Category: DMZ

Introduction

Cold War era South Korea was host to many deadly and bizarre incidents.  On March 31, 1970, Japan Airlines flight 351, a 727 aircraft flying from Tokyo to Fukuoka was hijacked and eventually flown to Seoul adding to the long list of bizarre incidents involving South Korea.

From the April 1, 1970 Stars & Stripes

This hijacking known as the “Yodogo Hijacking” in Japan, would be the second one in four months involving South Korea.  On December 12, 1969 a civilian South Korean airplane was hijacked and flown across the DMZ by North Korean agents.  This time the JAL aircraft was not hijacked by North Korean agents, but instead communist sympathizers from the left wing Japanese Red Army Faction.

The “Yodogo Hijacking”

As the aircraft was flying to the city of Fukuoka in southern Japan, nine members of the Japanese Red Army, known as “Sekigun” in Japanese, wielded samurai swords and pipe bombs to take control of the plane with its 122 passengers and 7 crew members.  It is amazing to think that airline security was so lax back then that this many weapons could be smuggled on to the plane.  After seizing the plane the Red Army Faction, composed of students ages 16 to 27, tied up all the passengers to their chairs.  They originally planned to fly the plane directly to Pyongyang, but allowed it to land at Itazuke Airbase outside of Fukuoka once they learned from the pilot, Captain Shinji Ishida that the plane did not have enough fuel to fly to Pyongyang.

The hijackers had mistakenly thought the plane could fly all the way to Havana and were shocked to learn the plane could not even fly across the Pacific much less to Cuba.  In need of fuel, the hijackers agreed to release 10 women, 12 children, and one elderly male passengers in return for enough fuel to fly to North Korea.  From Fukuoka they planned to fly to Pyongyang and then figure out a way to get to their ultimate destination of Cuba.

From the April 1, 1970 Stars & Stripes newspaper

The Ruse

The plane spent a total of five hours on the ground at Fukuoka before lifting off again to fly to North Korea.  As the plane flew towards the DMZ it took warning fire from ROK air defense batteries and was escorted by fighter jets to Kimpo Airport at Seoul in attempt to make the hijackers think they were in North Korea.  To continue the ruse, authorities in South Korea also decorated Kimpo International Airport to look like an airport in North Korea.  They did this by removing all South Korean flags and flying North Korean ones instead and placing placards welcoming the hijackers to North Korea.  They even had personnel at the airport dressed in communist uniforms.  Like I said before bizarre things happen in South Korea.

After the plane landed Korean Airlines official Chung Man-jin approached the JAL aircraft and over a megaphone welcomed the hijackers to Pyongyang.  The hijackers yelled back down at Chung through the pilot’s window that they believed they were in Seoul.  The ruse was failing because they saw no pictures of Kim Il-sung posted anywhere.  ROK authorities then quickly got a picture of Kim Il-sung posted for the hijackers to see.  After six hours of negotiations the ROK authorities gave up on the ruse after the hijackers spotted a US Northwest Airlines plane parked on the tarmac.

From the April 1, 1970 Stars & Stripes

The Negotiations

After giving up on the ruse, ROK authorities began negotiations with the hijackers.  The negotiations were high contentious as the hijackers threatened to blow up the plane multiple times.  It wasn’t until the Japanese Transportation Vice Minister Shinjiro Yamamura agreed to be a replacement hostage that progress was made.  A deal was made where a tire that had popped during the landing was repaired and  the plane refueled in return for releasing 50 hostages.

From the April 5, 1970 Stars & Stripes newspaper

After the release of 50 hostages Mr. Yamamura would then board the plane to become a replacement hostage.  Once Yamamura was on board another 50 hostages were released.  It can’t be understated how brave this decision by Yamamura was because some of the hostages from the December 1969 Korean Airlines hijacking never came home.  Plus the crew from the USS Pueblo had been held hostage for nearly a year in North Korea and were tortured before being released.  Mr. Yamamura when he volunteered knew that he risked never going home again and being tortured, yet he went anyway.

