and
forth as the front line moved. Their pay was good by the standards of the
early 1950s, but living conditions were harsh. The workers were accommo-
dated in tents furnished with packing cases and empty oil drums (which were
used as makeshift stoves). According to information that the journalist ob-
tained from one of these workers, the number of Japanese employed by U.S.
forces in Korea was declining sharply because of pressure from South Kore-
an president Yi Seungman (Syngman Rhee) to employ Koreans instead, but
there were still “several thousand [Japanese engineers and military support
workers] based on board ships off Busan.” 64 Though North Korean and
Soviet claims about Japanese military participation in the Korean War may
in part have reflected confusion caused by the presence of Japanese
American Nisei troops on the front line, the evidence presented here suggests
that these protests were not entirely without substance.
KOREANS IN JAPAN: A COMMUNITY DIVIDED
While thousands of Japanese participants in the war were sailing to the

Korean zone, a similar number of young Koreans were making journeys
across the border in the opposite direction, to their former colonial power. In
July 1950, the U.S. military established the KATUSA (Korean Augmenta-
tion to the United States Army) scheme, allowing them to recruit Koreans
directly into their own ranks. In August, the Japanese transport vessel Shi-
nanomaru carried the first batch of 2,300 Korean recruits from Busan to
Yokohama, where they marched in columns down the gangplanks and past
the red-brick warehouses on the Yokohama waterfront, and boarded trains
that would take them to the U.S. Seventh Infantry Division’s base at Camp
Fuji near Gotemba for training. 65 Many of these were young men who had
been rounded up more or less at random from the streets of Busan: “In the
contingents shipped to Japan, schoolboys still had their schoolbooks; one
recruit who had left home to obtain medicine for his sick wife still had the
medicine with him.” 66 In all, more than 8,600 KATUSA recruits would be
brought to Japan for a rather cursory period of training before being sent into
the maelstrom of the Incheon landing in September.
Other U.S. bases, at Asaka in Saitama Prefecture and Beppu in Ōita
Prefecture, were being used to train members of the Korean ethnic commu-
nity in Japan (Zainichi Koreans) who had volunteered to fight on the South
Korean side in the war. There were at that time about six hundred thousand
Koreans—mostly colonial-era migrants and their children—living in Japan,
many experiencing poverty and widespread discrimination. Although the
vast majority originally came from the southern half of the Korean Peninsula,
a substantial section of the community was more sympathetic to the Northern
than the Southern side in the conflict. Nonetheless, soon after the war broke
out, the pro–South Korean residents league Mindan issued a call for volun-
teers to the Korean community in Japan, anticipating that tens of thousands
would answer the call to support the South. But the U.S. military was wary of
the recruitment process, in part because it feared it would encourage support-
ers of North Korea to start a rival movement to raise a volunteer force for the
North. In the end, 642 pro–South Zainichi Korean recruits were sent to the
front, where they participated in some of the fiercest conflicts of the war.
One hundred thirty-five were killed or went missing in action. By the time
the war ended, the occupation of Japan had come to an end, too. Japan,
having regained its sovereignty, unilaterally rescinded the Japanese national-
ity formerly possessed by colonial-era migrants living on Japanese soil.
About half of the surviving Zainichi Korean recruits found themselves de-
barred from returning to the country where they had grown up and been
recruited for service. 67
When the recruitment scheme started, some Japanese men also presented
themselves at Mindan offices to volunteer for service in Korea. At the organ-
ization’s Hokkaido branch office in Hakodate, for example, twenty of the
sixty men who had volunteered for service by the first week of July 1950
were Japanese, many of them former junior officers in the Japanese Imperial
Army. 68 Although these volunteers were turned away, a few Japanese did in
fact join the Korean recruits in training, and went with them to fight Korea. A
Japanese man from Fukuoka, for example, volunteered via Mindan and, with
the apparent approval of the occupation authorities, was trained alongside
some 120 Korean volunteers at a U.S. base in Japan and sent to the Korean
war front; but his total inability to speak Korean proved a handicap, and he
ended up working as a “houseboy” for a senior Korean military officer. 69
Meanwhile, the war was tearing the Zainichi Korean community in two.
While the pro–South Korean organization Mindan recruited volunteers to
fight on the Southern side, the pro–North Korean United Democratic Front of
Koreans in Japan (Zainichi Chōsen Tōitsu Minshu Sensen, or Minsen for
short) collaborated with left-wing Japanese in staging covert sabotage actions
aimed at preventing the transport of U.S./UN troops and supplies from Japan
to Korea. For others (as researcher Ōno Toshihiko discovered in his inter-
views with Koreans who had worked on the docks in the port city of Moji
during the Korean War) the struggles of everyday life left little time to
engage with the politics of war. Agonizingly aware of the impact of the war
on their homeland and on relatives still in Korea, many Zainichi Koreans
simply did what they had to do to survive, seizing the chance to labor through
the night, loading military hardware onto the great military transports in
return for the casual wages available to day laborers. One Korean former
dockworker described being so busy with the struggle for livelihood that he
was capable only of thinking “whichever side wins, the war will end.” An-
other recalled, “We knew that those tanks and things, when they were sent
over there [to Korea], were going to be used to kill people, but what else
could we do? If we didn’t load them, we wouldn’t have had any work.” 70
But antiwar activity by some sections of the Korean community had far-
reaching consequences. One little-remembered but disturbing aspect of Ja-
pan’s war involvement was the rising tide of suspicion directed by sections
of the majority community toward the Korean minority, and particularly
toward Koreans who expressed left-wing views. On December 26, 1950,
Chief Cabinet Secretary Okazaki Katsuo announced that his government had
reached an agreement with the Rhee regime in South Korea on “the compul-
sory returning of subversive Koreans in this country to their homeland.” 71
The remarks were widely reported in the Japanese media and extensively
debated in parliament, and provoked mass demonstrations by members of the
Korean community. In January of the following year Minister of State
Ōhashi Takeo told a parliamentary committee that the numbers to be de-
ported were being explored by the Japanese government and SCAP, but that
both agreed on the general principle of deporting “subversive elements.” 72 In
the end, the plan was not carried through, though a number of Koreans
arrested for participation in sabotage or related actions were sent to detention
centers to await deportation to South Korea where, given the Rhee govern-
ment’s view of suspected Communists, they faced a very uncertain fate. As
we shall see in the epilogue, these events were to have repercussions for the
future of Koreans in Japan.
BLOOD AND BONES
The scale of Japan’s involvement on the Southern side of the conflict easily
exceeds that of many of the official participants in the UN Command, but
Japan’s semicovert status in the war has left uncertainty, not only about the
details of the involvement, but also about the casualties that it entailed. In
2017, there is still no official estimate of the number of Japanese killed and
wounded in the Korean War, though the number of dead was certainly in the
dozens, and the number of casualties including seriously injured was prob-
ably in the hundreds. The absence of acknowledgment by the Japanese
government of the death and injury of its own citizens in war is remarkable.
But equally remarkable is the way in which the conventional version of
Japan and the Korean War—the vision of the war as “Japan’s Marshall
Plan”—makes it easy for us to ignore the massive destruction wrought on
human bodies by this most violent of conflicts. Although no fighting oc-
curred on Japanese soil, some sections of Japanese society were far from
being insulated from encounters with the physical realities of the war.
Tens of thousands of war wounded, including seriously injured prisoners
of war, were airlifted to Japan for treatment in hospitals in Kyushu, Osaka,
and Tokyo: more than nine thousand war casualties were flown to hospitals
in southern Japan in one six-week period from October to November 1950
alone. 73 Almost one hundred Japanese Red Cross nurses, many of whom had
served as military nurses during the Pacific War, are known to have been
conscripted to work at UN/U.S. field hospitals hastily constructed in Kyushu
to treat the war wounded. There are also some accounts suggesting that
Japanese nurses were sent to the front line in Korea, though these have yet to
be confirmed. 74 The lives of major hospitals in Japan, such as Osaka General
Hospital, which was a treatment center for some of the most seriously
wounded, must have been totally transformed by the war, but so far no
research on the impact of the Korean War on Japan’s medical history has
been conducted.
Though Japanese were not officially called on to give their lives in the
war, they were encouraged to make a different kind of physical contribution.
A newspaper article published early in 1953 vividly evokes the atmosphere
of the night flights by U.S. transport planes that crisscrossed the skies be-
tween Japan and the Korean Peninsula during the war:
In the dark interior of the cargo plane, amongst the parachute cases which
sway back and forth with a loud rattling sound, and the great axes used to
break open the door in case of emergency, illuminated by the eerie glow of red
lights, are five or six white wooden boxes. Their labels read “HUMAN
BLOOD—HANDLE WITH CARE.” The special procurements of artillery
shells and other military supplies ordered from Japan are sent by ship; blood is
the only product sent by air. 75
At that stage in the war, 250 pints of blood were being used every day to
treat the injured on the UN side of the Korean battlefront. The newspaper
article does not tell us what proportion of this was supplied by Japanese
blood donors, but it does report that seven thousand Japanese had already
given their blood to the war effort; or, more precisely, sold it: a news item
that appeared in 1960 recalls that in the Korean War years “almost all the
donors were vagrants and unemployed who were giving blood to earn a
gratuity, and these people would do the rounds from one blood donation
centre to another, so their blood count kept dropping.” 76
Japanese donations of blood to the UN forces in Korea were organized
both by the Japan Red Cross Society and by the Japan Blood Bank, which
had been established on November 10, 1950, apparently at the request of the
American occupation authorities. The executive director of Japan Blood
Bank was Naitō Ryōichi, a close associate of Ishii Shirō, who had been the
founder of the Imperial Army’s notorious bacteriological warfare research
Unit 731, responsible for conducting germ warfare experiments on living
victims in China. The director of Japan Blood Bank’s Tokyo section was
Kitano Masaji, who had been appointed acting commander of Unit 731 in
August 1942 and remained in that position until the final months before
Japan’s defeat in 1945. As researcher Aoki Fukiko suggests, it seems that the
blood bank served a dual purpose: supplying lifesaving blood to the Korean
War front, while also providing a postwar safe haven for war criminals from
the Asia-Pacific War. 77
While the transport planes were flying blood from Japan to Korea, a far
more massive seaborne operation was under way to return the remains of the
American war dead via Japan to the United States. This was the first time in
any war that there had been a mass evacuation of the remains of men killed in
action while hostilities were still continuing, and the decision to take on this
herculean task seems to have reflected uncertainties about the eventual out-
come of the war. Bodies in a state of decay were sent to a vast morgue at
Camp Jōno, Kokura, where they were examined and embalmed by a team of
physical anthropologists, and morticians, which included anthropology post-
graduate students from the University of Tokyo. Among them was Hanihara
Kazurō, later to become a well-known scholar, whose memoirs of this time
are as grim as the fictionalized image of morgue work in Ōe Kenzaburō’s
1950s work Lavish Are the Dead (Shisha no Ogori), though Hanihara also
expressed a somewhat morbid delight at the opportunity to examine the
remains of such a large number of people from a multitude of diverse racial
backgrounds. 78
Japan was not only the site where the bodies of tens of thousands of war
dead were prepared for return to their final resting places, and where the
bodies of tens of thousands of injured were treated for their wounds. It was
also a site where some of the war’s most damaging weapons were manufac-
tured. The direct involvement of Japanese sailors and labor requisition work-
ers was greatest in the early phases of the war: from the beginning of July
1950 to the first half of 1951. Conversely, Japan’s role in weapons manufac-
ture increased as the war progressed. On December 5, 1951, the U.S. Depart-
ment of the Army decided to “have Japanese firms manufacture certain types
of war material,” including weapons and ammunition. It was recommended
that “security supervision with respect to such contacts be effected through

the appropriate agency of the Japanese Government since the Japanese
Government is vitally interested in the smooth and efficient operation of the
project.” 79 Four months later, SCAP announced the return to Japanese hands
of 850 factories producing military material that had been confiscated by the
occupation authorities following Japan’s surrender. 80 By the final year and
half of the war, a growing number of orders for artillery, explosives, and
other weapons were being placed with Japanese firms.
Even before that, though, some Japanese firms were engaged in the pro-
duction of weapons of war, particularly of napalm and napalm shells. Na-
palm, being a mixture of relatively common chemicals, was easily made, and
as early as March 1951 U.S. napalm-filled bombs for use in Korea were
being produced in Japan. The quantities involved were substantial: “On an
average good day, the expenditures of napalm are: Air Force, 45,000 gallons;
Navy, 10,000 to 12,000 gallons; Marines, 4,000 to 5,000 gallons.” 81 The
Australian air force also experimented with the use of napalm-filled rocket
heads, using napalm produced in the United States but rocket heads manufac-
tured in Japan. 82
Producers of napalm reportedly included Nippon Yushi KK, a major pro-
ducer of explosives in the Korean War era. 83 Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Japan
Steel were also among the companies that benefited from the rebirth of arms
production in Japan. 84 Though these facts again are not unknown, their de-
tails and implications have never fully been explored. Were the Japanese
workers who produced weapons like napalm aware of what they were pro-
ducing, and the uses to which it would be put? Did those who lived around
the factories guess what was being made there? Economic analyses of the
“Korean War boom” often mention arms production as one element in that
boom, but the social history of arms production in 1950s Japan remains
almost entirely unexplored. We know hardly anything of the impact of weap-
ons and explosives manufacture on the communities living near the factories
and on the workforce who, on occasion, themselves suffered injury and death
in accidents that were the by-products of the Korean War. 85
RECONTESTING REARMAMENT
The origins of Japan’s postwar military forces also lie in the Korean War. In
July 1950, Japan’s National Police Reserve (NPR—Keisatsu Yobitai) was
created as a direct response to the outbreak of the conflict in Korea. This
moment is seen by many historians as marking the first serious step toward
Japanese rearmament. John Dower, for example, notes that the NPR was
equipped with artillery, tanks, and aircraft, and quotes the words of one of the
reserve’s U.S. trainers, Col. Frank Kowalski, who described the force as “a
little American Army.” 86 In November 1952, the National Police Reserve

was transformed into the National Safety Force (NSF—Hōantai), the prede-
cessor to the current Self-Defense Force (Jieitai).
But the view of the NPR as a semicovert army is not accepted by every-
one. Thomas French has recently criticized Dower, Maeda Tetsuo, Reinhard
Drifte, and other scholars for relying heavily on Kowalski’s fallible memo-
ries of events, and questions the notion that the NPR was a military force. 87
French argues that “an external security force was not required in Japan in
1950,” because the USSR, the People’s Republic of China, and North Korea
lacked the capacity to launch a military attack on Japan. 88 Though he recog-
nizes that external factors played some part in the establishment of the NPR,
French emphasizes that “the NPR was created for internal security,” as a
bulwark against problems including the threats of Communist violence and
mass unrest. The force, which was viewed by the Japanese government as a
“welcome and timely solution to this internal security vacuum,” took the
form of a “constabulary”; that is, of a paramilitary force subject to civil law
and tasked with maintaining security at home. It was only “during its evolu-
tion into the NSF” that the National Police Reserve began to acquire some of
the equipment and functions of a real military force. 89
French’s research is helpful in encouraging historians to look more close-
ly at the complex and hybrid nature of the National Police Reserve, but his
revision of this important moment in Japanese history creates some new
confusions. Whether or not the Soviet Union and its Asian allies actually had
the capacity to launch an attack on Japan, there can be no doubt that many
senior figures in Japan and the United States took the threat of an attack very
seriously. To quote just one of many examples, a CIA report of October 1950
concluded:
The Soviet Union acting alone has the capability of rapidly occupying Korea,
Hokkaido and Okinawa; of launching a substantial amphibious-airborne inva-
sion of Honshu; and of conducting harassing attacks on the Aleutians, Kyushu,
Formosa, the Philippines, and other islands in the adjacent waters, and lines of
communication. 90
Besides, as French’s own account at times acknowledges, the National

Police Reserve was not a consistent and clearly defined entity, but rather a
work in progress. It was also the focus of intense political struggles, both
within the Japanese administration and in U.S. military and political circles,
and changing power balances between various elements in both influenced
the way that the NPR evolved. When the reserve was created, the very
hawkish head of U.S. military intelligence in Japan, Charles A. Willoughby
(discussed further in chapter 8) worked with former senior Imperial Army
officer Hattori Takushirō in an effort to place prominent Japanese military
veterans in key positions in the NPR. 91 These attempts failed, since the
Japanese government, though receptive to ideas of gradual rearmament, was
cautious about proceeding too fast. As French points out, the senior ranks of
the NPR were initially made up of former wartime policemen and Home
Ministry bureaucrats, and until mid-1952 the reserve was largely armed with
light weapons such as carbines. 92
But the story did not end there. The United States continued to press
Japan to rearm, and their calls received a friendly hearing from many on the
right of Japanese politics. In April 1951, an important U.S. National Intelli-
gence Estimate on “The Feasibility of Japanese Rearmament in Association
with the United States” suggested that “the 75,000 men now in the National
Police Reserve, who are receiving US training and equipment” could readily
become the core of “a Japanese Army of up to 500,000 men” that might be
created within six months or a year if the political will and necessary equip-
ment were forthcoming. 93 Meanwhile in Japan itself, figures on the political
right, including Yoshida’s confidant and informal advisor, Tatsumi Eiichirō,
and Chief Cabinet Secretary Okazaki Katsuo, pressed hard to strengthen the
military character of the NPR, to some effect. Tatsumi was given the task of
screening de-purged military officers for appointment to the NPR, and in
October 1951, some four hundred former officers had reportedly been ap-
pointed to NPR posts. 94 By June 1952, as the Japanese government moved
ahead with plans for expansion of the force, some 70–80 percent of appli-
cants for the two thousand new NPR positions were former members of the
Imperial military. 95 Striking photographs taken by Swiss photographer Wer-
ner Bischof show Japanese NPR forces training in military camouflage gear
as early as 1951. 96
In early August 1952, Australian diplomats reported a conversation with
State Department official Kenneth Young, who informed his Australian
counterparts of a U.S. decision that
a “gradual and quiet” program of strengthening the Japanese National Police

Reserve should begin over the next 12 to 18 months. According to Young this
program should comprise the loaning of sufficient tanks and heavy guns to the
Japanese Government to equip each of Japan’s four Police Reserve Divisions
with two artillery battalions and one tank company. 97
It makes sense, then, to point out that the National Police Reserve was not
a fully fledged military force from its inception, and that it had an important
internal security role. But the creation and evolution of the NPR was clearly a
key step in the process that converted Japan, during the course of the Korean
War, from an almost entirely disarmed country (albeit one that possessed a
minesweeping force) to a country with an expanding military force of some
110,000 that had “most of the equipment of a modern army.” 98 By the latter
part of 1953, despite the existence of its peace constitution, the Japanese
government had drawn up plans for further expansion of the National Safety
Force (as it had now become) to 180,000 over the next three years, and for
the acquisition of equipment including destroyers, submarines, and fighter
bombers. 99
GEOGRAPHIES OF WAR
The Korean War roles of port cities like Kokura and Yokohama, and of
islands like Okinawa (discussed in chapter 5), are reminders of the very
uneven geographical effects of the war on surrounding countries. As we shall
see in chapters 2 and 3, in China, too, the human impact of the war was borne
particularly heavily on a few towns and cities (such as Manzhouli and An-
dong), where life was completely transformed by the effects of the conflict.
In the case of Japan, the uneven effects of the war can be seen in the contrast
between Tokyo on the one hand, and port cities like Sasebo and Kokura on
the other.
Tokyo became the nerve center of the Korean War. The United Nations’
engagement in Korea was commanded from the Dai-Ichi Building, just
across the road from the imperial palace and just down the street from the
National Diet in the heart of the Japanese capital, and an influx of other war-
related activities clustered around this hub. Foreign journalists covering the
war congregated in Tokyo, since this was where the UN Command gave its
press briefings; so, too, did the offices of international agencies engaged in
war-related activities, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
These command, control, and information gathering activities, and the
crowds of foreigners they attracted to Tokyo, gave the city a rather fevered
vivacity, captured in words by U.S. journalist Hanson Baldwin:
Tokyo is a city of glaring contrasts; we, the conquerors, live high, wide and
handsome; parties, dinners, dances and flirtations provide a silver screen ob-
scuring but never completely hiding the grim background of Korea. 100
But in port cities like Yokohama, Kokura, Moji, and Sasebo, the feel of
war was very different: grittier and more immediate. Large parts of these
city’s harbors were transformed into transport hubs for troops and military
material being sent to Korea. Sealed off by barbed wire emplacements, these
stretches of harbor became inaccessible to local fishing fleets and commer-
cial vessels, many of which were instead mobilized to carry troops and
supplies to the war front. Military vehicles constantly rumbled through the
streets, and the superstructures of huge troop transports towered over the
dockside warehouses. Swiss photographer Werner Bischof traveled through-
out Japan and as far as Okinawa, which was under separate and direct U.S.
military occupation, during the Korean War, and found landscapes trans-
formed by the conflict. In Okinawa huge construction projects, mostly car-
ried out by large Japanese corporations, created a landscape of tar and con-
crete, barracks and aircraft hangers, on land confiscated from local farmers
(for further discussion, see chapter 5). Bischof photographed the giant B-29
bombers that roared down newly constructed runways of U.S. bases in Oki-
nawa, on their bombing missions to Korea, the UN logos on their sides
surrounded with a scoresheet tallying the number of bombs they had dropped
on the enemy. Around these bases, and in the port cities of Japan, red-light
districts expanded in the shadow of the war to serve the new transient popu-
lations that passed through these areas on their way to and from the battle-
front.
In places like Kokura, although the war brought economic growth and
employment, it was no simple “gift from the gods” (to cite Prime Minister
Yoshida’s notorious phrase), but rather something very much more complex,
more physical and more filled with pain. As historian Ishimaru Yasuzō
writes, “The horrors of war such as the mass escape of US soldiers and
transportation of the bodies of soldiers who were killed on the Korean Penin-
sula were deeply affecting the people who lived around Kokura Port and
Moji Port.” 101 The “mass escape” that Ishimaru mentions took place soon
after the start of the war, on July 11, 1950, when some two hundred soldiers
from the U.S. Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment staged a mass desertion
from Camp Jōno, and descended on the center of Kokura, smashing shop
windows, assaulting women, and engaging in fights with local people. One
Japanese man was shot dead in the riot, several were injured, and, according
to the recollections of the then mayor of Kokura, Hamada Ryōsuke, about
twenty-eight women were raped.
At that time, the U.S. military was gradually moving toward policies of
racial integration, but widespread segregation remained. The Twenty-Fourth
Infantry Regiment, though under the control of white commanding officers,
was an all-black regiment whose members had been in Japan ever since the
start of the occupation. They had been stationed in rural Gifu Prefecture, but
had struggled with issues of racial prejudice in their interactions with other
occupation force military units and with some members of the Japanese
public. Even after the outbreak of the Korean War, the troops of the Twenty-
Fourth Infantry Regiment had remained hopeful that they would not be sent
to the Korean front, since most members of the regiment had little combat
experience. They were also very poorly equipped for combat; and some
probably shared the doubts expressed by 1st Lt. Beverley Scott of the First
Battalion, who pondered why black Americans like himself should “give up
their lives for the independence of South Korea when they themselves lacked
full rights at home.” 102
The departure of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment to Korea was

chaotic. The soldiers were supposed to sail from Sasebo, but were instead
diverted to Camp Jōno in Kokura, where there was inadequate accommoda-
tion to house them. From there, as they discovered, they were to be shipped
to Korea in a hastily assembled flotilla of “fishing boats, fertilizer haulers,
coal carriers and tankers.” 103 It was against the background of this chaos, as
the miseries of their situation and the likelihood of impending death con-
fronted the soldiers, that the mass breakout and riot occurred. Although those
involved were only a small fraction of the three thousand members of the
regiment, from the point of view of the citizens of Kokura the riot was a
terrifying introduction to the realities of the Korean War. The rioters were
rounded up by other members of the regiment and dispatched the next day to
the battle front. A cursory investigation by the U.S. military concluded with
an official declaration that no one had been killed or injured, and the Kokura
riot was then largely written out of the history of Japan in the Korean War. In
the context of Japan’s deepening security ties with the United States, neither
the American nor the Japanese governments had any wish to probe the sensi-
tive issues of racial discrimination and violence against women raised by the
riot, and occupation-era censorship ensured that it was quickly forgotten
(except, presumably, by those who had been its victims).
CONCLUSION: REMEMBERING JAPAN

BETWEEN PEACE AND WAR
The Korean War did, of course, play a crucial role in reviving the postwar
Japanese economy. But the widespread vision of the war as Japan’s equiva-
lent to the Marshall Plan has long obscured important human, social, and
ethical aspects of the war. The stories recounted here help to fill some of the
lacunae of memory, but many other forgotten voices remain to be heard.
Around one thousand Red Cross nurses, for example, were conscripted dur-
ing the Korean War for work on U.S. bases and in hospitals treating the mass
of wounded UN Command soldiers evacuated to Japan for treatment. 104 But
their stories, too, remain to be told.
Efforts to obscure the presence of Japanese nationals in the Korean War
zone were never completely successful. Particularly after the end of the
Allied occupation, some Japanese newspapers published reports (although
generally rather brief ones) on the activities of Japanese sailors and workers
in Korea. 105 Meanwhile, North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet newspapers
published frequent and often luridly exaggerated accounts of Japanese in-
volvement in the war. The result has been a bifurcation of East Asian memo-
ry. In Japan, images of Japanese in the conflict zone and of Japanese war
casualties have tended to vanish into cracks of public memory; in North
Korea, the narrative of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War (as it is

known there) still contains vastly overblown images of Japan’s “criminal
participation” in the war. 106
Within the hall of mirrors that constituted the Korean War, opaque com-
bat strategies that would reappear in later Cold War and post–Cold War
conflicts were refined. Around the time of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in
2003, the role of a “privatized military industry” in war (which had in fact
been expanding for many years) became the topic of widespread public com-
ment and debate. 107 But the story of Japan’s involvement in the Korean War
shows how, even in the early 1950s, the lines between civil and military roles
were being blurred. Companies like Tōzai Kisen were already active in pri-
vatized military roles, as was the U.S. Vinnell Corporation, which was a
significant and controversial contractor to the U.S. military in Okinawa dur-
ing the war (see chapter 5), and remains one of the world’s largest private
military companies today. 108 As we shall see in chapter 8, practices that
foreshadow later controversies about “special rendition” were also being
developed in the transfer of prisoners from the Korean War to Japan for
interrogation and training.
The complex political circumstances of Japan during the Korean War
made the country’s role in the conflict particularly shadowy and equivocal.
An exploration of the floating world of Japan’s Korean war casts new light
on the troubled realities of collective self-defense in postwar East Asia.
Creating a fuller account of this history is essential to shaping the region’s
future, as well as to remembering its past.
NOTES
1. The United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, Turkey,
Australia, New Zealand, Ethiopia, Greece, France, Colombia, Belgium, South Africa, the Neth-
erlands, and Luxembourg.
2. Gordon L. Rottman, Korean War Order of Battle: United States, United Nations, and
Communist Ground, Naval, and Air Forces, 1950–1953 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002), 126.
3. Chalmers Johnson, Conspiracy at Matsukawa (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1972), 23; works that quote this comment include William S. Borden, The Pacific Alliance:
United States Foreign Economic Policy and Japanese Trade Recovery, 1947–1955 (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 146; Gordon C. K. Cheung, Market Liberalism:
American Foreign Policy towards China (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1998), 36; and
Aaron Forsberg, America and the Japanese Miracle: The Cold War Context of Japan’s Post-
war Revival (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 84.
4. Miyake Akimasa et al., Nihonshi A: Gendai kara no Rekishi (Tokyo: Tōkyō Shoseki,
2012).
5. Reinhard Drifte, “Japan’s Involvement in the Korean War,” in The Korean War in
History, ed. James Cotton and Ian Neary (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989),
121–34.
6. Roger Dingman, “The Dagger and the Gift: The Impact of the Korean War on Japan,” in
A Revolutionary War: Korea and the Transformation of the Postwar World, ed. William J.
Williams (Chicago: Imprint, 1993).
7. Ōnuma Hisao, “Chōsen Sensō e no Nihon no Kyōryoku,” in Chōsen Sensō to Nihon, ed.
Ōnuma Hisao (Tokyo: Shinkansha, 2006), 75–119.
8. Nishimura Hideki, Ōsaka de Tatakatta Chōsen Sensō: Suita Hirakata Jiken no Seishun
Gunzō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2004).
9. Wada Haruki, The Korean War: An International History (Lanham, Md.: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2014).
10. Baek Jongweon, Kenshō Chōsen Sensō: Nihon wa kono Sensō ni dō Kakawatta ka
(Tokyo: San-ichi Shobō, 2013).
11. John Swenson-Wright, “The Limits to ‘Normalcy’: Japanese-Korean Post–Cold War
Interactions,” in Japan as a “Normal Country”: A Nation in Search of Its Place in the World,
ed. Yoshihide Soeya, Masayuki Tadokoro, and David A. Welch (Toronto: University of Toron-
to Press, 2011), 146–92.
12. http://questionbox.jp.msn.com/qa6962218.html, accessed December 15, 2014.
13. http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1068374040.
14. Wada, The Korean War, 91.
15. Michael Schaller, “The Korean War: The Economic and Strategic Impact on Japan,” in
The Korean War in World History, ed. William Stueck (Lexington: University Press of Ken-
tucky, 2004), 148.
16. See, for example, John G. Westover, Combat Support in Korea (facsimile reprint)
(Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1987), 81–82; Department of Air, Australia,
Minute to the Minister of Air, July 8, 1952, in National Archives of Australia, Canberra, Series
no. A705, control symbol 159/2/293, “Parliamentary Question by Mr. Beazley on the Use of
the Napalm Bomb in Korea”; Hasegawa Masayasu, ed., Kenpō to Chihō Seiji (Nagoya:
Fubōsha, 1974), 84.
17. P. B. Sullivan, “Korea: Background Briefing Memorandum for Mr. Robertson,” March
27, 1953; National Archives and Records Administration, RG59, Bureau of Far Eastern Af-
fairs, “Miscellaneous Subject Files for the Year 1953, Far East, General,” electronic copy held
in Okinawa Prefectural Archives, ref. 059-01198-00005-001-145.
18. As a contemporary State Department document put it, the commander in chief, United
Nations Command “receives his orders and the authority for his actions from the [U.S.] Joint
Chiefs of Staff. Although the ultimate authority for the Korean action can be said to rest with
the United Nations, full operational and command responsibility remains with the United States
as the Unified Command; there has been no attempt to interfere with the conduct of the military
action by the United Nations itself”; see Sullivan, “Korea.”
19. Ellis O. Briggs, Letter to John M. Allison, State Department, Washington, D.C., January
14, in National Archives and Records Administration, RG59, Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs,
“Miscellaneous Subject Files for the Year 1953—Japan, Jan–June 1953, Correspondence
A–L,” electronic copy held in Okinawa Prefectural Archives, Naha, ref. 059-01198-00008-
001-001.
20. Nam G. Kim, From Enemies to Allies: The Impact of the Korean War on U.S.-Japan
Relations (San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1997), 62.
21. Department of External Affairs, Australia, “Japanese Workmen,” cablegram to High
Commissioner’s Office, London, July 18, 1950, in National Archives of Australia, Canberra,
Series no. A1838, control symbol 3123/7/27, “Korean War—Japan’s Policy,” emphasis in
original.
22. W. R. Hodgson, “Japanese Attitude to Korean War,” 1950, report by the Australian
Mission in Japan, in National Archives of Australia, Canberra, Series no. A1838, control
symbol 3123/7/27, “Korean War—Japan’s Policy.”
23. See, for example, Department of External Affairs, Australia, “Your Telegram 278,”
immediate secret cablegram to Australian Mission, Tokyo, July 6, 1950, in National Archives
of Australia, Canberra, Series no. A1838, control symbol 3123/7/27, “Korean War—Japan’s
Policy.”
24. Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, Ije neun Malhal su itda: Ilbon Jakjeon Bimil, TV
documentary, first broadcast June 22 and 25, 2001.
25. Ishimaru Yasuzō, “Chōsen Sensō to Nihon no Kakawari: Wasuresarareta Kaijō Yūsō,”
Senshi Kenkyū Nenpō 11 (March 2008): 21–40. Some suggest even larger numbers; these are
difficult to verify; see Baek, Kenshō Chōsen Sensō, 302–3.
26. Rottman, Korean War Order of Battle, 119, 121, and 126.
27. Miles M. de Witt, “Reconditioning of Vessels,” memo to the Commanding Officer, 24
Transportation Medium Port, September 12, 1950, in National Archives and Records Adminis-
tration, College Park, Md., RG 554, Stack area 290, row 50, compartment 16, shelves 3–6,
container 5397, folder 564 (Aug.–Dec. 1950), “Japan Logistical Command, AG Section.”
28. Donald W. Boose, Over the Beach: US Army Amphibious Operations in the Korean War
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2008), 229–30.
29. Ishimaru, “Chōsen Sensō to Nihon no Kakawari,” 35.
30. Yokohama Shi Yokohama Kūshū o Kioku suru Kai, ed., Yokohama no Kūshū Saigai,
vol. 5 (Yokohama: Yokohama Shi, 1977), 60–61.
31. Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, Ije neun Malhal su itda; Tatsuya Sato, “Major
Security Shift: Brother Says No More War Dead,” Asahi Shimbun / Asia Japan Watch, May 17,
2014, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201405170041, accessed June
8, 2014.
32. Samuel Mun, “Destined to Cooperate: Japan–South Korea Naval Relations,” Diplomat,
February 5, 2014, http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/destined-to-cooperate-japan-south-korea-
naval-relations/, accessed June 8, 2014.
33. Ariyama Mikio, “Chōsen Sensō ni Sanka,” in Ije neun malhal su itda: Ilbon jakjeon
bimil, ed. Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (Seoul: Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation,
2001), 1–4.
34. Wada, The Korean War, 138; Suzuki Hideo, “Chōsen Kaiiki ni Shutsudōshita Nihon
Tokubetsu Sōkaitai: Sono Hikari to Kage,” in Nihon no Sōkaishi, ed. Nihon Jieitai Sōkaitaigun,
2008, electronic resource, http://www.mod.go.jp/msdf/mf/history/index.html, accessed June 8,
2014.
35. Ariyama, “Chōsen Sensō ni Sanka”; see also Suzuki, “Chōsen Kaiiki ni Shutsudōshita
Nihon Tokubetsu Sōkaitai.”
36. Ariyama, “Chōsen Sensō ni Sanka”; Suzuki, “Chōsen Kaiiki ni Shutsudōshita Nihon
Tokubetsu Sōkaitai,” 6.
37. Ariyama, “Chōsen Sensō ni Sanka,” 28.
38. Ariyama, “Chōsen Sensō ni Sanka”; Lt. Col. Shrader (first name not given), “Awards to
Seamen Injured in Mine Sweeping Operations.” November 6, 1950, National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park, Md., RG331, Box no. 354, Folder no. (18) 040, “Japa-
nese Coast Guard,” microfiche copy held in National Diet Library, Tokyo.
39. Ariyama, “Chōsen Sensō ni Sanka,” 35–37; Suzuki, “Chōsen Kaiiki ni Shutsudōshita
Nihon Tokubetsu Sōkaitai,” 7.
40. Ariyama, “Chōsen Sensō ni Sanka,” 35–37.
41. Suzuki, “Chōsen Kaiiki ni Shutsudōshita Nihon Tokubetsu Sōkaitai,” 8.
42. Nakayama Masaaki, Statement to the Constitutional Investigation Committee’s Sub-
committee on Security, International Cooperation, etc., Lower House of the Japanese Diet
[Shūgiin Kenpō Chōsakai Anzen Hosho oyobi Kokusai Kyōryoku ni kansuru Shoiinkai], no. 5,
July 3, 2003.
43. Sato, “Major Security Shift.”
44. Boose, Over the Beach, 162.
45. Aono Buichi, addressing the second Labour Committee (Rōdō Iinkai) of the Lower
House of the Japanese Diet (Parliament) on March 2, 1952.
46. Kabasawa Yōji, “Chōsen Sensō to Nihonjin Senin,” part 3, Kaiin, October 2007, 84–94.
47. Sannomiya Kazumi, Evidence presented to the Tokyo District Court, Civil Section no
6B, May 16, 2005, http://comcom.jca.apc.org/iken_tokyo/tinjutu/kojin/sannomiya/shouko_
sannnomiya_4.htm.
48. “Background Check on Japanese Nationals,” G-2 memo, September 13, 1950, in Na-
tional Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md., Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP
and UNC, RG 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 16, shelf 3, container 5387, folder
200, “Japan Logistical Command G-2 Section.”
49. Kabasawa Yōji, “Chōsen Sensō to Nihonjin Senin,” part 2, Kaiin, September 2007,
39–48.
50. Akeboshi Mutsurō, Mucchan Kikanchō Hanseiki: Chōsen Sensō to Senin; Sengo Beisen
Senin Gaishi (N.p.: Privately published, 2005), 49.
51. Kawamura Kiichirō, Nihonjin Senin ga Mita Chōsen Sensō (Tokyo: Asahi Communica-
tions, 2007), 22.
52. Akeboshi, Mucchan Kikanchō Hanseiki, 48.
53. Yokohama Shi Yokohama Kūshū o Kioku suru Kai, Yokohama no Kūshū Saigai, vol. 5,
60–61.
54. All Japan Seaman’s Union, “Injury Sustained by Crew of Q075 LST,” letter to Chair-
man of the Central Struggle Committee, 1950, in GHQ SCAP records, RG 331, classification
no. 632.2 744, box no. 8743, folder 4; “Vessels: Japanese Seamen Bonuses,” microfiche copy
held in the National Diet Library, Tokyo.
55. “Activities of Richard Deverell in Japan,” memo to John M. Allison and Robert J. G.
McClurkin, State Department, March 3, National Archives and Records Administration, RG59,
Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, “Miscellaneous Subject Files for the Year 1953, Far East,
General,” electronic copy held in Okinawa Prefectural Archives, ref. 059-01198-00005-001-
145; the maritime limit between Japan and Korea unilaterally declared by South Korea presi-
dent Syngman Rhee.
56. Asahi Shimbun, November 13, 1952.
57. Asahi Shimbun, November 14, 1952.
58. Walter L. Weible, memo from office of Major General Weible to Commanding Officer,
US Army Hospital, 8162nd Army Unit, Fukuoka, December 31, 1951, “Missing Person,” in
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md., Records of GHQ, FEC,
SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container
46, folder 1, “Logistical Command AG Section, Formerly Top Secret Documents.”
59. L. J. Shurtleff, “Report of Investigation concerning the Transportation and/or Utilization
of Japanese Nationals by Units of this Command in Korea,” in National Archives and Records
Administration, College Park, Md., Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554,
stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 4, “Japan Logistical
Command AG Section, Formerly Top Secret Documents.”
60. Ueno Tamotsu, record of interview of T. Ueno, February 17, 1951, National Archives
and Records Administration, College Park, Md., RG 554, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and
UNC, Stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1, “Japan Logisti-
cal Command AG Section, Formerly Top Secret Documents.”
61. Record of interview of S. T., May 8, 1951, in National Archives and Records Adminis-
tration, College Park, Md., Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, RG 554, stack area 290,
row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1, “Japan Logistical Command AG
Section, Formerly Top Secret Documents.” (For reasons of privacy, the name of the interview-
ee has been replaced with initials.)
62. Record of Interview with S.Y., June 4, 1951, in National Archives and Records Admin-
istration, College Park, Md., RG 554, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, stack area 290,
row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1, Japan Logistical Command AG
Section, Formerly Top Secret Documents. (For reasons of privacy, the name of the interviewee
has been replaced with initials.)
63. Rublee C. Soule, “Return of Japanese National Boy to Japan,” letter from Rublee C.
Soule to Headquarters United States Eighth Army, March 7, 1951, in National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park, Md., record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, com-
partment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1. “Japan Logistical Command AG Section, Formerly
Top Secret Documents”; for further discussion, see Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Post-War Warriors:
Japanese Combatants in the Korean War,” Asia-Pacific Journal 10, no. 31 (July 30, 2012),
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Tessa-Morris_Suzuki/3803.
64. Asahi Shimbun, January 15, 1953, Tokyo evening edition.
65. Kabasawa, “Chōsen Sensō to Nihonjin Senin,” part 2.
66. Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (Washington, D.C.: Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1987), 386.
67. Kim Chanjung, Zainichi Giyūhei Kikan sezu: Chōsen Sensō Hishi (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 2007).
68. Ōnuma, “Chōsen Sensō e no Nihon no Kyōryoku,” 98–99; Kim, Zainichi Giyūhei Kikan
sezu.
69. Telegram to Commanding General EUSAK, January 1951 (day not given), in NARA,
College Park, Md., Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290,
row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1, “Logistical Command AG Section,
Formerly Top Secret Documents.”
70. Ono Toshihiko, “Kita-Kyūshū Mojikō no Kōwan Rōdōsha to sono Chōsen Sensō Taik-
en,” Shakai Bunseki 32 (2005): 133–49, citation from 143–44.
71. “Communist Koreans May Be Ordered Deported,” Jiji Press Reports, December 24,
1950; see also comments of Superintendent General of the Metropolitan Police Tanaka Eiichi
to the Japanese Diet Upper House Local Government Affairs Committee [Sangiin Chihō
Gyōsei Iinkai], no. 13, February 17, 1951.
72. Statement by Ōhashi Takeo to the Japanese Diet Lower House Local Government Af-
fairs Committee [Shūgiin Chihō Gyōsei Iinkai], no. 4, January 30, 1951.
73. Pacific Stars and Stripes Far East Weekly Review, November 18, 1950.
74. Nishimura, Ōsaka de Tatakatta Chōsen Sensō, 104–7.
75. Asahi Shimbun, January 16, 1953, evening edition.
76. Asahi Shimbun, April 13, 1960.
77. Aoki Fukiko, 731 (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2005), 364–77; Hal Gold, Unit 731 (Tokyo:
Tuttle, 2011), 94–100 and 140–41.
78. Hanihara Kazurō, Hone o Yomu: Aru Jinruigakusha no Taiken (Tokyo: Chūkō Shinsho,
1965).
79. Memo to Assistant Chief of Staff, Department of the Army, “Clearances of Japanese
Firms for American Contracts,” December 5, 1951, in National Archives and Records Admin-
istration (NARA), College Park, Md., Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, RG 554, stack
area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, “Japan Logistical Command AG
Section: Formerly Top Secret Documents.”
80. Baek, Kenshō Chōsen Sensō, 287.
81. Col. Donald D. Bode, Chemical Officer, Eighth Army, interviewed March 1, 1951, in
John G. Westover, Combat Support in Korea.
82. Department of Air, Australia, Minute to the Minister of Air, July 8, 1952.
83. Hasegawa, Kenpō to Chihō Seiji, 84.
84. Baek, Kenshō Chōsen Sensō, 288.
85. Nihon Yushi KK, Nihon Yushi Sanjūnenshi (Tokyo: Nihon Yushi KK, 1967), 554–55;
Asahi Shimbun, August 19, 1952, evening edition.
86. John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York:
Norton, 1999), 547.
87. Thomas French, “Contested ‘Rearmament’: The National Police Reserve and Japan’s
Cold War(s),” Japanese Studies 34, no. 1 (2014): 25–36; W. R. Hodgson, “Japanese Attitude to
Korean War,” report by the Australian Mission in Japan, in National Archives of Australia,
Canberra, 1950, Series no. A1838, control symbol 3123/7/27, “Korean War—Japan’s Policy.”
88. French, “Contested ‘Rearmament,’” 26.
90. Central Intelligence Agency, “Critical Situations in the Far East,” October 12, 1950,
CIA Freedom of Information Act Declassified files, CIA-RDP86B00269R000300040006-8,
12.
91. “Transmittal of Report on Japan’s Rearmament and the Movement of Former Military
Officers,” January 28, 1952, CIA Freedom of Information Act Declassified files, HATTORI,
TAKUSHIRO VOL. 2_0015.
93. Central Intelligence Agency, “The Feasibility of Japanese Rearmament in Association
with the United States,” April 20, 1951, CIA Freedom of Information Act Declassified files,
DOC_0000010668, 2.
94. Information gathered by U.S. intelligence services from “usually reliable” sources re-
peatedly refer to Tatsumi’s role in this selection of four hundred former military officers for the
NPR. See, for example, Report no. ZJJ-56, “Tatsumi Eiichi,” March 28, 1952, CIA Freedom of
Information Act Declassified files, TATSUMI, EIICHI_0040; “Tatsumi Eiichi,” March 14,
1953, CIA Freedom of Information Act Declassified files, TATSUMI, EIICHI_0068; “Trans-
mittal of Report on Japan’s Rearmament and the Movement of Former Military Officers.”
95. See the comments of Deputy Head of the National Police Reserve Eguchi Mitoru to the
Japanese Diet Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee [Shūgiin Gaimu Iinkai], no. 37, June
25, 1952.
96. Werner Bischof, “Japan: Japanese Self Defense Forces during the Korean War,” 1951,
reference number PAR284989, and “Japan: Soldier (Japanese Self Defense Forces) during the
Korean War,” 1951, reference number PAR284989, on the website of Magnum Photos, http://
pro.magnumphotos.com/.
97. Memorandum from D. W. McNichol, First Secretary, Australian Embassy, Washington
D.C., to the Secretary, Department of External Affairs, Canberra, “Japanese Police Reserve,”
August 7, 1952, in National Archives of Australia, Canberra, A5461, 3/11/4/1, “Japanese
Rearmament,” March 25, 1952, to December 22, 1953.
98. “Japanese Defence and Mutual Security Aid,” extract from “Digest of Dispatches,”
Department of External Affairs, Canberra, in National Archives of Australia, Canberra, A5461,
3/11/4/1, “Japanese Rearmament,” March 25, 1952, to December 22, 1953.
99. Memorandum from J. L. Allen, Second Secretary, Australian Embassy, Washington
D.C., to the Secretary, Department of External Affairs, Canberra, “Japanese Rearmament,”
October 27, 1953; and Ministerial Dispatch from Ambassador E. Ronald Walker, Australian
Embassy, Tokyo, to R. G. Casey, Minister for External Affairs, November 13, 1953, in Nation-
al Archives of Australia, Canberra, A5461, 3/11/4/1, “Japanese Rearmament,” March 25, 1952,
to December 22, 1953.
100. Hanson W. Baldwin, “Tense Lands in China’s Shadow,” in The Korean War, ed. Lloyd
C. Gardiner (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1972), 128–38, quotation from 131. (Baldwin’s
essay was originally published in New York Times Magazine on December 24, 1950.)
101. Ishimaru Yasuzō, “The Korean War and Japanese Ports: Support for the UN Forces and
Its Influences,” NIDS Security Reports 8 (December 2007): 55–70, quotation from 63–64.
102. William T. Bowers, William M. Hammond, and George L. McGarrigle, Black Soldier,
White Army: The 24th Infantry Regiment in Korea (Washington D.C.: United States Army
Center of Military History, 1996), 65.
103. Bowers, Hammond, and McGarrigle, Black Soldier, White Army, 79.
104. Asahi Shimbun, April 27, 1999; Asahi Shimbun, December 25, 2003.
105. For example, Asahi Shimbun, January 25, 1953; Asahi Shimbun, May 17, 1953.
106. See, for example, Korean Central News Agency News, June 26, 2005.
107. Peter W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003).
108. Singer, Corporate Warriors, 13 and 95–97; Richard A. Davies, memo to Waller, “Inves-
tigation,” October 6, 1952, in National Archives and Records Administration, College Park,
Md., Record Group 260, Records of the U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands,
Labour Department, Box 1 of HCRI-LA, Folder no. 1, “Labour Conditions 1952,” microfilm
copy held in the Okinawa Prefectural Archives, Naha.
Chapter Two
The Korean War and Manchuria

Economic, Social, and Human Effects
Mo Tian
Manchuria (northeastern China) played a crucial role in the People’s Repub-

lic of China’s participation in the Korean War, providing substantial material
and human support for the Chinese war effort, but the majority of research
relating to the position of Manchuria in the Korean War focuses on the
analysis of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) involvement in the war,
and little academic attention has been paid to analysis of the social transfor-
mation of Manchurian society as a consequence of the war. The emphasis on
the political and strategic dimensions of the Korean War has resulted in
neglect of its socioeconomic and political dimensions, particularly as they
affected Chinese civilians. Such issues as the ways in which the Soviet
invasion of Manchuria undermined the region’s productive capacity and cur-
rency in the closing years of World War II, programs of industrialization and
social mobilization, labor conditions, and the forced movement of people in
Manchuria after the outbreak of the war remained underexplored. This chap-
ter is the first attempt to survey the economic and social effects of the Korean
War on Manchuria. In particular, it focuses on the civilian population (rather
than on those who fought in Korea with the Chinese People’s Volunteers),
and aims to answer the following questions: How did the Korean War shape
the nature of development in 1950s Manchuria? What social transformations
did Manchurian society undergo during the period of the Korean War?
39
40 Mo Tian
THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF MANCHURIAN SOCIETY
The Japanese-sponsored state of Manchukuo (1932–1945) left the Manchu-

rian region with a well-developed industrial infrastructure, focused on heavy
industry that was concentrated in industrial cities such as Shenyang, Fushun,
Benxi, Anshan, and Dalian in southern Manchuria. As works like the diary of
Chang Kia-Ngau vividly illustrate, though, some important parts of this
infrastructure (including steel furnaces and power generators) were disman-
tled and removed to the USSR by Soviet forces in the period immediately
following the Japanese retreat. 1 Compared with southern Manchuria, north-
ern Manchuria was relatively industrially underdeveloped. 2 Southern Man-
churia was the core region of Manchurian industry in the early 1950s. Fur-
ther, Manchuria’s natural resource base, developed under Japanese domina-
tion, and its proximity to the Soviet Union created a favorable environment
for the development of heavy industry. 3
The outbreak of the Korean War interrupted the economic plan set in
place by the Chinese government. Before the outbreak of the war in 1950, the
general economic plan of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) aimed to
reduce military expenses and to increase investment in economic reconstruc-
tion and education. China’s economic plans concentrated resources in indus-
tries that could rapidly facilitate economic development. This policy resulted
in large-scale expansion of steel, electricity, mining, machine building, and
related industries, along with a supportive educational and research infra-
structure. Specifically, the Chinese government created 150 key heavy indus-
trial projects, with one-third located in Manchuria. These projects were pri-
marily concentrated in the fields of iron and steel, chemicals, heavy machin-
ery, automobiles, and defense industries. The government planned to reduce
military expenses from 43 percent to 30 percent, while the remaining 70
percent would be put into the sectors of economic construction and educa-
tion. 4
The outbreak of the Korean War pressed the Chinese leadership to redi-
rect their economic efforts toward support for the war. In November 1951,
the Chinese government comprehensively revised the economic plan. The
revised plan prioritized the war and national defense, while investment in
commerce and other areas was deemphasized. 5 The emphasis on war and
national defense meant that the government would make every effort to
ensure the maximum input of human, material, and financial resources into
war-related activities, and would significantly increase military expenses.
The government tried to meet demands for the construction of industrial and
military infrastructure as long as they were directly related to the war effort.
In 1951, military expenses accounted for nearly half of the total budgetary
expenditure of the PRC. 6 Investment in war-related industrial development
was prioritized in Manchuria. In 1950, the government invested 3.3 billion
The Korean War and Manchuria 41
yuan in Manchuria, accounting for 40 percent of the annual fiscal budget of

Manchuria and 77 percent of the total government investment in Manchuria.
During the period 1950–1952, half of all government investment in infra-
structure construction took place in Manchuria. 7
The Korean War brought about changes in the spatial distribution of the
region’s industries. The industrial distribution of Manchuria at the beginning
of the 1950s was largely shaped by Japanese investment in the region, which,
as we have seen, was mainly focused in the main cities of southern Manchu-
ria, but this pattern of spatial distribution of industrial infrastructure posed a
threat to China’s security during the war because southern Manchuria was
located within the bombing range of UN armed forces. It was partly for this
reason that after the outbreak of the Korean War, the Chinese authorities
relocated some infrastructure from southern to northern Manchuria. The
government built heavy industry and military infrastructure in Harbin and
Qiqihar, chemical industries in Jilin, and rebuilt cotton mills, flax factories,
and rubber factories in Jiamusi and Mudanjiang. By the end of 1950, a total
of twenty-six major factories from southern Manchuria were relocated to
Heilongjiang in northern Manchuria. Among these were ten defense industry
and nine machinery factories, three textile mills, and two rubber plants.
Twelve of these were located in Harbin and six in Qiqihar. 8 Indeed, newly
built factories were almost all concentrated in this northern area. This prac-
Figure 2.1. Northern China and Mongolia. Source: Edited from CIA map of Chi-
na (public domain).
42 Mo Tian
tice, however, does not mean that the government neglected the industrial
development of southern Manchuria. After 1952 as the threat of U.S. bomb-
ing receded, the government also began to put more investment into the
industries in southern Manchuria. 9
The industrial relocation led to an overall development of heavy industry
in Manchuria. As shown in table 2.1, the share of heavy industry in total
industrial output increased sharply in Liaoning during the years between
1949 and 1952. The reason for this increase was that, although the develop-
ment of heavy industrial infrastructure in Jilin and Heilongjiang attracted
much government investment, Liaoning still played a critical role in industri-
al output during these years. The expansion of heavy industrial plants in
Liaoning such as iron and steel works in Anshan, open-pit coal mines in
Fuxin, and chemical plants in Dalian and Lűshun boosted the region’s indus-
trial output. However, it is important to point out that although the share of
heavy industry in Jilin and Heilongjiang fell slightly, total output of these
two areas doubled during these years. The share of heavy industry in the total
industrial sector in Manchuria increased from 49.1 percent in 1949 to 53.5
percent in 1952, while the output of heavy industry increased rapidly from
1.139 billion yuan in 1949 to 4.023 billion yuan in 1952.
During the period 1949 to 1952, industrial infrastructure and output de-
veloped rapidly in Manchuria. As we can see from table 2.2, between 1949
and 1952 the number of enterprises increased from 8,816 to 10,690 in Liaon-
ing, and from 291 to 2,895 in Jilin. The share of industry also grew rapidly
from 48 percent to 57.9 percent in Liaoning; 28.7 percent to 43.8 percent in
Jilin; and 36 percent to 52.3 percent in Heilongjiang. The expansion of indus-
trial infrastructure in Manchuria had largely to do with the production of
weapons and ammunition. The major industrial cities of Manchuria, includ-
ing Shenyang, were all involved in this effort. In Shenyang, a large number
Table 2.1. The output and percentage of heavy industry in Manchuria in 1949
and 1952
Area Output of Share of Output of Industrial

heavy heavy heavy output as a
industry industry in industry percentage
(billion total industry (billion of total
yuan), 1949 (%), 1949 yuan), 1952 output, 1952
Liaoning 0.572 48.0 2.618 57.9
Jilin 0.195 51.7 0.490 43.9
Heilongjiang 0.372 49.4 0.915 48.5
Manchuria 1.139 49.1 4.023 53.5
Source: Wang Dong and Xie Wei, “Chaoxian zhanzheng yu dongbei gongye buju de tiaozheng,”
Zhongzhou xuekan, March 2013, 156.
Table 2.2. Industrial development in Manchuria in 1949 and 1952
Province Year Number of Industrial Growth rate Share of

enterprises output (%) (%) industry (%)
Liaoning 1949 8,816 11.9 — 48.0
1952 10,690 45.2 — 57.9
Jilin 1949 291 3.8 43.5 28.7
1952 2,895 11.1 43.5 43.8
Heilongjiang 1949 5,218 7.5 35.8 36.0
1952 — 18.9 35.8 52.3
Source: Wang Dong and Xie Wei, “Chaoxian zhanzheng yu dongbei gongye buju de tiaozheng,”
Zhongzhou xuekan, March 2013, 156.
of factories expanded their weapons and ammunition outputs. In order to

meet government quotas for the production of firearms and ammunition, the
Wusan Factory in Shenyang greatly increased work shifts and extended
working hours. In consequence, its production of firearms and ammunition
increased fourfold from 1950 to 1951, and doubled again between 1951 and
1952. 10 The production of other military-related equipment also had a big
impact on local economy and society. For example, Shenyang Heavy Ma-
chinery Factory produced one hundred thousand picks for military use, and
in order to complete this task, the factory mobilized workers and their family
members to participate in production. 11 Another example is Shenyang No. 3
Rubber Factory, which was assigned to produce the tires for Russian Mikoy-
an-Gurevich fighter aircrafts. During the Korean War period, this factory
produced the first three types of fighter aircraft tires manufactured in Chi-
na. 12
The political agenda of the Chinese government during the war created an
industrial structure oriented to the war effort. The strategy of rapidly industri-
alizing society for the purpose of supporting the war effort mobilized all
available resources to attain this political objective. The military industrial-
ization of Manchurian society inevitably increased state intervention in a
wide range of economic activities, and shaped the nature of the region’s
industry and infrastructure. Although the economic infrastructure of Man-
churia was relatively well established, the Chinese government actively ad-
vanced industrial development in the region by increasing government in-
vestment and control over industries that were directly related to the war
needs.
44 Mo Tian
WARTIME TRANSPORT AND WORKING LIFE IN MANZHOULI
The geographical proximity to North Korea also turned Manchuria into the
major transit region for the import and export of weapons and military sup-
plies. The transport of weapons and military supplies as aid from China
proper and the Soviet Union went to North Korea through Manchuria by
train. Manzhouli, a small town located on the border with the Soviet Union
and the Mongolian People’s Republic, played a particularly important role in
the transport of military aid. At the beginning of the Korean War, Manzhou-
li’s economic development was based on small-scale herding and mining. 13
The administration of the town was directly managed by a military control
commission under the command of the Northeast Army in Manchuria. Since
China’s military aid for North Korea was normally supplied by the Soviet
Union in the early period of the Korean War, the convenient location of
Manzhouli turned this city into an important port for the transport of weap-
ons from the Soviet Union and Mongolia to North Korea (for further discus-
sion, see also chapter 3).
In order to facilitate the transport of military aid to North Korea, the
Chinese government reorganized the administrative structure in Manzhouli.
Before the Korean War, the Chinese air force and navy had set up two offices
there. These functioned as provisional institutions to deal with trade and
transport. However, the two offices became dysfunctional with the rapid
increase in the transport of military aid. By late 1950 and early 1951, the
flow of military material through Manzhouli stretched the town’s capacity to
the breaking point. Three-quarters of the goods passing through Manzhouli
were military related. 14
In September 1950, the Chinese Military Committee merged the two
offices into one single institution called the Transit Station of Logistics for
the Military Commission of the Central People Government (Zhongyang
renmin zhengfu geming junshi weiyuanhui zonghoufang qinwubu Manzhouli
jidi zhuanyunzhan). The administration of the transit station was divided into
military and civilian sections. Its organizational structure was made up of a
total of ten subsections in the military section, and two battalions and one
company in the civilian section. At its peak, three thousand military staff
were deployed to the station. 15 From November 1950 to 1954, almost all the
train services at Manzhouli Station were committed to the transport of mili-
tary aid.
This sudden increase in transport imposed a huge burden on the officials
who worked at the Manzhouli train station. The heavy workload generated
by the tasks of dealing with the transport of military aid can be observed
from the memoir of Zhao Decai, an official in charge of transport of military
supplies:
The task of trans-shipping [of military supplies] was very heavy during that
time. The toughest part was that there were no modern railway facilities for
trans-shipment. There was only one crane in Manzhouli, so all the imported
military materials relied on maximizing the number of people to complete our
tasks. In freezing cold winter . . . it would normally need fifty or sixty people
to pull one radar vehicle or one construction vehicle onto the trains. Because
the tasks of trans-shipment and translocation were increasingly heavy, even
the army of several thousand members and workers in charge of these tasks
could not meet the demand, so that sometimes we had to ask our government
officials, soldiers, and officers of the Manzhouli government and local facto-
ries to participate in the undertaking of trans-shipment. . . . Because of the
heavy task of translocation, the limited number of assigned cadres and our lack
of experience, for a long time the cadres in charge of transport basically were
bravely fighting day and night. This sort of practice was not [a struggle] of one
or two days, but rather an uninterrupted struggle which lasted several consecu-
tive months. 16
To make matters worse, in general, the weather was extremely cold in

winter, entertainment was unavailable, food was inadequate, and accommo-
dation was spartan. Basic necessities of life such as grain, fruits, and vegeta-
bles all had to be sourced from neighboring areas, and for this reason, food in
Manzhouli was sold at prices several times higher than the food prices in
neighboring areas. Many workers at the Manzhouli Station could not afford
to eat vegetables, and many of them developed diseases as a result of vitamin
deficiency. The long Manzhouli winter, which lasted for seven months, made
the lives of workers miserable. It still snowed in April and water began to
freeze in August. Workers did not have enough clothes to wear to protect
themselves from the extremely cold weather. Furthermore, the medical facil-
ities in Manzhouli were very limited and underdeveloped, so only patients
with minor illnesses could be treated, while those with severe medical condi-
tions had to be sent to other areas for treatment. 17 The following testimonies
illustrate the terrible working conditions at Manzhouli Station:
In the early period of constructing the [Manzhouli] Station, we lacked the staff
needed to carry out the heavy tasks of translocation in these frigid zones, and
the conditions of food, clothing and shelter were very bad. Cold weather
garments were insufficient, and the food consisted of coarse grains. Every
week we could eat only one meal of fine grain, which was considered a dietary
improvement [for us]. We could rarely eat fresh vegetables; what we ate was
frozen turnips and potatoes. Our housing was worn-out and shabby. The ma-
jority of cadres slept on bunk beds, and they could not take showers. There
were no facilities for the army to do the trans-shipments. Everything was done
by shouldering or pushing [military supplies] and by relying on maximizing
the number of people to complete our tasks. Sometimes in winter the tempera-
ture dropped to fifty degrees below zero. Dripping water would freeze. It was
so cold that locomotives could not start. Some iron splints on the railway were
46 Mo Tian
broken because of the cold weather. The tyres of construction vehicles could
not grip because of the cold, and even fifty or sixty people were unable to
push-start the vehicles. Many cadres had frostbite on their faces, noses, hands
and feet. 18
Another testimony shows that housing was a problem for many staff
members who worked for the transport of military aid:
Tasks during this period necessitated the increase in [the number of] workers
and soldiers. However, this was largely constrained by inadequate housing,
and work was affected by this. Many staff members worked here over a long
period of time, [but] because of the inadequate housing, they were unable to
settle down. For example, the number of staff members at the [Manzhouli]
point of entry was close to two thousand people, but those with families
accounted for only ten percent. 19
Despite the harsh conditions that workers encountered in the transport of

military aid, they were reported to have shown enthusiasm in the work they
were doing. Testimonies of officials who were involved in the transport of
military aid in Manzhouli suggest that local government officials tended to
disseminate a positive image of the mass support for the transport of weap-
ons and military supplies:
If tasks of trans-shipment and reloading come up, cadres, soldiers and their
families would all pitch into work. Some female cadres still came to work at
night after feeding their babies. Because they were dining and living at the
[Manzhouli] Station, even if their house caught fire, some cadres would not
have known about it. Although they got sick, many cadres still continued to
work. 20
RELOCATING ANDONG
Andong (today Dandong), a city on the Chinese-Korean border, was another

community dramatically affected by Chinese participation in the Korean
War. The war brought about changes in the spatial structure of industrial
enterprises and led to great movements of local residents. Andong is located
approximately forty kilometers (twenty-five miles) from the mouth of the
Yalu River opposite North Korea. At the beginning of the Korean War, it
was an industrial city with a population of approximately two hundred thou-
sand, among whom many were local factory workers and their family mem-
bers. A substantial portion of Andong’s economic growth relied on light
industries such as pulp and paper, textiles, matches, and tobacco. After the
Communist takeover of China, Andong’s economy began to recover from the
recession caused by the Chinese Civil War (1946–1949), but this was dis-
rupted by the UN air raids that started in August 1950. In response to the UN
air raids on Andong, the Northeast Bureau of Manchuria commanded on

