DMZ Flashpoints: The August 1967 Landmine Attacks

The summer of 1967 was a deadly year for U.S. troops stationed on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in South Korea. In May a barracks building at Camp Walley was bombed, in August a work detail was ambushed, and Camp Liberty Bell were attacked. These attacks were part of a North Korean campaign against the U.S. military presence in South Korea called the “DMZ War“.

Before and after the August 28, 1967 attack on Camp Liberty Bell, North Korean commandoes secretly emplaced mines on roads used by U.S. troops along the DMZ. The mines used are called box mines and is the same type of crudely constructed mine that maimed two ROK soldiers back in 2015.

The first U.S. soldier killed by one of these mines in August 1967 was Specialist Billy J. Cook from the 2nd Infantry Division. The Jeep he was traveling in on August 22, 1967 was destroyed by a mine killing him and wounding one other soldier. Cook was originally from Virginia and left behind a wife who was living in Indiana at the time.

One week later and one day after the Camp Liberty Bell attack, three more U.S. soldiers were killed on August 29, 1967 by another landmine attack. A group of 2nd Infantry Division soldiers were traveling in three trucks, 2 kilometers south of the DMZ, when at approximately 6:30 PM two of the trucks hit landmines. The explosions killed Sergeant Phillip M. Corp, Private First Class Edgar W. McKee Jr., and Private First Class Paul G. Lund. Two other U.S. soldiers were wounded by the explosions. Three more soldiers from the Medical Evacuation vehicle sent in response were wounded as well when they hit a land mine.

These landmine attacks were just one of hundreds of attacks against U.S. and ROK forces between 1963 – 1969. North Korea was attempting to launch an insurgency within South Korea during a timeframe that the U.S. military was bogged down in Vietnam. The U.S. and ROK military’s ultimate success at defeating these attacks caused North Korea’s strategy to fail and popular support for the ROK government to grow within South Korea. Unfortunately the three U.S. soldiers killed by these landmines would not live see this.

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