From the April 4, 1970 Stars & Stripes newspaper

Surprisingly when Mr. Yamamura boarded the plane the hijackers were quite congenial with him.  For example one of the hijackers playfully pretended to stop Yamamura from running away from the plane.  Another hijacker carried his luggage on to the plane and they had a final wave and farewell before entering the plane.  The hijackers were apparently quite congenial with the passengers as well.  Two of the last hostages to leave were Americans Herbert Brill, a Pepsi-Cola executive and Reverend Daniel MacDonald.  When both left the plane they were smiling and shaking hands with the hijackers before departing.

Escape to North Korea

On April 3, 1970, JAL 351 with the nine hijackers, the three crew members, and the Transportation Vice Minister flew from Kimpo Airport, across the DMZ, and landed at Mirim Field outside of Pyongyang.  When they landed in North Korea the hijackers exited the plane and struck karate poses in excitement of what they had done.  They were then treated as heroes by the ruling Kim Il-sung government and given political asylum in North Korea.  Fortunately for the hostages they were treated well by the Kim regime and after some initial stalling, they allowed the plane and the hostages to fly back to Tokyo on April 5th.

From the April 5, 1970 Stars & Stripes newspaper

Historical Japanese news footage of the JAL 351 hijacking at Fukuoka and Kimpo Airport can be seen in the below video.  Additionally footage of Shinjiro Yamamura walking into the airplane at Kimpo followed by the release of the passengers can be seen:

Who Were the Hijackers?

Most of the hijackers were students from Doshisha or Kyoto University which were the two top universities in the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto.  Eight of the students were leftist nobodies, except for one student, Moriaki Wakabayashi.  Wakabayashi was the bass player for a popular Doshisha University based underground rock band called Les Rallizes Denudes.

From the April 5, 1970 Stars & Stripes newspaper

The band was formed by Takashi Mizutani who was a studying sociology and French literature at the time.  His French literature background is where the name of the band, that he was the lead singer for, came from.  Takashi was offered to participate in the hijacking, but declined to become involved.  The band would have eventually faded off into obscurity if Wakabayashi had not helped to hijack JAL 351.  After the hijacking the band remained together for many years afterwards.  You can listen to a sampling of their music by watching the below video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=664&v=L-oS–60eLA

Life in North Korea

After initially arriving in North Korea the hijackers may have been treated as heroes, but their ultimate goal of traveling on to Cuba was denied to them.  From the Kim regime perspective letting them travel on to Cuba would be embarrassing because the perception would be that North Korea was not good enough for them.  North Korea was after all sold as being the “worker’s paradise”, thus the hijackers were forced to stay in North Korea.

Interestingly the mastermind of the hijacking, did not take part in the actual operation.  His name was Takaya Shiomi.   He was arrested in Japan and sentenced to 20 years in prison.  He was released from prison in 1989 and worked as a lowly paid parking garage attendant.  After his release he joined the anti-US movement in Okinawa and wrote several books about the Red Army Faction.  He died in Tokyo in 2017 of heart failure.

The 9 hijackers on the other hand were forced to settle into life in North Korea.  One of the things the hijackers eventually wanted to make life more bearable in North Korea was to have wives.  There was no chance of them being given North Korean wives because of the racial ideology of the Kim regime that promotes the importance of keeping the Korean bloodline pure.  Because of this they worked on encouraging Japanese women with their same leftist ideology to defect to North Korea.  Incredibly they were very successful with five Japanese women traveling to North Korea in 1992 to marry the hijackers.

It is unknown what jobs all the hijackers have held in North Korea, but something they are believed to be involved in was helping with the abduction of Japanese nationals abroad.  It is believed that the Korean Workers Party in North Korea was using the hijackers to help create a Japanese revolution based on Kim Il-Sung’s doctrine.  Two of the hijackers that were allowed to travel abroad were arrested.  The youngest hijacker, Yasuhiro, Shibata was only 16 years old when he participated in the hijacking.  In 1985 he was sent to Japan to help raise money for the Red Army Faction.  Shibata was able to operate in Japan for three years before being arrested in 1988.