October 11 that all public and private enterprises, government organizations,
and schools be relocated and that workers and their families be evacuated to
other regions of Manchuria and to north China. 21
Predictably, perhaps, this evacuation program appeared to have been un-
welcome to local residents. Initially residents did not respond positively to
the government call for evacuation. While the UN air raids interrupted the
life of Andong residents, many of them had ambivalent feelings about reset-
tling in a new place. Residents were in fear of the UN air raids on the one
hand, but on the other, some seem to have clung to the hope that the air raids
would not greatly interrupt their everyday life. Some residents blamed the
Chinese government’s decision to aid North Korea for bringing this disrup-
tion. Some of them were reluctant to leave their home in Andong, and own-
ers of private enterprises were often worried that the relocation of their
factories would delay production and cause great loss to their businesses. 22
The problems that the Chinese authorities encountered in the process of
implementing machine relocation and personnel evacuation were more se-
vere than the uncooperative attitude of Andong residents toward evacuation.
When relocating public enterprises, the local government of Andong found it
a huge undertaking to disassemble equipment and transport machines, raw
materials, end products, and semifinished products, and to resettle workers
and their family members. In order to facilitate the process of relocating
machinery, the labor unions of factories assigned staff to take charge of the
entire process. The government also took measures to appease local resi-
dents. While it was mandatory for all factory workers to move with machin-
ery, their family members were given the option of staying in Andong. Some
family members who experienced financial difficulties as a result of this
were eligible to receive a certain amount of living stipend from the govern-
ment. 23
The main problem of relocating private enterprises was related to the
means of transporting factory machinery and the cost incurred in this pro-
cess. In order to resolve these problems, the Andong government allocated
military vehicles to transport factory machines and arranged the locations to
which the machines were to be relocated. For example, cotton, knitting,
dyeing, and finishing factories were mainly relocated to the cotton producing
areas of southern Liaoning, and iron, leather, and clothing factories were
mainly moved to the railway zones of Shenyang and Jilin Province. Mean-
while, the government terminated the processing of cotton, grain, and oil in
factories in Andong to facilitate a smooth process of relocation. The govern-
ment also provided living stipends to employees of those factories who were
unable to find a suitable location to resume production. These factories were
required to disassemble their machines and await government permission to
resume production in Andong. 24
48 Mo Tian
Despite the problems that the Chinese authorities encountered in imple-

menting machine relocation and the evacuation of personnel, the effects of
this mass movement of people and equipment were remarkable. Within for-
ty-eight days of the mobilization notice, the number of public enterprises that
had relocated to areas outside of Andong had reached thirty-two out of the
total number of forty-eight; nine thousand factory workers were resettled,
along with fifteen thousand family members. While we have the figures of
the people who moved out of Andong as a result of government policy of
evacuation, it is still difficult to estimate the number of people who did so
voluntarily, but if we add the family members of those factory workers who
volunteered for resettlement, the number probably reaches thirty thousand.
Two hundred ninety-two private industrial enterprises were shifted, account-
ing for 14.4 percent of the total number of industrial enterprises in Andong,
while the number of private commercial enterprises moved was 453 (23.8
percent of the total). Other private industrial and commercial enterprises
(27.6 percent and 31 percent of the total number, respectively) were partially
relocated. In addition, 3,403 officials, teaching staff, and students who
worked and studied in provincial government organizations and schools were
relocated. More than 450 members of the families of officials who worked in
municipal organizations resettled in locations outside of Andong. Nearly
one-third of the entire population of Andong had relocated by late December
1950. 25
An image of the strange space that was left by this mass evacuation is
suggested by the testimony of Ishida Sumie, a Japanese settler in Manchuria
who became a nurse and was still awaiting repatriation to Japan in 1950,
when the Korean War broke out. Ishida and several other Japanese medical
staff were recruited to treat Chinese People’s Volunteer soldiers wounded in
the Korean conflict, and taken to work in a hospital near Andong. During the
Korean War, as Ishida described it, the city would at one moment be “a sea
of soldiers,” as troops gathered to cross into Korea, and then it would sud-
denly fall silent as they departed for the war front. Ishida recalled digging
bomb shelters for protection from U.S. air raids, and remembered that many
of the wounded she treated were North Korean soldiers brought across the
border, suffering not only from war injuries but also from severe frostbite.
Operations, including amputations, were carried out by candlelight with only
the most basic of medical equipment. 26
Adam Cathcart has documented how Andong and other border cities also
became the entrance points for a mass of North Korean civilians fleeing
northward into China to escape the violence and chaos of war. While numer-
ous ethnic Korean soldiers and cadres in China returned to North Korea to
participate in the war, thousands of ordinary Koreans fled in the opposite
direction: “the Chinese government, aided by the North Korean embassy in
Beijing, estimated that the number of refugees in China in late 1950 had
already surpassed 10,000 people.” 27
THE SOCIAL MOBILIZATION OF CIVILIANS
The political economy of Manchuria during the Korean War was supported
by mass mobilization and collectivism. Local governments planned and
launched various programs of social mobilization to encourage popular sup-
port for the war effort. After the outbreak of the conflict, the Chinese govern-
ment organized massive programs of mobilization in Manchuria. The Chi-
nese leadership took political and social mobilization very seriously. Their
method was to instill in the minds of civilians the conviction that Chinese
intervention in the war was legitimate and that support for it was a crucial
patriotic act. A key element of the mobilization campaign was to get civilians
involved.
The most effective form of social mobilization was the implementation of
patriotic compacts (aiguo gongyue), which covered a wide range of political
agendas such as encouraging material donations and civilian participation in
the war effort. 28 The implementation of patriotic compacts was promoted
through government propaganda. In February 1951, the Chinese People’s
Political Consultative Conference National Committee called for the dis-
semination of the spirit of support for the Korean War in every village,
institution, school, factory, shop, and even every street and residential area of
all ethnic groups in the country. On March 30, 1951, the People’s Daily
published an editorial titled “To Promote Patriotic Compacts.” This was a
landmark statement that launched the patriotic compact movement.
In the campaigns to “Resist the United States and aid [North] Korea” and to
“Eradicate Traitors,” many places have launched the movement of patriotic
compacts. This is a good approach to consolidate the achievements of the
patriotic movement, and it should be actively promoted among the masses
across the country. 29
On June 2, 1951, the People’s Daily published another editorial urging

the work units of the country to devise and implement patriotic compacts and
to select their own leadership to supervise their implementation:
Our people need to grasp this opportunity and to fully utilize it in order to
enhance our solidarity, our patriotic movement and our movement of “Resist-
ing the United States and Aiding North Korea,” and to promote our causes of
production, work, study and other various revolutionary struggles and con-
struction. 30
50 Mo Tian
In addition to work units, the party leadership perceived the family—the

basic unit of society—as a significant element in the patriotic compact move-
ments. Patriotic compacts were expected to combine political work and the
life goals of the family. Every family was encouraged to sign on to the
patriotic compacts and to implement the activities prescribed in the com-
pacts. The Communist committees at local levels in Manchuria actively re-
sponded to this call for popular support for the war. Numerous forms of
compact were issued to mobilize popular support. The Communist Party
Committee in Shenyang, for example, issued a variety of compacts concern-
ing the completion of monthly production quotas, donation of military sup-
plies, good treatment of soldiers and their families, delivery of crops and tax
payment, and goals of political work.
Patriotic compacts were devised in various forms that served a specific
purpose such as raising funds and enhancing productivity, but they all shared
common features. They were invariably closely related to the specific goal of
the state to meet the demand for the Chinese intervention in the Korean War.
In addition, they expressed strong support for the Communist leadership and
their decision to intervene in the Korean War.
The compacts also aimed to consolidate Communist rule. An excerpt
from the directives issued by the Party Committee in Shenyang illustrates the
highly political nature of patriotic compacts:
The content of compacts must include a political agenda as well as an agenda

of production, work and study. Experience shows that many practically effi-
cient compacts have combined all these three agendas. This is because the
completion of any task must rely on the clarification of its political pur-
pose. . . . The Party should lead the masses to unify all the compacts in their
work of assignment and inspection . . . the compacts of the organization at the
higher level should lead and supervise the compacts of the organization at the
lower level. The compacts of the organization at the lower level should actual-
ize and guarantee the compacts of the organization at the higher level. Team
compacts of state-run factories should become the driving force for completing
monthly quotas on time. Production department compacts should become the
“promotion and examination machines” for the production plan for every three
months. . . . Factory compacts should prioritize the annual production plan and
its revision every three or six months. Patriotic compacts of business and
commercial enterprises should penetrate from businesses into households. . . .
Compacts of government agencies, schools and neighborhoods should also be
revised in a systematic manner, firmly follow the tasks and be fully integrated
into the plans of the top-down leadership. 31
There is insufficient evidence to reach a firm conclusion about civilians’

attitudes toward patriotic compacts as a form of social mobilization. The
official sources reported that the compacts achieved considerable results be-
cause of positive popular support. People from all walks of life in Shenyang
were said to be involved in the implementation of patriotic compacts. Work-

ers, soldiers, women, students, and educators signed and implemented com-
pacts that were directly related to their work. It is estimated that 1.2 million
people were involved in the movement of patriotic compacts. By the end of
1951, more than twenty industries and 254 factories launched competitions
to encourage labor service by civilians. Approximately ninety thousand em-
ployees of work units in Shenyang participated in the competitions. Busi-
nesses and commercial enterprises donated thirty airplanes. The total funds
raised through increasing productivity, frugality practices, and material dona-
tion were enough to purchase forty airplanes. 32 However, it is difficult to
imagine that patriotic compacts were really very appealing to the civilians,
and reports cited by Masuda Hajimu suggest a distinct lack of enthusiasm for
official Korean War propaganda, at least in some circles. 33 Although patriot-
ic compacts became a common method of social mobilization in Manchuria,
signing them was often a pro forma affair. In many factories, the patriotic
compact became a method to discipline the workforce, rather than a means of
supporting the war effort.
The patriotic compact movement, as a form of social mobilization that
covered a broad spectrum ranging from workplace and family, had signifi-
cant effects on the social structure of Manchuria. Patriotic compacts strongly
encouraged individual contributions to the state. They required personal sac-
rifice, such as paying more taxes and donating personal belongings to sup-
port the war effort. Numerous meetings and conferences were organized in
neighborhoods and schools in Manchuria. The compacts engaged a large
section of the population in supporting the government intervention in the
war. The local governments of Manchuria mobilized millions of civilians to
support this intervention. It is estimated that during the war period, 610,000
peasants served in stretcher teams, transport teams, and peasant-worker
teams, of whom 210,000 entered North Korea with the Chinese military.
Thousands of peasants worked as railway construction workers and drivers.
In Liaoning, approximately 2.5 million people participated in various logis-
tics activities, accounting for 11.7 percent of the total population and 52.3
percent of the male workforce aged between seventeen and fifty in
Liaoning. 34 In Jilin, the number of peasant workers who participated in war-
time logistics amounted to 1.36 million, of whom 30,000 served as stretcher
team members, 2,315 as drivers, 2,525 as interpreters, and 1,007 as techni-
cians. 35
The strategy of relying on social mobilization through patriotic compacts
may suggest that the government lacked other effective means to mobilize
the economic and social resources of the Manchurian society. Given their
limited economic capacity and the fact that they were only beginning to
establish firm social control within China at this time, the Chinese authorities
resorted to the traditional strategies of mass political mobilization to win
52 Mo Tian
over a large spectrum of lower classes in Chinese society. These political

movements encouraged the masses to conform to the party line, and helped
the party to implement its programs with little opposition. In order to ensure
their success, the mass mobilization programs required close cooperation
between the government and the masses who actively participated in state-
led plans. The government required help from below to execute its policies.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has examined aspects of the social and economic change in
Manchuria resulting from the Korean War. Manchuria underwent extensive
transformation in terms of its industrial construction, military aid transport,
social mobilization, and population movements. Economically, China’s in-
volvement in the Korean War facilitated the rapid growth of industrial infra-
structure and change in the spatial redistribution of industry in the region.
The Chinese government strategically reshaped Manchuria’s industrial struc-
ture by prioritizing the development of heavy industry and by relocating
some industries from southern to northern Manchuria. To a large extent, the
industrial restructuring channeled state resources and institutions of Manchu-
ria toward military needs.
With regard to the political consequences of the war, Manchurian society
became increasingly mobilized. The process of politicization can be ob-
served in the mobilization programs and transport system created by the
government for the purpose of channeling human and material resources into
the war, and in the ubiquitous implementation of patriotic compacts. Social
mobilization was carried out on a grand scale to win popular support for the
Communist intervention in the Korean War.
In terms of the consequences for human existence, the Korean War had
profound effects on the everyday life of Manchurian civilians who were
involved in various forms of support for the war, and particularly on the lives
of those who lived in strategic places such as Manzhouli, Andong, and Shen-
yang. These effects included the physical hardships that civilians encoun-
tered in their work of transporting military aid in Manchuria. Meanwhile, the
war also led to a large-scale population movement as a result of the govern-
ment’s call for evacuation. The effects of these wartime social transforma-
tions continued to be felt in the region long after the Korean armistice had
been signed.
NOTES
1. See, for example, Donald G. Gillin and Ramon H. Myers, eds., Last Chance in Manchu-
ria: The Diary of Chang Kia-Ngau (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1989), 45.
2. In this chapter, I use southern Manchuria to refer to the region of Liaoning and northern
Manchuria to refer to the regions of Jilin and Heilongjiang.
3. For a general discussion of the Manchurian economy before and during the Korean
War, see Kasahara Masaaki, “Chūgoku no Chōsen Sensō Kainyū to Manshū Mondai,” Kōbeshi
Gaikokugo Daigaku Gaikokugaku Kenkyūjo Kenkyū Nenpō 7 (1969): 65–102.
4. Zhao Dexin, ed., Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Jingjishi 1949–1966 (Zhengzhou: He-
nan Renmin Chubanshe, 1988), 94–95.
5. Zhao, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Jingjishi 1949–1966, 94–95.
6. Zhao, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Jingjishi 1949–1966, 95.
7. Wang Dong and Xie Wei, “Chaoxian Zhanzheng yu Dongbei Gongye Buju de Tiao-
zheng,” Zhongzhou Xuekan, March 2013, 155.
8. Heilongjiang Tongjiju, ed., Heilongjiang Sishinian Jubian (1949–1989) (Beijing:
Zhongguo Tongji Chubanshe, 1989), 16.
9. Wang and Xie, “Chaoxian Zhanzheng yu Dongbei Gongye Buju de Tiaozheng,” 155.
10. Zhonggong Shenyang Shiwei Dangshi Yanjiushi, ed., Shenyang Renmin Jiyizhong de
Kangmeiyuanchao (Shenyang: Wanjuan Chubangongsi, 2010), 33.
11. Zhonggong Shenyang Shiwei Dangshi Yanjiushi, Shenyang Renmin Jiyizhong de Kang-
meiyuanchao, 33.
meiyuanchao, 34.
13. Wang Ye, “Zhongguo Beibu Bianjiang Bianjing Chengshi Fazhan Yanjiu: Yi Neimeng-
gu Zizhiqu Manzhouli, Erlianhaote Weili” (PhD diss., Shanxi Normal University, 2013), 100.
14. Yuan Xianqian, “Junshi Guanzhi Shiqi de Manzhouli Kouan Yunshu,” in Manzhouli yu
Kangmeiyuanchao Zhanzheng, ed. Xu Zhanxin (Hailar: Neimenggu Wenhua Chubanshe,
2006), 260. The author was a top-level official in charge of the transport of military aid during
January 1950 and October 1951 in Manzhouli.
15. Zhao Decai, “Zai Manzhouli Gongzuoguo de Laotongzhi Huiyilu: Manzhouli zai Kang-
meiyuanchao Zhanzheng Zhong de Gongxian,” in Manzhouli yu Kangmeiyuanchao Zhan-
zheng, ed. Xu Zhanxin (Hailar: Neimenggu Wenhua Chubanshe, 2006), 254–55.
16. Zhao, “Zai Manzhouli Gongzuoguo de Laotongzhi Huiyilu,” 256.
17. Xu, ed., Manzhouli yu Kangmeiyuanchao Zhanzheng, 111–12.
19. Yuan, “Junshi Guanzhi Shiqi de Manzhouli Kouan Yunshu,” 264.
21. Li Cheng, “Huiyi Kangmei Yuanchao zai Andong Naxie Rizi (Daizongshu),” in Ying-
xiong Chengshi Yingxiongren: Dandong Renmin Zhiyuan Kangmeiyuanchao Zhanzheng Ziliao
Zhuanji, ed. Liu Qifa (Dandong: Zhonggong Dandong Shiwei Dangwei Dangshi Yanjiushi,
1989), 7.
22. Wan Zhaohua,“Fangkong Shusan,” in Yingxiong Chengshi Yingxiongren: Dandong
Renmin Zhiyuan Kangmeiyuanchao Zhanzheng Ziliao Zhuanji, ed. Liu Qifa (Dandong: Zhong-
gong Dandong Shiwei Dangwei Dangshi Yanjiushi, 1989), 18.
23. Wan, “Fangkong Shusan,” 24.
24. Wan, “Fangkong Shusan,” 25.
25. Liu Qifa, ed., Yingxiong Chengshi Yingxiongren: Dandong Renmin Zhiyuan Kangmeiy-
uanchao Zhanzheng Ziliao Zhuanji (Dandong: Zhonggong Dandong Shiwei Dangwei Dangshi
Yanjiushi, 1989), 8.
26. Testimony of Ishida Sumie, in the online collection NHK Sensō Shōgen Ākaibusu,
https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/shogenarchives/shogen/movie.cgi?das_id=D0001100115_
00000&seg_number=001, accessed August 7, 2017. For further information on Japanese par-
ticipation in the war on the Chinese/North Korean side, see chapter 6.
27. Adam Cathcart, “The Bonds of Brotherhood: New Evidence on Sino–North Korean
Exchanges,” Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 27–51, quotation from 37.
28. The patriotic compact movement was nothing new to the Chinese Communists. As
early as October 1943, the Communists used this strategy to win mass support in Shaan-Gan-
Ning border areas that were under Communist control. In addition to the patriotic compact
movement during the Korean War, the Chinese Communist Party launched another similar
54 Mo Tian
movement during 1957 and 1961. For a general analysis of patriotic compacts as a political
movement by Chinese Communists, see Toki Shigeru, “‘Aikoku Kōyaku’ no Rekishi to Genri:
Jinmin no Jiritsuteki Kihan no Sōzō,” Waseda Hōgaku Kaishi 29 (March 1979): 289–313.
29. People’s Daily, March 30, 1951, first edition.
30. People’s Daily, June 2, 1951, first edition.
31. This is a directive regarding patriotic compacts issued by the government of Shenyang.
See “Zhongong Shenyang shiwei guanyu tigao aiguo gongyue de zhishi,” July 7, 1951, in
Zhonggong Shenyang Shiwei Dangshi Yanjiushi, Shenyang Renmin Jiyizhong de Kangmeiyu-
anchao, 283.
meiyuanchao, 3.
33. Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015), 129–32.
34. http://www.21ccom.net/articles/lsjd/lsjj/article_20140316102471.html.
35. http://www.21ccom.net/articles/lsjd/lsjj/article_20140316102471_2.html.
Chapter Three
From One Divided Country to Another

The Korean War in Mongolia
Li Narangoa
The little-known role of Mongolia in the Korean War highlights long-

forgotten dimensions of this conflict. Mongols on both sides of the Sino-
Mongolian border participated in and made important contributions to the
Korean War. Both provided assistance to North Korea. The Socialist united
front in the post–World War II international order provided the common
ground for this historical collaboration of Mongols, and the role of the inde-
pendent Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) in the war laid the basis for an
ongoing close relationship between the MPR and the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). This story also reminds us of the
important role that animals, particularly horses, played in a war that was the
site of one of the world’s last significant military cavalry actions, and sheds
light on the complex movements of animals and people across Northeast
Asia precipitated by the Korean War. But confusions surrounding the role of
the MPR and Inner Mongolia in the war deepened the MPR’s diplomatic
isolation from the rest of the world. In this sense, divided Mongolia’s role in
the war had consequences that affected East Asian international relations for
decades.
The Mongolian People’s Republic was established in 1924 as the second
Socialist country after the Soviet Union. Inner Mongolia also aspired to
follow the Socialist system within the larger political framework of China
that established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The DPRK
joined the Socialist front in 1948. The Korean War was understood as a war
against the American imperialists and their associates who threatened peace
and the Communist world, especially in Northeast Asia. The Soviet Union,
the MPR, and the PRC built a united front to help their Socialist brothers in
55
56 Li Narangoa
the Korean Peninsula. The Soviet Union provided weapons and military
equipment both to China and North Korea to help the war effort; the MPR
offered food and horses, and the PRC offered soldiers to the combat. This
chapter examines the contribution to the Korean War of Mongols on both
sides of the China-MPR border, and explores the political challenges and
legacies created by the support they gave to the war.
The political status of Mongols on the opposite sides of the border dif-
fered in terms of their international standing. The MPR had been a de facto
independent country since 1921, and its full independence was officially
confirmed through a national referendum in 1946. Its assistance to North
Korea was provided within the framework of its own foreign policy, however
much it may have been influenced by the Soviet Union. North Korean lead-
ers had requested help from Mongolia, which had horses and other important
resources for a war in the harsh winter weather of Northeast Asia. The slogan
of the MPR was to help its “heroic Korean brothers” and to work for world
peace. By contrast, Inner Mongolia, which was unable to obtain indepen-
dence, became one of the five autonomous regions of China in 1949 and did
not have its own foreign policy. Mongols here participated in the war within
the framework of China’s policy of kangmei yuanchao baojia weiguo (Resist
America, aid [North] Korea, protect our home, and safeguard the nation).
This phrase, and the way it was propagated, were intimately linked to the
interests of the Chinese nation. Apart from the political fear that the
Americans might really invade China, there was also a need to unify the still
divided peoples of the newly founded PRC. Solidarity against an external
threat would help to achieve this national unity. Inner Mongols who had been
incorporated into the new Chinese nation merely half a year before the out-
break of the Korean War were no exception.
The forms of the assistance provided by the MPR and Inner Mongolia to
North Korea also took different forms. While Mongolians north of the border
supported the war solely by providing food and animals, Inner Mongols not
only made donations, but also participated in combat as part of the Chinese
People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA). Not only individual Mongols in Chinese
army units but also Mongol cavalry units were sent to the front, resulting in
detrimental losses. These differences in political status and in forms of sup-
port for the war, coupled with their common culture and language, led to
ongoing international confusion about the Mongolian presence in the war.
THE MPR’S AID TO THE “HEROIC KOREAN BROTHERS”:

THE LONG MARCH OF THE ANIMALS
Both the MPR and the DPRK are states that were born as a result of collapse
of empires in East Asia: first the Chinese, then the Japanese empire. They
From One Divided Country to Another 57
shared the experience of rising from a history of colonization with the sup-
port of the Soviet Union. Soon after World War II, the MPR and the DPRK
entered into diplomatic negotiations, recognizing each other’s independent
and Socialist status and establishing official diplomatic relations from 1948.
Following the outbreak of the Korean War, the MPR established a diplomatic
office in the DPRK, and an ambassador was sent to Pyongyang in August
1950. 1 The exchange of diplomatic offices greatly helped communication
between the two countries and thus efficiently channeled the MPR’s assis-
tance to the DPRK during the Korean War.
Mongolian assistance to the DPRK’s war effort was mostly humanitarian
in nature. As a pastoralist society, Mongolia was best placed to provide
livestock and animal products. The Mongolian government sent one hundred
thousand head of livestock to the Korean Peninsula between 1951 and 1955, 2
and if we consider the huge amount of animal products that were sent to
North Korea, the number of the livestock used for the aid to Korea is much
greater. The Mongolian government, for example, agreed to send fifty thou-
sand sheep, twenty thousand goats, and five hundred cows in 1953. Initially
the North Korean government wanted to receive these animals live, but it
later decided to take them as meat and skin, and requested the Mongolian
government to process the skin as well. 3 This was possibly to meet the
immediate needs for food and leather and also due to lack of industrial
capacity to process the skin quickly.
The story of the mass overland transfer of horses and other livestock from
Mongolia to Korea highlights the neglected part that living animals played in
warfare, even in the 1950s. Although (as we shall see) mounted cavalry
charges were by now powerless in the face of modern weaponry, horses
played a vital role in the transport of equipment, and other livestock were
essential as sources of food and clothing for troops who were constantly on
the move. The tasks of animal transfer not only contributed to diplomatic
relations between Mongolia (the donor), North Korea (the recipient), and
China (the transit facilitator), but also increased the people-to-people interac-
tion between these countries.
Horses were the most valued gifts in Mongolian culture, and the Mongo-
lian government provided nearly thirty thousand head of horses to North
Korea during the war. These were used for transport as well as for battles.
The first group of horses had been sent in early 1951 at the request of North
Korean leader Kim Il Sung himself for the Korean People’s Army. Kim
wanted to have seven thousand horses and the Mongolian government
agreed. The selection of horses was a serious matter. The horses were to be
used for military purposes and so they needed to be healthy, and to be
between four and ten years old, tamed, and trained. Most of these horses
were to be bought from herdsmen, or from districts and military units from
Choibalsan Province (today’s Dornod aimag) which was located close to the
58 Li Narangoa
Chinese railway station where the horses would be transported by train fur-
ther to the Korean front. Knowing that it would be an enormous challenge for
herdsmen to provide their best horses, even in exchange for payment, the
government set up a committee consisting of ministers and top-ranking
government officials to be in charge of choosing and collecting horses. This
included Deputy Prime Minister Lamjav (head of the committee), the minis-
ter for defense, the deputy minister for internal affairs, and the deputy chair-
man of the Central Committee of Cooperative and high-ranking officials
from Choibalsan Province, 4 which provided all the horses. The money to buy
the horses was provided by the government through the donations from indi-
viduals and institutions. 5 It seems that there was political and customary
pressure for the Mongolian government to offer the best horses to its allies to
show the wealth of the new nation.
The committee’s responsibility included taking measures to explain the
political importance of sending horses to the Korean People’s Army, pur-
chasing horses, and checking their quality. It also gave local authorities the
right to take “necessary measures in order to complete the task” by the due
date of February 28, 1951. 6 But it seems that the people received no real
explanation of what their horses were to be used for. The official explanation
was rather vague and stated that the horses were for “special national needs”
(ulsin onchgoi keregcheend) and thus people should support the nation by
selling or donating their best horses. Some herders, however, were not will-
ing to sell their horses without knowing the real purpose, and demanded a
clear explanation. 7 The reason for the officials’ vague explanation may partly
have been that if the herders had known that their best horses were to be
taken to the war front, they might not have been willing to sell them, and it
may also have reflected concerns that the international community might
have criticized Mongolia for helping the DPRK with military horses. Even
when the newspapers began to promote donations to assist the DPRK in the
Korean War against imperialists and reported news about the war in detail,
describing donations and pledges made by individuals, groups, and institu-
tions, they were resoundingly quiet about donations and deliveries of horses
to the war front.
The delivery of horses and other livestock was a much more complicated,
labor-intensive, and costly undertaking than other aid. The transport and
delivery process of the first group of horses in 1951 illustrates the complex-
ities involved in livestock delivery. These horses were collected from many
districts and bought in different collecting stations in Choibalsan Province,
and then they were gathered at Avdarkharaat som (district), 205 km to the
east of the provincial center and close to the Chinese border station of Man-
zhouli. At the collection stations to Avdarkharaat, the horses were divided
into groups, each with three hundred horses that were looked after by six
soldiers and experienced herders. They moved 20–30 km per day at a slow
pace so that the horses were not too tired and maintained their condition and
strength. In order to reach Avdarkharaat, a distance of ten kilometers was
kept between each group and a lookout kept for good grassland along the
way to feed the animals. Between February 22 and 25, however, there was a
snowstorm for three days and three nights. One hundred and two herders
guarded the horses in the snow, day and night; their clothes were soaked and
almost all of them suffered from frostbite. 8
From Avdarkharaat the horses were delivered to Manchuria by one hun-
dred selected soldiers and civilians (including thirty-six herders). The horse-
men were paid 20 tögrög per day if they had their own horses to ride and 10
tögrög if they were riding government horses. They arrived in Manchuria
around March 12–13. The Mongolian government paid special attention to
the appearance and behavior of the people accompanying the animals across
the border. These herders and soldiers were given detailed instructions on
how to behave and how to dress when they went beyond their own border. In
addition, a seminar for political understanding on the importance of aiding
the DPRK was held for them before they crossed the border. 9
Seventy-seven soldiers and herders from the DPRK came to Manzhouli to
receive the horses. A total of 7,378 horses plus nine thousand bridles and one
thousand hobbles 10 were delivered to Andong, on the border between China
and Korea. The journey from Manzhouli to Andong took forty-eight hours by
train. 11 The quality of the Mongolian horses and the skills of the Mongolian
herders were admired by both Korean and Chinese officials. Even at the front
during the war, the Korean soldiers had been impressed by the reliability and
quality of Mongolian horses. Officers of certain divisions of the Korean army
wrote to the Mongolian people to show their appreciation for sending horses:
The horses sent by the Mongolian people have been contributing to the war
against the American invaders. With these horses we have been successfully
accomplishing our duties in the war. Just to mention a couple of examples:
during an attack by the American air strike, we lost all of our horses. But after
the strike when the airplanes disappeared, our horses returned to us by them-
selves. Although the horses cannot talk, they are our close friends. . . . One
early morning we were woken up by the sound of a horse neighing that warned
us that our enemies were in their sight. Remembering the fierce battles that we
had fought along with our hardworking horses, we would like to express our
thanks again for the warm hearted assistance of the Mongolian people. . . . We
promise to destroy all the invaders. 12
The Mongolian government sent more than twenty thousand more horses
between 1952 and 1953 to Korea. 13 The last major collection of horses for
aid started in June 1953, but by the time the horses were delivered in August
the war had ended and, as a result, these horses were sent to the celebration
of the liberation of the North Korean people. 14 While the first collection had
60 Li Narangoa
been transported during the winter and the horsemen faced snowstorms and
suffered from frostbite, this time they faced thunderstorms and rain for sever-
al days and several hundred horses strayed across the Chinese and Russian
borders during a storm. Some horses were found and returned, but altogether
145 remained missing and the horsemen had to take responsibility for them.
Moreover, due to the prolonged wet weather, many horses were infected by
foot rot and 906 horses were weakened by the disease while they were
waiting for the train transport in Manzhouli and were returned to Mongolia.
Those that could not walk back to Mongolia were put down or given to
herders for consumption. But still 17,438 horses, more than the originally
planned number of 16,000, were handed over to the Koreans, and the Kore-
ans were happy to see “many young healthy horses amongst . . . and a large
number of horses that can be used for breeding.” 15
Mongolia provided horses not only to the Korean People’s Army but also
to the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA). At least five thousand
horses from the MPR were sold to China, and one of the Inner Mongolian
cavalry units was responsible for collecting these horses and training them
for the battle purposes on the Korean front in 1951. 16
While horses were useful for military purposes and transport, other live-
stock such as sheep, goats, and cows were more important food sources 17 and
production sources to build a sustainable economy. Therefore, the Mongo-
lians paid attention to the gender balance of herds that they sent to Korea.
Throughout their history, Mongol warriors always took their herds along as a
sustainable food source. They paid attention to the sex balance and strength
of the herds in order to provide optimal food supplies and reproduction.
Based on this historical and indigenous knowledge, the Mongolian govern-
ment gave explicit instructions about the male-female ratio of the livestock to
be sent to the DPRK to provide this kind of sustainability. Sheep and goat
herds to be sent were to consist of 30 percent male and 70 percent female and
young animals, as well as one sire for every twenty to twenty-five female
animals. For horses, 70 percent should be working horses, 10 percent mares,
and 20 percent foals, with one stallion for every ten mares. 18 Clearly, the
horses were needed mainly for transport and military operations, whereas
sheep and goats were more for long-term food production. 19
The livestock aid continued well after the war. The North Koreans were
thankful for the livestock and assistance that they received. The need for
livestock—especially for sheep and goats—increased, while the need for
horses dropped. In 1954–1955 the Mongolian government pledged to pro-
vide twelve thousand horses to the DPRK, but the North Korean government
requested thirty thousand goats and sheep instead of horses to improve the
livelihood and economic base of the farmers. More than thirty thousand
sheep were delivered in 1955 as requested. 20 In 1955, Shandurseren, an
official of the Mongolian embassy, made a study tour around North Korea to
see how Koreans were utilizing the Mongolian aid. It was reported that
whenever he went, he was warmly welcomed and shown how many livestock
local people had received and how well the animals had been cared for. 21
These gifts or aid were all backed by energetic fund-raising campaigns.
The Mongolian newspaper, Unen Sonin, became the major source for pub-
lishing information on campaigns as well as reports of donation and pledges
that individuals, groups, and organizations had made. Articles and pledges
were related to nationwide campaigns to donate to the Korean people who
were fighting for their liberation and for world peace. The newspaper reports
would intensify before each aid shipment was sent to the DPRK. For exam-
ple, for the gifts that were brought to Korea for the occasion of the May 1
celebration in 1952, the newspaper published a report at least every other day
during the month of April on pledges of money and livestock that had been
made by citizens in support of the aid shipment. At the beginning of each
campaign, the government or the Central Committee of Fund for the Korean
People would put a huge announcement about helping North Koreans on the
front page of the newspaper, and at the end of each campaign there would be
a news article dedicated to reporting how much was delivered and how
thankful the heroic North Korean public was to the Mongolian people. The
fund-raising campaigns often involved large-scale gatherings at certain insti-
tutions, followed by donation and pledges by individuals or groups to offer
part of their salaries as donations to assist the Korean War. The salary sacri-
fice ranged from five days to two months of the donor’s wages. 22 The total
cost of the donation to the DPRK reached more than 200 million tögrög by
1955. 23 This is an impressive sum considering that the country’s average
annual revenue between 1950 and 1955 was just about 400 million tögrög. 24
MANZHOULI AS THE TRANSIT STATION AND

A NODE OF THE SOCIALIST FRONT
All the animals and aid goods from Mongolia transited at Manzhouli, the
Inner Mongolian town located at the trans-Siberian railway line near the
triangular juncture between China, the Soviet Union, and Mongolia. As we
saw in chapter 2, all goods and livestock from the MPR and weapons, air-
planes, and other military equipment from the Soviet Union, as well as assis-
tance from other Eastern European countries, went through Manzhouli by
train to be transported to the Korean Peninsula. 25 Manzhouli also became a
key node in the relationship between Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and the
Korean War. While chapter 2 focuses on the transformation of social life in
Manzhouli during the Korean War, here I consider the role of Manzhouli as a
place of wartime multinational interaction.
62 Li Narangoa
Manzhouli had been the most important trade point between China and
the Soviet Union ever since the Russian Revolution. All the heavy military
weapons and airplanes that were imported from the Soviet Union went
through Manzhouli Station, while the grain and agricultural products that the
Chinese government sent to the Soviet Union in exchange for military equip-
ment were also transshipped there. The Korean War dramatically increased
the flow of transport and imposed a huge burden on the small country station
that had neither the modern equipment to handle all the goods and supplies
flowing through nor the manpower to do it efficiently. As a result, there was
stagnation and delay in transport, affecting the war supplies to the Korean
front. The Soviet Union complained and the Chinese central government
intervened, placing the railway station under military administration of the
Northeast military, who had the command role in the Chinese People’s Vol-
unteer Army. The idea was that military goods should take priority over
everything else. The slogan was “military first, trade next.” 26 This was not
enough, however, and soon the entire town administration was put under
military control, in order effectively to manage the human, technical re-
sources and to put war needs ahead of everything else. This little Inner
Mongolian country town was now directly managed by the Chinese central
government via the Northeast government and the Northeast Army com-
mand, and remained so until April 1953, shortly before the end of the Korean
War. 27
The Korean War turned Manzhouli into a hot spot for meetings and
communications between the Socialist countries, especially between Chi-
nese, Mongolians, Soviets, and North Koreans. In general, the goods from
Mongolia and Russia were handed over to the DPRK here. Although the aid
handovers appeared to be only a transaction between the aid givers and
receivers (the DPRK, this case), they were in fact also occasions for multilat-
eral diplomatic interactions. The diplomatic envoys who brought the aid to
Manzhouli from each of the donor countries would generally be welcomed
not only by the Korean representatives but also by representatives of the
Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Soviet representatives. Often the town’s
mayor would throw a reception or dinner for these foreign delegates. The
people of the town were mobilized to provide accommodation, food, and
monetary assistance to Koreans who came to or were passing through Man-
zhouli. About seven hundred DPRK soldiers and officials were deployed to
Manzhouli during the war to manage the transport of goods and livestock to
the Korean Peninsula. The leaders stayed in a hotel, but their subordinates
stayed in school classrooms and offices. Blankets, sheets, and crockery were
provided by local families. 28 Considering that people did not have much to
spare, this involved a major local mobilization of resources.
As a town located in the steppes of Inner Mongolia, Manzhouli was
especially suited for animal transit because it had the advantage of being able
to pasture large herds of livestock in its vicinity, and local Inner Mongols
helped to provide pasture and hay as well as assisting in loading livestock
onto trains. Inner Mongols also acted as interpreters between Mongolian and
Chinese. As mentioned above, in general, Mongolian officials and herders
would bring their livestock and other aid to Manzhouli Station to be handed
over to DPRK officials for transport to the Korean Peninsula. Often, a num-
ber of the Mongolian herders would accompany them to the border. Some
members of the Inner Mongolian cavalry were involved in protecting the
train during its journey from Manzhouli to the North Korean border.
The transit of a huge number of animals not only strengthened the interac-
tion between Mongols from both sides of the border, but also made the
overloaded little border station town even more buzzing with activity and
increased the demands for infrastructure. The handover of the livestock to the
Koreans at Manzhouli Station normally took a few days because of the time
needed to examine the livestock for disease and then load them onto trains.
Loading livestock turned out to be a very time-consuming endeavor because
no one had any prior experience of this task. Horses, for example, were all
handled by expert Mongolian horsemen who would individually load the
horses and tie them to the wagons. Eight to twelve horses were loaded into
each wagon, and there were about thirty-seven wagons in each delivery.
Since train transport was limited to three hundred to eight hundred horses per
day and there was no pasture to feed the horses around the town of Manzhou-
li, the horses were gathered around Zuun Ukhert Lake in the local Inner
Mongolian pasture lands, which was about 70 km from Manzhouli. Each day
a certain number of horses were delivered to Manzhouli for further train
transport. For the first round of horse handovers in 1951, seventy-seven
Korean soldiers and herders came to Manzhouli to collect the horses from
Manzhouli. 29 The Mongolian delegates who handled the handover of the
livestock sometimes also provided food to the DPRK soldiers and civilians
who came to Manzhouli to pick up the horses or livestock. 30
In this international transit station, local people came up with creative
ways to meet the needs of livestock and human transit. For horse transport,
the train wagons were not covered, but high fencing was quickly rigged up
around each wagon to ensure the safety of the horses during transport. The
improvised responses to unexpected demands are illustrated by the story of a
high-ranking official and his followers from Mongolia who made the journey
to deliver thirty train wagons of food and cloth aid to North Korea to cele-
brate Labor Day (May 1) 1952. They traveled via Russia, arriving in Man-
zhouli on April 22, and stayed there overnight while the goods were trans-
shipped from Russian to Chinese trains. In Manzhouli they also met with
Korean representatives and Chinese representatives from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. The chief Mongolian official asked for a sleeping wagon to
be attached to the train transporting the goods, but Manzhouli Station did not
64 Li Narangoa
have a sleeping wagon, and so a normal passenger wagon was exclusively

reserved for him and his delegation, and the seats were put together to make a
bed; the representative of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs brought
some bedding and prepared candles for him because the wagon did not have
an electric light or heating system. Two people from the Chinese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs accompanied the Mongolians in the train. 31
The North Korean government asked the MPR to cover the transportation
expenses when delivering horses and other aid. The Mongolian government
agreed, and so all the expenses within the Mongolian border as well as the
transport from Manzhouli to the Korean border were paid by the Mongolian
government until well after the end of the war. 32 The Chinese railway com-
pany would send the bills to the Mongolian embassy in Beijing to pay the
transport. Between October and December 1952, for example, Mongolia sent
livestock, horses, and meat three times, and the total transport fees through
China were 3,958,187,501 yuan (around 152,000 U.S. dollars). 33 The Chi-
nese railway company not only charged the actual transport costs but also
requested the Mongolians to do such things as building fences on the train to
extend the height of the wagons to ensure the safety of the horses. 34
Manzhouli served not only as a transit place for livestock and aid from
other countries to the Korean Peninsula, but also as the gateway for Koreans
to go to Mongolia, the Soviet Union, and other Eastern European countries.
Many young Korean War orphans went to these countries via Manzhouli. In
1952, the MPR received 197 Korean orphans via Manzhouli. 35 Mongolia
cared for these children until they were returned to Korea in 1958. 36 While
some Korean orphans remained in the MPR, in the first half of 1953 alone,
1,922 children also passed through Manzhouli on their way to Eastern Eu-
rope. Often the train connection was late and these children had to stay
overnight in Manzhouli. Since the Korean government did not have money to
pay for accommodation and food, the citizens of Manzhouli would provide
accommodation for the children free of charge. On July 1, 1953, a group of
714 children who were traveling to Czechoslovakia had to wait for the train
for several hours at the station, and the local representative of foreign rela-
tions offered them food and provided shoes for those children who did not
have them. 37
Because the town was the main transport point for war assistance and
equipment, its security became an issue of national importance, and the re-
moval of suspected spies and counterrevolutionaries was high on the political
agenda. In October 1951, the military government of Manzhouli decided to
move foreigners from the town. 38 At the end of World War II there were
about three thousand Russians living in Manzhouli. Most of them came to
Manzhouli to escape from the Russian Revolution of 1917, and thus had been
living there for more than thirty years, and were working in all sections of
industry and business. They were moved to an agricultural area in the interior
of Inner Mongolia and to other remote places. With the help of local people,
within seventy days, 290 rooms were erected in Hingan League, 39 Inner
Mongolia, and by August 1952, about six hundred Russians were moved
there. However, there was not enough arable land there to produce food for
several hundred extra people, and the Mongolian steppe did not provide
wood for heating. One year later, the Inner Mongolian government con-
ducted a field study, confirmed the unsuitability of the area for the new
settlement, and allowed these new settlers to move away and find other
places to live. The local government helped to organize their “repatriation”
by buying their goods, properties, and livestock, and provided some travel
assistance to a small number of people to promote the departure of the
Russians. By 1954, a total of 5,714 households comprising 24,805 Russian
settlers (including 1,413 Russians from Manzhouli) had passed through the
frontier post at Manzhouli to return to the Soviet Union. 40
After the war, in August 1953, the Korean officers in Manzhouli returned
to North Korea. The North Korean government sent a high-ranking govern-
ment official to thank the people of Manzhouli and the Inner Mongolian
government for their help. Sulin, the mayor of Manzhouli, was awarded the
Third Rank National Flag silver medal and a silk banner was given to Man-
zhouli Station by the North Korean government. 41
INNER MONGOLIA’S AID TO THE KOREAN WAR
If the Korean War offered a platform for a unified Socialist front against
American imperialism and strengthened the MPR’s status as an independent
nation, it was also an important catalyst for Inner Mongolia to be molded into
the new Chinese state. Inner Mongols not only supported the MPR in its aid
to the Koreans in the DPRK by assisting the livestock transit through the
region, but also provided their own financial aid by making huge donations
of livestock, money, and food to sustain the Chinese People’s Volunteer
Army on the Korean front. Soldiers and cavalry divisions were also sent as
part of the Chinese Volunteer Army. As in the MPR, so also in China many
donation collection stations were set up at the local level. These stations were
all run by the Resist America, Aid Korea Committee. An Inner Mongolian
branch of the Resist America, Aid Korea Committee was set up in 1950,
followed by league, banner (county) level and even village-level branch
committees to mobilize people to donate money, grains, cloth, livestock, and
other goods. By early 1952, Shilingol League alone, which had a total popu-
lation of fifty thousand people, had donated 4,274 head of livestock, 13,352
kg of dried meat, and other food and goods that had a total value of nearly
300 million Chinese yuan. 42
66 Li Narangoa
The newly founded PRC had not yet recovered from its war against Japan
or the civil war against the Nationalists, and thus relied on donations to
support the war front. The PRC had to ask for loans from the Soviet Union to
rehabilitate its economy and military industry, but due to the Korean War,
these loans were mainly used to pay for the weapons and military equipment
that the Russians provided. Between 1950 and 1955, the Soviets provided a
total of 66,163 billion rubles of low-interest loans to China, but 95 percent of
these were used for the Korean War. 43 China’s military expenditure made up
38.19 percent and 45.64 percent of the national budget in 1950 and 1951,
respectively. 44 Even this was not enough to supply its military adequately.
The PRC was so short of military equipment that some airplanes and weap-
ons were paid for by money donated from the public. 45 A huge campaign to
donate airplanes and cannons (juanxian feiji dapao) was conducted. In Inner
Mongolia, each banner, county, town, or city was encouraged to collect
money that would be used to buy one or more aircraft or cannon. On June 7,
1951, the PRC Resist America, Aid Korea General Committee issued out-
lines on how to make donations for weapons to support the Chinese People’s
Volunteer Army: donating 15 billion yuan would be the value of one fighter
aircraft; 50 billion yuan would be equivalent to one bomber aircraft; 25
billion yuan would equate to one tank; 9 billion yuan would equal one artil-
lery weapon, and 8 billion yuan, one antiaircraft gun. The Inner Mongolian
Committee aimed to collect money for twelve fighter aircraft, but in the end
the people of Inner Mongolia donated over 462 billion yuan to buy thirty-one
fighter aircraft, well beyond the original plan. 46
The donation campaign’s success was probably thanks to the land reform
that was still in full force in Inner Mongolia, as well as to the vigorous
patriotic campaign. During the land reform, the property and livestock of
well-off farmers and herders were confiscated and distributed to those who
did not possess any land, or who submitted to the common purpose. This
meant that those who received land and livestock were happy to share, and
those who had some extra were compelled to contribute as part of the reform.
The aid collection campaign was also accompanied by vigorous propaganda.
The slogan kangmei yuanchao baojia weiguo (Resist America, aid Korea,
safeguard home, serve the nation) was very effective, as it spoke directly to
people’s hearts about the fear of being invaded by yet another imperialist
country. While the MPR goods and livestock were sent directly to help the
Korean people and the Korean People’s Army, most of the Chinese dona-
tions (including those from Inner Mongolia) were designed to assist the
Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, which was fighting in support of North
Korea and to defend their own country at the same time. Inner Mongolia was
one of the regions close to the Korean border. Women were mobilized to
make shoes for the soldiers and schoolchildren received school bags adorned
with the Chinese characters for kangmei yuanchao baojia weiguo, and
learned to sing war songs. 47
The new Chinese government was presented as the liberator from the
Japanese imperialists and now the protector from the American imperialists.
Newspaper and other reports often cited statements said to be made by ordi-
nary people, such as “The Chinese Communist Party liberated us and gave us
new life and now it is time for us to pay them back,” 48 and there were always
reports of the shedding of tears to show the emotional attachment of the
people to their nation. Many reports described how herders donated their
sheep or horses to help the “most lovable people” (zui ke ai de ren), that is,
the soldiers of the People’s Volunteer Army. 49 So, in this sense the Korean
War was presented in China, not a war of Koreans against Koreans and
Americans, but rather a war intimately linked to their own family and nation-
al safety. According to this line of reasoning, it could be described as a
Chinese war against American imperialists on Korean soil.
Inner Mongolia not only delivered many horses and other livestock to the
Chinese Volunteer Army, but also sent Mongol cavalry as part of the Chinese
People’s Volunteer Army. The Inner Mongolian cavalry contributed to the
Korean War in many different ways. Some regiments were responsible for
the safe transport of goods and weapons from the border stations to the
Korean Peninsula; some regiments helped in the General Logistics Depart-
ment of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, or were responsible for train-
ing military horses both for the Chinese Volunteer Army and the Korean
People’s Army on the front line, and other regiments were sent to the Korean
front. 50
The Inner Mongolian cavalry was created on the basis of the cavalry
armies of the Manchukuo Mongol army and the army of the Inner Mongolian
Autonomous Government (which had attempted to create an autonomous
Mongol government west of Manchukuo with the support of Japan in the late
1930s). By the time Inner Mongolia joined the PRC in 1949, the Inner
Mongolian cavalry had grown to five divisions (with about 9,500 men in
each division) of the Chinese Liberation Army. One cavalry regiment was
sent to the Korean war front in 1950, but horses and riders had little hope of
survival against air raids and modern machine guns, and putting them on the
front line resulted in great losses. As a result, they were later shifted to help
with the transport and supply of munitions. Some eighty members of the
Inner Mongolian cavalry were engaged in training and taming the horses that
were sent by the MPR for the Korean People’s Army. Two regiments (Six-
teenth and Thirty-Second) of six thousand men were dismounted and trained
as infantry and one regiment (Thirty-First regiment) of three thousand men
was trained in artillery techniques for the Korean war front. 51
Joining the infantry was challenging for those who were accustomed to
fight on horseback, but it was even more challenging for those units who had
68 Li Narangoa
to join the artillery regiment. This artillery regiment, which was renamed the
210th Artillery Regiment, was divided into two weapons battalions (with
about 850 men each), one command battalion, one rocket battalion, and one
transport battalion. The officers of the cavalry had a very short period of
training in the new military technology, learning how to use the new Chi-
nese-made 506 rocket cannon. The officers in turn trained their soldiers
within a short period of time before deployment to the war front. They were
dispatched to the front in October 1951, during the most intense fighting of
the Korean War. They were not horseless. They could ride their horses, but
they no longer had swords and light guns, and their horses were used to pull
the big machine guns that the riders would use against the enemy airplanes.
By the time they reached the front they had been attacked from the air and
many soldiers and horses had been lost. They participated in battles between
December 1952 and the end of the war in July 1953, especially to secure two
tactically important hills: Hill 281.2 and Hill 394.8. 52 During the heat of
battle, the officers did not have time to use Chinese code words; instead they
just used Mongolian to communicate with each other, confident that this
would not be understood by the enemy. 53 They thus contravened the Chinese
military code, but then some of them probably could not speak much Chinese
anyway. Inner Mongols contributed both material and military aid to the
Korean War to defend their “home” in a new China, but since their contribu-
tion was as part of the new Chinese state’s endeavor, their stories and iden-
tities were not visible in general history.
LEGACIES OF THE WAR: WHO IS WHO?
Both the MPR and Inner Mongolia provided large amounts of financial dona-
tions to the DPRK in food, livestock, and many other forms. While the MPR
took pride in just offering humanitarian help and not participating in combat,
the Inner Mongols were proud of taking part in the fighting and contributing
to the “success” of the war as well, and thus to the security of the new state of
which they were part. Those who survived and came back without being
captured were hailed as national heroes and rewarded with medals and titles.
They believed that they had done their best to protect the new state and their
own people. Mongols both in the MPR and Inner Mongolia were encouraged
to feel that they were strengthening their Communist brotherhood. But there
was an unexpected outcome.
The MPR was accused in certain international circles of having partici-
pated in combat during the Korean War, and this became an important obsta-
cle to the MPR becoming a member of the United Nations. Mongolia was
one of the first countries to apply for membership of the United Nations in
1946, but it was not until 1961 that its application was accepted.
The accusation apparently came from pro-Nationalist Chinese prisoners

of war who had been incorporated into the Chinese People’s Volunteers,
many of whom decided to go to Taiwan instead of returning to the Chinese
mainland at the end of the war (for further information, see chapters 4, 6, and
7). Some of these Chinese POWs made statements about the Mongolian
soldiers’ involvement in the Korean front along the following lines: 54
1. A large number of “MiG” Soviet-made airplanes, fighting against the

U.S. Air Force, had been flown by Mongolian pilots.
2. The Mongolian army had conducted air combat across the Yalu River.
3. Mongolian cavalry, tank brigades, and infantry units had participated
in the Korean War on the Communist side.
These claims were used by Tsiang Tingfu, the Republic of China (ROC)
representative, at the United Nations’ Security Council’s 703rd meeting
(held on December 13, 1955) to reject Mongolia’s submission to become a
United Nations member. He questioned Mongolia’s peace-loving nature. To
depict Mongolia as an aggressor, he brought up the Pei-ta-shan Incident (or
Battle of Baitag Bogd Mountain) in 1947 55 and claimed that Mongolia also
participated in the Korean War against the United Nations:
We all know, too, that Outer Mongolia participated with the Chinese Commu-
nists and the Korean Communists in the war in Korea against the United
Nations. Mongolian cavalry, Mongolian tank corps, Mongolian pilots fought
against the United Nations in Korea. There are in Formosa 5,000 ex-prisoners
of war who saw the Mongolians in action, who saw the Mongolians fighting
side by side with North Koreans and Chinese Communists against the United
Nations. I offer to welcome a commission of the Security Council in my
country for the purpose of questioning these 5,000 witnesses. I offer, as an
alternative, to bring here as many witnesses as members may desire to ques-
tion and examine. The fact that Outer Mongolia has committed aggression
against the United Nations is indisputable. 56
It is unknown if the United Nations sent any commission to Taiwan to

interview these ex–prisoners of war, or if any ex–prisoners of war were
brought to the meetings of the United Nations to verify Tsiang’s statement.
The intervention cited above was made at a very important moment in de-
bates about Mongolia’s possible admission to the UN. The UN General
Assembly recommended considering the resolution of its 552nd plenary
meeting on December 8, which proposed that eighteen states including Mon-
golia should be admitted as members. But the Republic of China used its veto
for the first and the last time to vote against Mongolia’s admission. 57 Tsi-
ang’s statement and his lobbying influenced other states’ views on Mongolia
as well. For example, at the 790th meeting of the Security Council, which
70 Li Narangoa
was held on September 9, 1957, the Cuban representative on the Security