From the May 12, 1988 Stars & Stripes newspaper.

Shibata was eventually tried and sentenced to 5 years in prison.  One of the things that authorities learned from Shibata was that one of the hijackers, Yoshida Kintaro died of illness in Pyongyang in 1985.

Another hijacker Yoshimi Tanaka was arrested on the Cambodia-Thai border by Cambodian authorities. He was caught after a high-speed car chase across the country after Cambodian and US Secret Service agents were tipped off by an anonymous tip that Tanaka and North Korean diplomats were smuggling millions of counterfeit US dollars into Thailand.

From the April 6, 1996 Stars & Stripes newspaper.

Tanaka was deported to Thailand where he was acquitted of counterfeiting, but deported to Japan to face punishment for his role in the JAL 351 hijacking.  He received a 12-year jail sentence from the Japanese court.  Tanaka would never see freedom again since he died of liver cancer in 2007 while still serving his prison sentence.  He was 58 years old.

From the June 25, 1999 Stars & Stripes newspaper. 

While he was in jail Japanese authorities learned from Tanaka that another hijacker Takamaro Tamiya died in 1995.  Tanaka’s death brought the number of hijackers remaining in North Korea to five.  Over the years the hijackers requested to return to Japan, and wanted to open negotiations with the Japanese government to surrender if they did not do jail time.  The Japanese government has so far expressed no interest in giving immunity to the hijackers.  In 2001 and 2004 the Japanese government did allow various wives and children of the hijackers to return to Japan.  In 2014, Japanese journalists were able to visit the “Japanese Village” in North Korea and interview the remaining hijackers.

Japanese Village in North Korea

What they found was that the village which was once luxurious, has since decayed, but is still quite nice by North Korean standards.  The hijackers even have email access and their own satellite TV dish.  There is currently only 4 hijackers remaining in the village since one of them Takeshi Okamoto is believed to have been killed with his wife while trying to flee North Korea.

The four remaining “Yodo-go” hijackers being interviewed by the media in Pyongyang
(From left to right: Kimihiro Uomoto, Takahiro Konishi, Shiro Akagi, Moriaki Wakabayashi)
(September 2004) (Photo: Kyodo Press)

Here is a quick summary of the fate of all nine of the JAL 351 hijackers:

1. Takahiro Konishi – Still in North Korea
2. Shiro Akagi – Still in North Korea
3. Moriaki Wakabayashi – Still in North Korea
4. Kimihiro Uomoto – Still in North Korea
5. Yasuhiro, Shibata – Arrested in Japan in 1988 after traveling to Japan on a false passport to raise money for the Red Army.  Was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
6. Yoshimi Tanaka – Arrested in Cambodia in 2000 trying smuggle counterfeit US dollars.  Died in 2007 of liver cancer while serving a 12-year jail sentence in Japan.
7. Takamaro Tamiya – Died in 1995
8. Yoshida Kintaro – Died in 1985
9. Takeshi Okamoto – Believed killed trying to flee North Korea with his wife

Conclusion

The hijacking of JAL 351 was the first hijacking by the Japanese Red Army Faction and began a nearly two decade long run of terrorism committed by the left wing group.  The most notable was the Lod Airport massacre in Israel in 1972.  Three members of the Japanese Red Army were trained by Palestinian terrorists to conduct an attack that left 26 people dead and 80 more injured.  The only Red Army terrorist that survived the attack, Kozo Okamoto was the brother of JAL 351 hijacker Takeshi Okamoto.  The last deadly attack by the Red Army Faction occurred in 1988 when they bombed a USO nightclub in Naples, Italy killing five people.

Fortunately for the passengers of JAL Flight 351, the terrorists that took them hostage did not resort to deadly force.  The responsible actions by the Japanese and ROK authorities, even though the ruse at Kimpo Airport failed, did manage to ultimately get all the hostages and even the plane returned to Japan.      Though not all the JAL 351 hijackers have been captured, they have in a way experienced their own confinement in North Korea for the rest of their lives.  Fortunately with the advances in aviation security such a hijacking should never happen again, though it would be fun to see ROK authorities try to disguise Incheon International Airport as a North Korean airfield.

I wonder if the North Koreans will demand payment for allowing searches for war remains inside their section of the DMZ?:

President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday he will push for the recovery of the remains of fallen soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the Koreas in line with the improvement of ties with the North.

In his address at the 63rd Memorial Day ceremony at the National Cemetery in Daejeon, he expressed hopes that the fresh detente will pave the way for inter-Korean joint efforts to account for tens of thousands of service members still listed as missing in action from the 1950-53 Korean War.

“We will continue efforts to recover the remains of military and police members who fell during the Korean War until we find the last remaining person,” the commander in chief said.

“When South-North relations improve, we will push for the recovery of the remains in the DMZ first of all. We will also be able to retrieve the remains of U.S. and other foreign soldiers who participated in the war.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans have long attempted to milk money out of the US for allowing searches for war remains within North Korea.

South Korean soldiers walk over the tracks of the Gyeongui railway blocked by a barbed wire fence inside the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas at the western section of the inter-Korean border in Paju, north of Seoul, on May 15, 2018. The leaders of South and North Korea agreed to link cross-border roads and railways on April 27 when they held the historic inter-Korean summit at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ, raising prospects for South Korea’s project to build a railway connection with North Korea and Eurasia. The Gyeongui railway links Seoul with Sinuiju, a city on the Korean Peninsula’s border with China. (Yonhap)

Down go the propaganda speakers again, at least until the next time the North Koreans decide to start another provocation cycle:

Seoul’s Ministry of National Defense removed propaganda loudspeakers near the military demarcation line (MDL), Tuesday, in fulfillment of a part of the Panmunjeom Declaration signed by President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The ministry began the dismantling at 2 p.m.; and it took about an hour for around 30 people from the military and a speaker manufacturer to remove one speaker. The work in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, was covered by the media. The ministry did not say how long it would take to completely remove the dozens of speakers along the border

The move follows an agreement in the declaration announced Friday, in which the two Koreas agreed to cease all hostile acts against each other and eliminate any means of activities considered hostile in the areas along the MDL starting May 1, with a goal to turn the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into a real peace zone.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if it is a crew drill for these ROK Army soldiers to put propaganda speakers up and down as quickly as possible because we all know they are going back up again at some point?  😉

Yet another North Korean soldier has defected across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and this time it was not as dramatic as the November defection at the JSA:

A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the mid-western border Thursday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

“A low-ranking soldier defected to our GP (guard post) across the mid-western border at 8:04 a.m.,” a JCS official said, asking not to be named.

The latest defection came about 40 days after another North Korean soldier fled to the South through the Joint Security Area (JSA) at the truce village of Panmunjeom.

The JCS said the GP occupants identified the soldier coming toward the South through surveillance equipment, adding that the soldier carried an AK-47 assault rifle.

“Relevant bodies will conduct an investigation into how and why the soldier defected to the South,” the official said.

No shots were exchanged between the two Koreas during the soldier’s defection; but South Korean troops fired 20 warning rounds from K-3 machine guns at 9:24 a.m. when North Korean border guards approached the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) while searching for the soldier who defected.

“The North’s border guards stopped approaching the MDL after our warning shots,” the official said.

At 10:13 a.m. and 10:16 a.m., shots were heard from the North, but there was no damage on the South Korean side, the official added.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if the shots heard from the North were executions of the officers responsible for the soldier who defected.  The same thing happened after the Russian student defected during the 1984 JSA Shootout.

This defection is the fourth this year by a North Korean soldier.  Prior to these defections there were four defections of North Korean soldiers in the past 5 years.