Council, who happened to be also the president of the council, made refer-
ence to Mongolia’s being an aggressor state during the Korean War and said:
“It has been abundantly proved that a large number of men from Mongolia
took part in the aggression against Korea which the United Nations repeated-
ly condemned.” 58
How did these claims come about? If we accept the Mongolian docu-
ments that show that the MPR was not involved in military action in the war,
then the Chinese Nationalist soldiers must have been either misinformed or
confused. How can we interpret their statements that MiG aircraft were
flown by Mongolian pilots during the war and that the Mongolian army had
been engaged in air combat across the Yalu River? Were these the product of
a political stratagem?
The identity of the pilots during the Korean War was a sensitive and
confusing issue. The Soviet Union did not want the world to know that its
pilots were directly involved in air combat. Soviet pilots were restricted to
flying within Communist territories to avoid being caught by their enemy.
The pilots were even asked to use Korean or Chinese during air battles to
avoid revealing their real identity, but it turned out to be very difficult for
them to use a foreign language in the heat of intense air battles, and so they
ignored the instruction. Apart from the Soviet pilots, many Chinese and
North Korean pilots also flew the Soviet MiG-15s, which were made in the
Soviet Union, to China and North Korea. China imported many Soviet air-
planes. With Soviet help, the Chinese air force grew from nothing to a well-
equipped force with one thousand combat planes within a year between 1950
and 1951. 59 As mentioned above, the entire nation was mobilized to collect
money for buying airplanes and cannons. Three air bases in Manchuria—
Andong, Tungfeng, and Miaogou—were shared with the Soviet air force,
which was providing support in the Korean War. The Soviets withdrew this
assistance from 1952, and thereafter most of the pilots participating in the
war on the North Korean side were Chinese or Korean. These pilots were
inexperienced and were given training in bases near the frontier. 60
Why then the insistence on Mongolian pilots? Was there any evidence
that the pilots were speaking Mongolian? Or were they identified as “Mon-
golian” on the basis of their facial features? With the aircraft headgear on, it
would have been hard to distinguish the nationality of the pilots, and particu-
larly hard to distinguish between East Asian nationalities such as Chinese,
Korean, Central Asian, or Mongolian. In the absence of other supporting
materials, it seems likely that some observers assumed that Asian-looking
pilots at the controls of Soviet planes were Mongolian, based on the view that
Mongolia was a client state of the Soviet Union.
The other statement was that “Mongolian cavalry, tank brigades, and
infantry units had participated in the Korean War with communist sol-
diers.” 61 This is an interesting possibility but unlikely to be true, because

there is no record of the MPR sending Mongolian cavalry to war, and such
cavalry would have had to travel through China to the Korean Peninsula.
This statement, however, had probably a firmer basis than the statement
about Mongolian pilots. The theory that Mongolia had participated in combat
most likely came from the confusion between Mongolians from the MPR and
Inner Mongolia. As we have seen, the Inner Mongolian cavalry participated
in the fighting. In the heat of battle, the officers did not have time to use code
words, instead just using Mongolian to communicate with each other. Those
who did not understand Mongolian and did not know about their background
might well have assumed that they were soldiers from the MPR. It is likely
that this was how the rumor arose that the MPR cavalry and infantry also
participated in the front line combat.
Another factor would have been the self-identification of the Mongol
soldiers from Inner Mongolia. In general, the term “Inner Mongolia” as a
geographical and political term existed long before the Korean War, but
Mongols in Inner Mongolia seldom referred to themselves as Inner Mongols,
but just as Mongols, Monggol hun (in Mongolian) or Menggu ren (in Chi-
nese) in the early twentieth century. These terms are identical to how the
Mongolians north of the border identified themselves and how the Chinese
referred to them. Moreover, most of the cavalry units that were sent to the
Korean War originated from the eastern part of Inner Mongolia, which was
incorporated into Manchukuo during the 1930s, and were thus people of the
periphery even in the context of Inner Mongolia. Just one year after the
foundation of the PRC, it is hard to believe that these soldiers would have
changed their old habit of referring to themselves as Mongols (Menggu ren)
when they had contact with the Chinese soldiers on the front. Therefore, it
can be assumed that for outsiders with only limited education, and particular-
ly for those who came from southern China, it would have been difficult to
grasp the political differences between the Mongols who lived on opposite
sides of the Chinese-Mongolian border. In this way, the Inner Mongols un-
consciously contributed to the diplomatic predicament of their Mongolian
brothers to the north of the border.
Another explanation for the statement by Chinese Nationalist soldiers
could be a political one, rooted in the Cold War ideological struggle. Present-
ing the MPR as one of the countries that had participated in the fighting
against the UN forces would devalue its credentials to become a member of
the UN and limit Communist representation in the UN. In 1946, the Chinese
Nationalist government had recognized the MPR as an independent country
on the basis of a Mongolian national referendum and an agreement with the
Soviet Union. Just a few months after that, Mongolia submitted its applica-
tion for membership of the UN. The Nationalist Chinese representative at the
United Nations at the time was supportive toward Mongolia’s application.
72 Li Narangoa
But the representative soon regretted this, especially after the Baitag Bogd
Incident in 1947, when Mongolian and Chinese forces clashed in the border
region of Baitag Bogd and the Mongolian army obtained territory under
Soviet air support. Moreover, the Soviet Union did not keep the commit-
ments it had made in the Sino-Soviet agreement of August 1945, in which it
had promised not to support the Chinese Communists and to hand over the
Chinese territory to Republican China at the end of the war with Japan, on
the understanding that China would recognize the MPR’s independence if
this was supported by a national referendum. The Soviets, however, sup-
ported the Communist side during the Chinese Civil War, and the MPR and
the PRC signed a friendship treaty in February 1950. Repeated rejection of
Mongolia’s request to join the United Nations throughout the 1950s may
have been a form of diplomatic retaliation for this move.
The Korean War brought the Mongols together for the same cause, but
also contributed to their long years of separation thereafter. The PRC’s vision
of the Korean War as a victory gave that nation confidence as a sovereign
state, while the halfhearted support by the Soviet Union for the Chinese
struggle in the war widened the gap between the two Socialist giants. China
wanted to have close relations with the MPR in the hope that one day Mon-
golia would be incorporated into China, but the Soviet Union resisted this by
tightening its control over the MPR. By the time Chinese and Soviet diplo-
matic relationships broke down from the end of the 1950s onward, the border
between the MPR and Inner Mongolia was closed. The people on either side
of the border shared the same Socialist political ideology, but they were still
placed in a state of “cold war” with one another until the late 1980s, when the
border was reopened. The Korean War, which both North and South saw as a
war for the unification of the country, ironically not only affirmed the parti-
tion of the Korean Peninsula, but also contributed to the division of the
Socialist front in Northeast Asia and thus to the ongoing partition of the
Mongols.
NOTES
1. Jamiyan-i Battur, XX-Zunni Mongol ba Solongus-un Harichaa [Relations between Mon-

golia and Korea in the 20th century] (Ulaanbaatar: Admon, 1999), 70.
2. “Mongolian Aid to DPRK 1950–1955,” Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Mongolia, 03.01.25.
3. “Sangiin yamni said nuhur Molomjamch-d” [Letter to Mr. Molonjamchi, Minister of
Department of Finance], November 3, 1953, Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Mongolia, 03.01.48.
4. National Central Archive of Mongolia, 1-5-319.
5. “Report on Horses Delivered to DPRK,” March 31, 1951, Archives of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, 03-01-07.
6. National Central Archive of Mongolia, 1-5-319.
7. “Mongolian Aid to DPRK 1951,” Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mon-
golia, 03-01-08.
11. “Mongolian Aid to DPRK1951,” Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongo-
lia, 03-01-08.
12. “Solongusin Ard Tumen Yalagdashgui,” Unen Sonin, January 8, 1953, 1.
13. “Mongolian Aid to DPRK 1950–1955,” Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Mongolia, 03.01.25.
14. “B. N. M. A. Ulsin belegleliin aduug A. B. N. Solongos Ulsad tushaasan tuhai” [Report
on handing over of Mongolian horses as aid to the DPRK], September 19, 1953, Archive of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, 03.01.44.
15. “B. N. M. A. Ulsin belegleliin aduug A. B. N. Solongos Ulsad tushaasan tuhai” [Report
on handing over of Mongolian horses as aid to the DPRK], September 19, 1953, Archive of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, 03.01.44.
16. Wang Dongxia, Kang Mei Yuan Chao: 1950 Nei Menggu ji shi [Resist America, aid
Korea: Inner Mongolia in 1950] (Beijing: Zhonggong Dangshi Chubanshe, 2011), 214.
17. “Sangiin yamni said nuhur Molomjamch-d” [Letter to Mr. Moomjamch, minister of
Department of Finance], March 3, 1953, Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongo-
lia, 03.01.48.
18. Jamiyan-i, XX-Zunni Mongol ba Solongus-un Harichaa, 76–77.
19. “Solongusin Ard Tumen Yalagdashgui,” 1.
20. “Gadaad Yvdalin Yamni said Jargalsaikhan, ABNSA ulsin Elchin said Hon Don Cheiig
huleen avch uulzsan tuhai” [Report on Foreign Minister Jargasaihan’s meeting with DPRK’s
ambassador], Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, 03.01.56.
21. “Report on Visit to Hamgyong and Ryangang,” 1955, National Central Archive of
Mongolia.
22. For example, Unen Sonin, January 8, 1953, February 4, 1953, February 7, 1953, Febru-
ary 12, 1953.
23. “Mongolian Aid to Korea 1950–1955,” Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Mongolia, 03.01.25.
24. Mongolia: An Economic Handbook (Warrington, UK: Joseph Crosfield & Sons, 1963),
16.
25. For example, in 1953 alone, on top of weapons from the Soviets, from Mongolia five
wagons of leader shoes, twenty-six wagons of hay for horses, and 17,444 horses; from East
Germany sixty-two boxes of gifts; from Switzerland sixty-two boxes of household goods; from
Bulgaria fifty-four boxes of medicine and 111 boxes of clothes; and from Czechoslovakia three
locomotives went through Manzhouli Station. Xu Zhanxin, Manzhouli yu Kangmei Yuanchao
Zhanzheng [Manzhouli and the Korean War] (Hailaer: Nei Menggu Wenhua Chubanshe,
2006), 175.
26. Wang Tieqiao, Manchzhouli Waiyun Wushinian 1946–1996 [The 50 years of foreign
transport in Manzhouli 1946–1996] (Hailaer: Nei Menggu Wenhua Chubanshe, 1996), 60.
27. Wang, Manchzhouli Waiyu Wushinian, 55; Xu, Manzhouli yu Kangmei Yuanchao Zhan-
zheng, 10–11.
28. Xu, Manzhouli yu Kangmei Yuanchao Zhanzheng, 181.
30. For example, in August 1953, at the handover of the last major distribution of horse aid,
realizing that the Korean soldiers did not have enough food, the Mongolian delegates offered
ten cows, three sheep, and 609 kg of rice and other food to North Korean officials. (“Solongu-
sin ard tumen yalagdashgui” [The Korean people are not defeatable], Unen Sonin, January 8,
1953, 1.)
74 Li Narangoa
31. Xu, Manzhouli yu Kangmei Yuanchao Zhanzheng, 178–79.

32. “Letter from the Mongolian Embassy in Beijing to the Ministry Foreign Affairs of
Mongolia,” No. 53, March 11.1954, Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia,
03.01.56.
33. “Sangiin yamni said nuhur Molomjamch-d” [Letter to Mr. Moomjamch, minister of
Department of Finance], March 3, 1953, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongo-
lia, 03-01-48.
34. “Letter from the Mongolian Embassy in Beijing to the Ministry Foreign Affairs of
Mongolia,” No. 53, March 11, 1954, Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia,
03.01.56.
35. National Central Archive of Mongolia 342-1; also see Zambyagiin, XX-Juuni Mongol ba
Solongus-un Harichaa, 90–93.
36. A special kindergarten and school were set up for them. More than eighty local staff
were involved in taking care of these children, and a few staff from Korea were employed to
teach the Korean language. Korean and Mongolian languages were taught for three hours every
day, and all other subjects were taught in Mongolian. The children all lived in a dormitory that
was built for them, and they were looked after twenty-four hours a day by the staff. They had
their own kitchen, cooks, and library.
37. Xu, Manzhouli yu Kangmei Yuanchao Zhanzheng, 181.
39. A league is an administrative unit of Mongols. It is similar to a province. A league
consisted of several banners, which is similar to a county.
42. “Ximeng Kangmei Yuanchao Aiguo Juanxian Yundong Zongjie,” Inner Mongolia
Archive, 309-2-123.
43. Shen Zhihua, Mao Zedong, Sidalin yu Chaoxian Zhanzheng [Mao Zedong and Stalin
and the Korean War] (Guangzhou: Guangzhou Renmin Chubanshe, 2003), 398.
44. Liu Guoguan, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Jingji Dagan Ziliao Xuanbian 1949–1952
Zonghejuan [Archival material collections on the economy of the People’s Republic of China]
(Beijing: Zhongguo Chengshi Jingji Shehui Chubanshe, 1990), 872, 891.
45. Wang, Kang Mei Yuan Chao, 108.
47. Interview with Mr. Sampuljab, in Hohhot, on August 10, 2014.
48. Inner Mongolia Archive, 309-2-125.
49. “Ximeng Kangmei Yuanchao Aiguo Juanxian Yundong Zongjie,” Inner Mongolia
Archive, 309-2-123.
50. “Fenghuo Liaoyuan tieqibing” [The iron cavalry], in Jiefang Zhanzheng Zhongde Nei-
menggu Qibing (Houhehaote: Neimenggu Dangwei, 1997), 284–310; “Zai Zhandou Zhong
Fazhan Zhuangda de Qibing Liu-zhidui” [Cavalry that developed and strengthened in battles],
in Jiefang Zhanzheng Zhongde Neimenggu Qibing (Houhehaote: Neimenggu Dangwei, 1997),
358–404.
52. “Zai Zhandou Zhong Fazhan Zhuangda de Qibing Liu-zhidui,” 387–404.
53. Dong Qiwu, Dong Qiwu Riji [Dong Qiwu’s diary] (Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe,
2001), 91.
54. Robert Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, Part 1 (Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Publications, 1964), 342–43.
55. Battle of Baitag Bogd was a series of border incidents between the Republic of China
and Mongolia from June 1947 and July 1948. Reportedly, the Soviet Union backed Mongolia
by providing air cover. The Republic of China believed that Mongolia was acting under Soviet
instruction and thus denied the independence of Mongolia that was granted about a year earlier
by the Republic of China. See for the background, Sergey Radchenko, “Choibalsan’s Great
Mongolia Dream,” Inner Asia 11, no. 2 (2009): 231–58.
56. United Nations Security Council Official Record, 703rd meeting, December 13, 1955,
paragraph 56.
57. United Nations Security Council Official Record, 790th meeting, September 9, 1957,
paragraphs 63, 64.
58. United Nations Security Council Official Record, 790th meeting, September 9, 1957,
paragraph 77.
59. China wanted to build its air force in preparation for an anticipated conflict with the
Nationalist regime in Taiwan and had requested the Soviet Union to provide airplanes, help
with training pilots, and set up a proper military air base soon after the end of the Chinese Civil
War in 1949. But before they were able to prepare for their attack on Taiwan, the Korean War
broke out, and during the war China absolutely needed the air force to be able to support the
advance of its infantry. Steven J. Zaloga, “The Russians in MiG Alley,” Air Force Magazine,
February 1991, http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/1991/February%201991
/0291russians.aspx, accessed October 30, 2013.
60. Zaloga, “Russians in MiG Alley.”
61. Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 342–43.
Chapter Four
Victory with Minimum Effort

How Nationalist China “Won” the Korean War
Catherine Churchman
Over the battlefield the Americans were using radio broadcasts and spreading
propaganda leaflets. They didn’t mention that there were Nationalist troops
from Taiwan taking part in the war, but we had heard the rumours, and they
all said that the Nationalists were there. Many people deserted at this time,
and it was because there were those Nationalist troops that they deserted.
They were all like that. I was originally from the Nationalist Army, and I was
being treated poorly by the Communists, so it was a good thing that I ran
away.—Zhang Ruiqi, explaining his reasons for deserting the Chinese Peo-
ple’s Volunteers (CPV) in Korea, April 14, 2007, Guishan Village, Taiwan 1
More than sixty years after the armistice agreement was signed in Panmun-
jom, armed military representatives of the two Koreas still glare suspiciously
at one other across the Joint Security Area. The tense relationship between
the two Koreas explodes now and again into a war of words and sometimes
worse: a reminder that although the armistice was signed more than sixty
years ago, the two sides remain in a state of subdued conflict and continue to
deny each other’s political legitimacy. Further south, a less intense standoff
of similar age continues between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and
the Republic of China (ROC or Nationalist China or Taiwan): a standoff, like
that in Korea, sustained by two rival states claiming a single nation. Al-
though the official title of the state governing the island of Taiwan remains
the “Republic of China,” geography, politics, a decades-long economic coop-
eration across the Taiwan Strait, and the growth of a Taiwanese national
identity have all conspired to encourage the non-Chinese-speaking world to
think in terms of China-Taiwan relations, rather than a “two China” relation-
ship.
77
78 Catherine Churchman
The history of the two Chinas and two Koreas has many parallels: both
pairs of states originated in unresolved civil wars, the de facto national boun-
daries between them were consolidated from the front lines of civil war
conflicts over the years 1950–1953, and the continued existence of both pairs
is an outgrowth of patterns of international relations and security arrange-
ments set in place during the same period. For Chinese soldiers like Zhang
Ruiqi, the Republic of China remained an alternative government to which
they could potentially give their allegiance, and despite its small size com-
pared to its rival state on the mainland, its survival on Taiwan gave it politi-
cal and ideological significance to ethnic Chinese both within and outside its
sphere of direct control. In the context of the Korean War, the Republic of
China held a symbolic importance that far outweighed its actual military
involvement, and although excluded from openly participating in the military
conflict in Korea, right from the Chinese entry into the war, on a symbolic
level it still managed to influence the behavior of Chinese soldiers both on
the battlefield and in UN captivity without its army needing to be present.
Over the course of the war Nationalist China found ways to capitalize on this
symbolic significance and use it to its own advantage, but this was not the
entirety of its war effort.
There is no simple way to describe the Nationalist Chinese involvement
in the Korean War; the lack of any coordinated program of military action,
the sensitive nature of Nationalist participation, and the secrecy that long
surrounded what did occur make a coherent narrative difficult. The influence
the Nationalist government had on the war and the benefits it gained from
involvement are somewhat clearer: its support and encouragement of self-
proclaimed anti-Communist prisoners of war in their refusal to be repatriated
to Communist China helped prolong the Korean War for over a year by
stalling an armistice agreement, and by the end of the war the government
had consolidated itself on Taiwan under U.S. protection, and gained lasting
recognition of the legitimacy of the Nationalist regime as the representative
of China in the United Nations General Assembly. Most importantly, the
ROC retained membership of the UN Security Council to the exclusion of
the PRC—a situation that was to last for a further eighteen years until 1971.
Previous studies of Nationalist China’s role in the war have focused on
two main issues: U.S. relations with the two Chinas, and the POW repatria-
tion issue. The PRC involvement in the Korean War resulted in a major
setback in the normalization of relations between the United States and the
People’s Republic of China, and various detailed studies have examined this
souring of relations. John Garver investigated the war as the background to
the ROC-U.S. relationship 2 and the Taiwanese scholar Han Shuya aimed to
demolish the myth of a sudden change in U.S. dealings with Nationalist
leader Chiang Kai-shek after he had lost the mainland to the Communists,
arguing that it took almost two years for U.S. lawmakers to shift from com-
Victory with Minimum Effort 79
plete abandonment of Chiang to his restoration as a strategic and symbolic

asset. 3 The POW repatriation issue involving disaffected Chinese soldiers
who had organized themselves into anti-Communist groupings within the
POW camps in Busan and on Geoje Island received a significant amount of
attention at the time of the war because of its effect on stalling the armistice
talks and prolonging the war, and has been one of the most well-discussed
and researched topics of the Chinese involvement, although until very recent-
ly, most research has made use only of contemporary English-language
sources and the few materials translated from Chinese.
Western scholars, using a combination of sources such as translated inter-
views with POWs, U.S. military records, and journalists’ reports, have tried
to fathom what had occurred among the Chinese prisoners to make them
refuse to be repatriated to the People’s Republic. 4 PRC publications on the
issue mainly consist of memoirs rather than academic research, and the vast
majority of published memoirs come from the pen of a single author, Zhang
Zeshi. 5 The activities of Chinese POWs in Korea are still a sensitive topic in
the PRC, and access by foreign scholars to those who were UN prisoners of
war is still strictly controlled. 6 Across the strait in Taiwan over the past ten
years research has been carried out from two different angles based on two
different groups of sources: archival research into official government policy
and oral history interviews with former prisoners. The latter are particularly
valuable in that they give a view of the ideas that were current among those
who constituted the majority of the UN’s Chinese prisoner population: ordi-
nary foot soldiers rather than the leaders and organizers. David Cheng
Chang’s recent doctoral dissertation was the first to make use of sources and
interviews in Chinese from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. 7
Aside from these well-known stories there is a further dimension to the
Nationalist contribution to the Korean War, consisting of a range of covert
operations carried out either in cooperation with the U.S. and ROK armies, or
outside their knowledge entirely. These were carried out by Chinese of vari-
ous backgrounds, working as hijackers, guerrillas, interpreters, and teachers,
the latter two occupations being specifically connected to the POW issue.
This chapter sheds new light on these multiple aspects of the Nationalist
Chinese war effort in Korea, and also on the symbolic importance of the
Republic of China to Chinese involved in the war. It considers what the ROC
itself gained from the conflict, and poses the question whether the activities
and aims of the Nationalist Chinese in Korea should be considered in the
context of a Korean civil war, or rather as a continuation of the Chinese Civil
War.
NATIONALIST AMBITIONS AND COVERT ACTIVITIES
The outbreak of war in Korea followed the fall of the Nationalist government
in China far more closely than the conventional chronology suggests. Al-
though a gap of nine months separates the declaration of the foundation of
the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, and the crossing of the
38th parallel by DPRK troops on June 25, 1950, at the time of the creation of
the PRC large parts of the Chinese mainland in the south and west still
remained under Nationalist control. The Nationalist government did not
leave the mainland permanently for Taiwan until December 10, 1949, and
Hainan Island was not finally relinquished to the Communists until April 30,
1950, leaving a gap of only forty-two days between the end of one large-
scale conflict and the start of the next. Just ten days before the loss of Hainan
on April 19, two high-ranking Nationalist generals, Wu Tiecheng (former
mayor of Shanghai) and Zhu Shiming, were in Seoul to seek air and naval
bases in Korea, offering to aid the South in its fight against the North if these
were provided. 8 From this it is clear that Nationalist China already saw a
looming Korean conflict as having some strategic advantage for its own anti-
Communist war. The close temporal proximity of the two wars held signifi-
cant meaning for the loyalties and attitudes of the Chinese soldiers who
ended up in Korea. It also had an impact on U.S. policy regarding the Nation-
alist government, and on the efforts of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuo-
mintang, or KMT) to get Nationalist troops involved in Korea.
After the loss of Hainan, the Republic of China controlled only Taiwan
and a few islands off the coast of southeast China, and it seemed only a
matter of time before these last remaining territories would also fall to the
Communists. The United States appeared to have washed its hands of Chiang
Kai-shek on the first of May, only a day after the loss of Hainan, as President
Truman announced that the United States would not get involved in the
defense of Taiwan. This hands-off policy was reversed on the twenty-seventh
of June, just two days after the outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula.
From this time onward Taiwan became a strategic U.S. asset in a new war,
and President Truman announced the neutralization of the Taiwan Strait to
prevent the island from falling into the hands of the Communists by sending
the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet into the strait. Neutralization did not mean that
the Nationalists were to be given any advantage, however, as Truman also
requested that they cease air and naval attacks on the mainland. After this,
minor conflicts still occurred between Communist and Nationalist forces
over the possession of islands off the Chinese coast, 9 and victory over the
regular and irregular Nationalist troops left behind in the south and west of
China was not declared until July 1953. 10 So although open conflict was
much reduced and localized, a smoldering Chinese civil war continued in the
background of the Korean War. As long as the Nationalists safely held Tai-
wan there was a hope that eventually they could retake the mainland from the
Communists, and it was with this aim in mind that they wished to get in-
volved in Korea.
Despite its own precarious situation, the ROC left no delay in offering
military support to the United States for the defense of the Republic of
Korea: on June 29, 1950, only four days after the outbreak of the war, in a
meeting with Chiang Kai-shek, ROC foreign minister Yeh (Ye Gongchao)
offered thirty-three thousand Nationalist troops to be equipped and trained by
the United States. 11 On June 30, in a meeting of military officials, it was
decided that these troops would be composed of the Sixty-First and Eightieth
Division troops who had recently retreated from the Zhoushan Islands. 12
Chiang Kai-shek saw the Korean War as part of a larger war against Commu-
nism in East Asia, and wrote in his diary: “One cannot know yet whether this
will be the beginning of a third world war, but what can be said for sure, is
that it will not be the end of the war against communism in East Asia.” 13 He
also believed that if the PRC joined the war, this would be to the advantage
of the ROC as it would encourage the United States to give up the policy of
neutralization of the Taiwan Strait and allow aerial and naval attacks on
China to resume. He wrote: “If the Communists join in the war alongside
North Korea, the US will definitely change its attitude, they won’t just ask us
to add troops in aid of South Korea, they will also allow us to make military
and naval attacks on the Mainland and will no longer stand in our way.” 14
President Truman initially considered the possibility of taking up Chi-
ang’s offer, but was dissuaded from doing so, at first by Secretary of State
Dean Acheson, who suggested it might encourage the PRC to enter the
conflict in order to inflict losses on Nationalist troops and therefore make it
easier for them to take Taiwan when the chance came. After discussion with
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the consensus was that Nationalist troops would be
more trouble than they were worth in terms of transportation and equipment,
and that it was therefore best to politely decline the offer. General Douglas
MacArthur agreed with this judgment as well, 15 but chose to go to Taiwan to
explain this decision to Chiang Kai-shek himself. That he did this without
informing Washington in advance, even after it was recommended he send a
high-ranking officer in his place, was a contributing factor to his eventual
removal from office in April 1951. 16
Chiang’s offer of troops was not forgotten, however, and after the Chi-
nese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) crossed over the Yalu River into
Korea on October 19 and pushed the UN troops back, MacArthur stated that
he required fifty to sixty thousand Nationalist troops to help secure a line of
defense on the Korean Peninsula. He also stated his wish to allow the Nation-
alists to resume attacks on the mainland from Taiwan, in order to divert the
Communists’ attention away from Korea. This idea was rejected by the State
Department. 17 One of the subsequent commanders in Korea, General Mark
W. Clark, also favored the idea of sending two Nationalist divisions, but this
time the idea was rejected not by the United States, but by Syngman Rhee.
The U.S. National Security Council was still debating the possibility in April
1952. 18 While the Nationalists continued to express desire for participation in
the war, as late as 1953 Central News Agency wires from Washington still
suggested that a change in U.S. policy might allow Nationalist troops into
Korea to decisively end the war by a substantial addition of troop numbers. 19
A further aim of the Nationalists, though it was not openly stated, was
that through military involvement in Korea they might be able to use the
conflict to get an army back onto the Chinese mainland via the Korean
Peninsula. Shao Yulin, who served as ROC ambassador to South Korea from
July 1949 to September 1951, recalled his thoughts of the time: “If the
Korean War becomes a world war between the US and the Soviet Union, the
North and South will definitely be united, and there is the possibility we will
be able to cross the Yalu River into the Northeast to retake the Mainland.” 20
This was precisely the sort of thing the United States was eager to avoid. Its
reluctance to involve Nationalist Chinese troops was based on a concern that
it would encourage the PRC to enter the conflict, and even after Communist
China had indeed joined the war, the U.S. still aimed to contain military
conflict as much as possible to the Korean Peninsula. As a result, U.S.-ROC
cooperation was so sensitive that the only military operation the Nationalists
are known to have carried out for the United States in the context of Korea 21
was conducted secretly via the CIA in January 1951.
The precise details of this operation, code-named Operation TP Stole, are
still vague, but it is known to have been a secret hijacking operation to
intercept a shipment of medical supplies donated by India to the PRC. The
shipment consisted of the equipment for three military field hospitals as well
as the medical and technical staff to run them, and the Indian government had
chartered a Norwegian freighter to transport these to China via Hong Kong.
Seeking to undermine the CPVA war effort by cutting these essential sup-
plies, the United States commissioned a Chinese-speaking Danish American
CIA operative, Hans V. Tofte, to prevent the cargo from reaching Hong
Kong. Tofte had previously lived for eight years in China where he had made
the acquaintance of Chiang Kai-shek. He was given access to resources from
Taiwan that were unavailable through official channels; on one trip he man-
aged to requisition a small fleet of aircraft and $700,000 worth of gold bars
bearing the chop of the Bank of China, which he took back for use by
intelligence operatives in Korea. 22 Under Tofte’s direction, armed National-
ist coast guards boarded the freighter and kept the Norwegian crew at gun-
point while commandeering the medical supplies. The CIA agents in com-
mand hid below the deck of the ROC coast guard ship. The Norwegian crew
was released, but the Indian medical team disappeared and were never heard
from again. 23
NATIONALIST CHINA AND THE POW ISSUE
Other Nationalist Chinese were employed by the U.S. military for a longer
duration in a noncombat capacity. The main reason for their employment was
to process the large number of Chinese-speaking POWs that UN Command
forces had begun to capture at the end of 1950. Lacking expertise in Mandar-
in and facing the need to communicate with a large mass of prisoners, the
United States had no choice but to turn to Nationalist China for help. MacAr-
thur’s central command asked Taiwan for experts in Chinese who could
speak and read English, to help process and interrogate the steady stream of
incoming Chinese prisoners. The U.S. military hired seventy-three interpret-
ers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan in the first months of 1951. One of
their number, named Huang Tiancai, estimated in his memoirs that around
two hundred were hired for this kind of work from Taiwan over the entire
course of the war, 24 but it seems that at certain times even this number was
not really sufficient to keep up with demand. 25 The interpreters worked for
the U.S. Army on a U.S. Army pay scale for DAC (Department of Army
Civilians), as part of the G-2 intelligence gathering unit. Since it was General
MacArthur’s decision to hire them, and this contravened U.S. policy con-
cerning Taiwan, they were not permitted to reveal to the CPVA prisoners that
they had come from Taiwan. 26
The first batch of eighteen interpreters included eleven from the National-
ist Army, three from the Nationalist Navy, and two each from the Nationalist
Air Force and ROC Foreign Ministry. They pledged not to reveal to CPVA
prisoners that they were from Taiwan. At the same time, though, they col-
lected information about the CPVA that would be valuable for the National-
ists. 27 At least one of them, a KMT member and Nationalist Army officer
named Guo Zheng, is known to have revealed himself to a POW for political
purposes. While working as Chinese interpreter as part of an interrogation
team for the United States at a military installation in Tokyo, Guo was
engaged with a team of three U.S. soldiers on an intelligence gathering
interrogation of a CPVA prisoner named Liu Bingzhang. Liu had once been a
middle-ranking officer in the Nationalist Army and Kuomintang member,
and was taken out of a POW camp in Busan in February 1951 to a base near
Tokyo for an intensive interrogation carried out almost daily for four months.
At the end of the interrogation period, Guo secretly revealed his Nationalist
status to Liu and gave him a copy of Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the
People to take back and spread its ideas among the other captives, telling him
that if he worked hard to organize anti-Communists in the camps, he would
eventually achieve his goal of getting to Taiwan. 28
Huang Tiancai was part of a slightly later batch of eighteen interpreters
who left Taiwan on February 12 for Tokyo and arrived in Korea in March.
Huang was an English-speaking graduate of Nanjing Political University
(Nanjing Zhengzhi Daxue) who had formerly worked as an English translator

for the External Affairs Office of the Military Affairs Committee in Nanjing
and had come to Taiwan with the Nationalist Army in 1947 where he worked
for a while as a journalist. Recalling the circumstances of his employment in
Korea, he noted that one day early in 1951 he received an official-looking
letter from the Ministry of Defense asking if he wanted to attend a job
interview for an interpreting post overseas, and it was only after completion
of the interview that he discovered he would be sent to Korea. On March 9,
1951, he and around twenty others were all flown to Tokyo on a U.S. military
plane, landing at Tachikawa military airport the next day, and then sent to
Camp Drake in Saitama Prefecture. To hide the fact that they were National-
ist Chinese, Huang and his companions were all issued with U.S. Army
uniforms and IDs from the DAC branch of the U.S. military that would now
employ them.
After an induction they were flown to Daegu, and about a week after that
the Chinese were dispersed to positions with various units along the front
line. Ten or so people who had come with Huang were posted with the Tenth
Army Corps on the eastern front, and after a few days doing nothing they
were seconded to serve in the 521 Military Intelligence Company. After four
weeks the First Maritime Division called and said that three Chinese inter-
preters were needed on the front line to help them process Chinese prisoners.
Three interpreters from Taiwan, Huang, and his companions Lu Yizheng and
Zheng Xian, were taken in a jeep the next day to Unit 163 Military Intelli-
gence Service Detachment on the east coast. This was around the time of
General MacArthur’s dismissal in April 1951. Nominally their task was to
interrogate the new prisoners, taking down their names, ranks, serial num-
bers, and the circumstances in which they were captured, but the command-
ers in Unit 163 had extra topics concerning military intelligence for them to
ask. These were questions not sanctioned by the Geneva Convention, cover-
ing such topics as “experience of being captured,” “morale,” and “state of
equipment and weapons.” 29 Huang met many Chinese POWs who were ea-
ger to reach Taiwan, but unlike Guo Zheng, he did not give them any indica-
tion that he was from Taiwan, nor did he or his colleagues encourage them to
seek to be sent to Taiwan, as there was still no official U.S. Army policy
about what to do with such people. 30
Aside from the secretive contributions outlined above, Chiang Kai-shek’s
proposed military engagement with the Chinese Communists through Korea
never came to fruition. U.S. fears of the war expanding into a larger conflict
with the PRC beyond the confines of Korea ensured that the proposed thirty-
three thousand Nationalist troops were never mobilized. In the minds of
some CPV soldiers, however, the fiction of Nationalist participation in the
war took on a life of its own, and it came to influence their actions on the
battlefield.
“REJOINING THE ARMY”: ENDURING NATIONALIST

LOYALTIES AND POWS
When the first Chinese People’s Volunteer troops entered Korea, less than a
year had passed since the end of major conflict on the mainland. As the
United Nations forces began to take Chinese prisoners of war, they came
across many soldiers who declared their loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek and
refused to be repatriated to the PRC. At the end of the war, of the approxi-
mately 21,000 Chinese prisoners of war, only around 7,000 were repatriated
to Communist China; more than 14,300 prisoners, or over two-thirds of the
total, were sent to Taiwan, or as the Nationalist propaganda of the time put it,
“returned to Free China.” The large number of non-repatriate prisoners was
the outcome of violent struggles between pro- and anti-Communist factions,
in which the anti-Communist faction was ultimately victorious. Although
PRC sources attribute the anti-Communist activity among prisoners to the
encouragement and coercion of KMT agents disguised as prisoners and
planted in the POW camps from the very beginning, research into the back-
grounds of anti-Communist or non-repatriate POWs such as that carried out
by William C. Bradbury or Chang 31 —based on interviews with both sup-
porters and opponents of the Nationalists—showed that the actions of some
soldiers in both captivity and in battle were greatly influenced by their expe-
riences in China prior to their arrival in Korea.
The majority of the soldiers in the CPVA forces in Korea had previously
served in the Nationalist Army, and some had only very recently joined the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA). A survey of 17,572 Chinese prisoners of
war conducted by the U.S. military in 1953 counted 11,485 or 65 percent
who were what were known in the PLA as jiefang zhanshi or “liberated
fighters,” a term referring to soldiers who had been captured from Nationalist
forces, 32 and just over 54 percent had served in the Communist military
forces (either the PLA or the CPVA) for more than a year. Almost all of the
Chinese POWs were captured between October 1950 and June 1951, and just
over a quarter came from the southwestern Chinese provinces such as Yun-
nan and Sichuan, one of the last Nationalist holdouts on the mainland to be
taken by the Communists in the civil war. 33 The story of Gao Wenjun illus-
trates just how little time some of these ex–Nationalist soldiers had spent in
the Communist forces.
Gao was a former student of the Nationalist Whampoa Military Academy,
and although originally from Manchuria, he was in Sichuan as the last Na-
tionalist defenses crumbled. Abandoned by his commanding officer, who had
fled by air to Taiwan, Gao had attempted a similar escape with his classmates
but had not reached the airfield in time. Gao was absorbed into the PLA in
mid-January 1950 and deserted in Korea early in the May of the following
year after spending only thirteen months under Communist rule. 34 For those
soldiers from this area sent to Korea earlier than Gao, the amount of time in
the Communist forces or under Communist rule could have potentially been
as short as only six months. If they did not hold grievances against the
Communists already, former Nationalist officers such as Zhang and Gao
often developed these. Many soldiers had been absorbed into the Communist
forces involuntarily because their own commanders had surrendered their
unit to the PLA, or like Gao, because they were unable to get away in time.
Like Zhang Ruiqi, some had been officers in the Nationalist Army and had
therefore been treated with suspicion by the Communists, even though they
had been absorbed into the PLA.
Reasons given for disaffection with Communist rule included constant
political indoctrination, compulsory self-criticism sessions, deceitful behav-
ior, forced labor, and the maltreatment of family members. 35 In Gao Wen-
jun’s case, the mysterious death of a popular Nationalist officer was also a
contributing factor. 36 It was not only anti-Communist prisoners who were
aware of this. Zhao Zirui, who became secretary general of a Communist cell
in the POW camp on Geoje Island, was conscious of the problems posed by
former Nationalist soldiers in CPVA ranks, and the dangers posed by others
who had grievances against the Communist Party but who had been allowed
into the PLA to boost its manpower during the civil war. 37 The appalling
conditions suffered by CPVA soldiers in Korea—the constant bombardment
by U.S. planes, starvation, lack of sleep through marching at night, and bitter
cold—undermined morale. These conditions no doubt helped the belief to
spread among some of the former Nationalist soldiers that they were pur-
posely being sent to Korea in order to kill them off. Zhang Buting, a former
Nationalist soldier who had been captured in the battle for Shanghai
(May–June 1949), recalled:
At that time most of the people fighting in Korea were captured ex–Nationalist
Army. The Communist party thought, “if we don’t get rid of a few of these
people, they’ll end up opposing us” so that is why there were more ex-
Nationalist troops there, they wanted to get rid of us. The Communists were
very clever, they [the CPVA troops] were almost all ex-Nationalists, on the
Mainland there were seven to eight million of us. Not a few, that’s a lot. If they
didn’t send a few of us off to Korea, and we ended up opposing them later,
what would they be able to do? So the goal of getting rid of us was so we
couldn’t be there to oppose them and things would be easier to control. 38
Zhang Ruiqi expressed a similar sentiment:
Most of the platoon leaders and lieutenants who were mobilized to Korea were
liberated fighters, those who had served before as platoon leaders and lieuten-
ants, or old experienced soldiers. The Communist Party made it sound all very
nice, saying they would use our combat experience and send us off to the front
line to do good work for the people, but in fact what they were doing was
borrowing someone else’s blade to kill us off, and it served us right to die. Our
deaths didn’t matter. 39
For many, these feelings were a significant push factor toward desertion,
especially for disaffected ex-Nationalists, but there was also a pull factor for
some in the rumor that Nationalist Chinese troops were fighting in Korea.
This rumor was even encouraged by some CPVA commanders for their own
propaganda purposes. In his job as interpreter on the front line, Huang Tian-
cai was the first Chinese-speaking person with whom many newly captured
CPVA soldiers were able to communicate, and is therefore a reliable source
for some of the beliefs and concerns of CPVA POWs before they had the
chance to come under the influence of anti-Communist organizations in the
prison camps. Huang soon discovered that among those he interviewed there
were many former Nationalist Army soldiers who had nurtured the hope that
they would be able to surrender to the Nationalists rumored to be in Korea,
be repatriated to Taiwan, and rejoin the Nationalist Army. Huang described
his first encounter with this type of soldier in detail:
Not long after this, in a group of more than ten prisoners, there was an older
POW who spoke with a Sichuanese accent. . . . After around ten questions and
answers he suddenly lowered his voice and asked, “sir, you are from Taiwan,
aren’t you?” I was very shocked, but did not allow it to show. I told him “I’m
in the US Army.” But from the expression on his face, I could tell he didn’t
believe me. Just out of curiosity I feigned nonchalance, and asked him why he
would think that I was from Taiwan. I didn’t expect that by asking this I would
get a whole long answer in reply.
First, without needing any prompting, he told me that he had originally
served as a soldier in the Nationalist Army, and his commanding officer later
“rebelled” and surrendered to the Communists, taking the entire division with
him. The Communists then broke up his division and scattered it, so that he
was then absorbed into the Communist Army, but suffered a lot of exclusion.
He didn’t like the Communists, and wanted to escape but they had occupied all
of China and he had nowhere to escape to. Later he heard that the army was
going to resist America and aid Korea, and that they were to be sent off to
Korea to fight. While still in China, he had heard that troops had been sent
from Taiwan to join the war, and he was secretly very happy, and hoped to be
able to go to Korea soon. If he was overseas he didn’t have to worry about not
having a chance to escape. At first he didn’t realize how dangerous it was in
Korea. He hadn’t reached the front line yet, but had just missed being killed by
American bombing, and at the front nine out of every ten soldiers were dying,
but he finally managed to desert. He repeatedly emphasized to me the fact that
he had not been captured, but had actively surrendered with the intention of
finding a Taiwanese army to surrender to and re-join. 40
Huang was to meet many POWs who expressed such intentions, especial-
ly among those who had been inducted into the Communist forces and were
dissatisfied with the treatment they received there. So the rumor of Chiang
Kai-shek’s promised thirty-three thousand troops, even if they had never
been mobilized from Taiwan, had a powerful effect in the imagination of
some former Nationalist CPVA soldiers. Some newly captured CPVA pris-
oners reported to Huang that even before they had left China they had heard
that there were U.S.-equipped Nationalist units fighting in Korea, and one
even named the Nationalist general Bai Chongxi as the commander of these
troops. 41
U.S. psychological warfare operations actively encouraged such rumors
of Nationalist troop involvement to encourage CPVA soldiers to surrender.
Gao Wenjun recalled that he had read a propaganda leaflet claiming that
three Nationalist divisions were fighting with the UN forces, and that this
was one of the reasons he chose to desert. 42 Although no such leaflets seem
to have survived, at least one dated February 26, 1951, was specifically
targeted at former Nationalist officers, inviting those who were sick of the
“Communists’ surveillance, bitter criticism, insulting psychoanalysis and
slavery” to surrender to the UN. 43 Zhang Yifu, who was captured in May
1951, recalled that U.S. Air Force propaganda planes would fly overhead
playing the Nationalist Chinese anthem, the Sanmin zhuyi (Three principles
of the people) through loudspeakers. 44 Rumors of Nationalist involvement
were even employed by some Communists for their own ends. During an
interrogation, a POW known as Fu reported that upon arrival in Korea his
unit was told that the Nationalists were fighting alongside the Americans, in
the hope that such news would encourage them to exert themselves for the
defense of the PRC. 45 To his disappointment Gao Wenjun soon discovered
that the Nationalists were not in Korea after all, and presumably this disap-
pointment was shared by others who had had the same goal. After his capture
Gao Wenjun asked Huang, the army interpreter, where the Nationalists were
and was told, “You go and look for them, and if you find them, come back
and tell me!” 46
The idea of the Nationalists being in Korea as a motivating factor for
defection (or at least as a possible chance for escape) connects with CPVA
soldiers’ prior experiences in the Chinese Civil War. Leaving the possibility
of switching sides open had been a good insurance policy during the civil
war, as it was not unheard of for a soldier to be captured by one side and then
desert or end up recaptured by the other side. Wei Shixi, a former Nationalist
Army lieutenant, was reported to have produced his Nationalist Army iden-
tification secreted in his coat as soon as he arrived in the camp at Geoje. 47
Just as the Communists had made use of rumors of Nationalist involvement
on the battlefield to boost morale, after capture they also employed these for
the purpose of exposing those with Nationalist leanings by encouraging the
belief that there were Nationalist agents in the POW camps. Sun Zhenguan, a
battalion commander and Communist leader in the POW camp at Busan,
posed as a special agent sent from Taiwan in order to get prisoners to reveal
themselves. Li Da’an, who had defected with the aim of surrendering to the
Nationalists and who became one of the most infamous anti-Communist
leaders in the POW camps on Geoje, was tricked into revealing himself to
Sun, a misjudgment that he paid for with a harsh beating from Communist
POWs. 48
Whether captured CPVA soldiers had the premeditated goal of defecting
to the Nationalists, or declared their Nationalist loyalties to the Americans in
the belief that it would be advantageous to them in captivity, for some at least
the idea of Nationalist participation in the war was enticement enough for
desertion and defection. This idea had been planted in their minds not by the
Nationalists themselves, but by both U.S. psychological warfare propaganda
and their own CPVA commanding officers. Cooped up on Taiwan by the
U.S. Seventh Fleet, Nationalist forces were prohibited from playing an active
role in Korea; but the myth of Nationalist participation encouraged defec-
tions and won proclamations of loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT
from captured former Nationalist CPVA soldiers. Once captured and placed
in prison camps, many of these pro-Nationalists formed the core of anti-
Communist groups that coerced fellow prisoners with the threat of violence
into similar displays of loyalty.
THE CONTINUATION OF A CIVIL WAR MENTALITY
Whether or not defections were motivated by the intent of escape from the
battlefield, or a genuine wish to rejoin the Nationalists, political grievances,
or desperation, the actions of these soldiers show that many were still swayed
by habits and ways of thought acquired during the Chinese Civil War. Of the
more than 173,700 prisoners of war captured by the UN side during the entire
course of the war, more than 21,300 Chinese were captured in the period
between October 1950 and June 1952. The prisoners of war were originally
held in camps around Busan, but these were intended to house prisoners only
for a short period, and they had quickly become overcrowded. In January
1951 it was decided to move the prisoners offshore to a more permanent
camp on the island of Geoje by ship, a process that was completed by May of
the same year. Half of the POWs on Geoje were under twenty-six years of
age in 1952, crammed in together in overcrowded insanitary conditions,
underfed, and often extremely bored. They were guarded by soldiers whom
they rarely saw and with whom they could not communicate, and the ideo-
logical differences among politicized prisoners exploded into violent con-
flict. 49
The majority of CPVA prisoners were housed together in compounds 72
and 86 and no attempt was made to separate the prisoners according to their
political loyalties. Lumped together indiscriminately, they often became in-

volved in violent factional struggles between professed “return to Taiwan”
anti-Communists and “return to the mainland” Communists. Those who were
not inclined to either side were forced to pledge their allegiance to one
faction. Since they were in the majority, the “return to Taiwan” faction soon
took control of the internal administration of the camp compounds, taking
over compound 72 in May and June, and compound 86 in October, making
life very difficult for the Communist loyalists. 50 Although a few hundred
non-repatriate prisoners had been removed from compounds 72 and 86 after
October 1951, it was not until June 1952 that the Americans moved three
thousand pro-Communist POWs to compound 71 to separate them from the
anti-Communists.
Some analyses of this chaotic situation have considered it a result of a
nefarious collusion between the U.S. forces and KMT agents planted in the
camps, so that these agents were able to order forced tattooing, intimidation,
and death. 51 A common explanation in CCP accounts of defections in this
period is that right from the beginning, former Nationalist Army soldiers
were enticed into revealing their pre-CPVA status by Nationalist agents
placed in the POW camps at Busan, in return for privileges, such as positions
as compound administrators and special food and conditions in the camps
and when they arrived on Taiwan. 52 David Cheng Chang has suggested that
many of the stories of KMT collusion with the United States to influence the
behavior of CPVA prisoners in the camps, such as those in Wilfred Bur-
chett’s writings, were fabrications by repatriates to China who hoped not to
be blamed for not having done enough to oppose the anti-Communists within
the camps. 53 The chronology of the U.S. relationship with Nationalist China,
and the mobilization of anti-Communist elements within the camps, seem to
suggest it was more of a homegrown movement with only limited connec-
tions to Taiwan, or at least that this was the case initially.
U.S. policy in support of Chiang Kai-shek became settled only in the
spring of 1952, about a year after the end of the main military conflict on the
Korean Peninsula, and nine months after the foundation of anti-Communist
organizations in the camps. It was only after this time that the United States
recognized Taiwan under Chiang’s control as a political asset. From this
point onward they began to give legitimacy to the Nationalist government by
sending high-level official visitors (such as Admiral Arthur Radford’s visit to
Chiang Kai-shek in October 1952), encouraging Japan to sign a peace treaty
with Taiwan, and using the Nationalist government with Chiang Kai-shek as
its figurehead as a political asset against Communism in Asia, for diasporic
Chinese particularly in Southeast Asia. But this reappraisal of Chiang Kai-
shek did not occur until six to nine months after anti-Communist groups took
control of the camp compounds, 54 and it is unlikely that the United States
would have encouraged POW contacts with a regime they did not fully
support themselves.
Several factors tend to weigh against the possibility of instigation by
Nationalist agents. Chinese from Taiwan who worked as interpreters for the
U.S. military such as Huang Tiancai were mainly stationed near the front
line, rather than in the POW camps, and if Huang’s memoirs and ROC
government records are anything to go by, these interpreters were not in
sufficient contact with their own governments in the first months of service
to be of much use in connecting anti-Communist POWs with agents of the
Nationalist government. There is no record of anyone doing KMT ideologi-
cal work with POWs in this early period, other than Guo Zheng in Tokyo,
and he had to conduct this work from a distance behind the backs of the
Americans. Another factor was that expressions of loyalty toward the Na-
tionalists initially came as a surprise to both the Americans and the Chinese
who worked for them. 55 The most convincing evidence against any kind of
organized collusion between the Nationalists on Taiwan and the United
States at this time is the U.S. treatment of those with Nationalist loyalties.
From January 1951 onward, the United States secretly made use of some of
the most capable and effective anti-Communist leaders (such as Li Da’an)
and organizers by removing and forcing them into dangerous intelligence
work, bribing them with promises of being able to be sent to Taiwan well
before this was a set policy (for further discussion, see chapter 7). Had there
been clear channels of communication between the Taiwanese government
and Nationalist agents in the camps and a close relationship between the
United States and the Nationalists, these activities would surely have filtered
back to the government on Taiwan and would appear in Taiwanese historical
records.
David Cheng Chang’s view of the success of the anti-Communists among
the POWs is that it was often to do with the fact that they were much better at
organizing themselves in the POW camps than the Communists, whose lead-
ers were at pains not to reveal themselves to the camp authorities. 56 Wu
Jinfeng, a former pro-Communist inmate of Geoje camp, attributed the fail-
ure of Communists to take power in the camps to the unwillingness of high-
ranking Communists to reveal themselves and take up leadership positions,
missing the chance to take control, due to what he described as “an old way
of thinking, an old method, an old habit, an old rule from the civil war
time.” 57 When Communist leaders failed to step forward, this enabled anti-
Communists to organize themselves and ingratiate themselves with their cap-
tors. Their leaders won favor with the U.S. military because of their coopera-
tion in keeping the POWs under control and their willingness to supply their
captors with intelligence information about the Communists. An additional
factor was that the anti-Communists wished to collaborate with camp author-
ities in ways that would make it dangerous for them to be sent back to the
Figure 4.1. Geoje Prisoner-of-War Camp 1952. A Prisoner Shows His Anti-Com-
munist Tattoos. Source: Werner Bischof, courtesy of Magnum Photos.
PRC, in order to ensure that they would ultimately be sent to Taiwan instead.
This made them particularly useful to the U.S. military, which had trouble
keeping control of a large prison population with whom they could barely
communicate.
On June 27, 1951, the anti-Communist Chinese in compound 72 led by Li
Da’an openly proclaimed their desire to be sent to Taiwan rather than back to
the mainland, with an oath-taking ceremony that involved the drinking of
wine mixed with blood, and on July 7 they presented a petition signed in
blood by one thousand anti-Communist prisoners asking Chiang Kai-shek to
grant their wish. Around the same time, the infamous tattooing of anti-Com-
munist slogans on prisoners’ bodies began, and eventually this was de-
manded of all prisoners in the anti-Communist compound. The practice of

tattooing also had historical antecedents in the Chinese Civil War, either as a
punishment or as a guarantee that one’s troops could not switch sides.
Among the warlord Yan Xishan’s Nationalist troops in Shanxi, former Com-
munists or suspected Communists were tattooed with anti-Communist slo-
gans to prove their loyalty, and Zhang Ruiqi already had “kill Zhu and uproot
Mao” tattooed on him, long before he had ended up in Korea. 58 The timing of
coordinated acts such as tattooing and an increase in factional violence with-
in the camps corresponded to what was going on outside the camps. Armis-
tice talks had begun in July 1951, and were making the prisoners who had
already openly declared their Nationalist loyalties extremely nervous at the
prospect that they might be sent back to China. This drove them to extreme
measures to show both their captors and the outside world their opposition to
this. Tattooing and signing petitions in blood were two of those measures.
It was only after this time that the Nationalist government on Taiwan
started to take an active interest in the issue of the anti-Communist Chinese
POWs. In August the ROC Ministry of Defense began to do research into
how they might be able to come to Taiwan. At the end of October the ROC
embassy in Korea reported the situation as they understood it back to their
government:
In the fourth section of compound 72 in the POW camp on Geoje, the leader
Wei Shixi and deputy leader Wang Youming were originally officers in the
National Army, but had been taken prisoner after losing the advantage in the
quelling of the uprising [i.e., being taken prisoner by the Communists] and
were enlisted to fight in the bandit forces. After [the CPV] Army was raised to
attack Korea, after those officers had entered the battlefield, they took the
opportunity to shoot the bandit cadres and led their units to surrender to the
United Nations forces. On 29 September they joined together with other party
(KMT) members to request that they let the government know that they wish
for a law to be made to allow them to be sent to Taiwan, from where they can
fight the enemy and take revenge for the country. 59
What was life like for the prisoners in the camp who were initially apolit-
ical? The politics of the leadership of camp factions obscured the fact that
strong political Communist or Nationalist convictions existed only among a
minority of prisoners. It is only recently that the voices of those who were not
in some kind of leadership role in the camps have been heard. Most PRC
accounts of the Chinese POWs have been written by loyal Communist repa-
triates, whereas the early accounts from Taiwan were written by anti-
Communist propagandists. These accounts overemphasize the political ideal-
ism of the soldiers in both factions, blaming a small number of leaders for
forcing a politically opposed mass of soldiers into doing their bidding
through violence and intimidation. However, Bradbury’s Mass Behaviour
study concluded that most POWs tended simply to follow the political be-
havior of their leaders in the camps. His study also suggested that expres-
sions of political loyalty to one side or the other once made were seldom
retracted, and these tended to grow stronger over time as the prisoners used
them as a means of winning merit with their respective future rulers. 60
The argument that the early power grab of the Nationalists within the
camps was key in cementing the final numbers of returnees to China and
Taiwan is confirmed by more recent interviews with former prisoners who
came to Taiwan as anti-Communists, but who had held no leadership posi-
tions. Few of these men had any deeply held political convictions, but most
seem to have known exactly what to say for their own purposes. Far removed
in time from the events and safe from possible political retribution, they paint
a less politicized picture of their time in the UN camps. Some did not have
much knowledge about the outside world, and some had no idea Taiwan even
existed until they reached Korea. In an interview in Taipei in 2007, Long
Jixian remembered:
We didn’t know where Taiwan was, or how big it was, it was just like a
foreign country; it wasn’t until we got to Korea that we found out there was a
Taiwan, or that we wanted to go there. 61
Song Zhengming, who had been taken prisoner after having been injured and
left behind by his unit, recalled:
I didn’t find out that the site of the POW camp was on Geoje island until after I
got to Taiwan; this island and that island, I wasn’t clear about any of it at all,
and no-one would tell you. For me it was a confusing war, I never had any idea
why I was fighting, or why I had been captured. 62
Zhang Yifu, who was taken prisoner, remembered his own level of political
consciousness:
If someone said “serve the people,” then we would go along with it and “serve
the people.” We were in a hospital behind the front line, we weren’t fighting
troops, no-one talked about, or knew about, what the Communist Party was up
to. We were a bunch of confused kids. If they told us to go east, we’d go east,
and we’d go west if they told us to go west. What the ideology of the Commu-
nist Party was we had no idea. 63
Zhang Yifu also remembered himself and others drinking the seawater as
they arrived on Geoje because they had no idea seawater was salty. 64 These
prisoners had not received enough education even to have a basic knowledge
of the world outside their own immediate environment. Many had originally
been press-ganged into military service for the Nationalists at a very young
age. Forty-four percent of the POWs had had no education; a further 36
percent had been to school for three years or less. 65 It is highly unlikely that
the majority of these prisoners had much knowledge of the politics behind
their experiences under Chiang Kai-shek and life under Mao Zedong. For
those who had never been to school, their first experience of education was in
the schools set up by the Civil Information and Education Section of the Far
East Command (CIE—discussed in further detail in the following section).
They were entirely at the mercy of whoever was in command of their camp
compound for information about the outside world, about Taiwan, and about
politics, and because of the early leadership grab, for the majority of the
Chinese prisoners those in command were those who had professed loyalty
to Chiang Kai-shek. Song Zhengming provided a glimpse of what the life of
an ordinary soldier was like inside an anti-Communist compound on Geoje:
From beginning to end in the POW camp we were shut up inside and not
allowed out, and nothing much went on. It was so boring you would almost go
crazy, from morning until evening, and one didn’t even dare to talk. . . . Of
course there were brawls and fights in the POW camps, at the end of it all
everyone was very unclear about the future and had no idea how things were
going to end up. Because the return-to-Taiwan faction had gained the upper
hand, if you said you wanted to go back to China they would come for you at
night to try to get rid of you, but no-one would know about it. This went on,
it’s just that no-one would dare talk about it openly. If you were going back to
Taiwan, you had no problems, you had no need at all to worry. There were
many of them and no-one would dare to touch you. On Geoje they chose
officials who wanted to return to Taiwan, and they made us get tattoos to show
our determination to go there. No matter whether on Busan or on Jeju, the
return-to-Taiwan faction was always the most influential and had the most say,
in the end they were the most powerful, because the whole camp was run by
the Americans! Inside the camp there were specific rules for everything. 66
Ignorance of the bigger picture had also been a feature of the CPVA foot
soldiers’ experience before capture as well. It was impossible to know what
was actually going on in either war outside one’s immediate environment
and soldiers did not have access to information other than what they were
told by their commanding officers. Rumors ran wild among both Communist
and pro-Nationalist prisoners, the former believing the Americans were plan-
ning to send them to Taiwan, 67 the latter that they were to be surrendered to
the Communists. 68 Song’s experience is probably far more typical than that
of the leaders in the camp compounds. With such limited access to sources of
information, the political loyalties of the compound leadership were crucial
to how a POW understood what was going on outside the camps. The aim of
declaring support for Chiang Kai-shek implied the possibility of fighting
one’s way back to the mainland from Taiwan, and if they believed this it may
have been enough to sway those in anti-Communist compounds toward the
path of least resistance in the belief that they would eventually return to their
homes under the Nationalist flag.
ENTER THE AGENTS
Into this environment of violence and uncertainty came a second group of