Coincidentally on the same day two North Korean fishermen defected across the East Sea as well.  They were picked up to the north of Dokdo.  That makes 15 North Korean defections this year across the DMZ or maritime border compared to 5 last year.  The numbers may be up this year of defecting across the border, but the numbers are still too low to draw any hard conclusions.  I guess we will see what happens in 2018.

The November 2017 defection of a North Korean soldier has brought increased awareness to the Joint Security Area (JSA).  However, the North Korean soldier was not the first time that someone has defected at the Joint Security Area. In 1984 a defection by a Russian student visiting the North Korean side of the JSA led to one of the largest and deadliest shootouts in the history of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).  The shootout would claim the life of one ROK soldier and seriously wound one US soldier while killing three North Korean soldiers with many more wounded.

Stars & Stripes – November 26, 1984

Prelude to A Shootout

On the morning of Friday, November 23, 1984 there were no tours scheduled for the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area (JSA) due to the Thanksgiving holiday the prior day.  This meant it should have been a fairly low key day for the United States (US) and Republic of Korea (ROK) troops stationed at the JSA.   However, the North Koreans had a tour planned on their side of the border for a group of Russian exchange students.  Half of the group Russians were normal exchange students attending Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang while the other half were from the Moscow Institute of International Relations.  Of interest is that a ROK Drop favorite and noted North Korean expert Professor Andrei Lankov was one of the Russian exchange students on the tour that day.

In Lankov’s account he says students from the Moscow Institute were from the upper classes of Soviet society and they were usually groomed to become diplomats, international businessmen, or spies.  The eliteness of the Moscow Institute students was shown by how they were allowed to stay at the Russian embassy in Pyongyang instead of being put up in the North Korean dorms at Kim Il Sung University like the Russian exchange students like Lankov were housed at.

At 11:30 AM the Russian tour group approached the blue colored UN Military Armistice Commission (MAC) buildings to stop and take pictures.  The MAC buildings are used to conduct meetings and are cut in half by the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which is the official border between the two rival countries.  The group stopped at the MAC building to take pictures while they were guarded by one North Korean soldier.  One of the students from the Moscow Institute, the 22-year old Vasily Yakovlevich Matuzok asked the soldier from the Korea’s People’s Army (KPA) to stand next to him and pose for a picture.  While the soldier posed for the picture Matuzok turned around and made a dash across the MDL into South Korea.

The Escape

The North Korean guard immediately turned around and chased Matuzok across the MDL.  As it became clear the Russian was getting away the KPA soldier pulled out his pistol to shoot at the fleeing student.  Other North Korean soldiers began to chase Matuzok across the MDL as well.  Matuzok remembers running across the border towards three US and ROK soldiers.  Two of the soldiers remained in their positions while a third soldier ran away.  Matuzok decided to follow the fleeing soldier.  After the shooting started Matuzok sought cover in some bushes south of the Sunken Garden.

One of the US soldiers on duty that day in Checkpoint #4, Private First Class (PFC) Richard Howard saw the dash by Matuzok across the border and he immediately raised the alarm to alert the rest of the platoon on duty that day.  This alert warned the rest of the US and ROK soldiers on duty to pull out their rifles and prepare for combat.

Stars & Stripes – November 26, 1984

The two of the soldiers that Matuzok saw while running were PFC Michael A. Burgoyne and Korean Augmentee to the US Army (KATUSA) PFC Chang Ayung Gi.  The two soldiers at the time were escorting a civilian work crew when Matuzok ran by them yelling for help.  The soldiers reacted quickly by pulling out their .45 caliber pistols and shooting at the North Korean soldiers chasing him.  PFC Burgoyne shot one of the soldiers chasing Matuzok.  The shooting of the North Korean soldier caused the rest of the North Korean soldiers to stop chasing Matuzok and instead return fire at Burgoyne and Chang.  By this time over 20 KPA soldiers were chasing Matuzok and two of them were armed with machine guns and the rest with pistols.  Burgoyne and Chang did not stand a chance against the superior firepower; Burgoyne took a round to his lower face and neck while Chang was shot through his right eye and was dead before reaching the ground.  However, the covering fire provided by Burgoyne and Chang gave Matuzok the time he needed to hide in some nearby bushes to escape the North Koreans.