Nationalist Chinese from Taiwan. In mid-November 1951 a group of twenty-
three people arrived from Taiwan to work as teachers in the POW camp at
Geoje for the CIE school. The CIE school’s function was to reeducate the
POWs in democratic values, and the syllabus had an overt anti-Communist
agenda. 69 These teachers sent from Taiwan had been picked by the second
bureau of the ROC Ministry of Defense, and worked for the DAC. This time
the United States was aware that they were functioning more or less as
Nationalist agents within the camp, where they were said to have helped
stimulate pro-Nationalist and anti-Communist sentiment among the POWs. 70
It was only from this time onward that the POWs themselves seem to have
been aware of these agents’ origins and activities. Wen Jianyou, a non-
repatriate prisoner in Geoje, gave his impressions of the Taiwanese and the
CIE school:
After they arrived in the POW camps, I had heard that the Taiwanese had sent
a few translators along and they were being paid American wages, and had
been trained. They came to the POW camp and started working as teachers,
telling us how good it was in Taiwan, and that the KMT had many people who
steadfastly opposed Communism. . . . Some people set up a school in the
camps called CIE, this name meant “the civil school.” The aim of the school
was to make sure that after the prisoners went home they would be trained in
something. But actually all the people there were anti-Communists. If you
were not an anti-Communist they wouldn’t let you go and teach there. Of
course the head of that school was an anti-Communist as well. They were very
clear about peoples’ ideas. In the camps it was those Oppose Communism and
Resist Russia people who organized and administered them. 71
The beginning of negotiations for prisoner exchange in December 1951 made

the anti-Communist leaders intensify their control over their compounds.
Many had believed that they would be taken care of by the UN troops, and
the prospect that the negotiations might be used as a bargaining chip in the
armistice agreement drove them to form a coordinated underground organ-
ization and use more ruthless means of seizing and consolidating power in
the compounds. 72 During the negotiations, the Communist Chinese and
North Koreans demanded that all of their prisoners of war be repatriated to
their respective countries, but the majority of Chinese prisoners had declared
(or been coerced to declare) that they did not want to do so. Having hardened
anti-Communist attitudes among the prisoners in the Chinese compounds
Figure 4.2. Geoje Prisoner-of-War Camp 1952. Korean and Chinese Prisoners
with a Replica of the Statue of Liberty. Source: Werner Bischof, courtesy of
Magnum Photos.
through political indoctrination in the CIE schools, the United States had
assisted in fomenting a political movement among the POWs. Due to the
almost certain punishment for defectors if they were returned to China, it
would be inhumane to send them back there, so the United States considered
that POWs should be allowed to choose not to be repatriated, and eventually
fixed on the principle of voluntary repatriation, which was confirmed on
February 27, 1952. The prisoners were to be screened as to their repatriation
choices starting on April 8 of the same year. On March 20, 1952, the CIE
school stopped teaching, and on April 5, the CPVA commander Peng Dehuai
gave an announcement inviting all POWs back to China.
This period leading up to the screening was when some of the most brutal
violence occurred between the two factions of prisoners. Even the propagan-
da pieces written by Nationalist Chinese describe its cruelty. On the night
before screening began, those in the 72nd compound who wished to go back
to China were subject to the wrath of brigade leader Li Da’an, who cut off
their tattoos with a large knife and ate the flesh. 73 The screening process
itself was also tightly controlled by the non-repatriate groups. Hou Jiang-
ming, an ex–Eighth Route Army soldier who had never been in the National-
ist forces, described his experience of the screening process, and why he
ended up in Taiwan:
In the POW camp there were two ways you could go, one was the path to
freedom, and the other the path back to the mainland. Our whole brigade had
to go to the camp to be screened, and the road there was very small and we all
had backpacks on, and were all holding on to each other. The middle brigade
and compound leaders were there, and we were all holding on to each other
and they wouldn’t let you go back to the mainland! Some people returned to
the mainland because they managed to run off when no-one was paying atten-
tion. I was there and people were saying how great Taiwan was, and so I said
“Oh well, I might as well go to Taiwan then!” Just like that. 74
It was not until February 25, 1953, that the Nationalist government on
Taiwan officially announced to the United States that they would accept
those POWs who had refused to return to mainland China. At the beginning
of March of the same year Chiang Kai-shek held a meeting to discuss both
the effects of the cessation of conflict and the problem of the anti-Communist
POWs with the former ambassador Shao Yulin in attendance as a policy
consultant. Shao informed the meeting that during his time in Korea the ROC
embassy had kept a list of the names of Chinese working as interpreters for
the United States and had tried to keep in contact with them as much as
possible. He proposed that if they could organize these interpreters and
somehow use them to contact and organize the anti-Communist POWs and
take control of the voluntary repatriation question, working together with the
South Korean government, they would definitely be able to achieve victory
in the end. 75
Chiang had originally wished to give this task of organizing to Shao
Yulin, but Shao believed the job ought to be carried out in secret, and that his
two years of service as ambassador to South Korea meant that he was too
well known to be able to do this. After discussion with Chiang Ching-kuo,
the then minister of defense, the decision was taken to send the deputy
director of the sixth group of the KMT Central Committee, Chen Jianzhong,
who had previous experience in dealing with Communists. In the spring of
1953, Chen took the role of a military attaché to the ROC embassy in South
Korea under the false name Chen Zhiqing. He then set himself up, establish-
ing a small directive group there with the aim of encouraging and supporting
the anti-Communist POWs. This group consisted of the then ambassador
Wang Dongyuan, some military officials stationed in South Korea, and two
or three underground workers, and some agents went in the guise of report-
ers. 76 Communist intelligence was effective in conveying information about
Chen’s activities back to China. Two and a half months after his arrival in
Korea, PRC radio stations reported that the KMT had “sent a Mr. Chen to
collude with Syngman Rhee with the plan of forcing the POWs to remain in
detention.” 77 Chen’s first task was to open up a line of communication with
the anti-Communist POWs, which was difficult, as following major riots in
the Geoje camp many anti-Communists had been removed to a camp on Jeju
Island, far from the ROC embassy where he was based, but according to Wen
Jianyou he managed to infiltrate the CIE school there as a teacher. 78 He
aimed to get the anti-Communists to organize themselves into a single group,
as they had been split into several different compounds since their arrival on
Jeju. Chen Jianzhong met with anti-Communist leaders on Jeju to discuss
strategy, and was influential in developing a strong and organized anti-
Communist resistance against returning to the mainland.
In June of 1953, the anti-Communist prisoners learned the results of the
Panmunjom peace talks. They were to be transferred from Jeju to an area
near Gaesong on the 38th parallel under the control of troops from neutral
countries (mainly India) and given an “explanation” by representatives of the
PRC in order to encourage them to return to China. Even though the Nation-
alist government on Taiwan had agreed to accept them, the United States still
had not given any firm guarantee that anti-Communist prisoners would be
allowed to go to Taiwan. The principle of voluntary repatriation was not
fixed officially until the armistice agreement was signed on July 27, 1953.
The conditions of the armistice ostensibly allowed Chinese POWs a choice
as to whether they wished to return home to China, as long as they first
underwent “explanation.” Rumors circulated amongst the POWs that this
was an excuse to deliver them into the hands of the Communists, and they
went on strike, refusing to clean or move things, or carry out any building
projects, until certain conditions were agreed regarding the safety of the
neutral area. 79 The lack of certainty about their future was probably a moti-
vating factor for some of the extreme violence toward the Communists and
the POWs who had decided to return to China.
The movement of prisoners from Jeju to Gaesong began on September 8
and finished on September 30, and by this time the Nationalist government
on Taiwan was using the prisoner issue as propaganda, and disseminating
detailed news about the anti-Communist prisoners through news media in
Taiwan. On August 6 the name fangong yishi or “anti-Communist righteous
men” (often translated as “anti-Communist martyrs”) was used for the first
time, and soon became the standard term for the non-repatriate prisoners.
This was propaganda gold for the Nationalists, who portrayed the non-
repatriates as brave men who had fought their way to freedom from the
intolerable conditions created by Communist rule on the mainland. By this
time, Nationalist reporters were also permitted to travel openly to Jeju and
communicate with the anti-Communist prisoners there, and to provide them
with flags and Nationalist propaganda documentaries to watch.
By the end of September 1953 the story of the “anti-Communist righteous
men” was front-page news on almost every issue of the major Taiwanese
newspapers Zhongyang Ribao and Lianhe Bao. As the anti-Communist pris-
oners became well known in the Nationalist press, and groups began to
organize for their welfare and to demand their return to Taiwan. 80 In reaction
to reports of their maltreatment at Gaesong by Indian troops who were meant

to guard them, one hundred thousand people assembled for a protest march in
Taipei. 81 On January 22, 1954, the Chinese POWs were given unconditional
release to the care of the countries to which they had chosen to repatriate.
The subsequent arrival in January 1954 of the fourteen thousand or so
“anti-Communist righteous men” who had chosen (or had been induced to
choose) to return to Taiwan was greeted with even more fanfare as thousands
turned out to welcome them either upon their arrival in Keelung or their tour
around the island. This was, after a string of defeats, a small turn of the tide
back against the Communists in China. The high number of Chinese defec-
tions to Taiwan was a great loss of face for the Chinese Communists, who
portrayed this as a result of the violence and coercion by a few U.S.-
supported Nationalist agents to an unwilling majority. The defections re-
mained a highly sensitive issue for them, and even in the 1980s PRC publica-
tions were still prohibited from revealing the number of anti-Communist
defections. 82 On the international stage, the ROC made great political mile-
age out of the righteous men; their return was used to promote the idea that
people of the mainland did not support the Communists when given the
choice. Whenever the ROC representative to the UN, Tsiang Tingfu, was
arguing in the UN against allowing the PRC to join, he would always raise
the POW issue as ironclad proof that they were not worthy of membership. 83
From August to October 1954, a small group of selected righteous men
including Gao Wenjun embarked on a world tour, in which they traveled to
Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, the United States,
and Canada, to speak to overseas Chinese associations and the United Na-
tions about their story, and the situation in mainland China. The Taiwanese
former POW Chen Yonghua also made two tours to Japan in 1954 and
1955. 84 As for the majority of the ex-POWs were concerned, they had no
choice other than to be absorbed back into the Nationalist Army en masse,
and although they avoided the wholesale political persecution meted out to
repatriate prisoners on their return to the PRC, 85 as soldiers they were severe-
ly restricted in their life choices, and were not free to leave the army if they
were under the age of forty. 86
KOREAN LIAISONS:
CHINESE–KOREAN LINE-CROSSERS AND MILITIAS
Another less well-known group of Chinese who worked for the Nationalist
cause in Korea were the ethnic Chinese in South Korea, the majority of
whom originally came from Shandong Province. They numbered 17,430 in
1948, and although this number altered little over the course of the war, the
statistic hides many casualties, and the replacement of the population by
large numbers of ethnic Chinese refugees from the North. 87 Just as ethnic
Koreans in Japan became caught up in the politics of the war (see chapter 1),
so, too, did ethnic Chinese in Korea. The Republic of China maintained an
embassy in the South throughout the war, moving it back and forth from
Seoul to Busan whenever the former city was under occupation by the North,
and Taipei cultivated good diplomatic relations with Seoul as an anti-
Communist ally, and both countries began to make a special effort in 1952,
as the prisoner issue began to attract the attention of the world, with the visit
of a Korean friendship delegation on March 27 to meet with Chiang Kai-
shek, 88 a delegation of Taiwanese reporters to Korea in April, 89 and a meet-
ing of two of Syngman Rhee’s secretaries with Nationalist Chinese officials
for four days in November. 90 The ROC embassy was also an effective center
for mobilizing support among the ethnic Chinese in South Korea, and Na-
tionalist China made effective use of its support among local-born ethnic
Chinese to contact the community and organize them for various U.S. and
ROK military operations. These included the interrogation of Chinese pris-
oners for the U.S. military, soldiering, and intelligence gathering in the
North, as well as participation in psychological warfare—among other
things, leafleting and airborne propaganda broadcasts from low-flying planes
to the CPVA troops urging them to surrender.
As the very first Chinese prisoners were captured before the request had
been made to Taiwan for interpreters, the United States was forced to employ
Chinese interpreters from wherever they could, and their first port of call was
the ROC embassy in Busan. 91 Alongside ethnic Chinese from the United
States, the Chinese from Korea worked in POW processing camps. Zhang
Yifu was initially processed by one of them, exchanging some opium and
morphine in his possession for a bag of cocoa with a Chinese person from
South Korea. 92 On January 30, 1951, the Americans requested help with
psychological warfare from the ROC embassy, and on February 15, with the
cooperation of the ROC embassy, they examined overseas Chinese middle
and primary school teachers who had some skill in English or Japanese. They
picked fourteen of them who were sent to Daegu for a short training course,
after which they were dispersed to various areas for translation and psycho-
logical warfare purposes. Screening for this purpose continued on an ongoing
basis. Overseeing their mobilization was ambassador Shao Yulin, who also
held the post of “commanding officer of the Chinese psy-ops department.”
By June 1951, thirty-nine Korean Chinese were serving in the U.S. Army and
twenty-seven in the ROK forces. 93
In March 1951, another unit was formed for special operations as the
ROK military collaborated with the Nationalists to create a special intelli-
gence-gathering unit within the South Korean army entirely composed of
overseas Chinese. Known as the Seoul Chinese Brigade, it was to operate in
the North behind enemy lines, and the KMT Overseas Work Committee
(Guomindang Haiwai Gongzuohui) appointed the professional soldier Wang

Shiyou as its overseer, and Liu Guohua, a Japanese-trained Chinese graduate
of the Manchukuo Military School, as his second-in-command. Pak Hwan-
youn of the Korean intelligence division signed an agreement on its forma-
tion with ROC representatives in Busan. The agreement stipulated that the
South Korean army would supply weapons, gunpowder, vehicles, clothes,
and food, but that wages were to be paid by the Nationalist government, and
any extra expenses were to be covered by donations collected from the over-
seas Chinese community in South Korea. The unit commander was the local
Chinese Luo Yatong 94 and the second-in-command was the Korean Li Baek-
gyeon, with Liu Guohua overseeing the operation.
During the war about five hundred overseas Chinese were members of the
unit, although only around two hundred did service on the front line, while
the other three hundred worked away from the action. Members were trained
in combat and intelligence gathering at Naeja-dong in Seoul and at
Weollong-myeon in Paju County, Gyeonggi-do. Since the unit was a part of
the Korean army, orders were passed from the Korean military to Wang
Shiyou, who then transmitted them to the unit commander. The main duty of
the group was intelligence gathering, including such tasks as capturing
CPVA soldiers alive and getting hold of new CPVA uniforms whenever
there was any change in uniform. Knowing both Korean and Chinese, they
were ideal for intelligence work as they could pretend they were either
CPVA or DPRK forces merely by switching uniform. They would pretend to
be CPVA soldiers when meeting DPRK forces, and vice versa, and had a
high success rate in carrying out their missions. They were also sometimes
given the task of carrying out guerrilla warfare.
At one point (July 15, 1953), thirty people were sent to North Korea to do
exactly this, but the group was ambushed on Mount Baektu (or Changbai-
shan) and only fifteen of them survived. On July 27, 1953, when the armis-
tice was signed, the Seoul Chinese unit was disbanded, although some of its
members continued service after the signing of the armistice. More than one
hundred overseas Chinese lost their lives serving in the Seoul Chinese group.
According to Luo Yatong, the main aim of the SC group was to use the
power of the South Korean forces to get access to northeastern China, where
they wished to set up intelligence networks and guerrilla bases, but attempts
to carry out this part of the plan were unsuccessful. 95 This aim is particularly
significant, as it suggests that these soldiers were involved in activities that
lay outside the narrower scope of the war between the two Koreas. Through
the ROC embassy, their activities were not limited to aiding the United States
or the ROK, and they were also given objectives that aided the Nationalists’
plans to gain military or intelligence advantage in their continued conflict
with the Communists. Among ethnic Chinese in Korea, it seems, the larger
war for the fate of China was not ignored.
VICTORIES FOR THE ROC
Having experienced military defeat and expulsion from the mainland, Na-
tionalist Chinese saw the outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula as a
chance for a new battlefront against the Communists. The subsequent entry
of Communist Chinese forces into the war seemed to promise even more, but
these hopes were dashed by the reluctance of the United States to let the war
spread beyond the confines of Korea. In the context of the Korean War,
contrary to popular belief, Nationalist China and its supporters did not simply
do the bidding of the United States. Nationalist China’s low-key involvement
in the war was carried out on its own terms and in pursuit of its own goals.
Although the outcomes of the war for the ROC were not exactly what Chiang
Kai-shek had hoped for at the outset, the disparate efforts of Nationalists and
pro-Nationalists quickly combined to strengthen his rule in Taiwan and to
secure the position of the Republic of China on the international stage. The
circumstances of the war alone, and particularly of PRC involvement, were
sufficient to boost the importance of Nationalist China on Taiwan for the
United States, transforming it from the last outpost of a disgraced and crum-
bling regime into a highly strategic asset in the region. Nationalist Chinese
who could speak English became sought-after interpreters for the U.S. mili-
tary and Chiang Kai-shek turned from a foreign policy liability into a useful
figurehead for anti-Communism among Chinese internationally.
For Nationalist and Nationalist-minded Chinese, their own efforts pro-
duced a number of gains. One immediate short-term gain from taking control
of the POW issue was the arrival of the anti-Communist prisoners in January
1954. This brought a large number of young recruits who had promised to
work for the war effort against the Communists on the mainland. At the time,
the anti-Communist defectors provided a morale boost to the Nationalists,
and for more than three decades these men continued to be symbols for
future defectors to Taiwan from the mainland. An estimated seventeen thou-
sand more people followed the first “anti-Communist righteous men,” the
last of them Jiang Wenhao, who flew his MiG-19 from Fujian to Taiwan as
recently as June 1989. Other positive outcomes for the Republic of China in
the war were the solidification of anti-Communist sentiment and the contain-
ment of Communist territorial ambitions in Northeast Asia. The ROC’s re-
tention of the China seat at the United Nations and on the Security Council
for almost two more decades, and the prolongation of the PRC’s exclusion
from that organization for the same period, were largely due to its clever
manipulation of the POW issue and willingness to work alongside the United
States and South Korea right from the start of the Korean War. Even after
this position was lost, the U.S. recognition of the ROC remained for a further
ten years, and the alliance with South Korea was to be one of the most long
lasting in the region, coming to an end only in 1992 when the South Koreans
recognized the PRC as the legitimate government of China. Exclusion from

the Korean War meant that Nationalist China’s hands were tied from launch-
ing a counterattack against the mainland through the Korean Peninsula, but
its participation in the background at least enabled the ROC to prevent any
further territorial gains by the Communists and safeguard its position on
Taiwan. Through careful exploitation of its relationship with the United
States and of the sentiments of the ethnic Chinese who did witness real
conflict, the ROC, with almost negligible outlay, was able to derive long-
lasting political benefit from the war, both in the region and in the interna-
tional sphere.
NOTES
1. Zhou Xiuhuan, Zhang Shiying, and Ma Guozheng, Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu
(Taipei: Guoshiguan, 2013), 358.
2. John W. Garver, The Sino-American Alliance: Nationalist China and American Cold
War Strategy in Asia (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997).
3. Zhang Shuya, Hanzhan Jiu Taiwan? Jiedu Meiguo duitai Zhengce (Taipei: Weicheng
Chubanshe, 2011).
4. Such as William C. Bradbury’s study Mass Behaviour in Battle and Captivity: The
Communist Soldier in the Korean War, ed. Samuel M. Meyers and Albert D. Biderman (Chica-
go: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 196, and “Victims of the Cold War: The POW Issue,”
chapter 5 of Rosemary Foot’s A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the
Korean Armistice Talks (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 108–29; also Charles S.
Young, Name, Rank and Serial Number: Exploiting Korean War POWs at Home and Abroad
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
5. The most detailed description based on Chinese-language sources to date of the camps
and the activities that went on inside them can be found in Ha Jin’s novel War Trash, which is
based largely on the memoirs of Zhang Zeshi, the most prolific writer on the subject of the
POWs in the People’s Republic.
6. Xiaobing Li, the author of a collection of interviews with former CPV soldiers, includ-
ing one former inmate of Geoje, admits to requiring permission to interview him. Richard
Peters and Xiaobing Li, eds., Voices from the Korean War (Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2005), xiv, 247–48. For old soldiers in Taiwan such permissions are not required.
Russell Burgos has also addressed the implications of the control of access to CPV interview-
ees in Russell Burgos, “Review of Peters, Richard; Li, Xiaobing, eds., Voices from the Korean
War: Personal Stories of American, Korean, and Chinese Soldiers,” H-War, H-Net Reviews,
November 2004, http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10008, accessed November
10, 2015.
7. David Cheng Chang, “To Return Home or ‘Return to Taiwan’: Conflicts and Survival in
the ‘Voluntary Repatriation’ of Chinese POWs in the Korean War” (PhD diss., University of
California, San Diego, 2011).
8. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. 2: The Roaring of the Cataract
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 492–98.
9. These included the Wanshan Archipelago Campaign from May 25 to August 7, 1950,
the battle of Nanpeng Island (Nanpeng Dao) on August 9, 1950, the battle of Nanri Island
(Nanri Dao) April 11, 1952, to April 15, 1952, and resulted in an ROC victory with complete
destruction of PLA forces. Dongshan Island Campaign (Dongshan Dao) from July 16, 1953, to
July 18, 1953, was an unsuccessful Nationalist attempt to retake the islands from the Commu-
nists.
10. Yi Zhong, “Zhongnan Chaofei Zhanshi Lue’e,” Junshi Lishi 4 (2001): 54–58, gives an
account of these campaigns.
11. Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 437.
12. Liu Weikai, “Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong dui Hanzhan ji Xiangguan Wenti de Kanfa yu
Zhengce—Minguo Sanshijiu Nian’am,” Jindai Zhongguo 137 (2000): 93.
13. Liu, “Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong dui Hanzhan ji Xiangguan Wenti de Kanfa yu Zheng-
ce.”
14. Liu, “Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong dui Hanzhan ji Xiangguan Wenti de Kanfa yu Zheng-
ce,” 94.
15. Harry S. Truman, “The Truman Memoirs: Part III,” Life 40, no. 6 (February 6, 1956):
126–38; Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New
York: Norton, 1969), 412–13.
16. Garver, Sino-American Alliance, 38; Acheson, Present at the Creation, 422–23.
17. Garver, Sino-American Alliance, 43–44.
18. Garver, Sino-American Alliance, 49.
19. Lianhe Bao, February 4, 1953, 1.
20. Shao Yulin, Shi Han Huiyilu (Taipei: Chuanjiwenxue Chubanshe, 1980), 151.
21. In Burma the United States was aiding the remains of the Nationalist Ninety-Third
Division in guerrilla warfare throughout the duration of the Korean War, in another military
operation code-named “Operation Paper”; see Victor S. Kaufman, “Trouble in the Golden
Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, and the 93rd Nationalist Division,” China Quarterly 166
(2001): 440–56.
22. For details of Tofte’s exploits, see Joseph C. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story of the
War (New York: Times Books, 1982), 462–74.
23. Details of Operation Stole as far as it is known are contained in Paul Edwards, Combat
Operations of the Korean War: Ground, Air, Sea, Special and Covert (Jefferson, N.C.: McFar-
land, 2010), 165–66; William B. Breuer, Shadow Warriors: Covert Operations in Korea (New
York: Wiley, 1996), 128–29; see also Paul Edwards, Unusual Footnotes to the Korean War
(London: Bloomsbury, 2013), ch. 23.
24. Huang Tiancai, “Hanzhan Diyixian Shang Shenxun Gongjun Zhanfu: Yiwansiqian ming
Fangong Yishi Laitai Muhou (Shang),” Zhuanji Wenxue 96, no. 5 (2010): 4–21.
25. Gao Wenjun, Hanzhan Yiwang: Yuxue Yusheng Hua Renquan (Taipei: Shengzhi Wen-
hua, 2000), 243. Upon arriving in a POW processing camp at Pusan in May 1951, Gao Wenjun,
a CPV soldier who had deserted, remembered that there were many tents in the camp belonging
to G-2, and that in each tent there were seven people, a commanding officer, and his subordi-
nates, and that many of those working in the tents were ethnic Chinese who spoke Mandarin
rather poorly, and that some could not even read any Chinese. These were presumably either
American- or Korean-born Chinese. According to statistics in Bradbury (Mass Behaviour,
348), April–June 1951 was the period in which more than fifteen thousand Chinese prisoners
were taken, 76 percent of the entire CPV prisoner population, so it is not surprising that
resources were stretched.
26. Huang, “Hanzhan Diyixian Shang Shenxun Gongjun Zhanfu,” 8.
27. Gao Qingchen, Kongzhan Feiyingxiong (Taipei: Maitian Chuban, 2000), 231, translated
in Chang, “To Return Home or ‘Return to Taiwan,’” 168–69.
28. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, Fangong Yishi Fendoushi (Taipei:
Fangong Yishi Jiuye Fudaochu, 1955), 34–38; see also Chang, “To Return Home or ‘Return to
Taiwan,’” 212–23; the chronology of the Liu Bingzhang story suggests that Guo was probably
one of the first group of eighteen sent from Taiwan.
30. Huang, “Hanzhan Diyixian Shang Shenxun Gongjun Xhanfu,” 18.
31. See Bradbury, Mass Behaviour; Chang, “To Return Home or ‘Return to Taiwan.’”
32. Statistics from Bradbury, Mass Behaviour, 343, 345.
33. Bradbury, Mass Behaviour, 341.
34. Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 43–46, describes how his unit ended up being absorbed into the
PLA; his desertion and surrender are described on pp. 146–53.
35. Bradbury, Mass Behaviour, 5–105, gives an enumeration and elaboration of these, with
examples given from the lives of five different prisoners.
36. Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 84.

37. Zhao explained that the PLA had needed to recruit large numbers of new soldiers
because they had lost so many in the civil war, and this had resulted in “bad elements” being
allowed to join. These people hated the Communist Party and the PLA because some of them
had come from wealthy families, and some had come to avoid class struggle, sometimes their
parents had been sentenced to death by the Communists, and sometimes their families had lost
their lands to them. He notes also the large number of Nationalist soldiers who were inducted
into the PLA along with their command structures. Two hundred thousand soldiers were in-
ducted during the Peking campaign in January and a further 150,000 from February to April. So
any troops were of questionable loyalty to the Communists. Zhao Zuorui, “Organizing the
Riots on Koje,” in Voices from the Korean War, ed. Richard Peters and Xiaobing Li (Lexing-
ton: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 247–48.
38. Zhang Buting in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi, 98.
39. Zhang Ruiqi in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi, 359. Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 92,
also expresses a similar sentiment.
41. Bai Chongxi was one of the last Nationalist military commanders to abandon mainland
China and the last to leave Hainan in 1950, so it is fitting that he was the subject of such
rumors.
42. Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 148. In a recent interview, Gao said the leaflet claimed the
Nationalist general Liu Anqi was leading these troops, and that it told of the possibility of either
returning straight to Taiwan, or remaining in Korea to fight in these units (http://www.
voachinese.com/content/history-mystery-people-volunteer-army-20151009/2998726.html). I
have been unable to find any leaflets containing such claims.
43. Albert G. Brauer Korean War Psychological Warfare Propaganda Leaflets Collection,
North Dakota State University Library, leaflet 2/125.
44. David Cheng Chang, “Zhang Yifu Xiansheng Fangwen Jilu’l,” Koushu Lishi, November
2013, 121–52.
45. Bradbury, Mass Behaviour, 52–53.
46. Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 153. The interviewer, whom Gao described elsewhere as a
Taiwanese migrant to the United States, is highly likely to have been Huang Tiancai.
47. Da Ying, Zhiyuanjun Zhanfu Jishi (Beijing: Kunlun Chubanshe, 1986), 70.
48. Yu Jing, E Yun (Hong Kong: Tiandi Tushu Youxian Gongsi / Faxing Litong Tushu
Youxian Gongsi, 1992), 112–13.
49. For a discussion of life on Geoje Island, see Young, Name,Rank and Serial Number.
50. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, Fangong Yishi Fendoushi, 51–68,
gives an overview of the foundation and structure of anti-Communist organizations within the
Chinese compounds on Geoje. The anti-Communists organized themselves into political
groups inside the compounds with names such as the Chinese Kuomintang Anti-Communist
Youth Association for the Salvation of the Country (Zhongguo guomindang fangong qingnian
jiuguotuan) and the Chinese Kuomintang June 3 Branch (Zhongguo guomindang liushisan
zhibu) of compound 72, and the “Anti-Communist Anti-Russian Patriotic Youth Alliance”
(Fangong kang’e [aiguo] qingnian tongmenghui) in compound 86.
51. In English scholarship the idea of planted agents can be traced back to Wilfred Bur-
chett’s claims in Koje Unscreened that KMT agents were imported into the POW camps as
their first leaders: Wilfred Burchett and Alan Winnington, Koje Unscreened (London: Britain-
China Friendship Association, 1953), 13, and an oral history interview with the then U.S.
ambassador to Korea, John Muccio, who believed that the first batch of interpreters sent from
Taiwan were “Chiang Kai-shek’s gestapos.” See Chang, “To Return Home or ‘Return to
Taiwan,’” 172–73. These claims do not appear in more recently published Chinese accounts of
life in the camps.
52. Burchett and Winnington, Koje Unscreened, 10.
53. Chang, “To Return Home or ‘Return to Taiwan,’” 14–15.
54. Before this, the U.S. government had considered several options for Taiwan, including
deposing Chiang Kai-shek and choosing a new leader, or using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in
a deal with the People’s Republic; these various options are detailed in Zhang, Hanzhan Jiu
Taiwan?, 196–202.
55. This surprise was the background reason for the Bradbury studies, which were con-
ducted in order to find out why so many Chinese POWs were disaffected by Communist rule,
and why such a high proportion refused to be repatriated.
56. Chang, “To Return Home or ‘Return to Taiwan,’” 219.
57. Wu Jinfeng, “Zhiyuanjun Guiguo Zhanfu Koushu Shilu Jiexuan’e,” Jiefangjun Wenyi 4
(2012), http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_c166c7a70101lsif.html.
58. Zhang Ruiqi in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi, 368–69. This is a pun on the names
of Zhu De and Mao Zedong, “Zhu” being a homophone of the word for “pig” and “Mao”
referring to a pig’s bristles, so the expression sounds identical to “kill the pig and pull out its
bristles.”
59. Zhou Xiuhuan, “Hanzhan Qijian Zhiyuanyifu Yuanze de Yiding (1950–1953),” Guoshi-
guan Guankan 24 (2010): 45–88.
60. Bradbury, Mass Behaviour, 322–26.
61. Long Jixian in Shen Xinyi, Yiwan Siqian ge Zhengren: Hanzhan Fangong Yishi zhi
Yanjiu (Taipei: Guoshiguan, 2013), 317.
62. Song Zhengming in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi, 151.
63. Chang, “Zhang Yifu,” 128.
66. Song Zhengming in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi, 150–51.
67. Zhao, “Organizing the Riots on Koje,” 243.
68. These rumors were particularly prevalent around the times the prisoners were being
transported from the mainland to Geoje, and from Geoje to Jeju. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi
Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, Fangong Yishi Fendoushi, 15–16 and 117–18.
69. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, Fangong Yishi Fendoushi, 162–63,
provides examples of the education goals of the CIE schools to this end. See also Tal Tovy,
“Manifest Destiny in POW Camps: The U.S. Re-education Program during the Korean War,”
Historian 73, no. 3 (2011): 503–25.
70. Bradbury, Mass Behaviour, 259; Fangong Yishi Fendoushi, 107–8, notes that those who
were picked as teachers had to satisfy three conditions, namely, to be staunchly anti-Commu-
nist, to have previously served as an officer in the Nationalist army, and to be a good speaker.
71. Wen Jianyou in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi, 347–48.
73. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, Fangong Yishi Fendoushi, 105.
74. Zhou Xiuhuan, “Jieyun Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Laitai zhi Yanjiu (1950–1954),” Guo-
shiguan Guankan 28 (2011): 127–28.
75. Zhou, “Jieyun Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Latai zhi Yanju,” 128.
76. Zhou, “Jieyun Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Latai zhi Yanju,” 128–29.
77. Zhou, “Jieyun Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Latai zhi Yanju,” 129.
78. Wen Jianyou in Zhou, “Jieyun Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Laitai zhi Yanju.”
79. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, Fangong Yishi Fendoushi, 156–57.
80. Zhou, “Jieyun Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Laitai zhi Yanju,” p. 130 onward, chronicles the
Taiwanese efforts to this end.
81. Lianhe Bao, October 10, 1953, 1.
82. Da Ying’s monograph on the Chinese POWs published in 1986 has XXXXX in place of
a specific number, but subsequent PRC publications usually provide numbers.
83. Wang Dongyuan, “Fangong Yishi Zhengdou Zhanji,” Zhuanji wenxue 52, no. 1 (1988):
26.
84. Described in Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 283–341, and Chen Yonghua in Lin Jintian, ed.,
Shang Hen Xuelei: Zhanhou Yuantaiji Guojun Koushu Lishi (Nantou: Guoshiguan, 2008), 254.
85. Accounts of non-repatriate POWs published in the PRC detail some cases of punishment
by imprisonment of those few individuals who demanded to leave the army, but little more than
this; see Zhang Zeshi and Gao Yansai, Gudao: Kangmei Yuanchao Zhiyuanjun Zhanfu Zai
Taiwan (Beijing: Jincheng Chubanshe, 2012), 163–69.
86. This policy applied to all soldiers, however, not just to ex-POWs; see Zhang and Gao,
Gudao, 211, for an account of the restrictions placed on Nationalist soldiers.
87. Wan Enmei, Higashi Ajia Gendaishi no naka no Kankoku Kakyō (Tokyo: Sangensha,
2008), 156.
88. Lianhe Bao, March 28, 1952, 3.
89. Lianhe Bao, April 3, 1952, 1; April 4, 1952, 1; and April 5, 1952, 4.
90. Lianhe Bao, November 7, 1952, 1.
91. Wan, Higashi Ajia Gendaishi no naka no Kankoku Kakyō, 161.
94. Wan, Higashi Ajia Gendaishi no naka no Kankoku Kakyō, 165–67; Luo Yatong (d.
2009) went on to become an influential leader in the Korean Chinese community.
Chapter Five
The Other Legacy of the Korean War

Okinawa and the Fear of World War III
Pedro Iacobelli
How did the Korean War affect the U.S.-occupied Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa
Prefecture)? To answer that question, we need to look not only at political
and material circumstances, but also at the local Okinawan population’s ap-
praisal of the conflict. This chapter examines the rise of anxiety within the
Okinawan community and the construction of a “community of fear.” In this
sense, the discussion that follows links the recent scholarship on the history
of emotions to the study of the legacies of the Korean War, particularly in the
context of Okinawa. It contextualizes the archipelago’s political and social
conditions during the conflict in Korea and provides some sense of the local
population’s growing fear of World War III. 1
During the Korean War Okinawa experienced a myriad of structural,
political, and social changes. Following Japan’s defeat in World War II,
Okinawa was separated from the rest of Japan and became a territory admin-
istered exclusively and indefinitely by the U.S. Army: an arrangement that
was confirmed by the Japanese and Allied governments in the San Francisco
Peace Treaty of 1951. While the rest of Japan was under the overall control
of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) until April 1952,
but retained its own parliament and government, the new structure of govern-
ance in Okinawa was headed in Tokyo by the commander in chief, Far East,
who became the “governor of Okinawa.” Also based in Japan, the command-
ing general, Ryukyu Command, became the “deputy governor” (from 1957
called high commissioner).
The internal organization of the Ryukyu Islands, as it was called by the
American administrators—a term that evoked the old days of the Ryukyu
Kingdom (early fifteenth century to 1879)—was modified twice between
109
110 Pedro Iacobelli
December 1950 and April 1952: first with the establishment of the U.S. Civil
Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (hereafter USCAR) and second, when
the peace treaty came into effect, with the establishment of the government
of the Ryukyu Islands (hereafter GRI). Whereas the former institution was
the civil version of the U.S. military government (and the civil administrator
was a U.S. Army officer during the first ten years), the latter represented the
local Okinawan people, but remained subordinate to the U.S. Civil Adminis-
tration, which had the power to annul its ordinances. Meanwhile, political
parties in Okinawa, first allowed in 1947, experienced a series of changes in
their political platforms. Some were dissolved or merged with others, and
there were important political realignments as well. 2 Most notably, parties
closer to mainland Japan’s Socialist Party and Communist Party, such as the
Okinawa Social Mass Party (Okinawa Shakai Taishūtō) and the Okinawa
People’s Party (Okinawa Jinmintō), became electorally relevant, constantly
challenging the U.S. position of power in Okinawa from 1950.
The reversion movement (fukki undō), which demanded the end of the
U.S. administration and the reincorporation of the islands into the Japanese
state, became a common platform for all the main political parties from 1951,
though Okinawa was to remain under U.S. occupation until 1972. In terms of
actual material effects, the Korean War brought an influx of U.S. military
personnel and materials, transforming the landscape and lives of the local
population. During the years of the Korean War, large numbers of Okinaw-
ans advocated the reestablishment of state-led emigration programs as a way
to leave the U.S.-occupied islands and thus seek better prospects for them-
selves elsewhere. 3
But while these historical events and processes have been studied by
scholars in Japan and elsewhere, they have not been related to the reality of
emotions. As William Reddy, a pioneer in the historiography of emotions,
argues, historians in general have shown little interest in navigating the emo-
tional realities of the past. 4 To be sure, the master narratives of Okinawa
during the Korean War also include the emotions of those who lived in that
specific time and space. Emotions, as Barbara Rosenwein puts it, are embed-
ded in daily life, politics, and economies: they are “an aspect of every social
group in which people have a stake and interest.” The scope and quality of
shared emotional experiences in a community can be altered as a result of a
major event, such as a natural disaster, political upheaval, or war. Following
Rosenwein’s argument, we can talk of an “emotional community”—large or
small—in much the same way that some historians consider a nation as an
“imagined community.” 5 The term “emotional communities” describes so-
cial groups whose members share “the same valuations of emotions and their
expression.” Rosenwein suggests that, when considering the full panoply of
cultural forms produced by these groups, we seek to uncover systems of
feelings to establish what these communities define and assess as valuable or
The Other Legacy of the Korean War 111
harmful to them. 6 As this chapter shows, during the first years of the Korean
War, and in particular after the full-fledged intervention of the People’s
Republic of China in late 1950, Okinawa was an emotional community dom-
inated by fear that a third world war could break out, making the small
archipelago an early target of Communist attacks.
As other chapters in this volume observe, the Korean War marked a
crucial moment of regional transformation. The conflict between the South
and the North of the Korean Peninsula became an international event due to
the intervention of the U.S.-led United Nations troops in the South and Chi-
nese People’s Volunteer Army in the North. 7 The Korean War resembled a
miniature world war rather than a traditional civil war. 8 Despite the fact that
the Korean War became a “forgotten war” in the United States, it remains
“remembered” in the Korean Peninsula and still affects contemporary rela-
tions in Northeast Asia. 9 The influence that the Korean War had on sur-
rounding areas can be seen in terms of concentric circles, with populations
within the central circles directly involved in combat, whereas Okinawa,
distant from the battleground, may be considered part of a peripheral circle
but as a U.S. military stronghold. It was both deeply involved in the war and
a potential target in the event that hostilities expanded beyond the Korean
Peninsula’s boundaries.
This chapter, building on archival material and local newspapers, looks
particularly at the emotional effect that the Korean War had on U.S.-
controlled Okinawa. It argues that the Korean War, resulting social changes,
and the fear of the outbreak of World War III created a “community of fear”
in the Okinawan archipelago, and that the voices of this community gained
the attention of the U.S. military government. 10 While similar anxieties were
experienced in mainland Japan and in some Western countries, in Okinawa
they became a reality that directly affected people’s daily lives. In this sense,
this study contributes to the understanding of Okinawa’s history during the
Korean War and provides an alternative view to mainstream narratives of
Okinawa during the American occupation. This study explains the sources
for the climate of fear in Okinawa—namely, memories of the Asia-Pacific
War, the heavy presence of U.S. military, and its participation in the Korean
War—and how the fear of World War III was experienced in Okinawa dur-
ing that time.
OKINAWA UNDER U.S. CONTROL
The Korean War was a crucial event in Okinawan history. The distance
between Naha and the Korean Peninsula (a mere 560 miles—900 kilometers)
made the local population in Okinawa close neighbors to the events in Korea.
The Korean War was not the first time in which Korean and Okinawan
112 Pedro Iacobelli
societies were involved (though at a different level) in the same historical

processes. The Korean kingdom and the Ryukyu Kingdom had been part of
the Chinese tributary system—a region-wide network of commerce and ex-
change—in which Okinawan and Korean merchants engaged in lively trade
with other city ports of the region. But the wealth of connections and ex-
changes between the Ryukyu Kingdom and the Korean Peninsula began to
fade from the mid-sixteenth century. This change was due, among other
factors, to the invasion of the Ryukyu Kingdom by the daimyo of Satsuma in
southern Japan (Shimazu shinnyū jiken) in 1609. 11 Although the Japanese
daimyo allowed the Ryukyu Kingdom to resume its commercial activities,
they were greatly reduced in scale, and confined mainly to trade with China
and Japan.
As a result of Japan’s modernization in the nineteenth century, the Ryuk-
yu Kingdom was dismantled and its territory incorporated into Japan in the
1870s. The Japanese annexation of the Ryukyu Islands, known as “the dispo-
sal of the Ryukyus” (Ryūkyū shobun), concluded after a seven-year process
and was followed by the introduction of far-reaching assimilation policies. 12
The Okinawans, as new Japanese subjects, received Japanese-language edu-
cation and were expected to revere the emperor. The local economy was
transformed in line with dictates from Tokyo and new plantation crops such
as sugarcane replaced traditional crops without improving the material condi-
tions in the island. Even though the government of Japan did not officially
consider Okinawa to be a colony, this does not mean that the people of
Okinawa did not experience colonialism. The pre-1945 Japanese approach to
Okinawa was an agenda of assimilation, which in practice converted the
Okinawan people into semicolonial subjects. The Japanese usage of discrimi-
natory labels for Okinawans such as “backward,” “uncivilized,” and “sec-
ond-class citizens” reflected and intensified this semicolonial status. 13 We
can observe some similarities of experience in Okinawa and the Korea Penin-
sula after the latter was annexed by Japan in 1910: Korea’s population, too,
suffered assimilation policies and a drastic reshaping of their political and
economic life. The Fifteen-Year War (1931–1945) exacerbated the Okinaw-
an and Korean position of inferiority vis-à-vis the Japanese rulers and in the
end, the more than five hundred thousand inhabitants of Okinawa were used
as Japan’s last shield of defense for the Japanese mainland (hondo).
Japan lost control of Okinawa Prefecture when U.S. forces captured the
islands in June 1945. 14 The Battle of Okinawa, a conflict that began on April
1 and concluded on June 23, marked the end of Japan’s direct control over
the Ryukyu Islands and initiated the long-term U.S. administration of Okina-
wa. 15 It is considered the bloodiest battle fought in the Pacific: more than two
hundred thousand people perished. 16 The Battle of Okinawa was a traumatic
experience for the Okinawan people since they had to flee their homes, some
went in hiding for months (even in tombs), shortage of food caused malnutri-
tion or even starvation, many were killed or forced to commit suicide by the
Japanese army, and most of the main island of Okinawa was, as Chief Execu-
tive Higa Shugei put it, “reduced to ashes” during the bombings. 17
The U.S. military government was sluggish in initiating the reconstruc-
tion of the territory and in improving the Okinawan people’s living condi-
tions. 18 The Ryukyu Islands attracted more resources and the attention of
American authorities only when the events of the early Cold War, such as the
Communist victory in China, began to unfold. The fear of World War III in
Okinawa should be put in the context of a shifting U.S. containment policy.
In the months before the outbreak of the Korean War, the National Security
Council decisively pushed for the retention of the Ryukyu Islands when the
peace treaty with Japan was signed, and this demand was reemphasized
following the start of the Korean conflict in June 1950. The National Security
Council’s documents such as the NSC 49 “Current Strategic Evaluation of
US Security Needs in Japan” of June 15, 1949, and the NSC 60/1 “Japanese
Peace Treaty” of September 8, 1950 (written at the most critical point in the
Korean War, on the eve of the Incheon landing) expressed the view that any
future treaty with Japan must guarantee the United States “exclusive strategic
control of the Ryukyu.” 19 These documents echoed the widespread idea that
the United States had to protect its areas of interest everywhere in the world
from the Soviet-led spread of Communism. The NSC 68 “Objectives and
Program for National Security” of April 14, 1950 (approved by U.S. presi-
dent Harry Truman in September the same year) incorporated the principles
of the containment policy into a single document. 20 In the late 1940s the U.S.
Department of State considered it important to secure certain industrial and
military centers in Asia, thought to be of vital importance for national secur-
ity; in the early 1950s all points in the western Pacific region were consid-
ered equally vital for U.S. interests. 21 For NSC 68’s authors, “the assault on
free institutions is worldwide now, and in the context of the present polariza-
tion of power a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat every-
where.” 22 NSC 68 expressed the view that the balance of power between
Washington and Moscow was at stake constantly everywhere in the world. 23
All the elements put forward by NSC 68 were put into effect in the U.S. role
in the Korean War.
The Korean War affected the U.S. government’s sense of need for mili-
tary control over the Ryukyu Islands. As a result of the perceived increasing
Communist threat in East Asia, the United States sought to secure permanent
control over Okinawa in the peace treaty with Japan. Okinawa represented a
strategic location to secure the continuity of the American “defense perime-
ter” in the Pacific. John Foster Dulles, at that time consultant to the secretary
of state, was the architect of the peace treaty, including Article 3 whereby
Japan granted “all power of administration” of the Ryukyu Islands to the
United States. 24 The San Francisco Peace Treaty, heavily influenced by NSC
114 Pedro Iacobelli
68 and NSC 60/1, granted extraordinary power to the U.S. military to govern
the civil population in Okinawa. 25 According to Gavan McCormack, the
Korean War “shaped the form of the separate peace treaty with Japan under
which US military bases became virtually permanent in that country.” 26 In-
deed, from the American perspective, Okinawa had to remain under com-
plete U.S. control after a peace treaty with Japan was signed. 27
Okinawa was a crucial U.S. military base during the Korean War. Three
days after the North Korean army crossed into South Korea, B-29 medium
bomber units stationed on the islands began their bombing missions over the
peninsula. 28 Since Kadena airfield’s runway was the only one capable of
supporting bombers in the archipelago, the U.S. military began to pour more
resources into improving existing bases and building new ones in Okinawa,
including the expanded airfields in Futenma and Yomitan. They also
strengthened the airpower based on the islands, by (for example) relocating
the Nineteenth Bombardment Group to Okinawa from Guam and the Twen-
ty-Second Bombardment Group from the States to Okinawa in July 1950. 29
In August 1950 the 307th Bombardment Group was also deployed to Okina-
wa from the United States. All these units were involved in the Korean War
and by the end of 1950, aircrews based in Okinawa had dropped 24,914.9
tons of bombs in 3,284 sorties over Korea. 30 The U.S. Army’s Twenty-Ninth
Infantry Regiment (dubbed “two-niner”) was reactivated on May 1, 1949, at
Camp Nupunja, Okinawa, and some of its battalions were deployed to Korea
in July 1950—Okinawa remained the headquarters for this regiment through-
out the war. Finally, the Seventh Fleet Strike Force established a forward
base at Okinawa in June 1950 to which it would retire between major opera-
tions. 31
The militarization of Okinawan society continued during the 1950s and
1960s. But it was during the Korean War that the island experienced its most
radical changes. In 1950, U.S. Congress approved an appropriation of 50
million dollars to reconstruct Okinawa. Japanese firms, along with American
and Filipino enterprises, were allowed to inspect plans and sites for the
Okinawa project and submit tenders. 32 Various companies from mainland
Japan such as TKK Construction, Notomi Construction, Shimizu Construc-
tion, Asanuma Gumi, and Hokkaido Construction were involved in the Oki-
nawa Construction Program. 33 Alongside the number of Okinawans directly
employed by these firms (about 4,800 people), the base-building process
brought an influx of civilians from mainland Japan as well as foreigners such
as Filipino and Chinese workers and American contractors to the islands,
altering the material and social life of the locals in many ways. 34
Salaries varied according to the worker’s place of origin. Mainland Japa-
nese received higher remunerations than Okinawan workers. 35 Also, some
companies were reported for their questionable firing practices. The
American firm Vinnell Co.—a company that by July 1950 had contracted
Figure 5.1. U.S. Air Force Personnel Preparing Bombs on Okinawa, 1951.
Source: Werner Bischof, courtesy of Magnum Photos.
157 American technicians, 404 mainland Japanese, and 1,467 Okinawans—

discharged sixty-four Okinawans in 1952. According to a USCAR report,
this was “because [the company] suspected they were stealing gasoline, but
did not provide any proof. Also [Vinnell Co.] failed to report the situation
and did not want to take corrective action.” Later in the same year the
company was reported to the American authorities, this time for the short
notice (less than two weeks) given to one thousand workers before laying
them off. 36 Although Okinawans were not officially recruited to perform
military tasks, as U.S. troops were dispatched to the Korean front, Okinaw-
ans were brought in to work in military support roles, including guarding
U.S. facilities. 37
116 Pedro Iacobelli
The new bases, and extensions of old ones, were built on land owned by
the locals, and the Korean War boom in base construction led to a rapid
expansion of the appropriation of land from its Okinawan owners. Between
September and November 1950, for example, almost six hundred thousand
square meters of farmland along with 152 homes and 438 graves were
cleared to make way for the construction of U.S. military bases. 38 Housing
and entertainment areas for U.S. servicemen expanded rapidly in and around
the bases, and it was during the Korean War that typical “base towns” like
Kōza (now part of Okinawa City) developed their large red-light districts. 39
The chaotic quality of life in Kōza at the time is vividly described by one
local resident who recalled:
When the Korean War occurred, fully armed soldiers would repeatedly desert
and loiter around the town. When they were arrested by the Military Police,
they would go along with police smiling happily. They didn’t want to be sent
to the battlefront, and so deliberately deserted and were put in the stockade.
The soldiers were a menace, so eventually we had to protect ourselves, and
surrounded houses and footpaths with barbed wire. 40
The American presence in the islands aggravated the serious socioeco-

nomic conditions in early postwar Okinawa. In the wake of the Pacific War
and notably during the Korean War, the U.S. military confiscated large sec-
tions of land for their base-building program. The reduction of arable land
was a constant source of poverty and political tension within the Ryukyu
Islands. The decrease of crops meant a reduction in the food supply in Okina-
wa, making the local communities more dependent on foreign aid. 41 These
conditions were described by one U.S. serviceman as a “time bomb.” He
considered that “in the administration of justice, in the distortion of econo-
my, and in the vicious abuse of most elementary standards of respect towards
another society’s members, we have chalked up an all-time record for
Americans.” 42
As a result of the Korean War, the number of air force personnel in
Okinawa grew threefold. 43 The landscape of the islands was changed as well.
American military installations linked Kadena airfield with Naha city as “one
continuous American base.” Journalists for the Stars and Stripes proudly
reported on the infrastructural conditions of the U.S. bases in the islands in
1952: “This [Okinawa] is the key to the Pacific. This is the solution. We will
get out of Japan. I don’t know whether in 10 or 15 years. But we should stay
here.” 44 The military installation building process strengthened the military
capability of the islands as a base, and as a result made it a potential target in
a conflict with Communist troops in Asia.
FEARFUL PEOPLE
Okinawans were not the first group of people to harbor anxieties about the
possibility of a new world war. The Cold War events of the late 1940s, such
as the coup d’état in Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade, and the Commu-
nist victory in China’s civil war, conditioned the U.S. allies’ perceptions of
the likelihood of another global war. Furthermore, the U.S. nuclear capabil-
ity, demonstrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the Soviets’ suc-
cessful test of their atomic weaponry in 1949, gave rise to a deepening fear
that any future warfare would be nuclear.
Examples of the anxiety caused by the prospect of another global war can
be found throughout the political literature of the 1950s. For example, Ferdi-
nand O. Miksche, in Unconditional Surrender: The Roots of a World War III
(1952), called for cooperation between England, France, and Germany to
defend Europe from Communist expansion. Borrowing Carl von Clause-
witz’s idea that war was the continuation of politics by other means, Miksche
pointed out that for Lenin war waged by a Communist state becomes the
continuation of revolution by other means. 45 Walter Lippmann, in an article
published in the journal Prevent World War III, stated that his society
“live[d] in continual danger of a gigantic war.” 46 American sociologist C.
Wright Mills in his TheCauses of World War Three (1958) explained the
“contemporary sensibility” of his epoch toward another global war as fol-
lows: “To reflect upon war is to reflect upon the human condition, for that
condition is now clearly revealed by the way in which World War III is
coming about. The preparations for this war are now pivotal features of the
leading societies of the world.” 47
But concerns about a new war were not only intellectual speculations.
Governments around the globe seriously considered that possibility and acted
accordingly. For example, U.S. president Truman—responding to the events
in Korea and elsewhere—proclaimed a state of emergency on December 16,
1950. 48 In this proclamation, he announced the existence of a “national emer-
gency,” which required “that the military, naval, air, and civilian defenses of
this country be strengthened as speedily as possible to the end that we may be
able to repel any and all threats against our national security and to fulfill our
responsibilities in the efforts being made through the United Nations and
otherwise to bring about lasting peace.” Truman summoned all citizens to
meet the threat of “world conquest by Communist imperialism.” 49 The CIA’s
E. van der Vlugt, in his 1954 address before the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, pointed out that the Korean War’s flames had “seared and
scorched” the United States and that they were “hidden under the ashes ready
to leap up at any time.” 50 For van der Vlugt, the problem was how the United
States could avoid World War III.
118 Pedro Iacobelli
In the 281st plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly in 1950, a

Chilean-presented plan to act against (Soviet-led) bellicosity was dis-
cussed; 51 it proposed an agreement whereby all those who signed it were
compelled to mobilize their nation’s military and economic strengths to resist
aggression wherever it occurred. The idea of a clash between the world’s two
main blocs permeated most states and it was imagined as a truly global
phenomenon in the early 1950s. Even the Vatican’s Sacred College of Cardi-
nals reportedly assessed the possibility of moving the Holy See to North
America if a third world war broke out. 52 It should be noted that these fears
existed not only in the non-Communist world, but also in Communist coun-
tries like China. As Masuda Hajimu points out, “The fear of World War III
was unmistakable in Chinese society, and this was why many were even
thrilled about the news of war [in Korea].” 53
The speculation about the outbreak of World War III was a cause of “real
fear” in the U.S.-led bloc. In Japan and Okinawa, fear of World War III was
closely connected with the Korean War. Japanese and Okinawans alike were
aware of the danger implied in the expansion of the conflict beyond the
Korean Peninsula. A Soviet or Chinese full-scale engagement in the war
would inevitably—some observers thought—make the conflict global, in-
volving Japan and including nuclear weapons. Fear as a psychological reac-
tion to the perception of external danger has been studied as an expression of
self-preservation, and so the objects and situations that arouse fear depend
largely on our knowledge of, and our feeling of, power over the outer
world. 54 The emotion of fear (closely connected to, for example, dread and
disgust) has been described as the “upshot of a reminiscence,” the repetition
of a “certain significant experience.” 55 In the mainland Japanese and Oki-
nawan cases, the significant experience that evoked a sense of fear were
months of bombing and massive destruction during the last months of the
Pacific War. As we shall examine later, in both cases the memories of war
and destruction were part of the narratives about a potential third world war.
But emotions, and fear in particular, are also cultural artifacts. As Clifford
Geertz points out, there is no such a thing as “fear”: there are “fearful peo-
ple.” 56 The emotional communities described in this chapter are constructed
and sustained by cultural and political forces. 57 This can be illustrated by
looking at the way in which fears of a new world war played out in Japan and
Okinawa.
The issue of fear of World War III in mainland Japan has recently been
discussed by Masuda Hajimu. 58 Masuda’s work shows how the Korean War
inspired and stimulated the discussion on Japan’s rearmament, which helped
to shape the idea of a third world war. At the time of the Korean War, the
United States pushed for a more militarily independent Japan. The so-called
reverse course, which became evident from 1948 onward, signified a shift of
U.S. policy toward Japan, from demilitarization to a strategy of building up
Japan’s military defense capacity. According to Masuda, the fear of World

War III was not created only by the outbreak of the Korean War, but equally
by the discussion on rearmament that in turn contributed to the reconstruc-
tion of memories of World War II in ways that aroused fear of another global
conflict. Japan’s experience of very large-scale U.S. aerial bombing (atomic
and otherwise) during the final stages of the war was the key memory evoked
during these discussions on rearmament. But while Japan—which was also
occupied at the start of the war in Korea—had its own government (under
SCAP supervision until April 1952, but fully independent thereafter) and
could to some degree distance itself from the war, Okinawa was under direct
rule by the military power most involved on the Southern side in the war. 59
The outbreak of the Korean War, and the direct involvement of the U.S.
troops stationed in the Ryukyu Islands in the conflict, inevitably made it
seem that Okinawa was more directly involved in the conflict than mainland
Japan. The war triggered a strong sense of fear among the Okinawan popula-
tion. These fears were based (among other things) upon rumors coming from
several sources such as mainland Japan smugglers (of goods), and were
intensified by the bitter memories of the Battle of Okinawa (1945) that the
war in Korea evoked. 60 The Okinawan people had experienced relentless
bombings and land battles over their territory during World War II and
increasingly began to believe that such an experience could be repeated due
to the events on the Korean Peninsula. The local newspapers closely fol-
lowed the war in Korea and the latest UN strategies, and virulent anti-
Communist propaganda regularly made the front pages. 61 While under U.S.
occupation, the Okinawan media was heavily censored and in many ways
their stories were framed to convey the occupation authorities’ messages. 62
To a degree, Okinawan newspapers were another tool in the war against
global Communism (e.g., the Uruma Shinpō was partly created with this
purpose) so we could expect an American version of the events in the Korean
Peninsula. Indeed, for the Okinawan people the Korean War was part of their
everyday conversations and life. In mainland Japan, on the other hand, the
probability of becoming a military target in a third world war was associated
primarily with Japan’s rearmament. 63 Okinawa was already a military target
inasmuch as it hosted an exceptionally large concentration of U.S. military
resources and troops.
Emotions of apprehension in the Okinawan community reached their
peak toward mid-1951, by which time the geographical scope of the Korean
War had expanded to include Chinese involvement. There was a widespread
rumor that World War III was about to begin and that Okinawa would be one
of the earliest targets of the Communist forces. The rumor included the exact
date of the next bombing over Okinawa: August 15, 1951 (the sixth anniver-
sary of Japan’s defeat). 64 The idea of the imminent expansion of the Korean
War to the rest of the region had first emerged at the time of the North
120 Pedro Iacobelli
Korean army’s penetration to the Busan perimeter in July–August 1950

and—after they had been pushed back further north—had been reinforced by
Chinese entry into the war in October 1950. The Ryukyu Command could
not determine the source of this rumor, but it suggested that it could have
originated on Okinawa’s main island. 65
The construction of a community fearful of being bombed was not only
the product of anonymous rumors, it was also a result of newspaper reports
on the possibility of the outbreak of a new world war. The Uruma Shinpō,
one of the main newspapers of the main island of Okinawa, regularly pub-
lished news dealing with the possibility of World War III during the Korean
War. For example, on September 9, 1950 it published a front-page report
about collaborative efforts by England, France, and the United States to
“prevent World War Three.” 66 On November 8, it reported on the “dangers
of a third great war,” accusing the Chinese Communist army of acting as the
“ignition flame” of a conflict that put the whole world in danger. 67 Two days
later, an editorial in the Uruma Shinpō declared that with the Chinese partici-
pation, the Korean War had become a more global conflict, and “we [Oki-
nawan people] have just been targeted.” 68 The headlines of the edition on
November 29 warned the Okinawan community of the danger of a new
world war: the Korean War was “a conflict completely pregnant with the
possibility of a third great war.” 69 The editorial of December 2, 1950, de-
scribed local Okinawan perceptions of a new conflict as follows: “Without
being able to recover from the ashes of the Battle of Okinawa and struggling
to have a life, we have the lurking ghost of World War Three staring us in the
face.” This editorial’s author urged his countrymen to keep themselves in-
formed about current affairs outside Okinawa but also called upon them to
keep working toward the reconstruction of the Okinawan society at home.
For him, the “lurking” war should not hinder the postwar recovery (or, as it
was called, “greening,” ryokka) of Okinawa. As we shall see, the threat of a
new world war was accepted as a truism by the local population by the end of
1950. 70
The Okinawan public response to the situation in the Korean Peninsula
remained more pragmatic than the Uruma Shinpō’s description of the situa-
tion. The U.S. military government surveyed public reaction to the Korean
conflict in Okinawa and the results were reported to the General Headquar-
ters of the Far East Command in January 1951. 71 The report, prepared by
Captain H. W. McGulloch, Administrative Officer, RYUCOM, stated that
for many Okinawans a war of global proportions was a matter of time, and in
it, Okinawa would suffer a major attack. Certain Okinawan political observ-
ers were “convinced that World War III is inevitable and that the forthcom-
ing war will bring greater suffering to the Ryukyuan people than World War
II.” 72 They expected the standard of living to fall so low that the Okinawan
people would lead a “miserable life” for the next thirty to forty years. Never-
theless, many local residents believed the U.S. forces would never yield to
the Soviet Union (which was depicted in the local press as being behind the
conflict in Korea). Having experienced the force of American military power
only five years earlier, the Okinawan people were confident that “World War
III will end in a victory for the United States” and some expected less dam-
age from air attack than in the previous war “because our island will be
strongly defended.” 73 One U.S. report stated that “the Okinawan people have
complete faith in the national strength and resources of the United States of
America.” 74
The U.S. military was also concerned about the outbreak of a new global
war and the defense system put in place in Okinawa. Allen W. Dulles, then
CIA deputy director for plans, in a memorandum titled “Bomb Shelters on
Okinawa” of January 25, 1951, described his concerns about the CIA’s moni-
toring station on the island of Okinawa—their principal source of intelli-
gence information relating to the Far East. In the case of a major war in Asia,
which “might include air attacks on Okinawa,” the CIA had to assure contin-
uing operations of their monitoring station in Okinawa. Dulles pointed out
that “consideration is being given to construction of bomb shelters.” He
concluded his letter by stating that the “CIA is concerned over the safety of
its highly specialized monitoring personnel and their dependents at the Oki-
nawa Bureau and desires to insure monitoring operations against air and sea
bombardment.” 75 Later the same year the army began the construction of air-
raid shelters for their personnel. As Dulles’s concerns reveal, Okinawan
people were not alone in their concerns about the future of the island.
Contemporary reports suggest that most of the local population did not
question the inevitability of the conflict and most of them had faith in a U.S.
victory. What concerned the residents most was the impact of the war in
terms of human cost and the so-called food problem. Indeed, the social
psychology revolving around the fear of a new war in Okinawa was supple-
mented by keen anxieties about the survival of the population and its nour-
ishment. These two issues were the most important sources of anxiety in the
Okinawan views of World War III. Fears about the protection of the Okinaw-
an people were triggered by the occupation authorities’ public announcement
of their air defense measures. Many Okinawans, in the context of an immi-
nent and inevitable war, questioned why the occupation forces did not help
local civilians to prepare themselves for the bombing, while building many
strong air-raid shelters for military personnel and dependents. The pressure
for action was shifted onto the local Okinawan government. Uechi Kazushi,
from the Okinawa Times, called upon Governor Taira to propose emergency
measures to the occupation forces. This opinion was echoed by other resi-
dents who, as reported by the U.S. military, believed that they should build
air defenses and air-raid shelters, and conduct air-raid drills. They held the
122 Pedro Iacobelli
view that the governor was responsible for taking the initiative in relation to
Okinawan efforts to protect their own lives and property.
During the Battle of Okinawa many civilians who had survived the bomb-
ings endured famine as well. So when they were confronted with the prospect
of a new war on the island, the food problem also became a crucial element
in the discussion. Five years after the end of the World War II hostilities,
Okinawa remained dependent on U.S. foreign aid to cover its food require-
ments. In this sense, the Okinawan people were deeply concerned about the
security of their food supply line. If it were to be cut, no food could be
imported and it was believed that many civilians would “starve to death.” 76
For Naha’s high school teachers the food problem was the thing they were
most concerned about. As one U.S. military officer reported, the teachers
were “much more worried about shortage of food than [they were] about
atomic bombing.” 77 Similarly, Onaga Josei, mayor of Mawashi, considered
that in the case of a new war, “food will be a matter of life and death to the
Ryukyuan people.” 78 The editor of the Okinawa Times emphasized the need
for the Okinawan government to keep enough food on hand to feed all the
civilians for at least six months. The local population, faced with the prospect
of a long-term conflict, appeared keen to cooperate with the occupation
forces as a “guarantee against starvation” in the case of a new war.
But during the Korean War, despite (or perhaps because of) this aware-
ness of their dependence on the United States, Okinawans also became less
trusting of U.S. leadership and more committed to the idea of a return to
Japan. Ōta Masahide (who was to become governor of Okinawa Prefecture in
the 1990s) recalled that faith in the United States as the guarantor of democ-
racy remained quite strong in Okinawa until the beginning of the 1950s, but
that this faith rapidly faded as the United States moved to reaffirm its ongo-
ing control over the archipelago during the Korean War. In the same vein,
Mori Hideto, a prominent commentator on Okinawan affairs, writes:
The Korean War did not only make America aware of the strategic importance
of Okinawa. It also had the effect of forcing the Okinawan people to reconsid-
er their over-optimistic hopes for autonomy. Spurred on by fears that Okinawa
might become forever subordinated to American control, the movement for
reversion to the motherland [Japan] began. 79
Indeed, in 1951, a petition demanding reversion collected the signatures of

199,000 people (72 percent of the adult population of Okinawa) in just three
months. 80
CONCLUSION
Emotional communities represent social groups that share a similar daily life,
politics, and economy: communities in which people have a common stake
and interests. As discussed in this chapter, in Okinawa it is possible to iden-
tify an emotional community gripped by the fear of being targeted in a new
world war. While the concern about the outbreak of World War III was
shared by other states and communities, in Okinawa it gained momentum
after Chinese volunteers joined the forces of North Korea in late 1950. Oki-
nawa, a spectator of the conflict in the Korean Peninsula, became deeply
engaged with the war through the active presence of a growing U.S. military
in its territory. The U.S. airpower stationed in Okinawa went into action from
the early days of the Korean War, dispatching bombers to Korea on daily
raids. The Okinawan people were, in a sense, bystanders in the conflict, but
due to the growing role of the U.S. forces in the region, they became increas-
ingly conscious of the possibility of becoming a target in a new conflict. The
next conflict meant, of course, World War III—a war that, it was believed,
would surely involve nuclear weapons.
In mainland Japan, the fear of World War III was essentially tied to
political considerations about the country’s military future; but in Okinawa,
the crucial concern was the vision of the archipelago as a target in an ongoing
conflict. In this sense the threat of a Communist invasion of Okinawa Prefec-
ture was perceived as a distinct possibility by the Okinawan population. The
Korean War created a climate of fear, almost at times of paranoia, in Okina-
wa and initiated a debate about what would happen to Okinawans if a new
world war broke out. According to U.S. military documents and local news-
paper reports, many people in Okinawa expressed trust in the U.S. military
capacity to overcome any enemy. But in the Ryukyu Islands, fear of World
War III prompted an emotionally engaged public to consider the future of
Okinawa under Communist attack, in particular the ways to secure the inflow
of food rations during a possible conflict. The question was not so much
whether they would be invaded or not, but rather for how long Okinawan
people would need to support themselves if war broke out. At the same time,
fear of being drawn into a renewed war heightened the appeal of the idea of
reunion with Japan, particularly after the rest of the country regained its
independence in May 1952. In this sense, the Korean War had significant
continuing implications for Okinawa’s destiny.
NOTES
1. For a more general discussion of fear of World War III, see Masuda Hajimu, Cold War
Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2015).
124 Pedro Iacobelli
2. See Special Proclamation No. 23 “Political Parties,” 1947, in United States Civil Ad-
ministration 1950–1972, Laws and Regulations during the U.S. Administration of Okinawa:
1945–1972, ed. Gekkan Okinawa sha, vol. 1 (n.d.), 79–80. Also see Mikio Higa, Politics and
Parties in Postwar Okinawa (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1963); David
J. Obermiller, “The U.S. Military Occupation of Okinawa: Politicizing and Contesting Okina-
wa Identity 1945–1955” (PhD diss., University of Iowa, 2006); Teruya Eiichi, Okinawa Gyōsei
Kikō Hensenshi: Meiji 12nen~Showa 59nen (Naha: Matsumoto Taipu, 1984), 101.
3. For the reversion movement see Shinji Kojima, “Remembering the Battle of Okinawa:
The Reversion Movement,” in Uchinaanchu Diaspora: Memories, Continuities and Construc-
tions, ed. Joyce N. Chinen (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 140; Atsushi Toriya-
ma and David Buist, “Okinawa’s ‘Postwar’: Some Observations on the Formation of American
Military Bases in the Aftermath of Terrestrial Warfare,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4, no. 3
(2010) 400–17; Robert D. Eldridge, The Return of the Amami Islands: The Reversion Move-
ment and U.S.-Japan Relations (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004). For the pro-migration
movement, some Okinawans demanded the means to travel either back to mainland Japan and
to places as distant as South America; see Kozy Amemiya, “Reinventing Population Problems
in Okinawa: Emigration as a Tool of American Occupation,” JPRI Working Paper 90 (2002);
Pedro Iacobelli, “The Limits of Sovereignty and Post-War Okinawan Migrants in Bolivia,”
Asia-Pacific Journal 11, no. 34 (2013), http://apjjf.org/2013/11/34/Pedro-Iacobelli/3989/
article.html; James Lawrence Tigner, “Japanese Immigration into Latin America: A Survey,”
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 23, no. 4 (1981): 457–82.
4. William Reddy, Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
5. Barbara H. Rosenwein, “Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions,” Passions
in Context 1, no. 1 (2010): 10–12.
6. Rosenwein, “Problems and Methods,” 10–12.
7. Seventeen countries, including South Korea itself, supported the United Nations efforts
in the war. The North received assistance from other countries such as the USSR.
8. For the background of the war, see Chum-Kon Kim, The Korean War, 1950–1953
(Seoul: Kwangmyong Publishing, 1973); Peter Lowe, The Korean War (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2000); William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).
9. Bruce Cumings, “The Korean War: What Is It That We Are Remembering to Forget,” in
Ruptured Histories: War, Memory, and the Post–Cold War in Asia, ed. Sheila Miyoshi Jager
and Rana Mitter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 267.
10. See “Public Reaction to International Situation,” January 19, 1951, document prepared
by the Ryūkyū Command in Okinawa Prefectural Archives (hereafter OPA) Call No.
0000105499, folder 2.
11. Tomiyama Kazuyuki, Ryukyu Ōkoku no Gaikō to Ōken (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan,
2004), 69–71; Gregory Smits, “Ambiguous Boundaries: Redefining Royal Authority in the
Kingdom of Ryukyu,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 60, no. 1 (2000): 92.
12. Hideaki Uemura, “The Colonial Annexation of Okinawa and the Logic of International
Law: The Formation of an ‘Indigenous People’ in East Asia,” Japanese Studies 23, no. 2
(2003): 218.
13. Nomura Kōya, “Colonialism and Nationalism: The View from Okinawa,” in Okinawan
Diaspora, ed. Ronald Y. Nakasone (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), 113.
14. For a study of the cultural, sociological, and anthropological effects of the long U.S.
occupation of the islands, see Pedro Iacobelli and Hiroko Matsuda, eds., Rethinking Postwar
Okinawa:Beyond American Occupation (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, forthcoming).
15. For testimonies of the battle of Okinawa see Hiromichi Yahara, The Battle for Okinawa,
trans. Roger Pineau and Masatoshi Uehara (New York: Wiley, 1995), 105, and George Feifer,
Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992),
446. See also chapter 2 of Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands:
Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).
The Itoman Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum vividly illustrates the terrifying situation
experienced before, during, and after the battle. See http://www.peace-museum.pref.okinawa.

jp/annai/tenji_sisetu/index.html, accessed December 1, 2014.
16. Masahide Ōta, “Re-examining the History of the Battle of Okinawa,” in Okinawa: Cold
War Island, ed. Chalmers Johnson (Cardiff, Calif.: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999),
13–14.
17. Yoshiko Sakumoto Crandell, “Surviving the Battle of Okinawa: Memories of a School-
girl,” Asia-Pacific Journal 12, no. 2 (April 7, 2014), http://apjjf.org/2014/12/14/Yoshiko-
Sakumoto-Crandell/4103/article.html. See also Higa’s remark in “Imin Shisetsu kara Burajiru
Daitōryō eno Omin Sokushin Yōsei Chinjyutsusho,” OPA Call No. R00053765 B.
18. The American occupation authorities had divided the administration of the territory,
leaving the Okinawa Prefecture under a U.S. military government while the rest of Japan was
ruled by the SCAP. Moreover, for General Douglas MacArthur the best officers were appointed
to work in mainland Japan and those whom he did not consider good enough to be close to him
in Japan served in Okinawa. See Takemae Eiji, Inside G.H.Q.: The Allied Occupation of Japan
and Its Legacy, trans. Robert Ricketts and Sebastian Swann (New York: Continuum, 2002). For
MacArthur’s position see John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War
II (New York: Norton, 1999), 222.
19. Quoted in Kensei Yoshida, Democracy Betrayed: Okinawa under U.S. Occupation, ed.
Edward H. Kaplan, vol. 23, Studies on East Asia (Bellingham: Western Washington Univer-
sity, 2001), 45. NSC 60/1 was a revised version of NSC 60 on December 27, 1949. NSC 49 was
revised in NSC 49/1 on October 4, 1949.
20. The NSC 68 erased the early distinction made by George Kennan between peripheral
and vital interest zones. There is much discussion about what was “peripheral” and what was
“vital.” For Kennan, Japan and Western Europe were part of the vital zone of interest.
21. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American Na-
tional Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 89–121.
22. U.S. National Security Council, “NSC-68: A Report to the National Security Council,”
Naval War College Review 27 (May–June 1975): 51–108. The policy planning group behind
the NSC 68 was led by Paul H. Nitze.
23. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 89–121.
24. Robert D. Eldridge, The Origins of the Bilateral Okinawa Problem: Okinawa in Post-
war U.S.-Japan Relations, 1945–1952 (New York: Garland, 2001), 301–14. The Japanese
negotiators in many occasions expressed the view that severing the Ryūkyū from Japan would
be a mistake. See U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Vol.
VI, Asia and the Pacific (in Two Parts), Part 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1977), 811, 833, 960–61, 1163. The emperor, among other key political figures, sup-
ported the exchange of Okinawa for U.S. security. For comments on the so-called Tennō
message see Ōta Masahide, Kenshō: Showa no Okinawa (Naha: Naha Shuppansha, 1990),
314–29. Matsuoka Hiroshi, Hirose Yoshikazu, and Takenaka Yorohiko, Reisenshi: Sono Ki-
gen, Tenkai, Shūen to Nihon (Tokyo: Dobunkan, 2003), 84–85.
25. “Treaty of Peace with Japan” in UCLA East Asia Studies Documents, http://www.
international.ucla.edu/eas/documents/peace1951.htm, accessed April 7, 2010. This arrange-
ment is what John Dower and many others have called the most inequitable bilateral agreement
the United States had entered into after the war. John W. Dower, “Peace and Democracy in
Two Systems: External Policy and Internal Conflict,” in Postwar Japan as History, ed. Andrew
Gordon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 8.
26. Gavan McCormack, Cold War Hot War: An Australian Perspective on the Korean War
(Sydney, Australia: Hale & Iremonger, 1983).
27. Initially the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of State aimed to retain “facil-
ities” and develop the U.S. position in Okinawa. See U.S. Department of State, Foreign Rela-
tions of the United States, 1949, Vol. VII, the Far East and Australasia (in Two Parts), Part 2
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976), 655. In 1950, this came to mean
control of the whole territory. See also Dean Acheson, “Crisis in Asia: An Examination of the
U.S. Policy,” Department of State Bulletin 22, no. 551 (1950): 111–18.
28. Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, Keystone: The American Occupation of Okinawa and U.S-
Japanese Relations (College Station: Texas A&M University, 2000).
126 Pedro Iacobelli
29. The Twentieth Airforce, headquartered in Guam, was responsible for the Mariana Is-
lands, Bonn Islands, Formosa, and the Ryukyu Islands. For a detailed account of the military
deployment in Okinawa and elsewhere during the Korean war, see Gordon L. Rottman, Korean
War Order of Battle: United States, United Nations, and Communist Ground, Naval, and Air
Forces, 1950–1953 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002), 82–84.
30. Sarantakes, Keystone, 67.
31. Rottman, Korean War Order of Battle, 93.
32. “Permanent Installation on Okinawa, W. R. Hodgson,” National Archives of Australia
(NAA): A1838, 527/2 Part 1.
33. See USCAR Labor Dept., “Programing Statistics Files 1952.” Smaller Okinawan
contractors were also contracted.
34. Notable are the cases of mixed marriages and mixed births outside marriage. See Johan-
na O. Zulueta, “A Place of Intersecting Movements: A Look at ‘Return’ Migration and ‘Home’
in the Context of the ‘Occupation’ of Okinawa” (PhD diss., Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo,
2004). For mainland Japanese workers in Okinawa see OPA Call No. u81101463B/995301,
folder 1. Author: CINCFE Tokyo, “DS OKED Okinawa, MG Ryukyu Okinawa,” July 18,
1950. This document describes the labor imported for the Okinawa Construction Program. For
a case of discriminations against Filipino workers (expelled from Okinawa even though they
had a valid visa), see OPA Call No. 985148, folder 2.
35. See Chosho Goeku, “Petition Concerning Removal of Racial Discrimination in Treat-
ment of Ryukyuans Employed by U.S. Military Agencies,” May 28, 1952, at OPA Call No.
015001, folder 2.
36. Richard A. Davies, Acting Director, Govt. & Legal Dept., “Investigation,” October 6,
1952, in OPA, under the Call no. of NARA, Record Group 260, Box 1, folder 1.
37. Toriyama Atsushi, “Tozasareru Fukkō to ‘Beiryū Shinzen’: Okinawa Shakai ni totte no
1950-nen,” in Okinawa no Senryō to Nihon no Fukkō: Shokuminchishugu wa ika ni Keizoku
shita ka, ed. Nakano Toshio, Namihira Tsuneo, Yakabi Osamu, and Lee Hyoduk (Tokyo:
Seiyūsha, 2006), 197–217, citation from 208.
38. Kabira Nario, “‘Sengo’ naki Okinawa,” Ryūkyū Daigaku Kenkyū 80 (2010): 55–80,
citation from 63.
39. Toriyama, “Tozasareru Fukkō to ‘Beiryū Shinzen.’”
40. Quoted in Toriyama, “Tozasareru Fukkō to ‘Beiryū Shinzen,’” 208.
41. Glenn Hook and Richard Siddle, introduction to Japan and Okinawa: Structure and
Subjectivity, ed. Glenn D. Hook and Richard Siddle (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 4;
Miyume Tanji, Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa (London: Routledge, 2006), 41.
42. OPA Call No. 0000105499, folder 1. Unknown, Text Letter Received March 22, 1952.
43. Sarantakes, Keystone.
44. OPA, Call No. 0000105499, folder 1. Excerpt from article in the Stars and Stripes,
March 28, 1952.
45. F. O. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender: The Roots of a World War III (London: Faber
& Faber, 1952), 337.
46. Walter Lippmann, “End of the Postwar World,” Prevent World War III 50 (Summer
1957): 8.
47. C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War Three (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958),
1.
48. Harry Truman, “Proclamation 2914—Proclaiming the Existence of a National Emergen-
cy,” December 16, 1950, in The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.
edu/ws/?pid=13684, accessed November 25, 2014.
49. Truman, “Proclamation 2914.”
50. E. van der Vlugt, “The Third Korean War: Our Last Round before World War III,” CIA
Freedom of Information, May 20, 1954, CIA-RDP80R01731R000700040003-2.
51. 281st UN General Assembly, September 23, 1950, Meeting Record Symbol A/PV.281,
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/NL5/012/53/PDF/NL501253.pdf?
OpenElement, accessed November 25, 2014.
52. “Vatican Might Move If War Breaks Out,” Stars and Stripes, November 16, 1950, 1,
Pacific edition. Pope Pius XII, however, refused to “abandon the throne of St. Peter.”
53. Masuda, Cold War Crucible, 60–64.

54. Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (New York: Boni and Live-
right, 1920), 341. While there are different psychological schools (Freudian, Jungian, or Klei-
nian among others), this basic notion of fear is common to most of them.
55. Freud, General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, 335–37.
56. Joanna Bourke, “Fear and Anxiety: Writing about Emotions in Modern History,” Histo-
ry Workshop Journal 55 (Spring 2003): 117.
57. Rosenwein, “Problems and Methods,” 19–20.
58. See Masuda Hajimu, “Fear of World War III: Social Politics of Japan’s Rearmament and
Peace Movements, 1950–53,” Journal of Contemporary History 47, no. 3 (2012): 551–71;
Masuda, Cold War Crucible.
59. The U.S.-led occupation of Japan had a dual structure. On one hand the General Head-
quarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP), created on October 2,
1945, in Tokyo, was responsible for the civil administration of occupied mainland Japan; on the
other hand, the General Headquarters, United States Army Forces in the Pacific (GHQ/AF-
PAC), transferred from Manila to Yokohama on August 20, 1945, was responsible for U.S.
forces in the region, including the Ryukyu Islands. In 1948 the AFPAC became the Far East
Command (FECOM) and included a major army command for the Ryukyus (RYCOM). In the
early Cold War, Okinawa was framed within this military structure with the sole purpose of
supporting the U.S. policy of containment. See Takemae, Inside G.H.Q., xxviii–xxix.
60. During the Battle of Okinawa more than one-third of the population perished.
61. For this chapter, the Uruma Shinpō from October 1950 to February 1951 was consulted.
62. See Davinder Bhowmik, Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance
(Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2008). 90. It’s worth noting that Senaga Kamejiro, who had briefly
held the position of editor of the Uruma Shinpō, was pressured into resigning from this post by
the U.S. authorities in August 1949 (I thank Prof. Tessa Morris-Suzuki for this information).
63. Masuda, “Fear of World War III.”
64. In “Predicting Bombing of Okinawa,” OPA Call No. 0000105499, folder 2.
65. The source of the information, classified B-2 (Usually Reliable, Probably True), was a
member of the Amami Oshima Civil Administration team. In “Predicting Bombing of Okina-
wa,” OPA Call No. 0000105499, folder 2.
66. “World War Three: With the Collaboration of Friendly Nations We Will Prevent It,”
Uruma Shinpō, September 9, 1950, 1.
67. “Danger of a Third Great War,” Uruma Shinpō, November 8, 1950, 3.
68. Editorial, Uruma Shinpō, November 11, 1950, 2.
69. “Phase towards the Third Great War,” Uruma Shinpō, November 29, 1950, 1.
70. Editorial, Uruma Shinpō, December 2, 1950, 2. This despite some efforts done by the
U.S. administration. Read editorial, Uruma Shinpō, November 30, 1950, 2.
71. “Public Reaction to International Situation,” January 24, 1951, OPA Call No.
0000105499, folder 2.
0000105499, folder 2, p. 1.
0000105499, folder 2, p. 3.
0000105499, folder 2.
75. Allen W. Dulles, “Bomb Shelters on Okinawa,” CIA Freedom of Information, January
25, 1951, Doc. No. ESDN 0000460178.
0000105499, folder 2, p. 3.
0000105499, folder 2, pp. 2–3.
78. “Public Reaction to International Situation,” 24 January 24, 1951, OPA Call No.
0000105499, folder 2, p. 3.
79. Quoted in Kabira, “‘Sengo’ naki Okinawa,” 59.
128 Pedro Iacobelli
80. Ginowan Shi Gikai, ed., Ginowan Shi Gikaishi (Ginowan City: Ginowan Shi Gikaii,
2006), 418, http://www.city.ginowan.okinawa.jp/cms/organization/shigikaijimukyoku/zenntai.
pdf.
Chapter Six
A War across Borders

The Strange Journey of Prisoner No. 600,001
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
He stands against the background of the bleak expanse of Busan prisoner-of-

war camp—a sea of frozen mud with a cluster of huts and a barbed wire
fence on its perimeter, an armed guard eying him warily from a distance. It is
a late afternoon on a November day in 1951. The shadows stretch long across
the earth, and the cold is palpable. He wears an army greatcoat that seems
several sizes too large for his diminutive frame. One hand is thrust deep into
a pocket; the other holds a cigarette. His face is thin and wind darkened; his
head barely reaches the shoulder of the tall European who stands beside him,
looking down at him with a benign but slightly awkward expression on his
face. The two have no language in common.
The European, Frédérique Bieri, is a Swiss representative of the Interna-
tional Committee of the Red Cross from Geneva. The small man in the
greatcoat is Prisoner No. 600,001. The “6” stands for Japan; the “00,001”
indicates that he is the first (and as it will transpire) the only Japanese soldier
to be captured and held prisoner by the United Nations forces during the
Korean War. What is he doing here? Why was a Japanese soldier fighting
with Chinese and North Korean forces on the Communist side in the war?
How did he become a prisoner of the United Nations Command, and what
happened to him afterward?
129
When I first encountered him, Prisoner No. 600,001 was just a statistic,
an intriguing and bewildering cipher in the grim arithmetic of the Korean
War: number of prisoners of war (by nationality) held in United Nations
POW Camp no. 1 Geoje and POW Enclosure no. 10 Busan, January 1952—
Koreans 114,440
Chinese 20,754
Japanese 1. 1
But over the course of several years of research, the image of the person
behind the cipher began to emerge, little by little, from sentences in archives,
brief newspaper articles, curt answers to a parliamentary questions. Much of
his story remains obscure, but the parts that can be pieced together open
windows onto unexpected landscapes of war.
For Prisoner No. 600,001—Matsushita Kazutoshi, to give him his full
name—Busan prisoner-of-war camp must have seemed a very long way from
his home in rural Japan, and from the family of ten children of which he was
the eldest son. 2 His long and painful journey into the Cold War is just one of
a mass of tangled threads that link Japan’s imperial expansion in Asia to the
Korean War. Though his personal story is exceptional, indeed astonishing, it
offers a perspective on important facets of history that often pass unre-
marked. His strange itinerary takes us, as it were, through the backroads of
war, enabling us to see interactions and connections that are normally hidden
from sight.
HIDDEN WARSCAPES
Most vividly, Matsushita Kazutoshi’s journey from battlefield to battlefield

exposes a history of violence that flows seamlessly from the Asia-Pacific
War to the Korean War. Too often, August 15, 1945, is inscribed in history
books as a moment of total rupture between “war” and “postwar.” The image
of grim-faced Japanese listening to the emperor’s quavering surrender broad-
cast at the stroke of noon that day evokes a sense of finality, of inseparable
division between past and present. But for Matsushita and tens of thousands
of others—Japanese, Chinese, Korean—news of Japan’s surrender arrived
belatedly and indirectly, and marked only a momentary hiatus in their contin-
uing experience of war. Conflicts fed by Japanese imperial expansion and by
the violence of the Asia-Pacific War continued to rage across China; the
forces of the Soviet Union, which had declared war on Japan on August 8,
were sweeping into Manchuria and southern Sakhalin; the old struggles of
Korean independence fighters against their colonial rulers were merging into
the new guerrilla conflicts that, by 1948, would plunge parts of southern
Korea into internecine violence.
A War across Borders 131
Figure 6.1. Matsushita Kazutoshi with Frédérique Bieri in Busan Prisoner-of-

War Camp. Source: Courtesy of International Committee of the Red Cross, Gene-
va.
If August 15, 1945, is too often seen as a universal end point, June 25,
1950, is too often depicted as an explosive and definitive beginning: the
moment when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South
Korea, and the Korean War—the first great “hot war” within the Cold War—
began. But the roots of the violence were multiple, and extended much more
deeply into Northeast Asian history. Bruce Cumings suggests that the start-
ing point of the Korean War might be traced back to the period from 1931 to
1932, when Japan invaded northeast China and established the client state of
Manchukuo, and Sheila Miyoshi Jager traces the complex regional history
that culminated in the war. 3 When Korea became a Japanese colony in 1910,
there were already around two hundred thousand Korean migrants living in
Manchuria, and by the middle of the twentieth century, their number had
grown to almost two million. Most had crossed the loosely controlled border
escaping poverty at home, but for some the wilder regions of Manchuria—
the cradle of conflict, as Owen Lattimore called it 4 —provided a stage on
which they could continue the armed struggle against the Japanese coloniza-
tion of their homeland.
As Cumings writes, the Japanese in early 1930s Manchukuo “quickly
faced a huge if motley army of guerrilla, secret society and bandit resistance
in which Koreans were by far the majority, constituting upward of 90 percent
of entities such as the Chinese Communist Party” in the region. Among the
guerrilla leaders were Kim Il Sung and his coterie of comrades in arms, who
were to form the core of the postindependence leadership of North Korea. 5
Meanwhile, other Korean migrants to Manchuria were training with Japan’s
Kwantung Army and participating in militia groups created to root out the
Communist subversives. The course of the Korean War, and its bitterness
and intensity, cannot be understood unless we see how deeply and inextri-
cably the war was embedded in these cross-border ideological conflicts of the
colonial era, and unless we appreciate how closely the Chinese Civil War and
Korean War were related (a point also vividly illustrated by the personal
accounts presented in chapter 4).
Matsushita’s story also challenges our spatial sense of the emerging Cold
War order. The common image of the Cold War is of a world divided into
“blocs”: great chunks of territory color-coded by ideology. China and North
Korea lie firmly in the “Communist bloc,” Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan
in the “non-Communist bloc.” The Korean War is seen as a collision between
these two blocs, igniting sparks that turn cold war into raging inferno. But
this static, crystalline vision makes much of the past invisible. Above all, it
conceals the other dimension of the Cold War/hot war—the war that was
everywhere, the fluid and ubiquitous ideological war that took place in the
Korean mountains and on the Japanese waterfronts, in Chinese villages and
in the backstreets of Taipei. The war crossed spatial borders, and mobile
human beings in turn traversed its dividing lines, sometimes out of intellectu-
al conviction, at other times driven by the simple demands of survival. This

was a war that could be fought out within a family, within a single room, or
within the mind of one individual, and the more personal it became, the more
agonizing its consequences.
The East Asian odyssey of Matsushita Kazutoshi also casts light on two
other neglected aspects of Korean War history. It reminds us again of the fact
that Japanese, who were not officially combatants in the war, were in fact
drawn into its violence in a multitude of roles (see also chapter 1). Lastly,
Matsushita’s experiences cast further light on the history of the bizarre war
that was fought out within the United Nations POW camps in South Korea
between 1950 and 1953: a shadow war that proved to be the greatest stum-
bling block in the negotiations that led to the signing of the 1953 Panmunjom
armistice (see also chapter 4).
A JOURNEY INTO WAR
Kami-Naya, the place where Matsushita Kazutoshi had been born and spent
his childhood, was a quiet fishing hamlet in Miyazaki Prefecture on the east
coast of Japan’s southern island of Kyushu: the sort of place where people go
in search of the eternal face of Japanese culture. Its gray wooden houses,
weathered by the salt wind, looked out across a bay sheltered from storms by
the forested island of Otoshima, with its hidden caves and rocky inlets. The
air smelled of the fish hung in rows from the eves of roofs and the seaweed
spread to dry by the harbor. The most exciting event of the year was the time
each autumn when the young men of the village, clad in white robes,
marched and danced in procession from the local Shinto shrine to the sea,
chanting, beating drums, and carrying the ornate mikoshi—portable shrines—
that would bring blessings on the fishing fleet. Months of preparation for this
festival culminated in much feasting and drinking of sake.
Matsushita’s home village was remote and beautiful; but life there was
not idyllic. The east coast of Kyushu was and still is one of Japan’s poorest
regions, and the blessings and curses of modern life were late to arrive there.
Neither festivals nor prayers to the gods could ensure safety at sea or bounti-
ful harvests of fish. Matsushita’s mother, who was still in her teens in 1923,
the year he was born, suffered from eye problems that left her almost blind. 6
By the time Matsushita was at school in the 1930s, the Depression had
struck, and times were harder than ever. And then came war, and one by one
the village’s young men were cheered on their way by flag-waving groups of
friends and family as they set off to fight in China and elsewhere, until at last
only the women, the children, and the old men remained.
On the January day in 1952 when his photo was taken in Busan prisoner-
of-war camp, Matsushita Kazutoshi had been out of touch with his family for
more than seven years. He did not know that a very different photo, showing
him wearing the uniform of the Japanese Imperial Army and bordered in
mourning black, stood on the family’s butsudan (Buddhist altar), where his
parents prayed for their dead sons. Next to it stood the photo of his younger
brother Kazuyoshi, killed fighting with the Japanese Imperial Army in
Southeast Asia. 7
FROM WAR TO WAR
Matsushita Kazutoshi came to the Korean War by a circuitous route via the
plains of Manchuria, an itinerary that tells us much about the international
origins of the war. After leaving school in his midteens, Matsushita moved
away from his home village—though not, initially, for the battlefront, but
rather to earn his living as a factory laborer in a steel plant in Osaka. Then in
January 1944, at the age of twenty, he was conscripted into the Kwantung
Army’s railway brigade based in the eastern Manchurian town of Mudanji-
ang, and then sent to join “Operation No. 1” (Ichigō Sakusen), Japan’s final
and most massive military offensive in China. 8
The object of this offensive was to drive a wedge through Chinese territo-
ry to the borders of Indochina, and to open up a rail link from Southeast Asia
to Beijing and Dalian. For eight months from April 1944, Japanese troops
forced their way southward through the Chinese provinces of Hubei and
Hunan, capturing the cities of Changsha, Hengyang, and Guilin as they ad-
vanced. The conflict was devastating. In the historic city of Guilin, which fell
in October 1944, Nationalist Chinese resistance crumbled before the Japa-
nese advance, and the inhabitants were ordered to abandon the city, which
was then looted by Nationalist soldiers and burned to the ground to prevent it
from falling into Japanese hands. 9 Matsushita’s introduction to military life
was a posting to the village of Lingui, a little to the southwest of Guilin,
where he labored with a railway construction unit. 10 He must have witnessed
the endless columns of desperate refugees who flooded along the railway
tracks in trains crammed to the roofs with passengers, or sometimes on foot,
only to be bombed from the air and attacked from the ground by Japanese
forces, or crushed underfoot as the panicked throngs attempted to flee their
attackers. 11
Operation No. 1 was a humiliation for Chiang Kai-shek’s crumbling Na-
tionalist Chinese forces, and on paper at least, a victory for Japan. But by the
end of the campaign Japanese troops were exhausted and overstretched. They
had captured or destroyed a series of major cities, but their grip on the
countryside was much more tenuous, and the chaos in the areas they had
invaded was providing fertile ground for the growing influence of Chinese
Communist forces. In December 1944, the railway construction corps in
which Matsushita worked was ordered to return northward toward Wuchang,

a march of some eight hundred kilometers in chilly winter weather through a
ruined landscape. On December 20, about halfway into the march, the corps
set off at night to cross a bridge near the city of Hengyang. When the morn-
ing light dawned, Matsushita Kazutoshi had vanished from their ranks. 12 No
trace of him, alive or dead, could be found. His Japanese military comrades
never saw him again, and his family was informed that he had been killed in
combat. Like many other Japanese families of that time, they clung to the
hope that his face might yet appear among the columns of demobilized
soldiers who returned to a defeated and occupied Japan, but almost two years
after Japan’s surrender, his parents accepted the fact that he was not coming
home, and on June 23, 1947, Matsushita Kazutoshi was officially declared
dead. 13
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LINE
But he was not dead. He had deserted, though it remains uncertain whether
this dangerous act was a response to the horrors he had seen on the battlefield
or simply a desperate effort to survive. In the chaos of the Asia-Pacific War’s
final months, Matsushita managed to find a hideout in an abandoned village,
where he was still living when the war ended. 14 Soon after, the victorious
Chinese Nationalist Army arrived, captured him, and promptly enrolled him
into a transport unit of their own Seventy-Fourth Division under the Chinese
name Han Yisheng. 15 By then, the Soviet Union had occupied Manchuria,
and the fragile alliance of Chinese Nationalists and Communists, held togeth-
er until then by the common struggle against the Japanese enemy, had col-
lapsed. In October 1945, China was again in a state of war—a renewed civil
war in which the military balance had been profoundly altered by the devas-
tation wrought by Japan’s invasion and by the Soviet military presence in
Manchuria (which remained until the spring of 1946). For Matsushita, as for
millions of Chinese, Japan’s surrender had not brought peace, but only a
change in the name and nature of the war.
Matsushita Kazutoshi was just one of thousands of Japanese soldiers who
participated in the renewed conflict. His Nationalist Chinese unit, indeed,
included another Japanese man named Katō Hitoyuki, who had fought with
the Japanese army in Nanjing, but had either deserted or been captured by
Nationalist Chinese forces, who enrolled him into their ranks and gave him
the Chinese name Huang. 16 From the point of view of the Chinese army,
such captured Japanese were a source both of potentially valuable intelli-
gence and of much-needed manpower.
After Japan surrendered in August 1945, as civil war ignited again, both
Nationalist and Communist sides made enthusiastic use of the Japanese re-
maining in China. Chiang Kai-shek treated defeated Japanese soldiers with

considerable leniency, in the hope of being able to use the services of at least
some of them in the ongoing struggle against his Communist enemies. 17 The
most memorable participation of Japanese forces in the Chinese Civil War
occurred in Shanxi Province, where Chiang Kai-shek’s ally, the warlord Yan
Xishan persuaded some 2,600 Japanese soldiers and civilians stranded in
western China to join the fight against Communism. Of these, around 550
were killed in the Chinese Civil War, and more than 400 became prisoners of
war of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. 18 Meanwhile, Chinese Com-
munist forces themselves were also mobilizing the services of many Japanese
who had remained in the country after August 1945. In Manchuria, around
ten thousand Japanese soldiers and civilians—including doctors and nurses,
pilots and engineers—worked with the People’s Liberation Army in the years
immediately following Japan’s defeat. 19
Some Japanese joined the Chinese side out of ideological conviction.
During the Asia-Pacific War, the left-wing Japanese novelist Kaji Wataru
(whose story we will encounter again in chapter 8) had fled to Chongqing,
where he organized a Japanese People’s Anti-War League (Nihon Jinmin
Hansen Dōmei). Meanwhile, political activist Nosaka Sanzō had made his
way to Yan’an and set up a Japanese People’s Liberation League (Nihon
Jinmin Kaihō Renmei). Both groups recruited Japanese soldiers who had
defected to the Chinese side, and trained them to conduct antiwar propaganda
missions. But for the great majority of Japanese, including Matsushita Kazu-
toshi, joining the Chinese forces was not a matter of ideological commitment
but rather a question of survival or force majeure. By the middle of 1946, the
reorganized Chinese Nationalist Seventy-Fourth Division, in which Matsu-
shita now served, was engaged in repeated armed clashes with Communist
forces, and in August they scored a significant victory when they drove the
Communists out of their main base in central Jiangsu Province, northwest of
Shanghai. But the advantage was short lived. In mid-May, the Communist
East China Field Army lured the Seventy-Fourth Division into the rugged
terrain of the Menglianggu Mountains, where they surrounded and complete-
ly destroyed the pride of the Nationalist military machine. The Seventy-
Fourth Division suffered fifteen thousand casualties, and the survivors were
captured and incorporated into the ranks of the Communist forces’ East
China Field Army. 20
Matsushita Kazutoshi and Katō Hitoyuki survived the carnage, but now
found themselves on the Communist side of the civil war. Their capture was
publicized by the Communist authorities as living proof of the Nationalists’
collaboration with and recruitment of the Japanese enemy. 21 The published
report on the captured Japanese also mentions that Matsushita had asked the
Nationalist forces to send him home, but that his plea had fallen on deaf ears.
There was a certain irony here. While Mao’s forces used the presence of
Japanese like Matsushita and Katō to discredit their civil war enemy’s Na-
tionalist credentials, they, too, needed all the manpower they could get in
their struggle for control of China. They were, therefore, equally unwilling to
send the Japanese home. Matsushita would later recall, though, that his Com-
munist captors, having realized that he was Japanese, treated him with “hos-
pitality.” Rather than sending him back to the battlefront of the ongoing civil
war, they initially put him to work cultivating sweet potatoes and pumpkins
for army rations. 22 So it was that, in the summer of 1947, as his family in
Kami-Naya completed the process of officially declaring the son dead, Mat-
sushita Kazutoshi was embarking on the new round of training and political
education that would transform him into a member of the nascent Chinese
People’s Liberation Army.
Meanwhile, Communist forces were consolidating their victory over the
Nationalists, and on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong declared the establish-
ment of the People’s Republic of China. But, as Matsushita was soon to
discover, his war was not yet over.
FROM CIVIL WAR TO KOREAN WAR
Other Japanese still in China were making the same discovery, among them
Ōhaba Hiroyuki, a young man from Nagano Prefecture who had been sent to
Manchuria as a “youth volunteer” in 1944 at the age of fourteen. When
Soviet forces arrived after the Japanese surrender, Ōhaba was taken prisoner
but, along with other children and teenage prisoners of war, was released in
the town of Qiqihar, while the Japanese adult prisoners were taken to camps
in Siberia. Liberation was no cause for rejoicing. During the winter of
1945–1946 the young Japanese were abandoned in Qiqihar without food or
shelter. Many died of starvation, their bodies (as Ōhaba recalled) left lying
naked and unburied in the streets: unburied because the icy ground was too
hard for graves to be dug, naked because the living stole the clothes of the
dead in a desperate effort to keep themselves warm. 23
When Chinese Communist forces arrived in Qiqihar in April 1946, Ōhaba
cooperated with them “as a matter of survival.” In exchange for food, he was
given a range of tasks, from dyeing military uniforms to milking cows to
provide nourishment for sick soldiers. He later volunteered for service with
136th Division of the Chinese Fourth Field Army, and was first sent south to
transport supplies to the civil war front line and then redeployed to Andong
(Dandong) from where, in spring 1951, he crossed the Yalu River into Korea
with the Chinese People’s Volunteers to fight on the North Korean side in the
Korean War.
As we saw in chapter 4, the Korean War broke out at a time when,
although Mao had declared victory in the civil war, the embers of conflict
still smoldered in China’s borderlands. Chiang Kai-shek’s forces not only

remained in control of Taiwan, but were also still engaged in conflict with
Communist forces around the island of Quemoy in the east and on the Bur-
mese frontier in the west. From the perspective of the new Chinese Commu-
nist regime, the Korean War was part of this ongoing struggle: a North
Korean victory would consolidate their own position, while (in Mao Ze-
dong’s words) “if the American imperialists are victorious, they will become
dizzy with success, and then be in a position to threaten us.” 24 This belief
explains China’s willingness to send more than a million troops (euphemisti-
cally termed “volunteers”) to support the North Korean side in the war,
despite the fact that recovery from its own civil war had barely begun.
The Chinese Civil War flowed into the Korean War in another way, too.
A large proportion of the Chinese People’s Volunteers sent to support North
Korea from October 1950 onward were former members of the Chinese
Nationalist Army, who had only recently surrendered or been won over to the
Communist side. Their loyalties were uncertain, and their presence helps to
explain the ferocious conflicts—in effect a continuation of the Chinese Civil
War in miniature—which erupted within the prisoner-of-war camps in South
Korea among captured members of the Chinese People’s Volunteers.
The Volunteers also included, in much smaller numbers, Japanese who
had either served in the Imperial Army in China or been sent to Manchuria as
settlers. Details are hazy, but Japanese historian Furukawa Mantarō suggests
that anywhere between several dozen and three hundred Japanese stranded in
China after the end of the Asia-Pacific War served with the Chinese People’s
Volunteers on the Korean front. 25 Oral accounts recall that some of them
were killed in action, and South Korean forces also reported finding, along-
side dead CPV soldiers, the body of a man in CPV uniform whose name tag
identified him as Okamoto Takeo, “presumably a former member of the
Japanese Kwantung Army.” 26 As we saw in chapter 2, other Japanese
worked behind the lines in northeastern China as doctors and nurses caring
for the war wounded. A cemetery near the city of Dalian contains the graves
of 351 people, including fourteen Japanese medical workers and others who,
as a monument by the gateway records, “gave their lives for the cause of
victory in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea.” 27
Initially, it seems, there were plans for a much larger Japanese presence in
the Chinese People’s Volunteers. In the weeks before China entered the
Korean War, Andong, on the Yalu River, which separates China from North
Korea, was “a sea of soldiers.” 28 Troops from all over the country were
gathering there in response to fears of a U.S. invasion of China, and in
preparation for the Chinese mission to reinforce the crumbling North Korean
military. Among them were a substantial number of Japanese recruits, in-
cluding Japanese propaganda officers, who were being vigorously trained in
the skills of cooperation with the North Korean comrades. 29 But at the last
moment, the Chinese high command had second thoughts.
By September 1950, the issue of a Japanese military presence in the
Korean War was emerging as a topic of fierce international propaganda
battles. There had been efforts by some U.S. congressmen to secure the
passage of laws allowing the U.S. military to recruit Japanese volunteers for
service on the Southern side of the Korean War, and some prominent Japa-
nese public figures had also supported this move (see chapter 1). 30 The
congressional measures did not succeed, and the U.S. command publicly
insisted that there were no plans to use Japanese soldiers in the war, but the
debate about a Japanese military role helped to fuel reports in the Soviet
Union and its allies that Japanese soldiers were indeed secretly being recruit-
ed by the United States and sent into battle in Korea.
In November 1950 the Russian newspaper Trud published an indignant
article claiming that “Japan, at present under the heel of the murderer of
Korean women and children, MacArthur, and his lackey Yoshida has, in
effect, been involved in the war. The occupiers, grossly violating the Pots-
dam Declaration and other international agreements, are sending Japanese
servicemen to Korea.” 31 The same claims were also made by Soviet repre-
sentatives in debates in the Far Eastern Commission and other international
forums. 32 Though exaggerated, these claims were not entirely unfounded,
since (as we have seen in chapter 1) military or quasi-military support for the
war from Japan was more substantial than was admitted, either by the United
States or Japan itself, at the time.
Through public statements, propaganda posters, and even in popular
songs, Mao’s government presented the Chinese involvement in the Korean
War as a battle, not just against American imperialism, but also against a
resurgent Japan. 33 In this environment, Chinese authorities became alarmed
that the presence of Japanese soldiers in the People’s Volunteer Force in
Korea might undermine their ability to take the moral high ground, and could
offer a propaganda opportunity to the United States and its allies. Most of the
Japanese soldiers who had been deployed to Dandong and nearby were sud-
denly informed that their service in the Korean War would not now be
needed. But, in some cases at least, the decision not to send Japanese recruits
to Korea seems not to have been communicated to troops on the ground. 34 A
number slipped through the cracks and found themselves serving on or just
behind the Korean front line, among them Matsushita Kazutoshi.
In November 1950, Matsushita was assigned to a logistical role with the
Fifty-Eighth Division of the Chinese Twentieth Army, and in December he
crossed the frozen Yalu River into North Korea. 35 From November to De-
cember 1950, the Fifty-Eighth Division was engaged in the ferocious Battle
of Changjin [Chosin] Reservoir, an attempt to block the advance of U.S./UN
forces up the eastern side of Korea toward the Korea-China border. The
battle succeeded in stopping the UN advance, but the Chinese forces failed to
prevent a breakout by the American troops, who retreated to the port of
Hungnam, from where they were evacuated en masse. 36 The cost in human
lives was enormous: some thirty-five thousand Chinese soldiers are believed
to have been killed or injured in the Battle of Changjin Reservoir. Many of
the casualties were not killed by enemy fire, but died of frostbite or froze to
death as they slept in the extreme cold of the rugged mountainous area
surrounding the reservoir.
Matsushita’s unit pushed on south as far as the port of Wonsan, but the
unit was poorly trained and desperately short of supplies and equipment,
their main weapon being aging Type 38 rifles left behind in China by the
departing Japanese. Even these were insufficient to go around, and one rifle
was sometimes shared by three or four soldiers. 37 It was at this point that
Matsushita deserted again, and set off walking alone but determinedly south-
ward toward the 38th parallel and enemy lines. Remarkably, he survived the
journey, and on May 24, 1951, in a state of collapse, surrendered to UN
forces not far from Seoul. After processing at a collecting center near the
front, he was transported to Busan prisoner-of-war camp in the far south of
the peninsula, where he first appears in the official records on July 18, 1951,
in a brief and bureaucratic memo transmitting to the provost marshall, Gener-
al Headquarters, UN Command, the basic personnel record of the recently
captured Matsushita, prisoner no. 600,001. 38 His given name is mistakenly
written “Kazuyoshi,” which, ironically, was the name of his younger brother
who had been killed fighting with the Japanese Imperial Army in the Pacific
War.
BUSAN AND GEOJE ISLAND
The United Nations forces in Korea were ill prepared to handle large num-
bers of prisoners of war, and their first POW camps, at Incheon and Busan,
were soon full to overflowing. By the end of 1950, Busan camp was the size
of a small city, containing more than 135,000 prisoners of war, including
more than 6,000 sick and wounded, and sections of the camp were severely
overcrowded. 39 To solve the problem, over the following few months the
vast majority of prisoners were transferred in shiploads to the large offshore
island of Geoje, 40 where a great tent city was constructed on requisitioned
paddy fields sloping down the hillsides toward the sea (see also chapter 4).
By the time Matsushita Kazutoshi arrived in Busan POW camp, it had
been greatly reduced in size, though it still held more than sixteen thousand
prisoners. 41 The hospital remained, but the rest of the camp housed women
(as well as a few small children incarcerated with their mothers) and served
as a reception and short-term detention center for male prisoners on their way
to Geoje. Spread over a wide expanse of farmland at the foot of the moun-
tains on the northern side of the city of Busan, the camp consisted of a
jumble of tin-roofed wooden huts and canvas tents, each tent often housing
fifty or more prisoners, most of whom slept on straw mats on the ground.
There were cots in the women’s section of the camp, but these sometimes
had to be shared. The kitchens, hospital, and interrogation tents had electric-
ity, but power did not extend to the prisoners’ quarters, and some prisoners
complained of being ordered into their tents at sunset, and forced to spend the
long hours crammed together in the darkness. 42 Not surprisingly, squabbles
among inmates were common. 43 A cluster of cottages just outside the perim-
eter wire were occupied by local people who specialized in selling black
market goods to the POWs, despite intermittent efforts by the authorities to
remove them.
For most prisoners, Busan POW camp was just a stopping point on their
journey to Geoje Island. But Matsushita was not transferred to the island;
instead, he remained in Busan camp from his capture in May 1951 until June
1953. For the UN Command, he was a troubling anomaly. He fitted none of
their categories, but, at a time when the entire POW system was descending
into chaos, he was too small an anomaly to attract serious attention. Some
aspects of life in the camp must have been surprisingly familiar to the one
and only Japanese prisoner. Many of the everyday items used there, such as
mess kits and toothbrushes, were supplied from Japan. 44 More curiously still,
many of the interrogations of prisoners of war were conducted via the me-
dium of the Japanese language.
When the Korean War broke out, the U.S. military found itself facing an
“almost complete lack of Korean military linguists,” as well as a severe
shortage of officers capable of speaking Chinese. 45 MacArthur asked the
Pentagon to provide thirty Korean-speaking U.S. Army officers, but only
seventeen could be found. Some English-speaking Koreans living in Japan
were recruited for the task by the U.S. Eighth Army, but their numbers were
limited by American concerns about security. 46 To fill the gap, the UN Com-
mand turned to ethnic Chinese living in Korea and to Taiwanese interpreters
(see chapter 4), as well as to Japanese American soldiers. Since Japanese had
been imposed on Korea during the colonial era, most educated Koreans could
speak the language of the former colonizers. Korean POWs were therefore
often questioned through a trilingual process, with English questions being
translated into Japanese by Japanese American interrogators, and (where
necessary) then translated from Japanese to Korean by a Korean interpreter.
This, of course, more than doubled the length of interrogations, and often
meant that important pieces of information were lost in translation. 47
For Matsushita, the process of communicating with his interrogator
would have been relatively smooth, but this did not necessarily make the
interrogation itself less unpleasant. U.S. military documents suggest some of
the miseries of Korean War interrogation sessions. Until the middle of 1952,
all detailed interrogations were carried out in Busan camp, in tents that,
during the frequent power failures, had to be opened continually to admit

sufficient light. Poor light, swarms of insects in warm weather, and shivering
interrogators and POWs were not conducive to a maximum effort in collecting
intelligence information. . . . As strategic interrogations usually lasted several
weeks, and frequently several months, the POWs soon lost interest under the
prevailing conditions. 48
Prisoners sometimes complained of maltreatment during interrogation:

when a Red Cross delegate raised these complaints with the U.S. commander
of Geoje camp early in 1953, the delegate was less than reassured to be told
that the prisoners “were never beaten” during interrogation, but they were
sometimes questioned “until they screamed.” 49
The longer the camps existed, the more simmering tensions came to the
surface. About six weeks after Matsushita arrived at Busan camp, Korean
prisoners celebrated the sixth anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the Pacific
War and of Korea’s liberation. Around nine o’clock that night, the “singing
of political songs commenced and was taken up by one compound after the
other.” 50 The POWs had been ordered to be in their tents by 10:00 p.m., but
some stayed outside in the dark, and began charging at and pushing against
the fences surrounding the camp. Around half past ten the South Korean
guards, reportedly fearing a breakout, started firing into the throng of prison-
ers. They also fired shots into one of the women’s tents where singing was
loudest. Six prisoners, including one woman, were killed outright, and twen-
ty-four were injured, of whom three later died of their wounds. 51
This was one of the earliest instances of upsurges of violence that would
be repeated on a growing scale between mid-1951 and the end of the war.
The 1949 Geneva Convention, adopted less than a year before the outbreak
of the Korean War, required POWs to be grouped according to nationality, so
that officer POWs could continue to maintain some control over common
soldiers from their army. Prisoners had the right to elect their own represen-
tatives. Article 118 of the Third Convention also stated that “prisoners of war
shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active
hostilities.” 52 These seemed like wise and humane provisions, but their au-
thors had not envisaged a conflict like the one in Korea: a civil war that was
at the same time a proxy world war, and in which one of the intervening
powers was also in the aftermath of its own civil war.
Korean POWs included people whose places of origin lay both north and
south of the 38th parallel—among them, North Koreans conscripted, willing-
ly or unwillingly, into the (North) Korean People’s Army; South Koreans
who had volunteered to join the North Korean forces as they swept south in
1950; and South Koreans who had been forced to join the People’s Army
against their will. Many, for ideological or personal reasons, were deeply
disturbed by the prospect of being sent to North Korea when the war was
over. Chinese POWs included many former Nationalist soldiers who had
only recently (and with varying degrees of free will) been incorporated into
the Chinese Communist forces. Some of them, not surprisingly, wanted to be
sent to Taiwan rather than being returned to the People’s Republic at the end
of the war (see chapter 4). According to Frédérique Bieri, the Red Cross
official who visited Matsushita in Busan, even some Chinese POWs who
embraced the Communist cause were reluctant to be repatriated to the PRC
because they believed that they would be punished for having allowed them-
selves to fall into the hands of the enemy. “They prefer being sent to Formosa
[Taiwan] and to risk whatever might happen to them there.” 53
The communists are convinced that on their return they will have to have good
reasons for having surrendered. . . . Failing “good reasons,” a collection of
“good points” received in camp might give a better chance of survival. “Good
points” are obtained by carrying out a number of subversive actions, amongst
them the organization of People’s Courts (in which political opponents are
sentenced to beatings with sticks or stones, sometimes resulting in death). . . .
Anti-Communists (both North and South Koreans) are also not idle. They too
have People’s Courts and mete out punishment. 54
In short, the Chinese and Korean Civil Wars were continuing side by side
within the confines of Geoje, Busan, and other POW camps in South Korea.
Intervention by prison guards, both South Korean and U.S., often intensified,
rather than restrained, the violence. In May 1952, a riot on Geoje, in which
the camp commandant was briefly taken captive by the prisoners, ended in
the deaths of thirty-one POWs, about half of whom were reportedly killed by
fellow inmates; in October 1952, sixty-one Chinese prisoners of war were
killed by guards in the prison camp on Jeju Island during riots that followed
the celebration of Chinese National Day; and in December of the same year
eighty-seven Korean prisoners in Pongnam camp were shot dead and more
than a hundred injured after a demonstration that, the authorities claimed,
threatened to turn into a mass breakout. 55 The U.S./UN Command had de-
cided that all prisoners would be screened to determine their wishes about
repatriation. But the screening process only inflamed the internecine battle
for hearts and minds between different groups within the prison population.
Meanwhile, both North Korea and China insisted that all POWs should be
repatriated to their territory after the war, and from the first half of 1952
onward, disputes over the issue of repatriation became the main stumbling
block delaying the signing of an armistice. 56
BACK FROM THE DEAD
In the midst of this mayhem, Matsushita took the one possible step to try to
secure his survival: he attempted to write to his family in Japan, but received
no reply (apparently because his letter had failed to reach its destination).
When Frédérique Bieri visited Busan camp in late November 1951, Matsu-
shita appealed to him to help make contact with his family, and provided
their address, which Bieri passed on to the Japan Red Cross Society. 57 Even
then, the process was slow. Matsushita’s position was fraught with political
complications, and it is likely that there were quiet consultations between the
Red Cross, the Japanese government, and the UN Command before, two
months later, news of Matsushita’s whereabouts finally made its way to his
home in Kami-Naya.
On a rainy January day in 1952, the Matsushita family, who had recently
completed the rituals to mark the seventh anniversary of the death of their
eldest son, were astonished to receive a letter signed by Otto Lehner, chief
representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Japan and
Korea. “Your son,” wrote Lehner, “is alive and well, and would like to hear
news of his family.” 58 Matsushita’s father, Haruyoshi, who was then in his
midfifties, was so excited by the news that he rushed out bareheaded into the
rain to announce to his neighbors that his son was miraculously back from
the dead. 59 “I can’t believe Kazutoshi is alive,” he told a newspaper reporter
who interviewed him a few days later. “Now I’m just praying that he’ll come
back home as soon as possible.” 60 The following month, Bieri returned to
Busan POW camp bearing a letter from one of Matsushita’s brothers, a
photograph of Kazutoshi taken in 1939, and a copy of an article on Prisoner
No. 600,001 that had been published in January by the Mainichi newspaper.
As Bieri observed, “It was the first time that M. had heard from his family
since about nine years. His gratitude to the ICRC and the Japanese Red Cross
Society for their efforts on his behalf is unbounded.” 61
But Matsushita Kazutoshi’s astonishing return from the dead was not the
prelude to a rapid homecoming. Soon after his story was reported in the
newspapers, his plight was taken up by one of the most interesting figures in
postwar Japanese politics: Nakayama Masa. The half-Japanese daughter of
an American merchant, Rodney H. Powers, who had settled in Nagasaki in
the 1860s, Nakayama had received part of her education in the United States
before returning to Japan, where she married an Osaka-based lawyer and
politician, and in 1947 she became one of the first women elected to Japan’s
parliament. 62 Having experienced the difficulties and dangers of being a half-
American woman in wartime Japan, Nakayama was sensitive to the problems
of people displaced by war. In her early years as a politician, she espoused
the causes of the families of Japanese seamen killed or missing in foreign
countries, and of Korean and Taiwanese colonial subjects who had been
recruited into the Japanese Imperial Army, only to be accused of war crimes
by the victors and then abandoned to their fate by the postwar Japanese
government. Her empathy for the situation of Matsushita Kazutoshi and his
family seems to have sprung from the same source.
On January 30, 1952, Nakayama made a brief but impassioned appeal on
Matsushita’s behalf in a question to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
lower house of the Japanese parliament. She spoke of an unnamed “compa-
triot of ours” from Miyazaki Prefecture who had “turned up in a Korean
prisoner of war camp” after remaining in postwar China and joining the
Chinese Volunteer Army in North Korea. In December 1950, the United
Nations had established a three-person ceasefire group, made up of represen-
tatives from Iran, India, and Canada, to try to work out an acceptable settle-
ment on issues including the problem of prisoners of war, and by January
1952 this group was engaged in intense negotiations about a possible ex-
change of prisoners between the two sides. As it happened, a delegation from
Japan was in Geneva meeting with the UN group at the very time when
Nakayama posed her parliamentary question. 63 In her address to the House,
Nakayama spoke of the sufferings endured by the Japanese who remained in
China, and expressed her fears that, if he were caught up in a prisoner
exchange scheme, the Japanese POW in Busan might be sent back to China.
Her plea to the Japanese government was to deliver a message to the UN
Command via a Japanese delegation then in Geneva, asking for Matsushita to
be sent home to Japan instead. 64
The government’s initial response was characteristically cautious and bu-
reaucratic. They replied that no “concrete steps” had yet been taken to deal
with the case of the Japanese prisoner of war, but promised that the story was
being followed up with Japan’s repatriation authorities. 65 Three weeks later,
the government spokesman came back with more encouraging news, and
with a statement to parliament that named Matsushita Kazutoshi as the pris-
oner concerned. Foreign affairs officials, he reported, “have been in touch
with the repatriation office, the necessary enquiries are complete, and on this
basis, a request to GHQ for [Matsushita’s] return to Japan is in progress.”
Despite the delicate state of international negotiations on the POW issue, the
UN military authorities had indicated that “they would do their best, as this is
a Japanese person,” and it seemed likely that they would respond positively
to Japan’s request to send Matsushita home. 66
But then, as suddenly as he had appeared in Japanese public debate,
Matsushita Kazutoshi disappeared again. Even more mysteriously, knowl-
edge of his existence seems abruptly to have been expunged from official
consciousness. On May 27, 1952, Foreign Minister Okazaki Katsuo, answer-
ing a general parliamentary question about the possibility that there were
Japanese soldiers fighting on the North Korean side in the war, replied: “We
have heard rumours that there are one or two such Japanese amongst the
prisoners of war being held by the United Nations, but at present our efforts
to confirm this have not met with success. Therefore at present we cannot see
any such people amongst the prisoners of war. We often hear these rumours,
but that’s all I can say. And, well, even if there are such people, the rumours
suggest that there are very few of them.” 67 Matsushita had indeed disap-
peared even from the statistics of POWs. In late 1951, he had been identified
by nationality in Red Cross lists of prisoners of war, but by January 1952 he
had, oddly enough, been reclassified as Korean, and thereafter he is no longer
visible in the statistics. 68
Media attention now shifted to reports of Japanese who had been captured
while fighting with U.S. troops on the South Korean side in the war, and
were imprisoned in North Korea. As armistice negotiations progressed, ex-
citement about these stories mounted. There were some suggestions that ten
or more Japanese prisoners of war were being held by the North. 69 But when,
in July 1953, the Panmunjom armistice finally opened the way to a large-
scale return of POWs, just two Japanese citizens were identified among the
prisoners awaiting return: Tsutsui Kiyohito from Fukushima and Tanigawa
Yoshio from Tokyo, both of whom had worked on U.S. bases in Japan before
accompanying American troops to the battlefront (see chapter 1). Another
POW with a Japanese name was identified as being a second-generation
Korean immigrant to Tokyo, and it is unclear whether he was repatriated to
Japan. 70 No one asked what had happened to Matsushita Kazutoshi.
Just one, terse official document gives an enigmatic clue to his destiny.
More than half a year after the armistice, on April 1, 1954, the General
Headquarters of the U.S. Far East and United Nations Command drew up a
final accounting of the numbers of prisoners captured by UN forces, and their
ultimate fates. The fates of the POWs are enumerated under six headings:
deceased; escaped; released; repatriated during the “Little Switch” prisoner
exchange of April–May 1953; repatriated during the “Big Switch” of Au-
gust–December 1953; transferred to NNRC (the Neutral Nations Repatria-
tion Commission, which was responsible for those who wished to return to
none of their potential homelands); and reclassified as a civilian detainee. On
one page of the document, at the foot of a tabulation of the destiny of some
150,000 Korean POWs, grouped in batches and identified by their prisoner
numbers, someone has appended an extra line written in pencil:
“Prisoner no. 600,001—escaped.” 71
THE GREAT ESCAPE
After the mass uprising on Geoje in May 1952, POW camps in South Korea
were drastically reorganized. Korean prisoners who had been reclassified as
civilian detainees were moved to a separate camp on the southern side of
Geoje, and Chinese prisoners were concentrated in a camp on the island of