The Shootout Intensifies

Simultaneously while the KPA was shooting at Burgoyne and Chang, Sergeant First Class (SFC) Johnny Taylor ordered the troops within Checkpoint #4 to get out the M-16’s they had hidden and exit the building to engage the advancing North Koreans.  The superior firepower provided by SFC Taylor’s men forced the KPA soldiers to seek cover in the Sunken Garden area of the JSA.  Two KPA soldiers with machine guns then advanced from north of the MDL to try and lay suppressive fire on Taylor’s group to help their pinned down comrades.  However, Specialist David Cotton, Jr.and ROK Army Private First Class Oh Yong-Suk returned fire at the two KPA’s soldiers from the vicinity of Checkpoint #5.  This suppressive fire was enough to distract the KPA soldiers from laying effective suppressive fire on SFC Taylor’s men.

Map of the JSA overlayed with graphics depicting major events from the defection and shootout.

At this point it was a full fledged shootout involving over 20 soldiers on each side.  While this was going on the reports of the shootout were relayed back to the tactical operations center (TOC) at Camp Kitty Hawk, the base camp for the JSA.  The Joint Security Force Company Commander Captain Bert Mizusawa was immediately summoned to the TOC after receiving word of the shootout.  CPT Mizusawa mustered the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) prepositioned near the TOC and they raced up the road to the JSA in their jeeps to Checkpoint #2.  They arrived at CP #2 approximately 15 minutes since the defection of Matuzok.  Mizusawa ordered one squad of the QRF to advance north towards the helipad to assist SFC Taylor’s men engaging the North Koreans at the Sunken Garden.

CPT Mizusawa then led the other two squads to the west and then north to outflank the KPA in the Sunken Garden and seal off any avenues of approach the KPA could use to reinforce the troops at the Sunken Garden.  While advancing they found Matuzok hiding in the bushes south of the Sunken Garden.  This was the first time that CPT Mizusawa fully understood what had happened.  He immediately secured the defector and made sure he was safely taken back to Camp Kitty Hawk.  The defector was the evidence that the US and ROK troops needed to prove that this firefight was caused by an armed incursion into the JSA by the KPA.  If the defector was killed the North Koreans could claim he was kidnapped by the US and the KPA responded to the kidnapping.  With Matuzok alive the lies could be easily countered.

While Matuzok was being transported back to Camp Kitty Hawk by the QRF platoon sergeant SFC Howard Williams, the QRF continued to outflank the enemy penned down in the Sunken Garden as well as fend off attacks from the west from KPA troops trying to reinforce them.  While this was going on SPC Jon Orlicki was firing a 40mm grenade launcher from CP #4 towards the Sunken Garden.  With the KPA penned down CPT Mizusawa ordered the QRF squad to the south led by Staff Sergeant (SSG) Richard Lamb to assault through the Sunken Garden.  With the US troops advancing on them the KPA troops tried to retreat from the Sunken Garden and found no means of escape, they instead dropped their weapons and surrendered.

The surrender of the KPA happened approximately six minutes after the QRF had arrived.  Seeing that the KPA had surrendered CPT Mizusawa called for a truck to come up to the Sunken Garden to transport the prisoners.  The KPA had clearly violated the armistice and murdered a ROK soldier while doing so.  However, bureaucracy and procedural processes would lead to the KPA soldiers being allowed to be immediately evacuated back to North Korea.  Here is how an excellent article written by retired Colonel Thomas Hanson on the US Army Museum website describes what happened:

Shortly after the shooting started, the KPA Joint Duty Officer, Major Park, telephoned U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Randy A. Brooks in the UNC Joint Duty Officer building to request a cease-fire.  Park also requested authorization to cross the MDL with six unarmed personnel to evacuate the dead and wounded KPA soldiers.  Staff Sergeant Brooks relayed this information to the US/UN/Combined Forces Command operations center in Seoul without informing Captain Mizusawa or any member of his chain of command.  U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl E. Bechtold, the UNCMAC Assistant Secretary, was the senior UNCMAC officer in Seoul that day.  Unable to speak with UNC senior leaders who were visiting offshore islands in the East China Sea and receiving no authoritative instructions from anyone in Seoul, on his own authority Bechtold granted the KPA request without qualification.  Staff Sergeant Brooks then ran down to the Sunken Garden yelling, “Cease fire, cease fire.”  Mizusawa ordered his men to ignore Brooks, who had no command authority.  Several minutes later, Lieutenant Thomas received confirmation of the order via telephone from Captain Nowak in the operations center.  Thomas radioed to Mizusawa that the order had come from “CP Seoul.”

I think it is arguable that a decision of this magnitude should not have been made by a lieutenant colonel back in Seoul who may not have had a complete picture of what had happened.  I think a major armistice violation like this should have required a general officer’s decision which would have forced a more complete accounting of what had happened before making a decision.  Regardless, the decision allowed the North Koreans to police up their dead and remove evidence of their armistice violation.  Something surprising about this whole situation was that no one had a camera on them to take pictures of the captured, wounded, and dead KPA soldiers on the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area.  The pictures would have been clear evidence of the armistice violations by the North Korean soldiers.  Cameras back then were not as ubiquitous as they are today, but it just seems like the JSA back then still would have had a lot of cameras present to capture armistice violations.

After the North Koreans evacuated their personnel back across the MDL, Mizusawa then began to take stock of casualties.  Considering how fierce the firefight was, the US and ROK forces only suffered one wounded and one killed in action.  The wounded was PFC Burgoyne who was shot in the neck and the dead was ROK soldiers PFC Chang who was shot through the eye during the initial portion of the firefight.  The KPA on the other hand officially reported three killed in action and one wounded though it is believed there were far more wounded.

However, death for North Korean soldiers did not end with the conclusion of the 1984 JSA shootout.  Representatives from the Swiss and Swedish delegations to the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission who were present on the north side of the MDL following the shootout reported that surviving KPA soldiers who had surrendered at the Sunken Garden got into a bitter argument with more senior North Korean officers.  Two North Korean KPA guards were then executed behind the main North Korean JSA building.  This all happened just minutes after the firefight.  There have been unconfirmed reports that one of the men executed was Lieutenant Pak Chul who was the KPA soldier who murdered former JSA Security Company Commander, Captain Arthur Bonifas during the 1976 DMZ Axe Murder Incident.  After the 1984 shootout Pak was never seen again at the JSA.

Google Earth image of today’s JSA with the major events of the 1984 shootout overlaid on it.

The Aftermath

If anyone thinks the US side was happy to have Matuzok defect, they would be wrong.  After the incident the JSA Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Viale confronted Matuzok to remind him that a JSA soldier had died and another was seriously wounded by his actions.  The Russian student Andrei Lankov who was there that day was also very critical of Matuzok’s actions:

He did it, he told the Americans in the interview, because it was his first-ever chance to flee to the West, countering North Korea’s claim that he had been forced to flee. Lankov is less sympathetic, arguing that the defection was needlessly risky and cost lives when there would have been better opportunities to defect.

“I believe he risked the lives of himself and others, some of which were indeed killed, for no reason,” he argues. “He even risked provoking an armed confrontation in a highly tense part of the world. He was smart and educated enough to understand (this).”