Jeju. The aim was to move prisoners who had been identified as “pro-
Communist” to offshore camps, while keeping those identified as “anti-
Communist” in camps on the Korean mainland, including Busan. 72 The
mood in the Busan camp now changed dramatically, as Red Cross delegate
George Hoffmann, who visited soon after, discovered:
The delegate found the camp in an agitated state of anticommunist demonstra-

tions (flags, marches, music, songs). The prisoners’ representatives in the two
compounds declared to the delegate: we don’t consider ourselves prisoners of
war any more. We demand to be set free. We want to join the army of the
Republic of Korea (South) and fight for the United Nations and the free
world. . . .
The delegate is persuaded that these camps of “good boys” will soon
create considerable difficulties and inconveniences for the detaining power. 73
For bodies like the International Committee of the Red Cross, the dilem-
ma was profound. Forcibly repatriating reluctant prisoners to mainland China
or North Korea would clearly be inhumane, but the situation in camps like
Busan allowed ideologically motivated prisoners to influence and intimidate
others with the eager acquiescence of their South Korean guards. South
Korean president Syngman Rhee (Yi Seungman) was adamantly opposed to
the signing of the armistice, and insisted that the war could only end with the
reunification of Korea under South Korean rule. He was particularly deter-
mined to block any moves to repatriate reluctant POWs to North Korea. As
armistice discussions approached their climax in 1953, with fierce debates
over the repatriation continuing, President Rhee chose to take his own action,
creating precisely the “difficulties and inconveniences” that Hoffmann had
foreseen.
After highly secret preparations within the South Korean army, in the
early morning of June 18, 1953, South Korean military police, who had taken
over control of the camps holding the anti-Communist Korean prisoners
identified as anti-Communist, cut the wire and allowed the mass “escape” of
27,111 prisoners, surely the largest single breakout of POWs in modern
history. 74 This act was, as much as anything else, an attempt to sabotage the
armistice talks, and did indeed produce expressions of outrage from North
Korea, China, and the Soviet Union. A small number of the fugitives were
captured, but most melted into the South Korean population, and a large
proportion seem to have been incorporated (voluntarily or otherwise) into the
South’s armed forces. Despite the disruption caused by the mass “escape,”
truce negotiations continued, and the armistice was signed on July 27 by
North Korea, China, and the UN Command. South Korea refused to sign,
though Rhee tacitly and reluctantly accepted the existence of the armistice in
return for substantial concessions from the United States, including a mutual
defense agreement and the promise of large amounts of aid. 75
For many, the “great escape” may have truly been a moment of liberation,
but thirty-seven POWs were killed and more than one hundred injured in the
chaos. And, for those whose origins were complex or whose sympathies were
mixed, it must have been a moment of fear, confusion, and anxiety. Of the
3,385 prisoners in Busan camp in June 1953, all but 86 escaped, among them
Matsushita Kazutoshi, who walked out of the dark and rapidly emptying
camp and straight into the arms of the South Korean army, which proceeded
to enroll him into its ranks. Having served successively in Japan’s Kwantung
Army, the Chinese Nationalist Army, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,
and the Chinese People’s Volunteers, Matsushita Kazutoshi was to end his
unusual military career as a member of the Republic of Korea’s 1928th Army
Corps.
South Korean forces appear to have treated him primarily as a source of
useful information and propaganda. In May 1954, a series of curious reports
appeared in the Korean media, and were picked up by English-language
newspapers as far away as Pittsburgh, where the local Post-Gazette ran an
article headlined “Japs Forced to Fight for Reds in Korea War.” The article
cites a South Korean army intelligence report based on information from “a
Japanese sergeant who says he was forced to fight for the Chinese Red Army
in the Korean War.” The sergeant in question was Matsushita Kazutoshi,
who is quoted as “saying the Communists pressed into service some 50,000
Japanese soldiers after World War II. He also claimed another 200,000 were
being trained by the Russians on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Siberia.” 76
Korean media reports were more detailed and even more lurid. 77 Purport-
edly quoting Matsushita, two national newspapers proclaimed not only that
two hundred thousand Japanese were being trained in Kamchatka, but also
that most of the Japanese women remaining in China had been forced into
working as “comfort women” in Chinese military brothels. The account they
gave of Matsushita’s life was similarly bizarre. 78 The story begins fairly
accurately, describing Matsushita as coming from Kyushu, and having gone
to Manchuria, where he joined a Kwantung Army railway division. But his
desertion from the Japanese army and his time fighting with the Chinese
Nationalist forces are expunged from the record. Instead, readers are told that
he served with the Japanese military until Japan’s surrender at the end of the
Pacific War, and then become a prisoner of war of the Chinese Communists.
Stranger still, Matsushita is described as having been sent into battle in Korea
with the Chinese Third Field Army in December 1950, and having fought
with them continuously across the length and breadth of the Korean Peninsu-
la until May 1953, when he is said to have deserted from the Chinese Com-
munist forces and surrendered to the South Korean military intelligence ser-
vice. His time as a prisoner of war in Busan camp is completely written out
of history.
It is unclear how much of this report actually came from Matsushita
himself, and how much was simply written for him by his captors. The
account he gave a couple of months later, after his release and return to
Japan, was a completely different one. But the timing suggests that, having
extracted something useful from their unlikely Japanese recruit, the South
Korean army was now, finally, willing to send him home. At the end of July
1954, a year after the end of the Korean War and almost ten years after he
had been reportedly killed in action, Matsushita was formally farewelled in
the city of Daegu by an officer of the 1928th Corps, who presented him with
a South Korean military uniform, instructing him to “wear this as you labour
for the reconstruction of Japan.” 79
GOING HOME
Matsushita then boarded the ferry Onjin to Osaka, and from there made his
way by boat and train to his home region, arriving on the afternoon of August
3, 1954, to be greeted by his family and by a cheering crowd of three hundred
villagers. Interviewed by the local newspaper immediately after his return
home, Matsushita gave a straightforward personal account of his time with
the Chinese Communist forces: an account that bears no resemblance at all to
the information published in the South Korean military intelligence report.
He recalled that his Chinese unit had received intensive ideological indoctri-
nation, but hardly any training in practical military skills, and that it was very
poorly equipped. He made no mention of any Soviet training of Japanese
soldiers, saying only that he had occasionally encountered Soviet military on
the Chinese side of the border, but had never seen any in North Korea. And
he had, he said, been deeply impressed by the discipline that governed rela-
tions between the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the civilian popula-
tion: looting and pilfering were strictly forbidden, and crimes against women
were taboo. 80
After his long war, Matsushita Kazutoshi lived for decades in his Kyushu
birthplace, where he found work as a plumber. He married and had two sons,
but barely spoke about his wartime experiences. The fisherman’s son from
Kami-Naya had passed through the hands of all the major military forces in
Northeast Asia, but, beyond the brief interview with the local paper in 1954,
his own feelings toward them are shrouded in silence. When he died, his
story, long forgotten by almost all except those who knew him personally,
disappeared with him. In this respect, too, Matsushita was perhaps symbolic.
His journey strikes a discordant note, which cannot be harmonized with the
major narratives of the war. It spreads untidily over the national and temporal
borderlines with which we tame and temper history. It sheds an uncomfort-

able light on the ideological certainties of mid-twentieth-century Northeast
Asia, and on the history of the treatment of prisoners of war by the forces of
the United Nations. Like some latter-day Good Soldier Schweik, Matsushita,
with his single-minded determination to survive and return to his family,
exposes our historical and political presumptions to sharp and penetrating
scrutiny. In remembering his life, we can, I think, find new ways to remem-
ber the Korean War.
NOTES
1. “UN POW Camp no. 1 Koje-Do and POW Enclosure no. 10 Pusan, visited by Mr. Fred
Bieri, on 4 to 16 January 1952,” in the Archives of the International Committee of the Red
Cross (hereafter ICRC Archives) B AG 210 056-021, Transmission des rapports de visites de
camps aux Nations Unies, aux Etats-Unis et à la Corée-du-Nord, January 16, 1951–May 12,
1952.
2. The details of Matsushita’s background in this section are derived from “Kokufu—
Chūkyō—Kokurengun e: ‘Ikite ita Heita’ Sūki na Unmei ni Momareta Horyo 600001-gō,”
Mainichi Shimbun, January 29, 1952, 3, Tokyo edition, and “Chōsen Sensen de Horyo: Hachi-
nenburi Kurowaku o Hazusu Shashin,” Hyūga Nichinichi Shimbun, January 26, 1952, 2; see
also “Hyokkori Shashin: Kokurengun Horyo no Matsushita san,” Hyūga Nichinichi Shimbun,
February 15, 1952, 2.
3. Bruce Cumings, The Korean War: A History (New York: Modern Library, 2010), 44,
and Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea (New York:
Norton, 2013).
4. Owen Lattimore, Manchuria: Cradle of Conflict (New York: Macmillan, 1932).
5. Cumings, The Korean War, 44.
6. “Chōsen Sensen de Horyo.”
8. See “Kokufu—Chūkyō—Kokurengun e”; “Chōsen Sensen de Horyo”; also Linyi Xing-
shu Chuban Bangongshi, ed., Menglianggu Zhanyi Ziliaoxuan (Jinan: Shandong Renmin Chu-
banshe, 1980), 187.
9. Diana Lary, The Chinese People at War: Human Suffering and Social Transformation,
1937–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 154.
11. Lary, Chinese People at War, 155.
14. “Dōran no Tairiku ni Jūnenkan: ‘Ikita Eirei’ Matsushita Kazutoshi san Kaeru,” Hyūga
Nichinichi Shimbun, August 4, 1945, 3.
15. Linyi Xingshu Chuban Bangongshi, Menglianggu Zhanyi Ziliaoxuan, 187.
17. Donald G. Gillin and Charles Etter, “Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in
China, 1945–1949,” Journal of Asian Studies 42, no. 3 (1983): 497–518.
18. Ikeya Kaoru, Ari no Heitai: Nihonhei 2600-nin Sansei-Shō Zanryū no Shinsō (Tokyo:
Shinchōsha, 2007); see also Gillin and Etter, “Staying On,” 500–501 and 506–8.
19. See Furukawa Mantarō, Chūgoku Zanryū Nihonhei no Kiroku (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,
1994).
20. Christopher R. Lew, The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–1949: An Analy-
sis of Communist Strategy and Leadership (London: Routledge, 2009), 61.
22. “Dōran no Tairiku ni Jūnenkan.”
23. Ōhaba Hiroyuki, interviewed by Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), March 10, 2009, and
June 16, 2010, NHK Sensō Shōgen Ākaibusu, http://cgi2.nhk.or.jp/shogenarchives/shogen/
movie.cgi?das_id=D0001150037_00000, accessed February 12, 2013.
24. Quoted in Zhihua Shen, Mao, Stalin and the Korean War: Trilateral Communist Rela-
tions in the 1950s, trans. Neil Silver (London: Routledge, 2012), 140.
25. Furukawa, Chūgoku Zanryū Nihonhei.
26. Furukawa, Chūgoku Zanryū Nihonhei, 101; Central Intelligence Agency, “Information
from Foreign Documents or Radio Broadcasts,” March 28 to April 20, 1951, CIA Freedom of
Information Act Declassified files, CIA-RDP80-00809A000600400532-6.pdf, https://www.cia.
gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80-00809a000600400532-6.
27. Gomi Yōji, “Nihonjin mo Sansen shita Chōsen Sensō,” Hikari Sase—Kita Chōsen
Shuyōjo Kokka no Kaihō o Mezasu Rironshi 6, no. 6 (December 6, 2010): 109–17.
28. Ishida Toshimie, interviewed by Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), 2008, NHK Sensō
Shōgen Ākaibusu, http://cgi2.nhk.or.jp/shogenarchives/shogen/movie.cgi?das_id=D00011001
15_00000, accessed February 12, 2013.
29. Furukawa, Chūgoku Zanryū Nihonhei, 77–78.
30. Japan News, August 12, 1950; Perth Sunday Times, August 6, 1950.
31. The Russian and Chinese press reports are quoted in “Moscow Press Reports on
MacArthur’s Utilisation of Japanese Assistance in the Korean War,” memorandum from Aus-
tralian Embassy, USSR, to Secretary, Department of External Affairs, Canberra, December 1,
1950, in ANA, “Korean War—Japan—Policy.”
32. See extract of the minutes of the 203rd meeting, Far Eastern Commission, November 2,
1950, in National Archives of New Zealand, EA, W2619, 324/4/29, “Individual Countries,
Korea, Political Affairs, War in Korea: Use of Japanese Personnel.”
33. Quoted in Adam Cathcart, “Japanese Devils and American Wolves: Chinese Communist
Songs from the War of Liberation and the Korean War,” Popular Music and Society 33, no. 2
(May 2010): 203–18, quotation from 210.
34. Furukawa, Chūgoku Zanryū Nihonhei, 97–98.
36. See Roy Edgar Appleman, East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press), 51.
38. Record no. 20, July 18, 1951, Transmittal of record (DA AGO Form 19-2) on Matsushi-
ta Kazuyoshi [sic]; and “DA AGO Form 19-2 Basic Personnel Record, UN PW Camp 1,”
August 3, 1951, in National Records and Archives Administration (hereafter NARA), College
Park, RG 554, GHQ Far East Command, Office of Provost Marshall, “Correspondence of the
Prisoner of War Division Relating to Enemy Prisoner of War, 1950–1954,” Box 2, May 1 to
Dec. 30, 1951.
39. “UN POW Camp no. 1 Pusan, visited on December 27 and 28, 1950 by ICRC Delegate
Mr. Fred Bieri,” p. 1, in ICRC Archives, B AG 210 056-021.
40. Referred to in the English-language documents of the era as “Koje Island” or “Koje-
Do.”
41. “UN POW Camp no. 1, Koje-Do and Pusan, visited July 17–19 1951 by ICRC delegate
Mr. F. Bieri,” p. 1, in ICRC Archives, B AG 210 056-021.
42. “UN POW Camp no. 1, Koje-Do and Pusan, visited by ICRC delegates M. Bieri August
19–20 and August 23 to September 19, 1951, and M. de Reynier August 29 to September 2
1951,” p. 21, in ICRC Archives, B AG 210 056-021.
43. “UN POW Camp no. 1, Koje-Do and Pusan, visited by ICRC delegates Mr. Bieri May
29 to June 9 and Dr. Bessero May 29 to 30 1951,” 18, in ICRC Archives, B AG 210 056-021.
44. “Rapport Médical conc. les camps I-Kojedo, IC-Pongyamdo [sic], IB-Yonchedo et IA-
Choguri, du 5-5-53 au 19-5-53,” p. 4, in ICRC Archives, B AG 210 056-008, “Rapport du
Délégué du CICR Dr. Jean-Maurice Rubli. Situation médical dans certains camps de prison-
niers de guerre,” May 25, 1953-July 03, 1953.
45. Military History Section, Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces and Eighth U.S. Army, Intel-
ligence and Counterintelligence Problems during the Korean Conflict (Washington, D.C.:
Office of the Chief of Military History, 1955), p. 27, http://www.history.army.mil/documents/

Korea/intkor/intkor.htm#cont, accessed February 23, 2013.
46. Peter Knight, “MacArthur’s Eyes: Reassessing Military Intelligence Operations in the
Forgotten War, June 1950–April 1951” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2006), 126; Military
History Section, Intelligence and Counterintelligence Problems, 27.
47. Military History Section, Intelligence and Counterintelligence Problems, 26–27.
48. Military History Section, Intelligence and Counterintelligence Problems, 33.
49. Note from O. Lehner to ICRC, Geneva, “Entretien du 24.12.52 relatif aux PG avec UN,
Col. Ramsay,” January 7, 1953, p. 2, in ICRC Archives, B AG 210 056-016, Traitement des
prisonniers de guerre, October 18, 1952–May 31, 1955.
50. “UN POW Camp no. 1, Koje-Do and Pusan, August 19–20, August 23 to September 19,
August 29 to September 2 1951,” 10.
51. “UN POW Camp no. 1, Koje-Do and Pusan, August 19–20, August 23 to September 19,
August 29 to September 2 1951,” 10–11.
52. “Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August
1949,” text provided on the website of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva,
accessed September 29, 2013.
53. “UN POW Camp no 1, Koje-do and Pusan, visited by ICRC delegates Bieri, August
28th to Sept. 9th, 1951 and de Reynier, August 28th to Sept. 3rd 1951,” in ICRC Archives
1411, Rapports de Mm. Lehner, Bieri, de Reynier, Corée 1951.
54. “UN POW Camp no 1, Koje-do and Pusan, visited by ICRC delegates Bieri, August
28th to Sept. 9th, 1951 and de Reynier, August 28th to Sept. 3rd 1951.”
55. On the Jeju killings, see G. Hoffmann, “Rapport confidential concernant l’incident au
compound no. 7 de UN POW Branch Camp 3A, Cheju-Do du 1er octobre 1952,” in ICRC, B
AG 210 056-012, Incidents dans les camps, February 08, 1952–April 13, 1953; on deaths at
Geoje, see also Charles S. Young, Name, Rank and Serial Number: Exploiting Korean War
POWs at Home and Abroad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), particularly 32–33.
56. See Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War, 201–207 and 257–65; Young, Name, Rank and
Serial Number, chapters 5 and 7.
57. “UN POW Enclosure no. 1 and 14th Field Hospital, Pusan, Visited by Mr. F. Bieri, 23/
24, 11, 1951 and 11,12, 1951,” in ICRC Archives, 1411, Rapports de Mm. Lehner, Bieri, de
Reynier, Corée 1951.
58. “Kokufu—Chūkyō—Kokurengun e.”
60. “Kokufu—Chūkyō—Kokurengun e.”
61. “Report on Calls at UN POW Enclosure no. 10, Pusan. 5.2.52 by ICRC delegates
Hoffmann, Munier and Bieri, and on 14.2.52 by Bieri,” ICRC Archives, 1412, Corée 1952.
62. On Nakayama Masa, see Sally Ann Hastings, “Women Legislators in the Japanese
Diet,” in Re-imaging Japanese Women, ed. Anne E. Imamura (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1996), 271–300, particularly 276.
63. Korea Institute of Military History, The Korean War, vol. 3 (Lincoln, Neb.: Bison
Books, 2001), 23.
64. Kokkai Gijiroku, Shūgiin, Gaimu Iinka 2-gō, January 30, 1952.
65. Kokkai Gijiroku, Shūgiin, Gaimu Iinka 2-gō, January 30, 1952.
66. Kokkai Gijiroku, Shūgiin, Gaimu Iinka 5-gō, February 20, 1952.
67. Kokkai Gijiroku, Shūgiin, Kaigai Dōhō Hikiage oyobi Ikazoku Shien ni kansuru Chōsa
Tokubetsu Iinkai 15-gō, May 27, 1952.
68. Bieri’s account of his visit to Busan POW camp in January 1952 provides a tabulation of
prisoner numbers in which the figure for Korean “other ranks” has an appended footnote saying
“including 1 Japanese.” Thereafter, Matsushita is not identified in the POW statistics.
69. “Nihonjin Horyo—Jūnin Ijō?” Asahi Shimbun, April 11, 1953, 1.
70. “Nihonjin Horyo Sōkan saru,” Asahi Shimbun, August 17, 1953, 1; “Tadachi ni Nihon e
Sōkan: Sannin no Nihonjin Horyo,” Asahi Shimbun, August 2, 1953, 7; “Hitogoto ‘Hazukashii
yo’: Horyo no Tsutsui kun yatto Kaeru,” Asahi Shimbun, August 24, 1953, 7; “Nihonjin hoyro
wa genki,” Asahi Shimbun, September 5, 1953, 7.
71. “Korean Recap,” April 1, 1954, in NARA College Park, RG 554, stack area 290, row 51,
compartment 9, shelf 3, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP AND UNC, Office of Provost Marshal,
Statistical Reports Relating to Enemy Prisoners of War, 1950–1953, Box 1.
72. Headquarters, Prisoner of War Command (Provisional), APO 59, 25 August 1952, in
ICRC, B AG 210 056-016.
73. “Rapport au CICR sur la visite de M. G. Hoffmann au UN POW Enclosure 11, Pusan,
du 29 May 1952,” p. 5, ICRC Archives, 1413, Corée 1952.
74. Paik Sun Yup, From Pusan to Panmunjom: Wartime Memoirs of the Republic of Ko-
rea’s First Four-Star General (Dulles, Va.: Brassey’s, 1999), 229–30.
75. Paik, From Pusan to Panmunjom, 323.
76. “Japs Forced to Fight for Reds in Korea War,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 1, 1954, 2.
77. “Gun Wianbu ro Gangyo doen Ilnyeo,” Donga Ilbo, May 31, 1954; “Junggonggun e Irin
Oman,” Gyeonghyang Shinmun, May 31, 1954.
78. Ironically, one of these articles has recently been unearthed and rather inaccurately
translated into Japanese by an enthusiastic blogger as part of the current heated debate about the
“comfort women” issue. Histories of sexual violence are always difficult to unearth, because of
the reluctance of the victims to testify. There is testimony suggesting that a wave of sexual
violence was inflicted on Japanese women stranded in parts of the former empire immediately
after Japan’s defeat. In particular, many Japanese women became victims of rape perpetrated
by Soviet forces in Manchuria (see Lori Watt, When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and
Reintegration in Postwar Japan [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010]). But the
story that most Japanese women were recruited by the Chinese military brothels has no support
from written or oral evidence.
79. Hyūga Nichinichi Shimbun, August 4, 1954.
80. Hyūga Nichinichi Shimbun, August 4, 1954.
Chapter Seven
The Life and Death of Line-Crossers

The Secret Chinese Agents of UNPIK
Catherine Churchman
“One of the characteristics of the War in Korea is that westerners cannot be

used as spies, their appearance gives them away at once.” 1
So observed Wilfred Burchett, one of the few Westerners to report on the
war in Korea from “the other side,” explaining a practice that the United
States and Korean military employed throughout the war and that contra-
vened the Geneva Conventions—the use of prisoners of war as forced spies
to gather military intelligence. Throughout the course of the war and for a
short period after the signing of the armistice in July 1953, more than four
hundred Chinese People’s Volunteer (CPV) prisoners of war were taken
from the various camps in Busan, Geoje, and Jeju, and forced to perform
special intelligence operations behind enemy lines in North Korea.
Even before the outbreak of the war the U.S. military had made use of
Korean refugees from north of the 38th parallel for intelligence gathering and
undercover guerrilla operations in the North. These were the “Korea liaison
officers” (KLOs), whose history has been researched in some detail. 2 After
the Chinese entered the war in October 1950, the U.S. military began to use
Chinese prisoners of war for similar purposes, sending them over the front
line by parachute, on foot, or by submarine on dangerous spying missions.
These people were known by the acronym TLO (“tactical liaison officer”)
and belonged to a special military platoon that consisted entirely of Chinese
prisoners of war inside Unit 8240, the United Nations Partisan Infantry Ko-
rea (UNPIK), also known as the “White Tigers.” UNPIK’s activities were
classified information until the 1990s, and I have yet to find any official U.S.
records of the Chinese inside UNPIK. The discussion in this chapter is based
155
on the following individual accounts, many of which have been published

only very recently:
• Wilfred Burchett and Alan Winnington exposed the function and missions
of the TLOs for the first time in their 1953 book Koje Unscreened. Their
information mainly comes from the testimonies of Zhang Wenrong, a
TLO taken from Geoje in December 1951 who defected back to the Com-
munists, and Sergeant David T. Harrison, a U.S. prisoner of the Commu-
nists who had taken part in organizing fourteen TLO parachute missions
and had been captured as a result of Zhang Wenrong’s defection.
• Gao Wenjun, who was taken from the POW camp at Busan in August
1951 and served as an intelligence gatherer for two and a half years to the
first of January 1954. He was the longest-serving TLO to describe his
experience and has made two detailed accounts of his training and mis-
sions, one in his memoir Hanzhan Yiwang (Remembering the Korean
War), published in 2000, and another in an interview for a collection of
oral histories, the Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu (Records of inter-
views with the Korean War anti-Communist defectors), published in 2013.
• Hou Guangming, who began training as a TLO in April 1952 and re-
counted his experiences in Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu.
• Wen Jianyou, who was sent on his first mission in early March 1953, also
interviewed in Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu.
• Ma Qungeng, who remained in Unit 8240 until his return to Taiwan in
January 1954, also in Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu.
Aspects of these stories are also confirmed by the Japanese eyewitness ac-
counts discussed in chapter 8.
SELECTION AND TRAINING
Beginning at least as early as January 1951, prisoners were picked from

among the known anti-Communists from the POW camps located at Busan,
Geoje, and Jeju by U.S. intelligence (G-2), and sent off for secret training in
two American military installations, one near Tokyo and one on the small
island of Seongap near Incheon. 3 Hou Guangming, who was sent to Tokyo
around April 1951 but then back to Seoul and subsequently to Seongap
Island, recounted that the Japanese would no longer allow such training on
their soil because the Chinese had found out about it through captured TLOs
and made a protest. 4 Training in Japan must have resumed later however, as
Zhang Wenrong, a former Whampoa Military Academy graduate and squad
leader in the staunchly anti-Communist compound 72 on Geoje, was also
taken by boat to Busan and then on a transport to a “Tokyo training school
The Life and Death of Line-Crossers 157
for secret agents” on December 13, 1951, where he was taught by a Japanese
instructor for two months. 5
The U.S. Army was particularly interested in recruiting former members
of the officer class from the Nationalist Army and younger soldiers who had
been trained at a military academy. 6 Burchett and Winnington describe a
selection process in the camp at Geoje based on monthly examinations,
whereby the “bright students” would be selected either for special tasks
within the camps or air-dropped into North Korea as special agents. 7 Gao
Wenjun described a screening process carried out upon arrival in the prison
camps as the most important method of selection. Following this screening, a
file was compiled on the activities of the prospective candidates and their
educational backgrounds. Known anti-Communists, for whom a return to the
mainland was too dangerous, were the preferred choice. 8 Ma Qungeng re-
membered that the Americans had three categories for choosing potential
TLOs: they had to be educated, staunchly anti-Communist, and in good
health. 9 The four TLOs who have told their stories in detail—Gao, Hou,
Wen, and Ma—had all been students of the Nationalist Whampoa Military
Academies before their capture, and all had received secondary education.
Ma had also been a guard in the camp involved in anti-Communist activities,
so he was a particularly desirable candidate.
The U.S. military was eager to keep this use of POWs for intelligence
gathering a secret because it contravened the Geneva Conventions. They
would therefore make sure to remove the name of each recruit from the list of
prisoners, so that if a TLO happened to be captured they could deny having
used POWs for the purpose, a trick they had learned through using German
POWs for intelligence work in the Second World War. 10 At the Panmunjom
negotiations, they denied that any such activities were going on, saying the
Communists were making these things up. Burchett reports that “the
Americans have tried to pretend that reports of air-dropped agents are inven-
tions, on the grounds that it would be foolish to use unwilling people as
secret agents.” When North Korean general Nam Il asked General Harrison,
the chief U.S. negotiator, to account for prisoners whose names had been on
lists handed over on the 18th of December but were missing from later lists,
Harrison’s explanation was that those prisoners had “escaped,” but he was at
a loss for an answer when it was pointed out to him that some of those
“escaped” had ended up air-dropped into the North. 11
None of the accounts of POWs taken from the camps suggests that they
had any idea of what they were in for when they were selected. Hou Guang-
ming was offered the option of “very difficult work” and the chance to be
taken out of the POW camp: a chance that he and the others who accompa-
nied him were all eager to accept. It was not until he arrived in Tokyo and
found himself in a compound enclosed by barbed wire that he realized what
the “very difficult work” would entail. 12 At least Hou was given a choice.
Gao Wenjun remembered how other prisoners were taken away from the
camps:
Every so often 20–25 prisoners in the camp would suddenly be woken at

midnight. Each would take their two army blankets, their rice bowl, knife and
fork and personal belongings. Sometimes people would be able to get a
glimpse of them being put into ambulances painted with the red cross on four
sides. Although people would repeat this, all they could do was make guesses
[about what was happening]. 13
While teaching in the Civil Information and Education (CIE) school in

the camp on Geoje (which gave anti-Communist education to POWs), Ma
Qungeng and others noticed Americans removing people from the camp, and
thought they were probably taken to work for the Americans, but once these
people had been removed from the camps, they never came back. 14 One of
the subjects of such a removal, Wen Jianyou, was taken from Jeju in 1953 as
his name had ended up on a list of those who had volunteered to do work for
the UN, even though he had done nothing of the sort. 15 Before long, Gao and
Ma were taken from the camps themselves. Ma remembered:
Suddenly one evening thirty of us were collected together. There was an

American and a Chinese, and after the Chinese had carried out his duty of
asking us questions, they measured us up, and once they were finished they
sent us back to our original unit. The next day someone suddenly turned up
and announced for those who had been selected to gather at a certain place, to
go and report to the US military. At that time, we thought that to get to leave
the POW camp to do work for the Americans would be much better than
staying there. 16
Like Ma, Gao’s initial thought during the half-hour ride from the POW
camp was how wonderful it was to be able to get out of the camp. He never
suspected that the UN would do anything underhanded to him or any other of
the prisoners who cooperated with them. When the ride was over he and the
rest of his group were taken into a tent where an American who could speak
Chinese asked them to take off their POW uniforms and gave each of them a
new U.S. uniform to wear in exchange. After four hours of sleep they were
taken on a journey by transport plane and supply truck to Incheon and then
put on a small boat for a three-hour sail to the small sandy island of Seongap
where they arrived at twilight.
Upon his arrival on Seongap on August 1, 1951, Gao met six other ex-
prisoners who had left the camp six months previously. The following day
the new arrivals met with Captain Fox, who had supposedly been a German
defector to the Americans in World War II. He informed them that they were
no longer prisoners and now were members of the UN armed forces. 17 Cap-
tain Fox then introduced the new arrivals to four TLOs who would be their
teachers, and all of whom Gao recognized: one of them had been his class-
mate in the Nationalist Military Academy. These were Bu Zeyao, Deng Dan,
Zhang Huayu, and Zhou Anbang. Gao recounted that Bu and Deng had been
the first two to work for the UN forces, and that the second pair, Zhang and
Zhou, had been their students. 18
Ma Qungeng followed a similar route to Seongap, and it was only once he
was on the island that the nature of his work was explained to him. He
remembered:
At that time, we still didn’t know what we had come to Seongap to do. But
after that the Americans finally informed us that we had been selected for
intelligence work. The nature of the work was to sneak into North Korea, carry
out the intelligence work and return to a US base. When we heard this we were
all terrified. Everyone knew very well that, sneaking into North Korea to do
intelligence work, you would be executed if the communists caught you. 19
Gao Wenjun’s group training on Seongap lasted for thirty days and in-
cluded learning how to use maps and camouflage; intelligence collection,
reconnaissance, and communications; Korean language; and how to cross a
line of fire and to traverse land surreptitiously. He recalled the inadequacy of
the training and the lack of equipment, and felt that sometimes the teachers
did not really have a deep knowledge of what they were teaching. 20 Training
was often theoretical rather than practical: for example, for parachute train-
ing, there were no parachutes to practice with, and no high platform to
practice jumping from, so the training was entirely by word of mouth, and
whether it worked or not was completely up to one’s own luck. 21 Ma Qun-
geng remembered only twenty days of training and like Gao, also had the
impression that it was not particularly professional. 22
Burchett claims that even before this time, KMT agents had been sent into
the North, but their lack of understanding of the swiftly changing language
used among the CPV made it easy for them to be uncovered. 23 Presumably
this experience taught the U.S. military to exercise more caution. Hou
Guangming recalled, “Because they were afraid of your being recognized,
they would train you before you went out on a mission, teaching you to sing
communist army songs and popular songs. Just whatever was popular over
on the other side, they would teach you.” 24
In order to make the TLOs as convincing as possible, the U.S. military
equipped each TLO with a complete uniform, down to Soviet-made pistols
and pens made in Shanghai. 25 There were other problems, however. Some of
the money they took with them to use was counterfeit renminbi, and a TLO
caught using this would be found out. 26 Even more difficult problems were
the tattoos some prisoners had received as symbols of their anti-Communist
loyalty in the camps, as these would mark them out immediately as having
been in the POW camps. Burchett notes that tattoos with Chinese characters
for “oppose communism and resist Russia” had been “clumsily altered in an
attempt to make them look like flowers and other designs before the men
were sent back as spies,” 27 and Chinese sources confirm this. From his time
in Geoje, Ma Qungeng had the word “anticommunist” tattooed on his upper
arm in English, and this was made into a snake. 28 Hou Guangming had a map
of China that was modified into a plum-blossom crab. 29
THE NATURE OF THE JOB
The main aim of a TLO mission was to cross the enemy line into the North
and report back to an American base in the South with a description of what
was observed on the other side. They were usually sent in groups of two or
three, and even though they were forced to go on missions, a soldier at least
had the free choice of one of three methods of crossing the line: being
parachuted in by airplane, being dropped off on the coast by boat, or going
on foot. 30 The United States preferred the TLOs to go by air and parachute
in, as this meant that they could be put deeper inside enemy territory, and a
greater amount of intelligence information could be retrieved. Most TLOs,
on the other hand, considered parachuting and the sea route to be the most
dangerous methods, not only because they had not received adequate para-
chute training, but also because a parachute mission carried them much fur-
ther into the midst of the enemy and made it much more likely that they
would be caught on the long journey back. 31
Wen Jianyou remembered that many of those who had gone earlier by air
never returned, and that this made those who came after them reluctant to use
this method. 32 As far as Ma Qungeng knew, no one survived more than two
parachute missions, and because of the higher attrition rates of the parachute
and sea routes, the Americans did not insist on TLOs taking these two op-
tions. 33 Ma’s recollections stand in stark contrast to what Wilfred Burchett
recorded in 1953. Burchett’s account was purportedly taken from Sergeant
David T. Harrison, who was in charge of getting the TLOs to jump from the
plane once they reached the right location, and he records that Harrison had
told him that every agent was reluctant to board the planes, and had to be
escorted there by gunpoint. 34 Although much of what Burchett recorded
corresponds very closely to the accounts of former intelligence gatherers,
perhaps in this case it is better to give credence to the two firsthand accounts
of Ma and Wen, who both said that parachuting was one choice among three
unsavory options. Crossing the front line on foot also had its dangers. Land
mines had been planted between the two opposing sides, and it was hard not
to be seen by the enemy, 35 and if you arrived by sea, it was easy to be spotted
by scouts when coming ashore. 36
The earliest Chinese TLO missions, carried out by those who were later to
become instructors on Seongap, were by air and sea: Bu Zeyao and Deng
Dan’s first mission was to be parachuted over into the front line to check the
effectiveness of the UN’s incendiary bombing, and it had taken them ten
days to walk back to the front line. They had been sent as a group of three,
but one of them had died because his parachute had failed to open. As for
Zhang and Zhou, they had been taken by submarine and then a small boat to
land on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, and had marched all the way
to the east, but had also lost a member of their group on the way. 37 Unlike
most other TLOs, Wen Jianyou preferred parachute missions, which he be-
lieved to be the safest option. Because he had chosen to do something that
most others refused, the Americans had great faith in what he told them. 38 In
March 1953 he chose to be parachuted for his first mission, which was to
take photographs of U.S. prisoners of war near the Yalu River, far inside
enemy territory. For his own safety he quickly ditched the camera that the
Americans gave him for the task, and found his way back, sleeping during
the day and traveling at night to avoid U.S. airstrikes. When confronted by
CPV soldiers he would tell them that he was from some other division, and
would make up a division and serial number for himself, a trick that always
seemed to work. 39
Ma Qungeng chose to cross over the front line on foot, after one of his
former classmates (surnamed Li) failed to return from a parachute mission.
He always went with Gao Wenjun. The third person in their team was differ-
ent each time. Together they completed six missions in total, the first in
December 1952, the last in November 1953. The group of three would cross
over the front line at night, armed each with a rifle and pistol, but without a
map, as it was too risky to be discovered in possession of one. After crossing
over they would walk eight or nine kilometers through the night and find a
place to hide. From this place during the day they would observe what army
units were there, their serial numbers, transport, how they were being sup-
plied, and so forth. Because they were so far behind the enemy line, and
because they were Chinese, they were not suspected even when they were
seen. Missions were supposed to last for three days, but on their first mission
it was so cold that their toenails fell off from frostbite, and they went back
half a day early. Near the end of his third trip in the summer of 1953, Ma’s
group was attacked by American soldiers because they passed too close to
their base at night and were not recognized as TLOs. The next day the
Communists and Americans began to fight, and the Communists began to
fire at the U.S. encampment only ten meters away from where they had
hidden for the night. The TLOs did not dare to move again until the shooting
had stopped, and by the time the Americans had seen them, they found out
they had stepped into a minefield, and had to be directed out. 40
Between missions, TLOs were allowed to rest in Seoul for ten days, and
then were sent to Seongap for a month or so before being sent off again. 41
Overall, the intelligence missions had a high attrition rate. Gao Wenjun
claimed that in one month, only nine TLOs returned from a group of twenty-
five, 42 and estimated that over the whole course of the war more than four
hundred Chinese POWs were used as TLOs, but only forty-five or sixty-five
survived to come to Taiwan, the others being lost or captured. 43 Some mis-
sions were disastrous: seven TLOs were sent to capture a live CPV scout, and
because it was so cold, they had to make sure to move around during the
night to avoid freezing to death. During this time someone let a gun go off by
mistake, and in the ensuing counterfire, six of them ran away in different
directions, and only one, who had stayed still because he could not see well
in the dark, managed to return to base. 44 Those who were lucky enough to
carry out successive missions successfully had the problem that they became
more valuable to the Americans because of their experience and knowledge,
and were therefore more likely to be sent again. At the same time, a success-
ful TLO who had been on many missions would be less likely to be treated
with mercy if caught by the Communists. Wen Jianyou explained their diffi-
cult predicament:
At that time the Americans were very bad. They didn’t say that after you had
done a few intelligence missions, you wouldn’t have to go anymore. Once you
had gone once, you would never dare to surrender to the Communists. The
more times you went, the less it was likely you would dare surrender to them,
because as far as the Communists were concerned you had committed more
serious crimes. At the same time, the more times you went, the more you
would understand the situation over there, so there was no being fired from
that kind of intelligence work. They would just shoot you. The opportunities to
rebel were very few. If you went once and were caught, that was counted as a
crime, but wouldn’t lead to death, but the more times you went the more likely
you would be killed, because the Communist Party would think you were
stupid and incorrigible. On the other hand, as far as the Americans were
concerned, the more times someone had gone the more experienced they were,
and the easier and safer it was for them to find their way back. So the more you
went the less you were able to get away from the clutches of the Americans.
This was the way the TLO intelligence officers thought. 45
An attitude of mutual distrust and dislike prevailed between the Chinese

and their commanders. The promise that they would be sent to Taiwan after
one more mission was often dangled before them as bait, but once they
returned, their commanders denied having said this. 46 For their own part the
Americans displayed a lack of trust in the TLOs. They would never give
them any weapons unless they were about to leave on a mission, and were
made to hand these back as soon as they returned to base. 47 During their
training they were also constantly watched over by armed South Korean
guards. 48 The Americans demanded complete compliance and a die-hard

anti-Communist attitude from the new recruits whom they had chosen. Be-
cause of the secrecy surrounding the use of POWs, any who wavered in their
attitude or were disobedient could be easily disposed of. One person in the
group taken with Hou Guangming was a professed anti-Communist in the
camp, but made the mistake of announcing that “the Communist Party isn’t
bad, and neither is the KMT” once he was in Japan. Soon after he had said
this, he disappeared and was never heard from again. 49 Another, Wen Chuan-
ji, could speak English, but he refused to cooperate with the Americans and
spoke harshly to them. Hou reported that this man was imprisoned in a small,
barbed wire enclosed space that was so small that he couldn’t stand up. 50
Later, on Seongap, he refused to go on a mission with his group, and had
disappeared by the time they had come back. The others suspected he had
been taken to the front by the Americans and dealt with there. 51
Hou Guangming recalled that the TLOs had a saying, “to carry a sandbag
on one’s back,” which referred to a way of getting rid of those TLOs who
would not obey orders by tying sandbags to their backs and throwing them in
the sea. 52 Later on, as TLOs became more experienced, the threat of being
disposed of faded, but humiliating corporal punishment was still meted out
for disobedience among them. Gao Wenjun recalled that a group of three
TLOs surnamed Li, Wang, and Wu had been sent over the front line, but
because they left from the same location and came back to the same location
twice they were suspected of not having done their mission properly and
having wasted time in the neutral zone for a few days instead. The punish-
ment for this was to be beaten each three times with a baseball bat in front of
five of their comrades. 53
American attitudes began to soften over time and experienced TLOs like
Gao Wenjun and Ma Qungeng were able to protest against their treatment
because they had become more valuable to the United States. According to
Gao, three main methods of protest were employed: passive resistance in the
form of hunger strikes and refusing to get out of bed; getting people to escape
and find their way to the Nationalist embassy to inform the Chinese Nation-
alist government about what was going on in the unit; and refusing to be sent
on missions unless it was a great emergency. According to Gao, a hunger
strike resulted in the replacement of an unpopular commanding officer with
one who spoke Chinese. 54
At one point the TLOs began to refuse to go on any more missions until
they had extracted a promise from their commanding officers that no one
would be sent on more than six missions, and although they were locked up
for a few weeks, as Ma Qungeng (who had also been the victim of a beating
with a baseball bat) recounted: “We understood ourselves that having been
out on missions we already counted as experienced intelligence gatherers,
and in addition to that, we were in Seoul, not on the front line, so the
Americans weren’t going to kill us, and we had room to negotiate.” 55 At

Chinese New Year in 1953 all of the TLOs flatly refused to go out on any
missions during the festival, and although the Americans threatened them
with guns, and shot into the tents where they were sleeping to frighten them,
they did not aim at anyone. 56 They finally managed to extract a written
agreement from their commanding officer that no one would be sent on more
than six missions; but when people came back from their sixth mission, the
Americans would switch their commanding officers, and the new command-
ing officer would refuse to honor the contract signed by the last one, on the
grounds that he had not signed it himself. 57 The TLOs felt trapped, used, and
helpless, and none seem to have had anything good to say about the
Americans. Hou Guangming recalled:
At first I had a good impression of the Americans, but after I had got close to
them they were untrustworthy, and used force and violence, they used these
kinds of vicious methods to control us, but there was nothing we could do.
What could you do? You’re a POW, there’s no way to fight back. 58
Ma Qungeng’s feelings were:
At that time on Seongap, it was clear to us that we were just tools to the
Americans. Even if we died they wouldn’t admit it. If you could get back
safely, then the Americans would get some free intelligence, if not, then they
would deny your existence. 59
Gao Wenjun recalled that conditions improved for the TLOs as the armis-
tice talks in Panmunjom began to make progress and a more peaceful atmos-
phere began to prevail. Intelligence officers started to be treated better; they
were taken to Seoul to be wined (with Coors, Budweiser, and Johnny Walk-
er) and dined. They were also given more clothing and rations, and received
more recognition by the UN Head Command. General Clark gave special
praise to the members of Unit 8240, and made sure they were entertained and
treated well during the time they spent in Seoul. 60 However, it was not until
mid-1953 that they began to be paid for their work and allowed to volunteer
for it, rather than being forced into it.
THOSE WHO WERE CAUGHT
Since those who were chosen had almost always been involved in anti-
Communist activities in the POW camps, if they were caught they were
likely to be punished for these in addition to their punishment for espionage.
Wen Jianyou noted, for instance that if the Communists caught anyone who
had been a leader in the CIE school in the POW camp they would shoot them
for spreading anti-Communist thought. This had happened to a former class-

mate of his, Sun Zhonggeng, who had been a headmaster in the school. 61
Punishment did not always come swiftly, however. Because captive TLOs
were also a valuable source of counterintelligence for the Communists about
the POW camps and about the TLO espionage group itself, they were not
necessarily killed instantly. 62
Undoubtedly the most famous catch for the Communist side was the
notorious Li Da’an, the anti-Communist leader in Busan and later brigade
leader within compound 72 in the POW camp on Geoje. His cruelty toward
Communist POWs had become legendary, and the story that he had cut the
beating heart from the chest of the Communist Lin Xuebu on the eve of
prisoner screening in 1952 became a favorite image for the cruelty of the
anti-Communist leaders in the UN POW camps. 63 Even the anti-Communist
hagiography, the Fangong Yishi Fendoushi (History of the struggle of the
anti-Communist defectors), which was supposed to paint a good picture of
the anti-Communists in the camps, records him as having slashed Commu-
nists with razors and cut flesh off their bodies while they were still alive. 64
According to Gao Wenjun, on July 27, 1953, sixty new recruits to the TLO
program were brought from the POW camps before the inmates were shipped
to the “Indian Village” in Panmunjom, and Li Da’an was among them. He
was parachuted into the North with radio equipment to set up a spying base
near the Korean border with China, but neither he nor the other five were
heard from again. For those in Taiwan his story ended in mystery until cross-
strait communications were opened between the PRC and China in the
1980s. 65
Li Da’an’s subsequent fate can be found in materials from the other side.
Burchett notes that in November 1952 he was taken from Jeju to Seongap for
intelligence training, and parachuted along the Korean-Chinese border at the
end of April 1953 and captured three days later. 66 Zhang Zeshi, a former
inmate of Geoje and one of the few officially sanctioned PRC writers on the
subject (whose information is likely to be the most accurate due to his close
connections to many other returnee POWs, and his access to official docu-
mentation), says that Li was parachuted into North Korea to be a spy on April
4, 1953. He was then quickly apprehended by DPRK troops and handed over
to the CPV, who already knew his status. He was sent back to China and
eventually sentenced to death by Beijing Military District Military Court on
June 24, 1958. 67
The fate of other TLOs after their capture can be gleaned from the stories
of those who managed to escape their captors and return again to base. After
their beating with the baseball bat, the three TLOs Li, Wang, and Wu, had
been sent over the front line again and had not returned on time. Having no
new intelligence to hand in to his superior, their commanding officer chose to
remedy this by sending a new group over the line to collect information to fill
the shortfall. 68 Three men were sent off to do this, Wan Shengtang and
Cheng Rongxin, 69 and another by the surname Wang. After four days of
hiding out behind enemy lines, they were about half an hour or so away from
returning to base when a group of CPV troops ambushed them and took their
weapons. The TLO surnamed Wang tried to grab a gun and run but was shot
dead on the spot.
That night at the CPV base they were called “agents of American Imperi-
alism” and given harsh beatings and abuse. They were tied together and
made to march for twelve days and nights. They believed that they were not
executed because at that time it was too difficult to hold a trial for them, as
U.S. planes were constantly combing the landscape to strike, and a group of
more than a few people would be a ready target. They were eventually
brought to a dark forest of fir trees, in which sixty or seventy prisoners were
being held. Cadres were watching them and they were forbidden from talking
to each other, so they could not find out people’s names or the reasons they
had been sent there, but they recognized over half of their faces from the
POW camps, and counted ten whom they had met previously on Seongap. 70
They were all shut in foxholes at night, and then let out during the day to do
labor for the CPV, such as digging more foxholes, getting straw for the
donkeys and horses, and repairing bridges.
The two captured TLOs lived like this for three months, until the early
autumn, when they realized that their captors were fairly inexperienced sol-
diers, and worked out a plan to escape and return to the UN side. In a
moment of confusion caused by one of the captives mistaking a large piece
of wood for a snake, they took the chance to scatter in different directions
and managed to escape. They wandered south for fourteen days until they
finally found UN troops and explained their status. When they got back, the
Americans said they had been away for too long and expressed fears that
they had come back to act as double agents. 71 They were put under detention
until Koreans informed the rest of the TLOs about them, and the TLOs
staged a protest to get them released. After their release they were sent to do
missions again, and in the end only Cheng Rongxin survived. 72
Even those TLOs who purposely defected back to the Chinese side could
not escape punishment. The reason why Burchett had been able to talk to
Sergeant Harrison in the North was because of the actions of Zhang Wenrong
on the 19th of February 1952. Zhang Wenrong had decided to defect back to
the North, and had thrown a grenade back into the C-46 air transport that was
carrying him for a parachute mission as he jumped from it. Harrison, the
jumpmaster, managed to parachute to safety himself, but the U.S. soldiers
inside who were to be dropped behind the front line were all either killed or
wounded and the aircraft was destroyed. 73 Even though Harrison gave evi-
dence that Zhang Wenrong had destroyed the enemy aircraft, Zhang was still
branded a spy by the Chinese Communist Party, which meant a life of prison
sentences, trouble finding work, and constant political persecution. A pardon

granted in 1980 by the CCP to other POWs who had returned to China did
not apply to him, and he retained his suspect political status until June 2000
when he was given a posthumous pardon, three months after his death. 74
THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ROC
According to Gao, the activities of Chinese in Unit 8240 were a well-guarded

secret of the UN forces, and the Nationalist government was at first unaware
of their existence. 75 He strongly doubted that the KMT had anything to do
with TLO selection, on the grounds that from a KMT perspective, the value
of the anti-Communists was to stay in the camps as leaders and teachers to
influence the people to achieve the goal of getting to Taiwan. 76
As mentioned previously, one of the methods of protest employed by the
Chinese intelligence officers was to alert the Nationalist government to their
plight. Around the time of the signing of the armistice in July 1953, 77 after
successive broken promises about not having to be sent on any more mis-
sions, a new commanding officer came and told the group that they would
each have to go on one final mission. Although the TLOs agreed to do so, at
the same time they organized for a group of four TLOs surnamed Long,
Zhou, Bu, and Dai (perhaps the middle two were Zhou Anbang and Bu
Zeyao mentioned above) to escape and head for the Nationalist Chinese
embassy in Seoul. Their escape was successful and they were able to meet
with ambassador Wang Dongyuan, who told them he had been made aware
of the situation already because the previous year he had already sheltered
another escaped TLO by the name of Wang. He explained that the National-
ist government could not hide them at the embassy because of their strategic
value to the UN and the effect it would have on U.S.–Nationalist Chinese
relations. When they discovered what had happened, the Americans were
worried that the four escapees would reveal information about their secret
use of POWs to the armistice negotiators at Panmunjom, so aside from
interrogating Gao and the others who had remained behind, they also con-
ducted searches for days around Seoul. Ambassador Wang acted quickly to
protect the four escapees by disguising them as overseas Chinese, sending
them on a night train to Busan and arranging for them to be hidden at the
homes of overseas Chinese there. 78
After this had happened, Ambassador Wang began to negotiate with the
U.S. military on behalf of the TLOs, and one of the results of this was that
long-serving officers were compensated for their work. In late 1953 the UN
authorities asked for four volunteers to go and work around the “Indian
Village” in Panmunjom, where the Chinese prisoners of war were now being
held in preparation for repatriation. This was to help ensure that the DPRK
and CPV forces did not attempt to capture the non-repatriate POWs who had
expressed the wish to be sent to Taiwan. 79 Gao Wenjun and three others
(surnamed Tao, Tian, and Li) volunteered for this duty, and as a reward they
received a payment of 100 U.S. dollars. At the same time the other TLOs
began to be paid retroactively: 75 dollars for every month they had served in
Unit 8240, the same pay rate as high-ranking U.S. soldiers. 80 The other TLOs
were paid retroactively for each mission they had carried out in the North,
meaning that some of them earned as much as $175 per month. Gao calculat-
ed that this was equivalent to the monthly wages of 525 KMT soldiers in
Taiwan put together. 81 Gao stated that the Americans also promised the
officers that they could become U.S. citizens, study in the United States, and
receive welfare from the U.S. government. None of these promises was ever
acted upon, however. 82
Another result of the involvement of the Nationalist government was that
the U.S. Eighth Army commander, General Maxwell D. Taylor, allowed the
military attaché to the Nationalist embassy, Major General Yang Xuefang, to
meet with the Chinese TLOs. Yang promised to report straight to the central
government and ensure the return of all the intelligence officers to Taiwan. 83
With promises made concerning the treatment of TLOs witnessed by Nation-
alist officials, it was no longer possible for the U.S. military to use these men
secretly as they pleased, and an agreement was reached that they would also
be allowed to go to Taiwan. Ma Qungeng remembered instead that the TLOs
on Seongap began to agitate to be sent back to Taiwan once they heard that
this had been agreed at Panmunjom. 84
GETTING TO TAIWAN
In early January 1954, the UN High Command announced that the TLOs
would be taken to an unidentified location. There were then ninety-five of
them, including thirty who had recently arrived. They were told to take their
possessions and clothes, but everything immovable was to be doused in oil
and burned. At noon a large U.S. patrol ship weighed anchor off Seongap,
and at five in the afternoon, smaller boats came to collect the officers. On this
ship they were well fed and could watch films, and although there were many
forbidden areas on the ship, they were also allowed to walk around on deck.
The next morning they arrived at an island called Chodo, off the southwest
coast of the Korean Peninsula, and remained there for about three weeks until
the evening of January 22. On this evening the officers were granted civilian
status, and treated to a farewell party by their U.S. commanding officers.
They were then put on a ship the next day and taken back to the Korean
mainland, and from there straight to the airfield at Busan, where Nationalist
Air Force planes were waiting for them. They arrived at Sungshan airfield at
night, and they were greeted by officials from the ROC Ministry of Defense.
Over the next few days the Nationalists were in propaganda overdrive
welcoming back the fourteen thousand prisoners of war who had refused
repatriation to the mainland. But unlike the “anti-Communist righteous men”
who were paraded triumphantly through the streets of Taipei, the former
intelligence officers were kept out of the limelight. In response to a request
from the U.S. government that their existence be kept secret, they were taken
to a military hospital in Wanlong that had been cleared of all its patients and
workers. 85 The treatment of Li Da’an in Nationalist propaganda published
shortly after the war is testimony to the classified nature of their activities.
While he sat awaiting his military trial somewhere in China, a heroic end was
concocted for him in The History of the Struggle of the Anti-Communist
Defectors in which he was described as having been ambushed and killed in
a Communist compound on Geoje while trying to rescue some anti-Commu-
nist prisoners there armed only with a knife. 86
Once they had come to Taiwan, those who had served the Americans as
TLOs were asked to volunteer to gather intelligence on the mainland by the
Nationalists. Both Ma Qungeng and Gao Wenjun refused to volunteer. Of the
thirty or so ex-TLOs whom Ma Qungeng remembered, more than ten contin-
ued working as intelligence officers. He remembered that one by the surname
of Zhang was caught and executed on the mainland. 87 Here he is probably
referring to Zhang Huayu, one of the long-serving TLOs Gao Wenjun met on
Seongap who was caught taking photographs of an air force base in Fuzhou
on October 10, 1957, and summarily executed. 88
Years later, an air of sensitivity and secrecy still seems to surround the
activities of the Chinese in UNPIK. Of twenty former anti-Communist
POWs who were interviewed for a collection of oral histories in 2008–2009,
five were former TLOs: Gao Wenjun, Hou Guangming, Ma Qungeng, Wen
Jianyou, and Liu Tonghe. The fact that the last three of these five men have
preferred not to divulge their real names publicly, and that one of them (Liu
Tonghe) was reluctant to discuss any of his TLO activities, suggests that they
fear that even after sixty years, knowledge of their activities as part of UN-
PIK may have a negative impact on their relatives’ and their own lives. As
noted above, it was known that the Communists collected information about
others serving as TLOs from those who had defected or whom they had
captured. Often this caused trouble for their relatives back in China, especial-
ly during the Mao era. For example, Hou Guangming’s wife on the mainland
had been ordered by the authorities to divorce and remarry, and she took their
son with her into the new marriage. He suspected the re-defector Zhang
Wenrong of having given information about him to the authorities. His elder
brother was also the subject of political interrogation because the Commu-
nists claimed Hou had been a KMT spy in Korea. “I have never served a
single day as a KMT spy,” remarked Hou. 89 Indeed, as this chapter shows,
serving as a tactical liaison officer in UNPIK and working as a spy for the
KMT were two very different things. Work of the tactical liaison officers
was, rather, an important but almost entirely unacknowledged facet of U.S.
involvement in the Korean War.
NOTES
1. Wilfred Burchett and Alan Winnington, Koje Unscreened (London: Britain-China

Friendship Association, 1953), 73–74.
2. For instance, see Yi Chang-Gon, KLO ui Hangukcheon Pisa (Seoul: Jisungsa, 2005);
for a review of this work, see Stephen C. Mercado, “KLO ui Hangukchon Pisa” [Secret history
of the KLO in the Korean War] Studies in Intelligence 56, no. 1 (2012): 33–35.
3. Gao Wenjun, Hanzhan Yiwang: Yuxue Yusheng Hua Renquan (Taipei: Shengzhi Wen-
hua, 2000), 246. According to Gao Wenjun, upon his arrival on Seongap Island on August 1,
1951, he met with six people who had disappeared from the camp at Busan six months previ-
ously.
4. Hou Guangming in Zhou Xiuhuan, Zhang Shiying, and Ma Guozheng, Hanzhan Fan-
gong Yishi Fangtanlu (Taipei: Guoshiguan, 2013), 288.
8. Gao Wenjun in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 306.
9. Ma Qungeng in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 261.
10. Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 262; Wen Jianyou in Zhou et al.,
Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 344.
12. Hou Guangming in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 287.
14. Ma Qungeng in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 260–61.
15. Wen Jianyou in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 341.
17. Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 246–47.
23. Burchett and Winnington, Koje Unscreened, 74. I surmise that they are referring to
Korean Chinese agents employed through the Nationalist embassy by the Korean military for
spying in the North, as the Nationalists did not seem to have much idea of what the Americans
were up to until later.
30. Ma Qungeng in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 261, 263; Wen Jianyou
in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 346.

43. Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 246; p. 274 gives the figure 65 out of 400.
47. Gao Hanzhan Yiwang, 255.
48. Gao Hanzhan Yiwang, 249.
61. Wen Jianyou in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 348–49.
63. For example Da Ying, Zhiyuanjun Zhanfu Jishi (Beijing: Kunlun Chubanshe, 1986),
143; Zhang Zeshi, Zhiyuanjun Zhanfu Jishi : Meijun Jizhongying Qinliji (Beijing: Zhongguo
Wenshi Chubanshe, 1996), 321–24; Richard Peters and Xiaobing Li, eds., Voices from the
Korean War (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005), 245.
64. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, Fangong Yishi Fendoushi (Taipei:
Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Jiuye Fudaochu, 1955).
66. Wilfred Burchett and Alan Winnington, Plain Perfidy (London: Britain-China Friend-
ship Association, 1954), 133.
67. Zhang, Zhiyuanjun Zhanfu Jishi , 319–20.
69. Hou Guangming’s version of the story has the names “Ge” Shengtang and “Chen”
Rongxin, the former a different-sounding name with a similar-looking character, and the latter
a similar-sounding name with a different-looking character. See Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong
Yishi Fangtanlu, 288–89.
70. Hou Guangming added that political prisoners from the North were being held there as
well. Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 288.
71. Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 298; Gao, Hanzhan Yiwang, 260.
72. Hou Guangming in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 288–89.
73. Details of the story Burchett heard (Burchett and Winnington, Koje Unscreened, 72–73)
differed from those recorded by Zhang Zeshi, who claimed that Harrison was the pilot and that
the grenade killed ten U.S. soldiers. In this case more credence should be given to Burchett’s
version, as it was taken from Harrison himself.
74. Zhang Zeshi, Wode Chaoxian Zhanzheng (Beijing: Jincheng Chubanshe, 2011), part 2,
chapter 10, section 7.
76. Gao Wenjun in Zhou et al., Hanzhan Fangong Yishi Fangtanlu, 306–7.
77. No date is given but from comments given in Gao’s account, I infer that this took place
before the peace talks in Panmunjom in July 1953.
86. Fangong Yishi Fendoushi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui, ed . , Fangong Yishi Fendoushi (Tai-
pei: Fangong Yishi Jiuye Fudaochu, 1955), 95–96.
88. Fujian Shengqing Ziliao ku, http://www.fjsq.gov.cn/ShowText.asp?ToBook=193&
index=20&.
Chapter Eight
The United States, Japan, and the

Undercover War in Korea
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
As the fiercely guarded borders of the Cold War world emerged, two young
Japanese men, Yamada Zenjirō and Itagaki Kōzō, found themselves on oppo-
site sides on those borders, caught up in historical events beyond their control
and even beyond their imaginations. These events were to involve them in
the Japanese side of the Korean War intelligence gathering operations dis-
cussed in chapter 7, and were to provoke a major diplomatic incident be-
tween Japan and the United States. Their stories provide further insights into
the way that the grand stratagems of the Korean War played out in the
everyday lives of some of the region’s people.
Yamada Zenjirō had trained as an air force cadet in the Japanese Imperial
Navy during the war, and after Japan’s defeat, like many young demobilized
men, he found employment with the U.S. occupation forces. In Yamada’s
case, his job was as a cook in the household of U.S. intelligence officer
Colonel Jack Y. Canon (1914–1981; birth name: Joseph Young Canon). His
employer was a taciturn, gun-loving Texan whose manner some people
found alarming, but who quickly took a liking to the young Japanese cook
who prepared meals for the Canon family (consisting of the colonel, his wife
Josette, and the couple’s two small children) at their house near Yokohama.
The front door of the Canons’ house opened straight into their kitchen,
and when the colonel came home from work or travel, he often stopped there
to smoke his Camel cigarettes (which, much to the annoyance of Josette, he
sometimes laced with a white substance mixed into the tobacco) and chat
with his Japanese cook. 1 Though Canon did not discuss the details of his
work, it quickly became clear to Yamada that the colonel was a person of
some influence. His dinner and cocktail parties were attended by prominent
173
Japanese figures, including high-ranking police officers. Yamada particularly

recalled a party at which the famous film star, later to turn politician, Yama-
guchi Yoshiko (Ri Kōran), sang her hit song “China Nights.” 2
When war erupted on the Korean Peninsula in June 1950, Canon, who
had just returned from a trip to Korea, stopped by to chat with Yamada, and
asked the cook what he thought about this new conflict. The colonel had a
strong personal interest in the subject, because the intelligence organization
that he ran—known as “Z Unit” or the “Canon Organization”—was engaged
in a complex nexus of undercover operations in Korea, China, and the Far
Eastern Soviet Union, as well as in Japan. Yamada Zenjirō was then in his
early twenties and his political ideas were still deeply colored by his wartime
naval training. His response to Canon’s question about the Korean War was
therefore straightforward. The outbreak of fighting in Korea, he said, meant
that it was important for Japan to rearm in order to resist the menace of
Communism. At that (Yamada would later recall) Canon laughed and re-
plied: “I’ll make an army for you!” 3 But during the three years of the Korean
War, Yamada Zenjirō’s view of the world was to be radically transformed,
and Yamada himself would become a participant in a political sensation: a
crisis in U.S.-Japan relations so profound that even today, in 2017, many of
the official documents on the subject remain classified or censored.
Meanwhile Itagaki Kōzō, who was a couple of years younger than Yama-
da, was one of the many hundreds of thousands of Japanese stranded on the
other side of the emerging Cold War dividing line when Japan surrendered in
August 1945. Itagaki was an orphan of empire. His father, a prewar migrant
to the colony of Karafuto (Sakhalin), had died in a mining accident, and his
mother was killed when Soviet forces swept into Karafuto in late August
1945. As the former Japanese colony of Karafuto was incorporated into the
territory of the Soviet Union, Itagaki—left alone and without resources in
this lost outpost of empire—survived (as Yamada Zenjirō did in Japan) by
finding work with the occupation forces. He became a “houseboy” in the
home of a Soviet officer named Maxim Tarkin—claimed by some to have
been a colonel in the USSR’s intelligence service, the GPU (forerunner of the
KGB). 4
In 1949 Tarkin, who was returning to Moscow via China, took Itagaki as
far as Shenyang, from where the young Japanese straggler hoped to be able
to return to the homeland he had never seen. From Shenyang, Itagaki crossed
the porous border between China and North Korea and made his way alone
down the coast of the Korean Peninsula as far as the port of Wonsan. There
he found a berth on a smuggling boat going to Japan. The boat, just one of
many thousands crossing the seas surrounding Japan as smuggling flourished
in the chaos of the immediate postwar years, entered Tokyo Bay without
detection, and dropped Itagaki off in the portside district of Shibaura. But
Itagaki Kōzō had no job, no money, and no immediate family in Japan.
The United States, Japan, and the Undercover War in Korea 175
Before disembarking in Tokyo, he had heard information about another

smuggling boat that would soon be entering the port, and after spending just
a few days in the Japanese capital, Itagaki (according to his own testimony)
sought out this vessel, the Kōhoku Maru, and asked the crew to take him on
as a deckhand. He worked on the smuggling ship for almost two years as it
quietly plied the seas between Japan and various destinations: Okinawa,
North and South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Far Eastern Russia. 5 When the
Korean War broke out, Itagaki was still engaged in his clandestine employ-
ment on the Kōhoku Maru, but soon after, his life was to become entwined
with those of Jack Y. Canon and Yamada Zenjirō in strange and fateful ways.
RETHINKING THE OCCUPATION OF JAPAN

AND THE KOREAN WAR
In some respects, Yamada Zenjirō and Itagaki Kōzō were typical of their
generation: two ordinary people whose lives were turned upside down by
Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific War. But the historical events in which
they became entangled cast a sharp and rather unfamiliar light on the history
of Japan—and more broadly of Northeast Asia—in the immediate postwar
years. The experiences of these two young men challenge us to rethink wide-
ly held perceptions both of the allied occupation of Japan and of Japan’s
relationship to the Korean War.
Histories of the occupation of Japan often draw a sharp dividing line
between the reformist early years (up to 1947) and the subsequent “reverse
course.” As one study puts it: “The initial goals of the US occupation were to
demilitarize and democratize Japan and help it regain basic economic func-
tions in order to be self-sufficient. Beyond that Japan was of little interest to
the United States.” As Cold War tensions rose, though, “the reverse course
slowed and on occasion reversed the democratic reforms introduced by the
United States in the early phase of the occupation.” 6
But the story of occupation-era intelligence operations, in which Jack Y.
Canon’s Z Unit was a key player, reminds us that from its very start the
occupation had two faces: a liberal, reforming aspect and a more secretive
aspect centered on an intense pursuit of Cold War ideological goals. This
second aspect of the occupation, from the first weeks of the occupation
onward, involved close cooperation between senior members of the U.S.
occupation forces and former senior figures in the wartime Japanese military
(particularly in wartime military intelligence). A central figure in this net-
work of cooperation was the irascible and vehemently anti-Communist major
general Charles A. Willoughby (1892–1972), head of intelligence (G-2) for
U.S. Army forces in Japan and the U.S. Far East Command. Willoughby was
the son of a German father and American mother: his birth name was Adolf
Tscheppe-Weidenbach, but he had moved to America at the age of eighteen

and become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Though he enjoyed the confidence of
General Douglas MacArthur, he had a troubled relationship with many other
members of GHQ staff. 7 More liberal members of the occupation administra-
tion suspected his far right political views, and Willoughby responded to his
critics in kind, reserving his fiercest invective for the liberal press, whose
journalists he called “bastards” and “pen prostitutes,” and accused of furnish-
ing “aid and comfort to the enemy.” 8
As soon as he arrived in Japan in September 1945, Willoughby began to
cultivate relationships with former members of the Japanese military, includ-
ing Arisue Seizō (1895–1992), who had been the Imperial Army’s chief of
intelligence during the war, and the Imperial Army’s former deputy chief of
staff, Kawabe Torashirō (1890–1960). With the support of G-2, these former
military men not only escaped prosecution for war crimes, but were also
encouraged to create their own private intelligence networks, which supplied
information to the U.S. occupation authorities. Rumors about their activities
abounded at the time, but remained largely unconfirmed until recent years,
when the declassification of U.S. documents has helped to confirm important
details about intelligence gathering collaboration in the occupation era. 9
Jack Canon, who had served in U.S. intelligence in Australia and Papua
New Guinea during the latter part of the Asia-Pacific War, arrived in Japan
soon after the surrender to work in the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC),
which was under Willoughby’s control. 10 In 1947, Willoughby appointed
Canon to head the newly established Z Unit, created to carry out clandestine
intelligence and counterintelligence activities throughout Northeast Asia.
The activities of Willoughby, Canon, and their associates indicate how deep-
ly the emerging Cold War mentality permeated sections of the U.S. occupa-
tion force from its very inception. They also highlight important multination-
al and cross-border dimensions of occupation.
Willoughby’s dual role as head of intelligence both for U.S. Army forces
in Japan and for the U.S. Far East Command gave him intelligence powers
that extended far beyond Japan to encompass the entire East Asian region.
The espionage networks that he created, including Z Unit, made Japan a hub
of U.S. intelligence gathering activities reaching into Korea, China, and be-
yond. Z Unit was a multiethnic as well as a cross-border operation. The
unit’s second-in-command, Yeon Jeong, was a Korean who had served with
the Japanese military in Manchuria, and who was directly appointed to the
unit by South Korean president Syngman Rhee (Yi Seungman). 11 Other
members of the unit included Japanese Americans (many of whom had expe-
rienced wartime internment in the United States) and anti-Communist Rus-
sians. 12 South Korean and Taiwanese military officers at times cooperated
with Z Unit, 13 and it seems likely that selected pieces of the intelligence
collected by the unit were shared with the South Korean, Japanese, and
Taiwanese authorities.
These cross-border dimensions of the occupation forces’ activities be-
came particularly important after the outbreak of the Korean War. As we
have already seen in chapter 1, Japan was tied into the conflict on the Korean
Peninsula in a multitude of ways. Thousands of Japanese performed military-
related duties (including minesweeping and the transport of troops, weapons,
and explosives) in the Korean war zone, and many of the key decisions about
the war were made on Japanese soil. The story of Z Unit exposes a further
long-neglected facet of Japan’s connection to the events of the Korean
War—the place of Japan in Korean War intelligence operations—and re-
minds us of the repercussions that these connections also had for some Japa-
nese citizens.
SMUGGLING AND INTELLIGENCE GATHERING AND

“PLAGUE SHIPS”: A RETURNEE’S STORY
During the Korean War, as Matthew Aid points out, the U.S. Far East Com-
mand (FECOM) derived most of its information about Soviet military activ-
ities from
the interrogation of almost 1.5 million Japanese prisoners of war who had
returned from captivity in the Soviet Union or Soviet-controlled areas in the
Far East between the end of the Second World War and June 1950. Between
December 1946 and June 1948, the FECOM Central Interrogation Centre in
Tokyo had screened almost 625,000 Japanese repatriates, briefly interrogated
57,000 former Japanese POWs at their port of entry, and more extensively
interrogated 9,000 former POWs in Tokyo who possessed “significant intelli-
gence information” about the Soviet Union. 14
One of the returnees who attracted the particular interest of occupation intel-
ligence authorities was Itagaki Kōzō.
Most of the knowledge we possess about Itagaki’s story comes from
testimony that Itagaki himself gave to the Justice Committee of the lower
house of the Japanese Diet in August 1953, and from further information that
he provided to officials of the Ministry of Justice. This testimony raises a
number of questions. How far can we believe it, and how much did Itagaki
choose to conceal? Even Inomata Kōzō, the Socialist Party parliamentarian
who took up the cause of Itagaki and other victims of Z Unit, initially found
Itagaki’s story “just too weird,” and treated it with a mixture of belief and
incredulity. 15 In a media interview that he gave in 1953, Itagaki passed on
some secondhand information about the unit’s higher command that was
incorrect (for example, he stated that Canon, who was in fact a Texan, came
from California). 16 But during the parliamentary hearings on Z Unit held in

August of that year, key elements of Itagaki’s personal story (including his
account of interrogation in Niigata, transfer to the hands of CIC, and incar-
ceration by Canon’s organization) were confirmed by other witnesses includ-
ing a Niigata public prosecutor and an official of the Ministry of Justice. 17
Parliamentarian Inomata came to believe that, in speaking of the things he
had experienced himself, the young returnee had indeed told the truth. 18
At the start of 1951, Itagaki was still working on the smuggling vessel,
the Kōhoku Maru. This ship may have been engaged not only in illicit trade,
but also in Russian or North Korean espionage or other political activities,
but Itagaki was apparently kept in the dark about its more sensitive missions.
In March 1951, the boat entered a port in Niigata Prefecture on the west coast
of Japan, and Itagaki was handed a package wrapped up in a cloth bundle
(furoshiki), which he was ordered to deliver to an address near Misawa in
Aomori Prefecture (site of a large U.S. Air Force base). He was firmly
ordered not to look at the contents of the package, but a little way into the
train journey to Misawa he was consumed by curiosity about the bundle he
was carrying, and started to open it. Suddenly, he was seized by another man
in the railway carriage, who, unbeknownst to Itagaki, had evidently been
employed by the smugglers to shadow him. The man grabbed the bundle,
pushed Itagaki out of the train at the next halt, and beat him severely. Left in
an unfamiliar landscape, dazed, and without money or possessions, Itagaki
wandered in confusion along the side of the railway track until he was found
by a guard, who handed him over to the police.
Because he was still a juvenile under Japanese law, Itagaki was sent to a
youth detention center. But, as a returnee from Sakhalin who had arrived by a
most unusual route, he soon attracted the attention, not just of the Japanese
police, but also of the U.S. intelligence services. In testimony that he gave to
the parliamentary committee, Itagaki recalled how, during his time in juve-
nile detention in Niigata, he was collected every morning by officers of the
U.S. Counter Intelligence Corp and taken to their offices in Niigata for ques-
tioning. Then, after being tried in a juvenile court for illegal entry and given
six months probation, Itagaki was again immediately handed over by the
Japanese authorities to CIC. 19
On May 3, 1951, a CIC officer took Itagaki by train to Tokyo’s Ueno
Station, where he was placed in the custody of a Japanese American agent
whose name (he later discovered) was William Mitsuda. Mitsuda, as it turned
out, was one of a number of Japanese Americans employed by Z Unit.
Another key figure whom both Itagaki and Yamada Zenjirō would encounter
was Victor Matsui, who (like many Japanese Americans employed by the
occupation forces in Japan) had been interned as an enemy alien in the
United States before being recruited into the American armed forces and sent
to Japan in the second half of 1945. 20
Supervised by William Mitsuda, Itagaki was bundled into a jeep that,

presumably to confuse him about the location, was deliberately driven round
and round in circles: he realized this because he noticed that they kept repeat-
edly passing a large neon sign on one corner of Ueno Station advertising
Morinaga Milk Candy. 21 It was now late at night, and when the car finally
came to a halt outside a large building surrounded by extensive walled
grounds, Itagaki had no idea where he was. In fact, he was just a few min-
utes’ drive from the station, at a mansion next to Ueno Park that had once
been occupied by the Iwasaki family, owners of the Mitsubishi Zaibatsu, but
that was now the headquarters of Jack Canon’s Z Unit.
Here, Itagaki testified, he was imprisoned in a windowless cell beneath
the mansion for about two weeks of interrogation, during which time he was
threatened with knives and a pistol by Jack Canon and other unit members.
At one point he was locked up for two days without food or drink in a cell
whose floor was covered with water, making it impossible to lie down. It
became clear that the American intelligence authorities did not believe the
answers that Itagaki had given to the CIC officers in Niigata, and Z Unit
demanded further information about his life in Sakhalin and about gunrun-
ning or espionage by the smuggling boat Kōhoku Maru. But, Itagaki insisted,
he had nothing more to tell. After the weeks of fear and darkness in the
Iwasaki mansion basement, he was blindfolded and taken to another West-
ern-style house controlled by Z Unit, which (as he later learned) was Tōsen
Club or “TC House”: a building in Kawasaki that had once belonged to the
Bank of Tokyo.
Here he was placed in a room whose windows were covered with sheets
of cloth, and one of his wrists was handcuffed to an army camp bed. There
was one consolation, though: his meals were brought to him daily by a
Japanese man of about his own age, who, he later discovered, was Yamada
Zenjirō. Not long after the start of the Korean War, Jack Canon’s wife and
children had returned to the United States, and the colonel had reassigned
Yamada first to a job in the kitchens of the CIC’s Yokohama office, and then
to work as a cook at the TC House, preparing meals not only for the Z Unit
agents who worked there, but also for a series of unofficial prisoners—
referred to by Z Unit agents as “guests”—who were brought to the house for
secret interrogation. Itagaki was the second of these “guests.” 22
After being held at the TC House for about two months, Itagaki was
driven back to the Iwasaki mansion around eleven one evening, and taken
straight to Jack Canon’s large office on the upper floor of the building, where
he was threatened with immediate execution if he failed to provide more
information on the activities of the Kōhoku Maru. Unable to satisfy his
captor’s demands, Itagaki was led out onto the wide lawn surrounding the
house, where he stood among the stone lanterns in the night drizzle waiting
for Canon and a Japanese American deputy to carry out the execution. But in
the end, Canon seems to have been persuaded that his prisoner indeed had
nothing more to tell him, so instead of being shot, Itagaki was instead re-
quired to sign up for service with Z Unit, who supplied him with a Nihon
University student’s uniform and gave him perfunctory training in undercov-
er surveillance techniques.
Soon, though, Itagaki was reassigned to a more familiar task: in Decem-
ber 1951, he was sent to work as a deckhand on one of several smuggling
ships operated by Z Unit. 23 His vessel plied the waters between Tokyo and
Busan in South Korea, carrying cargo that was probably used partly to raise
untraceable finances for Z Unit operations. According to Itagaki, this in-
cluded crates labeled “Kao Soap” (a well-known Japanese brand) but, he
added, “I am a bit doubtful whether they really contained soap.” 24 There was
also human cargo. On one occasion, Itagaki recalled, his ship carried a Kore-
an man, woman, and small child from Busan to Tokyo. Soon after, he heard
that a woman had been taken into the Iwasaki mansion cells for interrogation,
and from the description, he concluded that this was the woman they had
brought over from Korea. On the next voyage, they transported five people,
including a man who had apparently been taken prisoner of war in Wonsan
and who was put on board the boat in handcuffs. 25 Itagaki’s description of
the transport of Koreans to Japan in his smuggling ship are vague and impos-
sible to confirm, but a growing body of evidence suggests that Z Unit was
indeed engaged in activities that faintly foreshadow the much more recently
controversial process of “extraordinary rendition” used by the United States
during its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Itagaki’s Z Unit ship was apparently only one of a small fleet of vessels
operated, directly or indirectly, by Canon’s organization. Wi Hyae-rim (also
known as Han To-bong), a Korean who had worked with the Japanese army
in prewar Shanghai and was later recruited by the U.S. counterintelligence
services and assigned to Z Unit, recalled that a number of agents employed
by the unit were engaged in smuggling, both to raise funds for covert opera-
tions and as a cover for espionage missions to China, Korea, and Far Eastern
Russia: “After unloading agents and completing transactions of goods, the
ships had to wait off-shore for wireless contacts to get agents back on the
ships. Many crewmen did not quit such a risky job because goods brought
over from Japan could be sold [at] four or five times the original price.” 26
According to the testimony both of Wi and of Ōkubo Tsurayuki (who
later became deputy chair of the Ōita Prefectural Assembly), several former
members of the Japanese wartime military were also engaged in these smug-
gling and spying missions. Ōkubo had served in the Imperial Navy during the
war and ran a small shipping business in Kyushu in the late 1940s. He told a
Japanese magazine in the 1980s that he had helped Z Unit to obtain two
ships, the Makino Maru and Dai-Ni Tōyō Maru, for a smuggling and espion-
age mission to a small port town near Wonsan on the west coast of North
Korea shortly before the Korean War. On their return to Japan, the ships’
crews were arrested for smuggling, and an arrest warrant was also issued for
Ōkubo, but (according to Ōkubo) charges were dropped after Z Unit inter-
vened on their behalf. 27 A similar mission ended in public controversy and a
prolonged court case, after the ship involved, the Igasa Maru, sought shelter
in a port in Wakayama Prefecture during a typhoon, and its captain and crew
were arrested for smuggling. 28
These risky ventures highlight the fact that U.S. intelligence operations in
Korean War–era Japan were extremely fragmented. The army’s intelligence
section G-2, the Allied occupation authorities’ Civil Intelligence Section
(CIS), and the nascent Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not necessarily
see eye to eye, nor even inform each other about their actions. The lack of
coordination that plagued their operations is indicated by a November 1950
top secret memo from Doyle O. Hickey, acting chief of staff of the General
Headquarters, Far East Command. Referring to recent “incidents” and “inju-
dicious” intelligence operations, Hickey commanded that in the future “there
will be no operation of subject nature based in Japan or in an area under the
control of CINCFE (Commander-in-Chief, Far East) without the complete
knowledge and concurrence of CINCFE.” 29 It is not clear which incidents or
operations Hickey had in mind, but it seems likely that some of Canon’s
ventures were already raising eyebrows in other parts of the U.S. intelligence
establishment. And despite efforts to rein them in, there were further embar-
rassments to come.
Meanwhile, though, Z Unit was orchestrating another unusual Korean
War seaborne mission: this time one that the U.S. authorities, in public at
least, would proclaim as a triumph. Operation Sams, as it came to be called,
was initiated in late February 1951 at the request of General Douglas MacAr-
thur. The plan was to land Brigadier General Crawford Sams of the U.S.
Medical Corps and a team of agents including Canon’s second-in-command
Yeon Jeong behind North Korean lines at a site near Wonsan to determine
the truth of rumors that plague was rife in the area. The logic behind the
mission was that this knowledge was needed to protect the health of UN
forces as they made future advances into the northern half of the Korean
Peninsula. 30 According to Sams, his aim was to locate one or more Koreans
suffering from plague-like symptoms, inject them with morphine, and smug-
gle them onto his team’s landing vessel, which had been fitted out as a
floating laboratory, so that he could test them for the disease. This plan
proved unworkable, but Sams reported that he, Yeon, and others had man-
aged to go ashore near Wonsan (Sams himself wearing his normal U.S.
military uniform with the insignia removed) and conceal themselves in an
underground tunnel prepared by an advance party. One entrance of the tunnel
was close to a village that was being used as a makeshift field hospital.
Entering the village at night, Sams and his team succeeded in gathering
information about some of the patients and returned safely to Japan. 31 On the
basis of the mission, Sams confidently concluded that the disease prevalent
in North Korea was not bubonic plague but rather the serious but less deadly
hemorrhagic smallpox. 32
Yeon Jeong’s account of the mission, though, is different and consider-
ably more lurid. According to Yeon, he and other members of his commando
team entered the hospital village under cover of darkness and removed sever-
al dead bodies and three living patients, whom they loaded into motor vehi-
cles and drove to the tunnel where Sams was waiting for them. After Sams
had examined the living and dead disease victims on the spot, they sealed the
entrance to the tunnel, leaving the living patients as well as the dead en-
tombed inside. Yeon stated that the sick and dead from the field hospital
proved to have been suffering from a range of different diseases, including
typhus and smallpox, and added that when the team left they took with them
a North Korean medical orderly and nurse from the field hospital who had
witnessed and assisted the operation. 33 Neither account can necessarily be
taken at face value: Yeon’s memoirs are colorful, novelistic, and clearly
designed to highlight his own central role in the action. Sams’s intense anti-
Communism led him to offer improbable assertions such as the statement
that, largely as a result of poor medical care, the population of North Korea
had fallen from eleven million to three million by the end of the war. 34
Whatever the truth of the story, the highly secretive mission did not
remain secret for long. On April 9, 1951, Newsweek magazine published a
small but prominent report titled “Bubonic Plague Ship,” which reported that
a U.S. Navy laboratory ship “complete with mice and rabbits” had been sent
to Wonsan, and that “Navy landing parties have been grabbing up numbers
of Chinese Reds from the tiny islands of the harbor and taking them back to
the ship, where they are tested for symptoms of the dread bubonic plague.” 35
The U.S. government responded to these leaks by denying any forced sei-
zures of North Koreans or Chinese, but publicly announcing that the mission
had been a daring achievement, yielding “information vital to safeguarding
the health of United Nations troops.” Sams was awarded a medal for “ex-
traordinary heroism.” 36 More or less simultaneously, North Korea, reinter-
preting the Newsweek report and perhaps also drawing its own conclusions
about the events near Wonsan, issued the first of what were to be many
accusations that U.S. forces were inflicting germ warfare on the Korean
population. 37 Although most of these allegations were almost certainly un-
true, 38 the story of Operation Sams, like the stories of many Z Unit ventures,
does leave important questions unanswered—the most obvious question be-
ing why Crawford Sams, as a medical professional, would have imagined
that examining a handful of people from a single field hospital could enable
him to determine whether bubonic plague was present in North Korea. It is
impossible to be sure whether Operation Sams had more to it than meets the
eye, but its combination of unconventionality and derring-do certainly seems

characteristic of Z Unit actions.
THE CHINESE POW LINE-CROSSERS IN JAPAN
The same characteristics also permeated other Z Unit actions in which Yama-
da Zenjirō was closely involved. Indeed, Yamada’s recollections of his time
with Z Unit illustrate the curious way in which covert intelligence activities
mixed phases of routine tedium with moments of almost theatrical intrigue
and sometimes tragedy. Life for Yamada and the other staff employed at the
TC House often moved at a slow pace. There were days when there was little
work to do, and the Japanese staff would while away the hours playing
endless games of cards. 39 But one morning a few months after Itagaki
Kōzō’s departure from the TC House, Yamada Zenjirō and another Japanese
employee of Z Unit were suddenly summoned to the Iwasaki mansion. From
there, under the direction of a Japanese American officer named Itoh, they
were taken in a convoy of three trucks laden with beds and mattresses to a
brick building, known to the U.S. occupation forces as “US-740,” in the
Shibuya district of Tokyo. The next day, two Chinese-speaking U.S. officers
arrived at the building, and Itoh warned Yamada and his Japanese colleague
of dire consequences if they ever spoke about the things they were going to
witness. The reason for these preparations became clear later that night, when
American military vehicles arrived at the door of US-740 carrying around
twenty Chinese passengers. As Yamada soon realized, these new “guests”
were Chinese prisoners of war who had been brought to Japan from Geoje
prisoner-of-war camp in Korea. Many had anti-Communist slogans tattooed
on their bodies. 40 They were, of course, part of the contingent of UNPIK
Chinese line-crossers, whose story was explored on chapter 7.
Yamada Zenjirō recalls that a number of groups of Chinese POWs were
accommodated in the TC House, where they were given training by staff who
included one South Korean and two Nationalist Chinese officers, and where
the anti-Communist slogans on their bodies were concealed under a new
layer of tattoos. The training program seems to have been a secret even
within the U.S. military, for, rather than obtaining supplies from regular
army sources, the officers in charge of the program ordered Yamada to buy
food for the prisoners from regular Japanese grocery stores (at the same time
requesting him to provide them with receipts on which the sums expended
should be “padded” [mizumashi sareta]). 41
Yamada’s communication with the Chinese POWs was limited, though
one man from Shanxi Province could speak some words of military Japanese
that he had been forced to learn during the war. Despite the secrecy of the
program, though, Yamada could hazard a guess at the nature of the training
taking place, because large wartime maps of Manchuria were pinned up on

the walls of the TC House, and the prisoners conducted exercises on a high
tower constructed in the garden behind the house. Yamada, who had per-
formed similar exercises during his time as a student recruit to the Japanese
naval air force, recognized these as a primitive form of parachute training. 42
The secrecy that surrounded the program (and still surrounds it to this
day) was necessitated not just by the inherently secret nature of espionage
missions, but also by the fact that this recruitment of prisoners of war as spies
was a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions. As we saw in chapters 6
and 7, many Chinese and Korean prisoner of war were desperate to leave the
violent and chaotic conditions of the POW camps in South Korea, and when
some Chinese POWs who had expressed anti-Communist views were offered
the opportunity of work outside the camp under the command of the U.S.
Army, they readily accepted the offer. Few if any realized, until it was too
late to change their minds, that the work being offered was participation in
spying missions in North Korea and China, where the chances of capture and
death were extremely high.
When Yamada first published his allegations about the interrogation and
training of the Korean War POWs in Japan, his claims were largely ignored
by the Japanese mainstream media. 43 Decades later, though, confirmation of
this story came in form of testimony from a handful of former POWs who
survived their participation in the espionage scheme (see chapter 7). Neither
the U.S. nor the Japanese government has ever officially acknowledged the
existence of these prisoner transfers and spy programs, and no U.S. docu-
ments relating to them have ever been made public. The extent to which the
Japanese government was informed about the presence of Korean War pris-
oners of war on Japanese soil remains unknown.
THE KAJI WATARU AFFAIR AND ITS AFTERMATH
After spending about a week cooking for the Chinese POWs in Shibuya,
Yamada Zenjirō was sent back to the TC House in Kawasaki to prepare for
the arrival of another “guest” who, he was warned, was seriously ill with
tuberculosis. This “guest” proved to be the left-wing Japanese writer Kaji
Wataru (1903–1982; birth name: Seguchi Mitsugi), who had been snatched
by Z Unit agents from a street near his home in Kuganuma, Kanagawa
Prefecture, on the evening of November 25, 1951.
Kaji had been a member of the Proletarian Literature group at Tokyo
Imperial University in the early 1930s, and had been arrested under the
prewar Peace Preservation Law in 1934. Following his release from prison in
1936, he fled to Shanghai, and after the outbreak of full-scale war between
Japan and China, he moved to Chongqing and began to work with the Chi-
nese Nationalist government producing antiwar propaganda for distribution

to Japanese troops. In 1939, he established the Japanese People’s Anti-War
League (Nihon Jinmin Hansen Dōmei), which recruited other left-wing Japa-
nese in China (including military deserters) to work on propaganda cam-
paigns (see chapter 6). 44
After his repatriation to Japan in 1947, Kaji evidently remained a target of
U.S. intelligence services. It seems that they suspected his links to Commu-
nism, while at the same time hoping that he might be persuaded or coerced to
work as an agent gathering information on Chinese Communism for the
United States. The need for such intelligence became particularly pressing
after China joined the Korean War in October 1950. The abduction of Kaji
was just one relatively extreme instance of the wave of “anti-Red” action that
historian Masuda Hajimu describes as “a global phenomenon of domestic
purges that raged in many places during the Korean War.” 45 Evidence on the
Kaji case available today includes not only the testimony of Yamada Zenjirō
and of Kaji himself, but also later statements by Canon’s former deputy,
Yeon Jeong, and two recently declassified documents obtained by U.S. histo-
rian Erik Esselstrom. 46 Put together, these provide a strong foundation for
saying that Kaji was kidnapped by agents of Z Unit, though possibly without
the full knowledge of senior levels of the U.S. intelligence services. Kaji, like
Itagaki Kōzō, was initially taken to the former Iwasaki mansion near Ueno
Park, where (he testified) he was subjected to torture and threats, and was
then transferred to the TC House. 47 Unlike Itagaki, though, Kaji was a mem-
ber of the Japanese establishment with family and friends who were mys-
tified by his sudden disappearance, and were desperate to find him.
On December 2, 1951, a few days after Kaji’s arrival at the TC House,
Yamada Zenjirō was suddenly summoned to the room where this new
“guest” was confined. There he and fellow Z Unit employee William Mitsu-
da found the writer collapsed and unconscious on the floor. Kaji had at-
tempted suicide, leaving a note addressed to his close friend, the noted book-
seller and publisher Uchiyama Kanzō. 48 The suicide attempt was a turning
point not only in Kaji’s life but also in Yamada’s. The young cook now
became closely involved in caring for the physically fragile Kaji, and when
Kaji was moved to yet another Z Unit house in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefec-
ture, Yamada was also transferred there to look after him. A bond of sympa-
thy and friendship developed between the two men, and the encounter with
Kaji helped to transform Yamada’s view of the political world.
At considerable personal risk, Yamada Zenjirō sought out Kaji’s friend
Uchiyama Kanzō and, through him, informed the Kaji family of the writer’s
whereabouts. Through his contacts with Kaji, Uchiyama, and others, Yamada
became increasingly interested in political and social ideas, and began to read
widely, particularly devouring works on Marxist theory and dialectical mate-
rialism, though he remained wary of the secretive, cell-based structures of
Communist parties. 49 In mid-June 1952, Yamada resigned from his work

with Z Unit, and began to work with the Kaji family and others to secure
Kaji’s release. 50 By October, rumors about the writer’s kidnapping and incar-
ceration by U.S. intelligence were starting to surface in the Japanese media.
The Allied occupation had ended in April 1952, and the suggestion that a
quite well-known citizen of a now independent Japan was being secretly held
in custody by a foreign power on Japanese soil was politically explosive.
Kaji’s family, Yamada, and Uchiyama made contact with the Socialist Party
politician Inomata Kōzō, and on December 6, 1952, the group held a press
conference at which they revealed their knowledge of Kaji’s fate. Fearing a
major political scandal, U.S. intelligence authorities, who had moved Kaji to
Okinawa, were forced to act. The following day, Kaji was flown back to
Tokyo and released.
The official U.S. explanation of the incident was that Kaji had been
arrested on suspicion of spying for the Soviet Union, and when questioned,
had sought the protection of the U.S. authorities, fearing reprisals from the
Communists if he were released. 51 Soon after his return to Tokyo, Kaji (who
adamantly denied the U.S. version of events) was charged by the Japanese
police with espionage, their main evidence being testimony given by a for-
mer double spy and CIC employee named Mitsuhashi Masao. After a pro-
longed series of trials, all charges against Kaji were finally dismissed in
1969. Yeon Jeong would later acknowledge that Kaji had been abducted on
Canon’s orders, though he denied that Kaji had been mistreated. 52 Two de-
classified documents obtained by Erik Esselstrom in 2013 show that the U.S.
authorities developed three possible “scripts” to be used as cover stories for
the Kaji case depending on the political circumstances. The documents re-
veal that the United States was seriously concerned that the incident might
result in the downfall of the Yoshida government and cause major damage to
U.S.-Japan relations. One of the documents also calls for “the blackening of
Kaji’s character,” and contains a strategy, apparently worked out through
cooperation between the U.S. and Japanese authorities, to protect the reputa-
tion of the Yoshida regime by making it appear (disingenuously) that the
Japanese government had protested vigorously to the United States as soon
as it had received news of Kaji’s likely fate. 53
By the end of 1952, Yamada Zenjirō, until recently a cook in an obscure
branch of the U.S. occupation forces, had been thrust into an unfamiliar and
unsettling place in the media and political limelight. It was, he recalled, a
rather terrifying sensation, like being on a slippery slope down which you
tumble, never knowing where you end up. 54 This, after all, was the age of
“mysterious incidents,” when the Shimoyama, Matsukawa, and Mitaka Inci-
dents of 1949 still dominated the headlines, stirring fears on the one hand of
violent subversion, and on the other of the arrest of left-wing sympathizers
on trumped-up charges. 55 Yamada became a central figure in the campaign
for justice for Kaji Wataru, and also in a protest movement that aimed to
highlight the issue of the transport of Chinese POWs from Korea to Japan for
spy training. 56 In 1954, he joined the Japanese Citizens’ Relief Association
(Nihon Kokumin Kyūenkai), a group first established in 1928 to defend peo-
ple charged under the 1925 Peace Preservation Law. In the postwar era, the
Kyūenkai has worked on a variety of cases of suspected wrongful conviction,
and it has continued to conduct similar campaigns to the present day, among
other things protesting energetically (though unsuccessfully) against the
passing of the 2014 Secrecy Protection Law. Yamada was to become a key
figure in the group for the next sixty years, writing widely on a range of
human rights issues, and continuing, in his eighties, to protest the U.S. mis-
treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. 57
Yamada’s former employer, Jack Y. Canon, had already left Japan by the
time the story of Kaji Wataru’s abduction became public knowledge.
Throughout much of the 1950s and 1960s he appears to have been closely
involved in undercover activities in the eastern Mediterranean, making fre-
quent visits to Cairo, where U.S. intelligence agencies were engaged in com-
plex efforts to influence the development of Egyptian politics and Middle
Eastern international relations. 58 In the late 1950s he held the position of
provost marshall at Fort Hood Military Base, Texas, but in 1958 he was tried
in a military court on charges of stealing ammunition, displaying threatening
behavior, and shooting two cows belonging to a neighboring farmer. He was
acquitted after a trial during which the court was closed to the public while
the judge reviewed a large file of confidential army documents. 59 After con-
trolling his own secret unit in postwar East Asia, Canon seems to have found
it difficult to return to the disciplines of regular army life. In comments made
immediately after his trial, he expressed bitter hostility toward the senior
officers at the Fort Hood base, whom he accused of having framed him, and
said that “he didn’t have a close friend amongst them.” 60 Four years later,
again based in Cairo, he was still voicing his anger at the “injustices of
military justice.” 61 In later life he returned to Texas where he experimented
with the design of various sorts of ammunition, 62 and on March 8, 1981, he
was found shot dead in the garage of his home in Hidalgo, Texas, having
apparently committed suicide. 63
FORGOTTEN FACES OF POSTWAR JAPAN
The Cold War was an age of espionage. Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans
undoubtedly spied on Japan and on U.S. forces in Japan, just as Americans,
Japanese, and others spied on the Communist countries of East Asia. This
was also an age of political extremes, in which truth was often obscured by
ideological polarization. Writers like Kaji Wataru, in condemning American
imperialism, maintained a faith in the future of Communism—particularly of

Chinese Communism—which today seems profoundly naive. In the non-
Communist world, meanwhile, the fear of Communism gave rise to acts of
violence that have too easily been obscured or forgotten. Even in Japan,
which was spared the terror that overwhelmed the Korean Peninsula, smaller
echoes of that violence were played out in quiet corners.
The story of the abduction of Kaji Wataru is little remembered in Japan
today; though, because Kaji was a Japanese citizen and an intellectual, his
case did at least attract widespread attention at the time. But Kaji was not the
only “guest” of Z Unit. Yamada Zenjirō recalled others, who have been even
more thoroughly forgotten. There were the Chinese prisoners of war, only a
few of whom lived to tell their stories; and there was a Korean man known to
Z Unit staff by the pseudonym “Kobayashi Hideo,” who suffered a mental
breakdown while imprisoned in the TC House, and, according to Yamada’s
testimony, was taken away to an unknown fate by Z Unit officers William
Mitsuda and Victor Matsui. 64
And then there was the young returnee Itagaki Kōzō. After Canon left
Japan, Itagaki continued to work for Canon’s second-in-command Yeon Je-
ong until 1953, when he parted company with the remnants of Z Unit and
began to testify publicly about his experiences with the unit. At the same
time, Itagaki appealed to the Human Rights Protection Section of Japan’s
Justice Ministry for help, fearing reprisals from Z Unit operatives still work-
ing in Japan. But, since he had been born in the colonial empire and had
entered Japan by illegal means, even his Japanese nationality was in doubt,
and the Justice Ministry’s response was that he should wait until there was a
tangible threat to his safety, and then go to the police. 65
Soon after giving his testimony in parliament, Itagaki Kōzō disappeared.
There is no way of determining his fate. It is possible that he may have taken
an assumed name and gone underground to escape the attentions of U.S.
intelligence. It is even possible that he might still be alive today. But it seems
unlikely. Yamada Zenjirō, who last saw the then twenty-three-year-old Itaga-
ki at the parliamentary hearing on August 5, 1953, said, “My gut feeling was
that he was probably done away with.” 66 When I interviewed Yamada in
2014, more than sixty years after the events of the Korean War era, he
emphasized that the driving motivation of his life since his time with the Z
Unit has been the act of testimony: the urge to ensure that the events of
history themselves are not also “done away with.” 67
For the individuals who became entangled in Z Unit’s history, the organ-
ization’s activities had life-changing and sometimes disastrous conse-
quences. In broader terms, though, its impact is difficult to assess; for this
history remains, like an iceberg, largely submerged. After the departure of
Canon and Yeon Jeong from Japan, the contours of Japan-based intelligence
operations became less visible, but they certainly continued, and were to
resurface now and again—for example, fifteen years after the end of the
Korean War, when in January 1968 the Japan-based U.S. spy ship Pueblo
was apprehended by North Korea off the coast near Wonsan. 68 Some Z Unit
operatives also went on to be active elsewhere in Asia, among them Victor
Matsui, who became a CIA agent in Cambodia and in 1959 was briefly
arrested and then expelled on suspicion of involvement in a plot to oust
Prince Sihanouk. 69 These examples suggest the ways in which the Korean
War activities of Z Unit helped set the stage for later Cold War intelligence
programs in East Asia. Yet the fact that we know as much as we do about the
activities of Z Unit is, in the end, perhaps a symptom of the unit’s weak-
nesses—its recklessness and penchant for melodrama. The most successful
intelligence operations are surely the ones about which we know nothing.
NOTES
1. Interview with Yamada Zenjirō, August 31, 2014.

2. Interview with Yamada Zenjirō, August 31, 2014; see also Nihon Kokumin Kyūenkai,
ed., Yamada Zenjirō ga Kataru: Watashi to Kaji Jiken soshite Kyūenkai (Tokyo: Nihon Koku-
min Kyūenkai, 1999), 6.
3. Yamada Zenjirō, Amerika no Supai, CIA no Hanzai (Tokyo: Gakushū no Tomo Sha,
2011), 22.
4. Testimony of Toda Masanao (Official of the Human Rights Protection Branch of the
Ministry of Justice) to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu
Iinkai], no. 27, July 31, 1953.
5. Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee
[Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai], no. 31, August 5, 1953; Inomata Kōzō, Senryōgun no Hanzai (Tokyo:
Tosho Shuppansha, 1979), 266.
6. Miranda A. Scheurs, “Japan,” in Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities and Institu-
tions in a Changing Global Order, ed. Jeffrey Kopstein and Mark Lichbach (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008).
7. Eiji Takemae, Inside G.H.Q.: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy, trans.
Robert Ricketts and Sebastian Swann (New York: Continuum, 2002), 161; see also Matthew
M. Aid, “US Humint and Comint in the Korean War: From the Approach of War to the
Communist Intervention,” in The Clandestine Cold War in Asia, 1945–1965: Western Intelli-
gence, Propaganda and Special Operations, ed. Richard J. Aldrich, Gary D. Rawnsley, and
Ming-Yen T. Rawnsley (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 16–62, 17.
8. Letter from Charles A. Willoughby to Walter Bedell Smith, May 21, 1951, CIA-
RDP80B0167R002600080060-2; Charles A. Willoughby, “Cuba: The Pack’s in Full Cry—
Attacks on the Pentagon and Intelligence,” Foreign Intelligence Digest, May 19, 1961; see also
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Democracy’s Porous Borders: Espionage, Smuggling and the Making of
Japan’s Transwar Regime” (Part 1), Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 12, issue 40, no. 4
(October 6, 2014), http://apjjf.org/2014/12/41/Tessa-Morris-Suzuki/4201.html.
9. One such document is the Report from Head of Station to Chief, FDZ, JIS Groups and
Japanese National Revival, May 11, 1951, in CIA Japanese Imperial Government name files,
Hattori Takushiro, vol. 1 document 18; on the declassified documents, see Arima Tetsuo, CIA
to Sengo Nihon: Hoshu Gōdō, Hoppō Ryōdo, Saigunbi (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2010); for further
discussion, see Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Democracy’s Porous Borders: Espionage, Smuggling
and the Making of Japan’s Transwar Regime” (Part 2), Asia-Pacific Journal 12, issue 41, no. 2
(October 13, 2014).
10. Duval A. Edwards, Jungle and Other Tales: True Stories of Historic Counterintelli-
gence Operations (Tucson, Ariz.: Wheatmark, 2008); Joseph Y. Kurata, “Counter Intelligence
in Occupied Japan,” in Building a New Japan, an online collection of oral reminiscences by

Japanese Americans involved in the U.S. occupation of Japan, compiled and published by the
Japanese American Veterans Association, www.javadc.org/building_a_new_japan_introductio.
htm, accessed September 4, 2014.
11. Yeon Cheong [En Tei], Kyanon Kikan kara no Shōgen (Tokyo: Banchō Shobō, 1973).
12. Yamada, Amerika no Supai; Han To-Bong, “Kyanon Kikanin toshite no Kaisō,” Shūkan
Shinchō, July 11, 1960; see also English translation by CIA, Han To-pong, “My Recollection as
an Agent of the Canon Organ,” CIA Freedom of Information Act Declassified files, CIA-
RDP75-00001R000300470028-4; Testimony of Itagaki Kōzō to the Japanese Diet Lower
House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai], no. 31, August 5, 1953.
13. See for example, Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 43.
14. Aid, “US Humint and Comint,” 19.
15. Inomata, Senryōgun no Hanzai, 265.
16. Itagaki Kōzō, Suzuki Tomoo, Takeuchi Riichi, Tada Ichirō, and Mayama Haruo, “Supai
Uzumaku Tokyo Sokai,” Ōru Yomimono 8, no. 10 (October 1953): 218–25, particularly 219.
Iinkai], no. 27, July 31, 1953; Testimony of Nakao Bunsaku (public prosecutor) to the Japanese
Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai], no. 27, July 31, 1953; Testimony
of Yamada Zenjirō to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee [Shūgiin Hōmu
Iinkai], no. 31, August 5, 1953.
18. Inomata, Senryōgun no Hanzai, 265.
[Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai], no. 31, August 5, 1953.
20. Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 25. On the role of Japanese Americans in Korean War–era
intelligence gathering, see Monica Kim, “Humanity Interrogated: Empire, Nation, and the
Political Subject in U.S.- and UN-Controlled POW Camps of the Korean War, 1942–1960”
(PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2011).
22. Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 22 and 26–29.
26. Han, “My Recollection as an Agent of the Canon Organ,” 3–4.
27. Shigeki Kazuyuki, “Kyanon to Uyoku Supai Kōsakusen,” Sandē Mainichi, September
5, 1981, 150–56; the apprehension of the Makino Maru and other smuggling ships was also
reported in the Asahi Shimbun, February 25, 1949, Osaka morning edition.
28. Han, “My Recollection as an Agent of the Canon Organ,” 7–8; Asahi Shimbun, Febru-
ary 1, 1951; Asahi Shimbun, February 6, 1955; Asahi Shimbun, August 29, 1959.
29. Doyle O. Hickey, “Intelligence and Related Covert Activities, FEC,” November 4, 1950,
CIA Freedom of Information Act Declassified files, CIA-RDP80B01676R004000130058.
30. See Paul Edwards, Unusual Footnotes to the Korean War (London: Bloomsbury, 2013);
Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea (New York: Norton,
2013), 242–44; Crawford F. Sams, Medic: The Mission of an American Doctor in Occupied
Japan and Wartorn Korea, ed. Zabelle Zakarian (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), ch. 30.
In Sams’s memoirs, Yeon Jeong is described as “a Korean naval officer who was also an
outstanding guerrilla fighter, by the name of Commander E. Yun,” but it is clear from Yeon’s
memoirs that he was the “Commander E. Yun” involved. See Sams, Medic, 241, and Yeon,
Kyanon Kikan kara no Shōgen.
31. Sams, Medic, 243–45.
32. Sams, Medic, 246.
33. Yeon, Kyanon Kikan kara no Shōgen, 208–11.

35. “Bubonic Plague Ship,” Newsweek, April 9, 1951, 13.
36. El Paso Herald-Post, May 9, 1951.
38. The germ warfare question remains deeply contested. Certain declassified documents
and other evidence make it clear that some of the Chinese and North Korean claims were
concocted or simply mistaken, though these have not yet been sufficient to lay all doubts about
the question to rest. See, for example, Martin Furmanski and Mark Wheelis, “Allegations of
Biological Weapons Use,” in Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945, ed. Mark
Wheelis, Lajos Rósza, and Malcolm Dando (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2006), 252–83.
40. Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 31–33; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, August 31, 2014.
42. Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 43; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, August 31, 2014.
43. A public protest about the issue outside the General Headquarters and the prime minis-
ter’s residence on April 17, 1953, was reported in the Shakai Taimuzu and the English-language
version of the Mainichi newspaper, but not by other media; see Machida Tadaaki, “Chōsen
Sensō to Horyo Mondai,” in Higashi Ajia no Reisen to Kokka Terorizumu, ed. Suh Sun (Tokyo:
Ochanomizu Shobō, 2004), 253–66.
44. Yamada Seisaburō, “Kaji Wataru no Hitogara,” in Damare Nihonjin! Sekai ni Tsugeru
“Kaji Wataru Jiken” no Shinjitsu, ed. Kaji Wataru and Yamada Zenjirō (Tokyo: Rironsha,
1953), 16–17; testimony of Kaji Wataru to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee,
[Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai], no. 4, December 10, 1952.
45. Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015), 233.
46. Yeon, Kyanon Kikan kara no Shōgen, particularly 110–12. Yeon emphasized that the
kidnapping had been a strategic mistake that produced little valuable intelligence; see also Erik
Esselstrom, “From Wartime Friend to Cold War Fiend: The Abduction of Kaji Wataru and US-
Japan Relations at Occupation’s End,” Journal of Cold War Studies 17, no. 3 (2015): 159–83.
Wi Hye-rim, on the other hand, put it more euphemistically, saying that Canon “asked for
Kaji’s cooperation in gathering information on Communist China,” and denying that Kaji had
been “illegally confined and assaulted”; see Han, “My Recollection as an Agent of the Canon
Organ,” 4.
47. Testimony of Kaji Wataru to the Japanese Diet Lower House Justice Committee
[Shūgiin Hōmu Iinkai], no. 4, December 10, 1952.
48. Kaji Wataru and Yamada Zenjirō, eds., Damare Nihonjin! Sekai ni Tsugeru “Kaji
Wataru Jiken” no Shinjitsu (Tokyo: Rironsha, 1953), 9–11 and 35–37.
50. Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 51–57 and 73–91.
51. Esselstrom, “From Wartime Friend to Cold War Fiend.”
52. Yeon, Kyanon Kikan kara no Shōgen.
53. Esselstrom, “From Wartime Friend to Cold War Fiend.”
55. Chalmers Johnson’s book Conspiracy at Matsukawa (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1972) examined claims of the Canon unit’s involvement in the 1949 Matsukawa
Incident, a train derailment that was blamed on Communist saboteurs, though the accused were
ultimately found innocent. The Mitaka and Shimoyama Incidents, the first involving another
fatal train accident and the second the apparent murder of the president of Japan National
Railways, also occurred in 1949 and were also publicly blamed on Communist subversion, but
were rumored to have been events staged by U.S. intelligence to justify the “Red purge.” See
also Haruna Mikio, Himitsu no Fairu (2 vols.) (Tokyo: Kyōdō Tsūshinsha, 2000). Documents
declassified since the publication of both Johnson’s and Haruna’s books help to clarify some
aspects of the mysteries they discussed.
56. Machida, “Chōsen Sensō to Horyo Mondai.”
57. See, for example, Yamada Zenjirō, Nihon Kingendaishi no naka no Kyūen Undō (To-
kyo: Gakushū no Tomo, 2012); Yamada Zenjirō, Jinken no Mirai: Keisatsu to Saiban no
Genzai o Tou (Tokyo: Hon no Izumi Sha, 2003); Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 154–59.
58. Wi Hye-rim, in an interview given in 1960, stated that after his departure from Japan
Canon had been “ordered to war areas in Middle and Near East with Cairo as his headquarters.
Now he is active in Turkey with Ankara as the headquarters. No matter where he is, he sends
me Christmas cards each year.” See Han, “My Recollection as an Agent of the Canon Organ,”
6. In August 1962, Canon contributed a letter about corruption in the military to the Chicago
Tribune, giving his address as “Cairo, Egypt”; see Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1962. A
flight manifest from February 3, 1954, lists Jack Y. Canon as a passenger on a U.S. flight from
Cairo to Athens on that date—see document no. NYT715_8417_0768, New York, Passenger
Lists, 1820-957, ancestry.com, accessed December 30, 2014. The dates and places suggest that
Canon may perhaps have been involved in what historian Hugh Wilford calls “America’s Great
Game,” the complex set of undercover operations in the Middle East run by CIA operatives
Kermit Roosevelt Jr. and Miles Copeland; see Hugh Wilford, America’s Great Game: The
CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East (New York: Basic Books,
2013).
59. Abilene Reporter-News, December 13, 1958; Lubbock Evening Journal, December 17,
1958; Brownsville Herald, January 15, 1959.
60. Amarillo Daily News, January 15, 1959.
61. See his letter to the Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1962.
62. In the late 1960s he developed a bullet known as the Glaser Safety Slug, which is still in
use in the United States. See “Process of Making Obstacle Piercing Frangible Bullet” (patent
#6115894), patents.justia.com/patent/6115894, accessed December 28, 2014.
63. Death certificate of Joseph Young Canon, issued April 13, 1981.
64. Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 22–26.
Iinkai], no. 27, July 31, 1953.
66. Yamada, Amerika no Supai, 29; interview with Yamada Zenjirō, August 30, 2014; on
Itagaki’s disappearance, see also Inomata, Senryōgun no Hanzai, 266.
68. Trevor Armbruster, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair
(London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1970).
69. See John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 68.
Epilogue
Northeast Asia and the Never-Ending War
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
In January 2011, then Chinese leader Hu Jintao paid an official visit to the
United States: an event that can, in retrospect, be seen as marking a high
point in recent China-U.S. relations. The Chinese leader was greeted with a
state banquet and a twenty-one-gun salute, conducted a review of the troops,
and gave a live press conference with President Obama. In return, Hu empha-
sized China’s “soft-power” approach to the region, stating that his country
“will never seek hegemony or pursue an expansionist policy.” 1 The visit was
widely perceived as having advanced the cause of good relations between the
world’s largest economy and the country that was about to displace Japan as
its second-largest economy.
But there was one small and telling moment that was picked up by some
media in both countries. Renowned Chinese pianist Lang Lang, who was
invited to perform during the state banquet in the White House, included in
his repertoire a version of the Chinese song “My Motherland.” As a number
of commentators pointed out, this song was the theme tune for the 1956
Chinese movie Battle on Shangganglin Mountain, and celebrates the strug-
gles of the Chinese People’s Volunteers against U.S. forces in the Korean
War. Echoing the popular Chinese rhetoric of the period, it depicts the U.S.
military as marauding wolves threatening the safety and integrity of the
motherland: “But if the wolves come, those who greet them have hunting
guns.” 2
The minor furor stirred by this performance illustrates an important point.
To Chinese listeners, particularly those of the older generation, the tune’s
historical references were immediately evident, but to the U.S. audience they
were almost entirely inaudible. This “audibility gap” reflected a wider mem-
193
ory gap. The very divergent ways in which the Korean War is remembered
and forgotten in the countries that participated in the conflict have the power
to fuel present and future regional tensions. Popular U.S. descriptions of
Chinese participation in war, even today, are peppered with references to the
Korean War Chinese forces as “hordes,” “swarms,” and “human waves” who
threatened to swamp the opposing UN forces: images of a homogeneous,
mindless mass entirely at odds with the complexities of Chinese engagement
explored in this book. 3 For many Chinese, on the other hand, the tangible
fear of U.S. invasion or nuclear bombing that they experienced during the
Korean War, and that was energetically fostered by government education
and media campaigns, continues to provide a substratum to concerns about
the American presence in the Northeast Asian region.
Can these divisions in memory be overcome? How do the reverberations
of the Korean War continue to be experienced by the people of Northeast
Asia, in cultural, psychological, and material terms? In seeking answers to
these questions, the sections that follow draw together some of the threads
that link the diverse stories that we have explored in the chapters of this
book.
DIVIDED MEMORIES IN TRANSITION
China’s only Korean War museum stands on a hilltop in the city of Dandong
(formerly Andong), the main border gateway to North Korea and a city that
(as we saw in chapters 2 and 3) played a crucial role in the war. First
constructed as an annex to the local history museum in 1958, the Memorial
of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (as it is officially
known), was rebuilt on a much grander scale at the time of the fortieth
anniversary of the Panmunjom armistice in 1993. As well as extoling the
brotherly cooperation between Chinese and North Korean forces and com-
memorating the wartime sufferings of people on both sides of the Sino-
Korean frontier, the museum also highlighted the plight of the prisoners of
war held in South Korea. Its displays recalled the miseries of life in Geoje
POW camp, and showed photographs of Chinese prisoners who had been
forcibly tattooed with anti-Communist slogans.
There was an irony in this commemoration of POW sufferings, though.
While the museum depicted pro-Communist Chinese POWs as heroes who
defied the propaganda and torture inflicted on them by their American and
South Korean captors, the surviving POWs who returned to the PRC soon
discovered that their own government treated them not as returning heroes
but as objects of disdain and suspicion. The very fact that they had allowed
themselves to be captured was viewed as a mark of disgrace, and their expo-
sure to anti-Communist ideas during their time in captivity meant that they
Epilogue 195
were regarded as ideologically suspect. Back home, they experienced dis-

crimination and marginalization that often turned into persecution in times of
political crisis (such as the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and early
’70s). 4
By the time of the Panmunjom armistice’s sixtieth anniversary in 2013,
official Chinese memories of the war were shifting. China’s increasingly
assertive role in Northeast Asia and growing friction between China and
North Korea over nuclear tests and other issues were encouraging a reassess-
ment of the “friendship forged in blood” (as the two countries’ Korean War
cooperation and subsequent relationship is often called). In 2014 the Dan-
dong’s Memorial of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea was
closed for a major refurbishment; in 2017, its reconstruction was still under
way. It remains to be seen what new or revised Chinese memories of the
Korean War will emerge when the museum is reopened.
In Taiwan, too, political and social change is shifting commemoration of
the Korean War in complex ways. The Chinese Korean War POWs who
chose resettlement in the Republic of China arrived in Taipei on January 23,
1954 (see chapter 4), and ever since, that day in January has been com-
memorated in Taiwan as “World Freedom Day.” Immediately after the Kore-
an War, the government of the Republic of China took the initiative in
establishing an “Asia-Pacific Anti-Communist League,” whose core mem-
bers also included South Korea and the Philippines. The league gradually
expanded worldwide, and in 1990 evolved into the World League for Free-
dom and Democracy (WLFD). 5 Though the WLFD has branches in many
countries, it remains particularly influential in Taiwan, and is the official
organizer of Taiwan’s annual World Freedom Day.
But the league’s long and deep association with the Chinese Nationalist
Party (KMT) made it a focus of criticism for the opposing Democratic Peo-
ple’s Party (DPP). Following the DPP’s return to power in 2016, its party
caucus unanimously voted to cut all state funding to the organization, which
DPP politicians described as refuge for KMT “fat cats.” 6 This move is just
one indication of the complexities of Cold War history, memory, and politics
in contemporary Taiwan. The election as president of DPP leader Tsai Ing-
Wen, who favors a gradual move to Taiwanese independence, has created
new tensions across the China Straits. But Tsai’s Taiwanese nationalism,
which rests on a postcolonial vision of pluralist identity, 7 is very different
from Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalism, founded as it was on global Cold War
alliances and the legacy of the “anti-Communist righteous men” (see chapter
4).
Japan has no museum or memorial day dedicated to the Korean War,
though some small monuments in various parts of the country commemorate
aspects of Japan’s connection to the war. The Kotohira Shrine in Kagawa
Prefecture has a monument to seventy-nine Japanese seamen who died in
postwar minesweeping missions, both in Japanese waters and during the

Korean War, and holds an annual memorial for them on the last Saturday in
May: a date that almost coincides with imperial Japan’s Navy Day (which
was celebrated on May 27). 8 Another inconspicuous memorial stands outside
the Tokyo headquarters of Mindan, the pro–South Korean association of
Korean residents in Japan, where a plaque commemorates the 135 Zainichi
Korean volunteers killed fighting in the conflict.
Today, though, echoes of Japan’s involvement in the conflict resurface
with increasing frequency as the Japanese government loosens restrictions on
sending Japanese forces overseas and revives debate on the postwar Japanese
peace constitution. In 2014, soon after the Abe government had “reinter-
preted” the constitution to allow Japanese troops to fight overseas in conflicts
defined as being matters of “collective self-defense,” Vice Admiral Robert
Thomas, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, pointed out that this could
(once again) open the way for Japanese minesweepers to take part in combat
in the case of a renewed Korean War. “When you look at the Korean penin-
sula and the challenges for mine warfare, especially early in a conflict, the
Japanese can be a critical asset,” Thomas remarked. 9 It seems likely, indeed,
that if major conflict were to break out in Korea, Japan’s military involve-
ment would go far beyond the task of minesweeping.
SHARED CONSEQUENCES: KOREANS IN JAPAN AND CHINA
Despite differences in the degree and nature of Chinese, Japanese, Taiwa-

nese, and Mongolian involvement in the Korean War—and despite their
diverse memories of the war—all of these neighboring countries were in-
volved in the conflict in ways that left a lasting imprint on national and local
society and politics. And in all cases, as we have seen, the social burdens
imposed by the war were very unevenly distributed, weighing on certain
towns or localities much more heavily than others, and also having a particu-
larly disruptive impact on the lives of Northeast Asia’s border-crossing eth-
nic minorities. The cross-border reverberations of these Korean War burdens
continued to influence the lives of many people throughout the region long
after the signing of the Panmunjom armistice.
The fears of espionage and enemy penetration engendered by the war had
profound consequences for ethnic minority groups. In Japan, as we have
seen, the Korean War deepened ideological divisions within the ethnic Kore-
an community, and made the community a target of intensified government
prejudice and suspicion. Although the plan for a mass deportation of “sub-
versive” Koreans (see chapter 1) was not carried out at the time, it cast its
shadow over the subsequent fate of Koreans in Japan. Throughout the 1950s,
elements within the Japanese political establishment continued to work hard
Epilogue 197
behind the scenes to find a way of encouraging a large-scale departure of

Koreans (particularly those with known left-wing sympathies) to North Ko-
rea. These efforts were given a boost in 1958 when, as the Chinese People’s
Volunteers left the DPRK, the North Korean regime embarked on an energet-
ic campaign to fill the gap in the country’s workforce by encouraging Kore-
ans from Japan, China, and Russia to return to the “fatherland.” The Japanese
and North Korean governments, despite their ideological antagonism and
their lack of diplomatic relations, shared an interest in promoting a relocation
of ethnic Koreans from Japan to North Korea. From the Japanese point of
view, though, one obvious stumbling block was the attitude of the United
States, which was likely to be very wary of any scheme to encourage a mass
migration of people from the non-Communist to the Communist bloc at the
height of the Cold War.
It was here that the lessons of the Korean War were brought into play.
During the war (as we saw in chapters 4 and 6) the United States and its UN
Command allies had insisted on the right of individuals to choose their coun-
try of residence, and created a screening system that was supposed to ensure
individual free choice. In 1959, as debates about the relocation of ethnic
Koreans from Japan to North Korea intensified, the Japanese government
and Japanese Red Cross demanded that the same principles be applied to
Koreans in Japan. Members of the Korean community in Japan were to be
allowed a free choice whether to remain in Japan or to depart for North or
South Korea, and this free choice was to be verified by a screening process
supervised by the International Committee of the Red Cross at their point of
departure (in many ways mirroring the screening that had been applied to
Korean War POWs). This extension of Korean War logic proved a very
effective way of overcoming any U.S. reservations about the scheme.
In practice, though, the problems of “free choice” proved as fraught here
as they had done during the Korean War. Koreans in Japan were subjected to
an intense propaganda campaign about the benefits of life in North Korea,
conducted by the North Korean government via the pro-DPRK Association
of Korean Residents in Japan (known as Chongryun in Korean and Chōsen
Sōren in Japanese), and supported by prominent Japanese political figures
from across the ideological spectrum. The option of going to South Korea
was not in fact open to them, since the South Korean government had no
interest in accepting return migration from Japan, and Koreans who remained
in Japan faced widespread discrimination and very insecure residence rights.
In the end some ninety thousand Koreans in Japan (most of whom originated
from the southern half of the Korean Peninsula) chose to move to North
Korea between 1959 and 1984. A few prospered: among them Ko Young
Hee, who became the consort of Kim Jong Il and the mother of the present
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But most faced discrimination and suspi-
cion in the “fatherland,” and a large but uncertain number disappeared into
North Korea’s growing archipelago of labor camps. 10
The Korean War had equally profound implications for the ethnic Korean
community in China. At the time of Korea’s liberation in 1945, some 2.3
million Koreans were living in northeastern China, where they had settled
before or during the Japanese colonial period. Though around one million
returned to Korea after Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific War, more than a
million were still in China when the Korean War broke out. Tens of thou-
sands of Koreans had joined the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
during the civil war in China, and about sixteen thousand remained in its
ranks after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. But as the
civil war came to an end, there were growing demands from these Koreans to
be allowed to return to Korea, and in January 1950 some fourteen thousand
Korean PLA veterans were returned to North Korea. 11
Other Koreans in China, though, found their hopes of return thwarted by
the outbreak of war in their homeland. A Chinese Foreign Ministry document
composed just after the outbreak of the Korean War notes that North Korea
was now reluctant to accept return migrants from China, apparently because
they doubted the loyalties of Koreans who had lived under Japanese rule in
Manchukuo and because they lacked the capacity to handle an influx of
migrants in the midst of the war. The ministry concluded that if ethnic Kore-
ans pressed the Chinese authorities to allow them to repatriate to Korea, “we
can refuse them gently using the [ongoing] war as our reason for refusal.” 12
This decision was part of a process by which Koreans in China (like Inner
Mongolians, whose story was discussed in chapter 3) became incorporated
into the new Chinese nation as an ethnic minority. In 1952, at the height of
the Korean War, the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture was estab-
lished, covering the area of northeastern China immediately adjoining the
eastern border of North Korea: the area of China with the largest ethnic
Korean population. Although this administrative arrangement, like the estab-
lishment of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, allowed the population
to maintain their distinctive cultural identity, it required their political loyal-
ties to be firmly focused on the People’s Republic of China, of which they
now became legal citizens. 13
THE KOREAN WAR AND THE MILITARIZATION OF

NORTHEAST ASIA
The diverse human experiences traced in this book reinforce and clarify a
point already made by Bruce Cumings and other historians: that the conflict
that broke out on the Korean Peninsula in June 1950 was inextricably con-
nected to the earlier conflicts of the Asia-Pacific War and Chinese Civil War,
Epilogue 199
and to tensions that continued long after 1953. The Korean War can only be
understood if it is seen both in its broader regional setting and in a long-term
historical context, extending from the 1930s to the late twentieth century, and
indeed even to the present day.
The continuities from earlier wars are visible in the stories of the Japanese
Imperial Navy sailors who, without ever experiencing postwar demobiliza-
tion, found themselves recruited to minesweeping missions in the waters off
Korea from the middle of 1950 onward. They are equally visible in the
experiences of Japanese soldiers and civilians (like Matsushita Kazutoshi and
Ishida Sumie) who were recruited into the PRC’s participation in the Korean
War, either in combat or noncombat roles. For most of the Chinese People’s
Volunteers, combat roles in the war against Japan and in the Chinese Civil
War flowed seamlessly into sufferings on the battlefield in Korea, and (as we
have seen) life in the South Korea POW camps became a continuation of that
war by other means.
But if the Korean War emerged from a long history of regional conflict
whose origins long predate the flare-up of violence on June 25, 1950, it was
also a war whose latent violence continued to shape the region long after the
signing of the armistice at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953. The official photo-
graph of the armistice ceremony tells a powerful story. At one end of a row
of long tables in the makeshift building constructed for the occasion sits U.S.
lieutenant general William Harrison, his pen poised to sign the document on
behalf of the UN Command. At the opposite end sits North Korean general
Nam Il, signing on behalf of the Korean People’s Army and the Chinese
People’s Volunteers. Flanked by their assistants, the two signatories look
away from one another, their eyes failing to meet as they make the marks that
confirm the cessation of hostilities. The absences are palpable: most conspic-
uously, the absence of any representative from South Korea, but also the lack
of presence of the multitude of other countries that had been protagonists in
the conflict. The armistice document was supposed to be the first step toward
a more general and lasting peace settlement in Korea, to be enshrined in a full
peace treaty. Going on 2018, that treaty has yet to be signed. Without a peace
process to bring together the neighboring countries of Northeast Asia, the
dangerous fissures between them, which had been drastically deepened by
the war, festered rather than being healed.
As discussed in chapter 4, on the eve of the outbreak of war in June 1950,
the United States had decided to leave the Nationalist Republic of China
(ROC) on Taiwan to its own devices, but the outbreak of the Korean War
changed all that. Even though the ROC was not overtly involved in the war,
its complex covert engagement with aspects of the conflict cemented U.S.
support of the Chiang Kai-shek regime. This culminated the year after the
Panmunjom armistice in the signing of a mutual defense treaty between the
United States and the Republic of China. Thus Taiwan (in the words of one
U.S. report) was incorporated into “the offshore island defensive position
which now stretches unbroken from the Japanese island of Hokkaido south to
include the Philippines.” 14 Much of that military line remains intact, and
threatens to become the front line in any intensification of tensions between
the United States and China.
The war in Korea, indeed, led to a massive militarization of Northeast
Asia. It reversed the post–civil war demobilization of forces in the People’s
Republic of China and created a large Chinese military presence in North
Korea that lasted well beyond the signing of the Panmunjom armistice.
Around three hundred thousand Chinese troops remained in the DPRK until
1958, working on reconstruction projects as well as engaging in military
duties. Some intriguing light on the complexities of their presence in North
Korea is provided by the then Soviet ambassador to the DPRK, A. M. Puza-
nov, who recorded the following impressions of the Chinese People’s Volun-
teers, provided to him by a prominent North Korean political figure:
Initially there were cases of arrogance—“we are from a big country and you
have a small country, therefore we can do what we consider necessary,” but
this was categorically stopped at the order of Comrade Mao Zedong. Several
people were even shot for an incorrect attitude toward the population, although
we asked that such extreme measures not be taken. 15
The withdrawal of Chinese forces from North Korea in 1958 was moti-
vated partly by China’s desire to reduce its overseas military commitments at
a time of economic chaos at home, but also by a belief, shared by North
Korea and its Communist allies, that this move would create international
pressure for the United States to withdraw its troops from South Korea. 16 But
this hope proved unfounded. The U.S. military presence in South Korea,
which had shrunk to negligible levels just before the outbreak of the Korean
War and then risen to around 350,000 during the war, declined to around
50,000 by the end of the 1950s. But the presence remained: more than 30,000
U.S. troops were still in the ROK at the end of the twentieth century, and
more than 28,000 are still there today. 17
Besides, the reduction in the number of U.S. troops on the ground in
South Korea during the second half of the 1950s was accompanied by a
decision by the United States to deploy nuclear weapons on the Korean
Peninsula from January 1958 onward—a move that was in violation of Arti-
cle 2 of the Panmunjom Armistice Agreement. U.S. nuclear weapons re-
mained in South Korea until the beginning of the 1990s. As Lee Jae-Bong
has shown, North Korea responded by deploying its forces closer to the
border with the South, constructing a massive system of tunnels and air-raid
shelters in preparation for future war, and starting to seek aid from the Soviet
Union and later China to develop its own nuclear weapons. 18 This response
Epilogue 201
was the start of a single-minded North Korean pursuit of nuclear armament

that continues to the present day and that led to the testing of the first North
Korean nuclear weapon in 2006.
Japan formed a crucial part of the 1950s arc of armament. During the
Korean War, the emergence of Japan’s own post–Pacific War military force
(discussed in chapter 1) was accompanied by a huge increase in the presence
of U.S. troops on the Japanese mainland and on Okinawa. Between 1950 and
1954, the number of U.S. troops stationed in Japan rose from around 136,000
to 210,000, and it was not until 1958 that the number fell back below the
1950 level. In 1954 the United States also deployed the first of the thousands
of nuclear weapons that it was to place in Okinawa in the years before 1972,
when the weapons were removed in the lead-up to Okinawa’s reversion to
Japan. 19 Although the history of nuclear deployment in Okinawa was not
officially acknowledged by the U.S. government until 2016, rumors of the
presence of these weapons abounded at the time, intensifying the tensions
that beset the region. Recently declassified documents have also shown that,
at least between 1960 and 1967, the Japanese government had a secret agree-
ment with the United States that would have allowed American military to
bring nuclear weapons into Japan in the case of another emergency in Ko-
rea. 20
This deep entanglement of Japan (including Okinawa) in U.S. regional
espionage (highlighted by the stories discussed in chapters 7 and 8) was also
repeatedly illustrated by the ripple effects of crises on the Korean Peninsula.
One example was the Pueblo crisis of 1968. On January 23, 1968, the USS
Pueblo, an American intelligence-gathering vessel based in the Japanese port
of Yokosuka, was seized by North Korean forces off the coast of Wonsan.
One of the American crew members was killed in the confrontation, and the
remaining crew (three of whom had been seriously injured) were captured by
North Korea and imprisoned on charges of espionage. They were held until
December of the same year, when they were released following a U.S. state-
ment of apology and admission that the Pueblo had been engaged in spying.
The incident coincided with an unsuccessful attempt by a group of North
Korean commandos to storm the residence of South Korea president Park
Chung-hee, and these two events caused an international crisis that brought
the Korean Peninsula back to the brink of all-out war.
This crisis led to the immediate deployment of two Okinawa-based U.S.
fighter squadrons to South Korea, 21 and once again turned the seas between
Japan and the Korean Peninsula into a strategic focus of global tensions. A
fleet led by the USS Enterprise, which had just become one of the first
nuclear-powered military vessels to visit Japan, was dispatched to patrol the
East Sea/Sea of Japan in preparation for a possible renewal of the Korean
War. 22 Despite the negotiated resolution to the Pueblo incident, these events
were a reminder of the extent to which Japan and Okinawa remained en-
meshed in the security tensions on the Korean Peninsula. At the time of

writing, U.S. bases on Okinawa are still a crucial element in OPLAN 5027,
the contingency plan agreed by the United States and South Korea for a
response to a military emergency in Korea. 23
IN SEARCH OF AN END POINT
By 2017, with North Korea’s acquisition of usable nuclear weapons, the

advent of the Trump presidency in the United States, China’s increasingly
assertive role in the region, Japan’s moves toward arms expansion and pos-
sible constitutional revision, and with Taiwan edging toward dreams of inde-
pendence, Northeast Asia had again become a crucial flash point in world
politics. And, as has so often been the case in the region’s modern history,
the fault line of the crisis lies along the 38th parallel where it divides the
Korean Peninsula.
The history we have traced here is a reminder that the unfinished Korean
War of 1950 to 1953 was not merely a conflict between the two Koreas, nor
merely a conflict between the communist North and the U.S.-led UN Com-
mand. It was a war that involved the whole of Northeast Asia at a multiplicity
of levels. For this reason, the search for an enduring peace must also be a
regional process. As we have seen in this book, the conflict of 1950–1953 not
only brought untold suffering to the people of Korea, but also inflicted tur-
moil, hardship, and death on people across the region. Any renewed conflict
on the Korean Peninsula would have the same effect, very probably in even
more destructive forms.
But a reshaping of historical remembrance is taking place even as the
regional order itself is reconstructed. This makes it both possible and impor-
tant to rediscover fading and suppressed memories of these common regional
experiences of the Korean War. For though (pace George Santayana) those
who cannot remember the past may not necessarily be doomed to repeat it,
misremembered pasts inevitably contain the seeds of future conflicts, and
hinder understanding of the crises that we face in the present.
NOTES
1. “Chinese Leader: Beijing Not Seeking Dominance,” CNN online, January 21,
2011,http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/20/china.us.visit/index.html, accessed Decem-
ber 4, 2016.
2. Quoted in Dennis P. Halpin, “The Other History Controversy: China and the Korean
War,” NK News, July 8, 2015https://www.nknews.org/2015/07/the-other-history-controversy-
china-and-the-korean-war/, accessed December 4, 2016.
3. Though scholars like Bruce Cumings have criticized these images, they have proved
remarkably enduring. Christopher Twomey, quoting earlier accounts that describe the Chinese
forces in the Korean War as a “human sea” or “swarm of locusts,” goes on to state that
Epilogue 203
“complex tactics were . . . forgone, replaced by simple but effective human wave stratagems.”
Peter Navarro (who was a senior advisor to Donald Trump) and Greg Autry, writing of the
Battle of Chosin (Changjin) under the heading “The ‘Chosin Few’ Meet the Chinese ‘Hordes,’”
state that “China’s human waves turned Chosin into a frozen Hell, and thousands of young
Americans, Brits, Australians, and Koreans bled to death under ruthless Chinese fire.” They
also suggest that the Chinese military might use similar tactics in any future conflict. See
Christopher P. Twomey, The Military Lens: Doctrinal Difference and Deterrence Failure in
Sino-American Relations (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010), 70; Peter Navarro and
Greg Autry, Death by China: Confronting the Dragon—A Global Call to Action (New York:
Pearson Prentice Hall, 2011), 115.
4. See, for example, Calum Macleod and Lijia Macleod, “China’s Korean War POWs Find
You Can’t Go Home Again,” Japan Times, June 28, 2000, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/
2000/06/28/national/history/chinas-korean-war-pows-find-you-cant-go-home-again/.
5. Dmitri Bruyas and Sherry Lu, “WLFD Celebrates World Freedom Day,” China Post,
January 24, 2016; Taiwan’s World Freedom Day is different from the U.S. World Freedom
Day created in the United States during the George W. Bush administration, celebrated on
November 9.
6. Wan-Hsin Peng and Jake Chung, “DPP Caucus Agrees to Cut WLFD, APLFD Bud-
gets,” Taipei Times, November 6, 2016, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/
2016/11/06/2003658687.
7. See Mark Harrison, “How to Speak about Oneself: Theory and Identity in Taiwan,” in
Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia: What a Difference a Region Makes,
ed. Chris Berry, Nicola Liscutin, and Jonathan D. Mackintosh (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Uni-
versity Press, 2009), 51–70, particularly 62.
8. Kaijō Jietai Sōkaitai Gun, ed., “Tokushū: Dai 63-kai Sōkai Junshokusha Tsuitōshiki
nado,” on the website of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, http://www.mod.go.jp/msdf/mf/
news/training/2014takamatsu.pdf, accessed December 11, 2016.
9. Tim Kelly, “Japan Could Deploy Minesweepers off S. Korea in War with North, U.S.
Admiral Says,” Reuters, October 24, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-japan-
minesweepers-idUSKCN0ID0U620141024, accessed December 12, 2016.
10. See Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan’s Cold War
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
11. Telegram to Mao Zedong from Nie Rongzheng concerning the Repatriation of Ethnic
Korean Soldiers to North Korea, December 29, 1949, English translation provided in Interna-
tional History Declassified Digital Archive of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C.,
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114256, accessed December 10, 2016; Tele-
gram from Liu Shaoqi to Mao Zedong, January 22, 1950, English translation provided in
International History Declassified Digital Archive of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington
D.C., http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114257, accessed December 10, 2016.
12. Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China, “On the Return of Korean Nationals
to North Korea,” translated extract provided in International History Declassified Digital
Archive of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C., http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.
org/document/114913, accessed December 10, 2016.
13. Jeanyoung Lee, “The Korean War and the Citizenship of Korean-Chinese: Loyalties and
Making of a Sub-Nation,” paper presented at the international symposium The Korean War and
Northeast Asia, Academy of Korean Studies, Seongnam, November 15, 2013.
14. Operations Coordinating Board, “Progress Report on NSC 146/2: United States Objec-
tives and Courses of Action with Respect to Formosa and the Nationalist Government,” Febru-
ary 16, 1955, CIA Freedom of Information Act Declassified files, CIA-
RDP80R01731R003000010001-1, p. 1.
15. Pak Jeong-ae, quoted in the diary of A. M. Puzanov, July 29, 1957, English translation
provided in International History Declassified Digital Archive of the Woodrow Wilson Center,
Washington, D.C., http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/115639, accessed Decem-
ber 8, 2016.
16. See, for example, comments by Kim Il-Sung quoted in the diary of A. M. Puzanov,
November 17, 1957, English translation provided in International History Declassified Digital

17. Tim Kane, “Global U.S. Troop Deployment, 1950–2003,” Center for Data Analysis
Report, no. 04-11, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/10/global-us-troop-
deployment-1950-2003, accessed December 6, 2016.
18. Jae-Bong Lee, “US Deployment of Nuclear Weapons in 1950s South Korea & North
Korea’s Nuclear Development: Toward Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Asia-Pa-
cific Journal 7, no. 3 (2009), accessed December 9, 2016.
19. Jon Mitchell, “Okinawa’s First Nuclear Missile Men Break Silence,” Japan Times, July
8, 2012, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/07/08/general/okinawas-first-nuclear-missile-
men-break-silence/#.Wel7zdqGOUk; Jesse Johnson, “In First, U.S. Admits Nuclear Weapons
Were Stored in Okinawa during Cold War,” Japan Times, February 20, 2016, https://www.
japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/20/national/history/first-u-s-admits-nuclear-weapons-stored-
okinawa-cold-war/#.Wd1ni9qGOUk.
20. “Secret Agreements to Get Along,” Japan Times, March 11, 2010, https://www.
japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2010/03/11/editorials/secret-agreements-to-get-along/.
21. See “Note on a Conversation with the Polish Ambassador, Comrade Naperei, on 26
January in the Polish Embassy,” by the Acting Ambassador of the German Democratic Repub-
lic, Pyongyang, English translation provided in International History Declassified Digital
22. “USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) Narrative Command History 1968,” annex to memo from
Commanding Officer USS Enterprise to Chief of Naval Operations, Washington D.C., July 1,
1969, on the public website of the USS Enterprise, http://www.public.navy.mil/airfor/
enterprise/Documents/Enterprise/1968.pdf, accessed December 10, 2016.
23. See, for example, Sang-ho Song, “War Plan Upgrade Reflects NK WMD Threats,”
Korea Herald, August 27, 2015.
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Index
Acheson, Dean, 81 KMT presence in POW camps, 90,

Aid, Matthew, 177 106n51; POWs as spies, 155; tattoos of
Akeboshi Mutsurō, 19 TLOs, 159–160
Andong (Dandong), 59, 70, 137; Dandong Busan POW camp, 89, 95; anti-Communist
war memorial, 194, 195; Japanese sentiment, 79, 147, 156; Geoje Island,
presence, 138, 139; relocation concerns, moving prisoners to, 89, 140–141;
46–48; transformation of life during interrogation sessions, 141–142;
war, 3, 30, 52 Matsushita Kazutoshi held in, 129–130,
anti-Communist righteous men, 99–100, 131, 140, 140–141, 142, 148; prisoners
103, 169, 195 taken from, 83, 156, 170n3
Aoki Fukiko, 26 Busan region, 11, 21, 101, 168, 180;
Aono Buichi, 18 KATUSA recruits rounded up from,
Arisue Seizō, 176 22–23; North Korean penetration to
Ariyama Mikio, 15–16, 17 Busan perimeter, 119–120; port of, 13,
Asia-Pacific Anti-Communist League, 195 18; ROC embassy in, 100–101; TLOs,
Asia-Pacific War, 2, 26, 111, 138, 198. See Busan locals hiding, 167
also Japanese defeat Bu Zeyao, 159, 161, 167
Baek Jongweon, 2, 8 Canon, Jack Y.: departure from Japan, 187,

Bai Chongxi, 87, 106n41 188, 192n58; Itagaki Kōzō,
Baldwin, Hanson, 30 interrogating, 179–180; Kaji Wataru
Battle of Baitag Bogd (Pei-ta-shan kidnapping, 184–187, 191n46; Yamada
Incident), 69, 71, 74n55 Zenjirō, recollections of, 173–174. See
Battle of Changjin Reservoir, 139–140 also Z Unit
Bieri, Frédérique, 129, 131, 143, 144 Cathcart, Adam, 48
Bischof, Werner, 29, 30–31 Chang, David Cheng, 79, 90, 91
Bradbury, William C., 85, 94 Chang Kia-Ngau, 40
Briggs, Ellis, 11 Cheng Rongxin, 166
bubonic plague scare, 181–182 Chen Jianzhong, 98–99
Burchett, Wilfred, 157, 165, 170n23; Chen Yonghua, 100
David Harrison and, 156, 166, 171n73; Chiang Ching-kuo, 98
217
218 Index
Chiang Kai-shek, 82, 94, 96, 106n51, 195; ROC as preferred resettlement location,
Japanese soldiers, treating with 84, 167–168
leniency, 135; military engagement Civil Information and Education Section,
with Communists, proposing, 84; as Far East Command (CIE), 94, 96–97,
Nationalist leader, 78–79, 81, 85, 89, 99, 158, 164–165
137; Operation No. 1 as humiliating, Clark, Mark W., 82, 164
134; petition from anti-Communist Clausewitz, Carl von, 117
POWs, 92; policy meetings, 81, 98, Cold War, 33, 113, 117, 195, 197; blocs,
100; promise of troops as morale world divided into, 132; Cold War
booster, 87; U.S. support for, 80, mentality of U.S. occupation forces,
90–91, 103, 199 176; Inner Mongolia and MPR,
China. See People’s Republic of China relations affected by, 71–72;
Chinese Civil War, 46, 138, 198; intelligence activities, 4, 187, 189;
Communist victory in, 117, 137; Korean War as first hot war of era, 132;
continuing during Korean War, 2, 80, reverse course of Japan affected by, 175
143; Japanese forces, participating in, Commander-in-Chief Far East (CINCFE),
135–136; Korean conflict, connected 181
to, 132, 198–199; Soviet support for Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), 176,
Communist side, 72; switching of sides, 178–179, 186
88–89, 92 Cumings, Bruce, 2, 132, 198–199, 202n3
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 39,
53n28, 67, 90, 132, 166–167 Dandong. See Andong
Chinese Nationalist Party. See Kuomintang Democratic People’s Party (DPP), 195
Chinese People’s Volunteer Army Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
(CPVA), 39, 62, 82, 159, 165; (DPRK), 28, 97, 132, 184, 200;
ignorance of foot soldiers, 95; Inner Andong, civilians fleeing through, 48;
Mongolians, supporting, 56, 65–67; China, growing friction with, 195;
Japanese collaboration, 48, 138, 139; CPVA, fighting on North Korean side,
Matsushita Kazutoshi, joining, 137, 137; ethnic Koreans, returning after
145, 148; military horses, Mongolia war, 197; Japanese participation in
providing, 60; “My Motherland” tribute Korean war, exaggerating, 32–33;
song, 193; Nationalists and, 83, 85, 86; nuclear weapons, focus on, 1, 200–201;
North Korea, supporting, 111, 137, 197; population decline during war, 182;
at Panmunjom armistice signing, 199; POWs, reluctance to repatriate to the
POWS and, 69, 87, 87–88, 89–90, 93, North, 147; Socialist front, joining, 55;
155; propaganda efforts, 100; Soviet military aid, 44; 38th parallel,
punishment for arrogance, 200; Seoul 80, 99, 132, 140, 142, 155, 202; TLO
Chinese Brigade, impersonating, 102; agents, infiltrating, 157, 160, 165;
TLOs and, 162, 166; UN troops, underwater mines, protecting coastline
pushing back, 81 with, 15; Zainichi Koreans, sympathetic
Chinese POWs, 83, 94, 105n25, 146, 188; to, 23
allegiance choices, 3, 97, 99; anti- Deng Dan, 159, 161
Communist POWs, 93; Chiang Kai- Department of Army Civilians (DAC), 83,
chek, professing loyalty to, 94; 96
interrogation of, 100–101; poor Dower, John, 27–28, 125n25
treatment upon return to PRC, 194–195; Drifte, Reinhard, 8–9, 28
POW line-crossers in Japan, 183–184; Dulles, Allen W., 121
repatriation to PRC, refusing, 79, 85, Dulles, John Foster, 113
107n55, 142–143; spy training, 187;
Index 219
Esselstrom, Erik, 185, 186 Hoffmann, George, 147

Hou Guangming, 156, 160, 164; family
FECOM, 120, 127n59, 175, 176, 177, 181 affected by TLO assignment, 169–170;
French, Thomas, 28–29 on TLO escapees, 171n69–171n70;
From Up on Poppy Hill (film). See TLO experiences, recounting, 156,
Kokurikozaka Kara 157–158, 159, 163
Furukawa Mantarō, 138 Hou Jiangming, 98
Huang Tiancai, 83, 83–84, 87–88, 91,
G-2 U.S. intelligence unit, 83, 105n25, 106n46
156, 175, 176, 181 Hu Jintao, 193
Gao Wenjun, 85, 106n42, 163, 165, 169; as
an anti-Communist righteous man, 100; Incheon, 140, 156, 158; Incheon landing,
missions and training, recounting, 156, 18–19, 21–22, 23, 113; port of Incheon,
159, 161, 164, 168; Nationalist 13, 17, 18
Whampoa Academy, as a former Inner Mongolia, 55, 71, 198; border
student of, 85, 157, 159; on POW closure with MPR, 72; cavalry units,
removals from camps, 158, 170n3; training military horses for, 60; ethnic
Pusan processing camp, recounting, Russians relocated from, 4, 64–65;
105n25; surrender, reason for, 88; on Manzhouli transit station, 61–65; North
TLO life, 162, 167 Korean War aid, 56, 65–68, 68
Garver, John, 78 Inomata Kōzō, 177–178, 186
Geertz, Clifford, 118 International Committee of the Red Cross
Geneva Conventions, 84, 142, 155, 157, (ICRC), 30, 129, 144, 147, 197
184 Ishida Sumie, 48, 199
Geoje POW camp, 86, 93, 130, 142, 156; Ishii Shirō, 26
anti-Communist prisoners, 79, 89, Ishimaru Yasuzō, 31
106n50; CIE, providing anti- Itagaki Kōzō, 173, 174–175, 175,
Communist education, 96, 158; 177–180, 183, 185, 188
crowded conditions, 97; prisoners’ lack
of education, 94; Jeju Island, prisoners Jager, Sheila Miyoshi, 1, 2, 132
sent to, 99, 107n68; Li Da’an as brigade Japan, 67, 91, 184; blood donations for UN
leader, 165, 169; mass uprising, 146; troops, 25–26; Chinese military forces,
POWS from Busan transferred to, 89, Japanese soldiers serving in, 135–136;
140–141; tattoos, prisoners acquiring, CPVA and, 48, 138, 139; imperial
92, 95, 160, 183, 194; TLO work, expansion leading to Korean War, 130;
prisoners recruited for, 156–157 Japanese language used for POW
Guo Zheng, 83, 84, 91 interrogation, 141; Kamchatka,
Japanese soldiers training in, 148, 149;
Hainan Island, 80, 87, 106n41 Kokura riot, 31–32; Manchuria,
Hamada Ryōsuke, 31 Japanese presence in, 40, 41; mass
Hanihara Kazurō, 26 deportation plan, 196–197;
Han Shuya, 78 minesweeping mission, 4, 9, 13, 13–17,
Harrison, David T., 156, 157, 160, 166, 18, 29, 177, 196, 199; National Police
171n73 Reserve (NPR), 27–29; Operation No. 1
Harrison, William, 199 military offensive, 134; orphans of the
Hattori Takushirō, 28–29 war, 21–22; prisoners of war, 137,
Hickey, Doyle, 181 145–146, 177; repatriation of Japanese
Higa Shugei, 113 nationals, 21; reverse course policy, 8,
Hiratsuka Shigeharu, 20–21 118–119, 175; seamen deaths, coverup,
220 Index
19–20; smuggling ships transporting 91; CPVA and, 83, 86; Matshushita
Koreans to Japan, 180–181; Soviet Kazutoshi, serving under Nationalists,
complaints of Japanese military 135, 148; Mongols, Nationalist soldiers
presence, 22, 139; TLO training on accusing of armed combat, 70, 71;
Japanese soil, 156–157; Tokyo as nerve Operation No. 1, Nationalists falling to,
center of Korean war, 30; UNC, 134; POW camps, Nationalist soldiers
supporting, 7–8, 11, 12, 32; Zainichi in, 87, 90, 94, 96, 106n51, 142–143;
Koreans of Japan, 23–24, 196 Seoul Chinese Brigade intelligence
Japanese Americans, 22, 141; Victor unit, collaborating on, 101; Seventy-
Matsui, 178, 188, 189; William Fourth Division transport unit, 135,
Mitsuda, 178–179, 185, 188; as Z Unit 136; spying accusation, 169–170;
members, 176, 179, 183 Taiwan, re-settlement in, 93. See also
Japanese Citizens’ Relief Association, 187 Chiang Kai-shek
Japanese defeat, 15, 19, 130, 135, 175; Kwantung Army, 132, 134, 138, 148
PLA, Japanese working with after
defeat, 136; POW celebration of defeat Lang Lang, 193
anniversary, 142; return of ethnic Lattimore, Owen, 132
Koreans to homeland, 198; U.S. Lee Jae-Bong, 200
occupation forces, work available after Lehner, Otto (ICRC official), 144
defeat, 173, 174 Li Baekgyeon, 101
Japanese Imperial Army, 23, 26, 133–134, Li Da’an, 89, 91, 92, 98, 165, 169
138, 144, 176 line-crossers. See tactical liaison officers
Japanese People’s Anti-War League, 136, Lin Xuebu, 165
185 Lippmann, Walter, 117
Japanese Red Cross, 25, 26, 144, 197 Liu Bingzhang, 83
Jeju Island, 95, 99, 146, 156, 158, 165 Liu Guohua, 101
Jiang Wenhao, 104 Liu Tonghe, 169
Johnson, Chalmers, 8, 191n55 Long Jixian, 94
Luo Yatong, 101
Kaji Wataru, 136, 184–187, 187–188, Lu Yizheng, 84
191n46
Katō Hitoyuki, 135, 136 MacArthur, Douglas, 125n18, 139, 176;
Kawabe Torashirō, 176 Chiang Kai-shek, meeting with, 81;
Kim Dong-Choon, 1 dismissal, 84; interpreters and, 83, 141;
Kim Il Sung, 57, 132 Operation Sams, initiating, 181
Kim Jong Un, 197 Manchukuo, 40, 67, 71, 132, 198
Kitamura Masanori, 19 Manchuria, 47, 70, 134, 148, 184;
Kitano Masaji, 26 industrialization of society, 40–43, 52;
Kōhoku Maru smuggling vessel, 175, 178, Japanese settlers in, 138; Korean
179 migrants in, 132; as a major transport
Kokura, port of, 3, 10, 26, 30–31, 32 region, 44; military horses transported
Kokurikozaka Kara (film), 9 through, 59; People’s Liberation Army,
Korean Augmentation to the United States presence in, 136; social mobilization of
Army (KATUSA), 22–23 civilians, 49–52; Soviet Union,
Korean liaison crossers, 100–103, 155 invading, 39, 130, 135, 137
Kowalski, Frank, 27–28 Manzhouli: horses transported through, 58,
Ko Young Hee, 197 59; as transformed by war, 3, 30, 52; as
Kuomintang (KMT), 80, 100, 135, 159, a transit area, 61–65; wartime transport
167; collusion with United States, 90, and working life, 44–46
Index 221
Mao Zedong, 92, 107n58, 136–137, National Safety Force (NSF), 28, 30
137–138, 139, 200 Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission
Ma Qungeng, 156, 157, 168; Americans (NNRC), 146
and, 163–164; Gao Wenjun, Nishimura Hideki, 2, 8
accompanying on missions, 161; North Korea. See Democratic People’s
mission to North Korea, fearing, 159; Republic of Korea
on POW removals from Geoje camp, Nosaka Sanzō, 136
158; refusal to volunteer, 169; tattoo
alteration, 160 Obama, Barack, 193
Masuda Hajimu, 3, 51, 118–119, 185 Ōhaba Hiroyuki, 137
Matsui, Victor, 178, 188, 189 Ōhashi Takeo, 24
Matsushita Kazutoshi: at Busan POW Okazaki Katsuo, 24, 29, 145
camp, 129–130, 131, 140, 140–141, Okinawa Prefecture, 110, 202; as an
142, 148; Chinese military, serving emotional community, 111, 117–120,
under, 139–140, 148; escape, 146, 148; 123; United States military presence,
family and, 133–134, 135, 137, 140, 30–31, 109, 112–116, 201
144; Nakayama Masa, petitioning on Ōkubo Takeo, 15, 17
behalf of, 144–145; railway Ōkubo Tsurayuki, 180–181
construction corps, working as part of, Onaga Josei, 122
134; return to Japan, 149–150; Seventy- Ōno Toshihiko, 24
Fourth Division of Nationalist Army, Ōnuma Hisao, 2, 8
serving under, 135, 136 Operation Sams, 181, 182–183
McCormack, Gavan, 114 Ōta Masahide, 122
McGulloch, H. W., 120
Memorial of the War to Resist U.S. Pak Hwan-youn, 101
Aggression and Aid Korea, 194–195 Panmunjom armistice, 77, 97, 99, 200;
Miksche, Ferdinand O., 117 anniversaries of signing, 194, 195;
Mills, C. Wright, 117 POWs and, 146, 155, 168; signing of
Mindan, 23, 196 armistice, 99, 102, 133, 199; Syngman
Mitsuda, William, 178–179, 185, 188 Rhee, resistance to, 147; TLOs and,
Mitsuhashi Masao, 186 157, 164, 167
Miyazaki Gorō, 9 Park Chung-hee, 201
Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR), 3, patriotic compact movement, 49–51
55, 64; combat participation, Peng Dehuai, 97
accusations of, 68–71; horse and People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 28,
livestock war contributions, 56, 57–61, 104n9, 136; civilians, peaceful relations
65, 66, 67; Inner Mongolians, working with, 149; CPVA, soldiers reabsorbed
with, 3, 65, 72; United Nations in, 85–86; Gao Wenjun, as a member
membership, seeking, 4, 68–69, 71 of, 85, 105n34; Korean membership,
Mori Hideto, 122 142, 198; Matshushita Kazutoshi,
serving in, 137, 148; recruitment
Naitō Ryōichi, 26 efforts, 106n37
Nakatani Sakatarō, 13, 16 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 3, 88,
Nakatani Tōichi, 17 103, 165, 199; entry into Korean
Nakayama Masa, 144–145 conflict, 81; establishment of, 80, 137;
Nam Il, 157, 199 loans and donations, relying on, 66;
napalm manufacture, 27 Manchuria and, 39, 198; Mongolia and,
Nationalists. See Kuomintang 67, 72; North Korean war effort,
National Police Reserve (NPR), 27–29 assisting with, 55–56; Operation TP
222 Index
Stole, thwarting supply chain, 82; post- 180

civil war demobilization, disrupted, Resist America, Aid Korea policy, 56, 65,
200; POWs and, 94, 99, 194–195; pre- 66, 87, 138
war economic plan, 40; resistance to Rhee Syngman – see Yi Seungman
repatriation in mainland China, 79, 85, Rosenwein, Barbara, 110–111
143; UN Security Council, excluded Ryukyu Islands. See Okinawa Prefecture
from, 78, 100, 104; Yanbian Korean
Autonomous Prefecture, establishing, Sams, Crawford, 181–182, 190n30
198 San Francisco Peace Treaty, 8, 109, 114
Perry, Samuel, 1 Sannomiya Kazumi, 18
Potsdam Declaration, 12, 139 Scott, Beverly, 31
prisoners of war. See Busan POW camp; Seongap Island, 162, 163, 164, 168, 169;
Chinese POWs; Geoje POW camp; Jeju anti-Communist POWS sent to, 156,
Island. See also under United Nations 158–159, 170n3; POWs of Seongap,
Prisoner No. 600, 001. See Matsushita captured by CPVA, 166; training of
Kazutoshi TLOs on, 159, 161, 165
Pueblo incident, 189, 201 Seoul Chinese Brigade, 101–103
Puzanov, A. M., 200 Shao Yulin, 82, 98, 101
Shenyang, 40, 42–43, 47, 50–51, 52, 174
Radford, Arthur, 91 Shen Zhihua, 1
Reddy, William, 110 Smith, Allan E., 16–17
Republic of China (ROC), 4, 79, 82, 144, Song Zhengming, 94, 94–95, 96
157; CIE schools, setting up in POW South Korea. See Republic of Korea
camps, 96; embassy in South Korea, Soviet Union, 28, 40, 70, 121, 147; ethnic
maintaining through the war, 100; Russians returning to, 4, 65; Japanese
Mongolia, war claims made against, 69; POWs in Soviet camps, 137, 177;
Nationalist embassy, TLOs escaping to, Manchuria, invading, 39, 130, 135;
163, 167; POWs, resettlement in, 69, military aid, providing to North Korea,
95, 98, 103, 168; repatriation to, 85, 92, 44, 55–56, 200; MPR and DPRK,
93, 98, 99; Seoul Chinese Brigade assisting, 57, 61–62; PRC, providing
collaboration, 101–103; symbolic loans to, 66; Siberia, Japanese soldiers
significance in Korean war, 78; Taipei, training in, 148, 149; Sino-Soviet
99, 100, 132, 169, 195; ROC translators Treaty, 12, 71–72
in POW camps, 83–84, 91, 141; as TLO Sun Zhenguan, 89
destination, 162, 167, 168–170; U.S. Sun Zhonggeng, 165
support, 81, 103, 199; WLFD, long Supreme Commander for the Allied
association with, 195; World Freedom Powers (SCAP), 11, 24, 27, 109, 119,
Day celebrations, 195, 203n5; Z Unit, 125n18, 127n59
cooperation with, 176–177. See also
Chiang Kai-chek; Kuomintang tactical liaison officers (TLOs): capture of
Republic of Korea (ROK), 24, 104, 147; agents, 164–167; mission, nature of,
covert operations, Nationalists aiding 160–164; ROC, relationship with,
with, 79; defense of, ROC participating 167–168; selection and training,
in, 81; ethnic Koreans of Japan and, 156–160; Taiwan, repatriation to,
3–4, 23, 197; OPLAN 5027 168–170; UNPIK, as platoon members
contingency plan, 202; POWs, desire to of, 155
fight for, 147; ROC embassy, working Taira, Kōichi, 121–122
with, 100–101; U.S. military presence, Taiwan. See Republic of China (ROC)
22, 200; Z Unit, cooperation with, 176, Tarkin, Maxim, 174
Index 223
Tatsumi Eiichirō, 29, 38n94 Wen Chuanji, 163

Taylor, Maxwell D., 168 Wen Jianyou, 99, 158, 161; CIE school,
Tofte, Hans V., 82 impressions of, 96; Nationalist
Tōsen Club (TC House), 179, 183, 184, Whampoa Academy, as a former
185 student, 157; TLO experiences,
Tōzai Kisen company, 18–19, 33 recounting, 156, 160, 162, 164–165,
Truman, Harry S., 80, 81, 113, 117 169
Tsai Ing-Wen, 195 Wi Hyae-rim (Han To-bong), 180, 191n46
Tsiang Tingfu, 69, 100 Willoughby, Charles A., 28–29, 175–176
Winnington, Alan, 156, 157
Uchiyama Kanzō, 185–186 Wonsan, 140, 174, 180; bubonic plague
Uechi Kazushi, 121 ship sent to, 181–182; mines and, 13,
United Nations: UN General Assembly, 19; U.S. military assault, 16; USS
69, 78, 118; UN POW camps, 138, 142, Pueblo, seized off coast of, 189, 201;
146, 165; UN Security Council, 69, 78, Wonsan landing, 13, 15, 18
104 World Freedom Day, 195, 203n5
United Nations Command (UNC), 3, 13, World League for Freedom and
145, 168, 197; Japan, supporting, 7–8, Democracy (WLFD), 195
11, 12, 32; at Panmunjom armistice Wu Jinfeng, 91
signing, 199; ROC interpreters, Wu Tiecheng, 80
utilizing in POW camps, 83, 141;
Tokyo, press briefings given in, 30 Yamada Zenjirō, 173–175, 179, 183–184,
United Nations Partisan Infantry Korea 184, 185–187, 188
(UNPIK): in Japan, 183; secrecy of Yamaguchi Yoshiko (Ri Kōran), 174
activities, 169–170; Unit 8240, 155, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture,
156, 164, 167, 168 198
United States: Chiang Kai-chek, support Yang Xuefang, 168
for, 80, 90–91, 103, 199; Okinawa Yan Xishan, 92, 136
Prefecture, U.S. military presence in, Yasuda Yōhei, 20
30–31, 109, 112–116, 201; reverse Yeh Kung-chao, 81
course policy, 8, 118–119, 175; ROK, Yeon Jeong: as a guerilla fighter, 190n30;
U.S. military presence in, 22, 200; Kaju Wataru kidnapping, 185, 186,
Taiwan, as ally of, 81, 103, 199; United 191n46; Operation Sams recollection,
States Far East Command (FECOM), 182; as second-in-command of Z Unit,
120, 127n59, 175, 176, 177, 181; U.S. 176, 181, 188
Civil Administration of the Ryuku Yi Seungman, 22, 24, 82, 99, 100, 147, 176
Islands (USCAR), 110, 116 Yoshida Shigeru, 12, 15, 29, 31, 139, 186
Uruma Shinpō (Okinawan newspaper), Yoshiwara Minefumi, 20–21
119, 120, 127n62 Young, Kenneth, 29
van der Vlugt, E., 117 Zainichi Korean community, 23–24, 196
Vinnell Corporation, 33 Zhang Buting, 86
Zhang Huayu, 159, 161, 169
Wada Haruki, 2, 8 Zhang Ruiqi, 78, 86, 92
Wang Dongyuan, 98, 167 Zhang Wenrong, 156, 156–157, 166, 169
Wang Shiyou, 101–102 Zhang Yifu, 88, 94, 101
Wang Youming, 93 Zhang Zeshi, 79, 104n5, 165, 171n73
Wan Shengtang, 165–166 Zhao Decai, 44–45
Wei Shixi, 89, 93 Zhao Zirui, 86, 106n37
224 Index
Zheng Xian, 84 operations, engaging in, 175, 177; Jack

Zhou Anbang, 159, 161, 167 Canon, running, 174, 176; Operation
Zhu Shiming, 80 Sams, 181, 182–183; TC House and,
Z Unit (Canon Organization), 177, 178, 179, 183, 184, 185
180, 188, 191n55; intelligence
About the Contributors
Catherine Churchman is a lecturer in Asian studies at Victoria University of

Wellington in New Zealand. She received her doctorate in Chinese and
Southeast Asian history from the Research School of Pacific and Asian Stud-
ies at the Australian National University. Her most recent publication is a
history of the peoples of the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands titled The People
between the Rivers: The Rise and Fall of a Bronze Drum Culture 200–750
CE (2016). Her current research interests include premodern Southeast Asian
history (in particular Vietnam), the ethnic minorities of southern China, Hok-
kien dialects of Southeast Asia, and the involvement of Nationalist China in
the Korean War.
Pedro Iacobelli is assistant professor in history at Pontificia Universidad

Católica de Chile. He holds an MA in Asian studies and a PhD from the
Australian National University. His most recent publications are Postwar
Emigration to South America from Japan and the Ryukyu Islands (2017) and
the coedited volume Transnational Japan as History: Empire, Migration and
Social Movements (2016). His current academic interests include contempo-
rary Japanese history, migration history of Asia, history of ideas, and
Asia–Latin America relations.
Li Narangoa is professor in the School of Culture, History & Language,

Australian National University, where she specializes in modern Japanese
and Mongolian history. Her current research interests include Japan’s rela-
tions with other Asian countries; Japan’s colonial history, religion, and mili-
tary; and Mongolian history, identity, and cities. Her interests also cover
borders and empires in general as well as international relations in Northeast
Asia. Her recent publications include “Mongols between Big Powers: The
225
226 About the Contributors
Idea of Man-Mo,” in Past and Present of the Mongolic Peoples, ed. Tokusu
Kurebito (2009), and the Historical Atlas of Northeast Asia, 1590–2010 (co-
authored, 2014).
Tessa Morris-Suzuki is professor of Japanese history and Australian Re-

search Council laureate fellow at the Australian National University. Her
research interests include grassroots movements and survival politics in
Northeast Asia, the Korean War in regional context, border controls and
migration in East Asia, and issues of national identity and ethnic minorities
in Japan. She has published a number of books on these subjects, including
Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan’s Cold War (2007), Borderline
Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Cold War Era (2010), and
New Worlds from Below: Informal Life Politics and Grassroots Action in
Twenty-First-Century Northeast Asia (coedited, 2017).
Mo Tian is a researcher associated with Jinan University. He holds a PhD in

history from the Australian National University. His interests are modern
history and gender studies of East Asia, and his recent publications include
“The Baojia System as Institutional Control in Manchukuo under Japanese
Rule (1932–45),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
4, no. 59 (2016): 531–54.
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The Korean War in Asia

Edited by Tessa Morris-Suzuki

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB,

Copyright © 2018 by Rowman & Littlefield

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

Printed in the United States of America

7 The Life and Death of Line-Crossers: The Secret Chinese

Epilogue: Northeast Asia and the Never-Ending War 193

Table 2.1 The output and percentage of heavy industry in

This book is based on a collaborative research project generously funded by

A Fire on the Other Shore?

RETHINKING “JAPAN’S MARSHALL PLAN”

The Korean War is described, with monotonous regularity, as the “forgotten

Reinhard Drifte, 5 Roger Dingman, 6 Ōnuma Hisao, 7 Nishimura Hideki, 8

In this chapter I highlight three aspects of Japan’s direct involvement in

THE FLOATING WORLD—MAKING JAPAN INVISIBLE

CONFLICTS IN KOREAN WATERS:

Recent intensifying debate in Japan on the issue of “collective self-defense”

captains’ decision. He reportedly berated them for being a disgrace to the

CIVILIANS AT WAR 2: BASE WORKERS AND ENGINEERS

KOREANS IN JAPAN: A COMMUNITY DIVIDED

While thousands of Japanese participants in the war were sailing to the

BLOOD AND BONES

that “security supervision with respect to such contacts be effected through

little American Army.” 86 In November 1952, the National Police Reserve

Besides, as French’s own account at times acknowledges, the National

a “gradual and quiet” program of strengthening the Japanese National Police

The departure of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment to Korea was

CONCLUSION: REMEMBERING JAPAN

Korea, the narrative of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War (as it is

The Korean War and Manchuria

Manchuria (northeastern China) played a crucial role in the People’s Repub-

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF MANCHURIAN SOCIETY

The Japanese-sponsored state of Manchukuo (1932–1945) left the Manchu-

yuan in Manchuria, accounting for 40 percent of the annual fiscal budget of

Area Output of Share of Output of Industrial

Table 2.2. Industrial development in Manchuria in 1949 and 1952

Province Year Number of Industrial Growth rate Share of

of factories expanded their weapons and ammunition outputs. In order to

WARTIME TRANSPORT AND WORKING LIFE IN MANZHOULI

To make matters worse, in general, the weather was extremely cold in

Despite the harsh conditions that workers encountered in the transport of

Andong (today Dandong), a city on the Chinese-Korean border, was another

air raids on Andong, the Northeast Bureau of Manchuria commanded on

Despite the problems that the Chinese authorities encountered in imple-

THE SOCIAL MOBILIZATION OF CIVILIANS

On June 2, 1951, the People’s Daily published another editorial urging

In addition to work units, the party leadership perceived the family—the

The content of compacts must include a political agenda as well as an agenda

There is insufficient evidence to reach a firm conclusion about civilians’

were said to be involved in the implementation of patriotic compacts. Work-

over a large spectrum of lower classes in Chinese society. These political

From One Divided Country to Another

The little-known role of Mongolia in the Korean War highlights long-

THE MPR’S AID TO THE “HEROIC KOREAN BROTHERS”:

MANZHOULI AS THE TRANSIT STATION AND

have a sleeping wagon, and so a normal passenger wagon was exclusively

INNER MONGOLIA’S AID TO THE KOREAN WAR

LEGACIES OF THE WAR: WHO IS WHO?

The accusation apparently came from pro-Nationalist Chinese prisoners