“Matuzok’s eventual job as a diplomat would assuredly give him innumerable opportunities to defect without the risks and bloodshed.”  [NK News.org]

In the days after the shooting the North Koreans claimed that the US started the firefight and violated the armistice.  During meetings following the shooting the US side produced evidence showing it was the North Koreans who initiated the firefight and violated the armistice:

At the commission meeting today, Admiral Horne produced photographs and tape recordings to back up his assertions that the North Koreans had violated the armistice. In one tape recording, made through a microphone that had been left on, bursts of automatic weapons fire could be heard distinctly, soon after voices had shouted in Korean, ”Hey, hands up!” and ”Catch him!”

”The fact is when your guards realized that a member of their tour was running to freedom, they drew their weapons and pursued him deep into our portion of the J.S.A., repeatedly firing at him with deadly weapons,” the admiral said.  [New York Times – November 27, 1984]

In response the North Koreans repeatedly tried to claim that the US and ROK soldiers kidnapped the Russian student after he inadvertently stepped over the MDL:

In response, North Korean officers produced bullets that they said had been fired from American-made automatic weapons.

United States officials acknowledged later that their soldiers had brought in machine guns and M-16 rifles, but said they had belonged to a force posted outside the security area and had acted only after the North Korean firing started. ‘You Are the Criminals’

”You are the criminals for the latest incident, and should bear responsibility for it,” said the chief North Korean delegate, Maj. Gen. Li Tae Ho of the North Korean Army.

General Li repeated earlier North Korean assertions that Mr. Matuzok, a trainee with the Soviet Embassy in Pyongyang, was not a defector and should be returned to the north. The young man, he said, had ”inadvertently” stepped over a boundary line and was immediately grabbed by United Nations Command soldiers who fired at the North Koreans.  [New York Times – November 27, 1984]

To counter the North Korean claims, the US released an interview with Matuzok where he described what happened and verifies that he crossed on his own free will.  He also stated that he planned to defect for 2 years and the trip to Panmunjom was his “very first opportunity to go to the West.”:

Stars & Stripes – November 28, 1984

Following the debrief, Matuzok was then turned over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Rome.

Stars & Stripes – Dec. 2, 1984

Matuzok would eventually be allowed to resettle in the United States.  In 1986 Matuzok gave an interview to the Christian Science Monitor where he disclosed that he lived in Boston and worked in the maintenance department of a large hotel under a new name:

He moved to Boston to enroll in an English-as-a-second-language program. At the end of this — with his English greatly improved — he took a job in the maintenance department of a large Boston hotel “fixing vacuum cleaners, painting things, everything.” At the same time, he began studying in a technical school. Today he is a special student at a Boston-area university, where he is taking courses on US military policy and China.  (……….)

But many defectors, such as Matuzok, have only limited usefulness as intelligence sources and don’t fall under the care of the CIA once they are in this country. Matuzok was a college intern assigned to the Soviet Embassy in North Korea when he defected.

Matuzok’s main concern now is his career. He has taken on a new, somewhat-WASPy name and dresses well above the borderline-Bohemian style popular in Boston intellectual circles.

The Jamestown Foundation’s Geimer says most defectors are apprehensive about their new identities — “some much more so than others.” In Matuzok’s case, he says, it probably wasn’t necessary for him to change his name. When asked about this, Matuzok — who asked that his new name not be used in this article — simply replies that he prefers to make it as difficult as possible for Soviet authorities to keep track of him. [Christian Science Monitor]

What happened to Matuzok after this 1986 interview is largely unknown.  Lankov claims that he heard Matuzok died in a traffic accident in Canada in 1990 while a Russian reporter claims that he now lives in San Francisco.  I could not even find a picture of Matuzok which shows how much of a low profile he has kept over the years.

For the soldiers involved in the shootout the US tried to keep things very low profile as well.  This was because the Soviets had entered into discussions with the United States.  The fact that the Soviets did not react strongly to the defection was a sign to the Reagan administration that they were serious about those discussions.  In response the Reagan administration wanted to keep the shootout as low key as possible in order to not rub it into the faces of the Soviets.  However, there were some valor awards initially given out.  For example Captain Bert Mizusawa was recognized with the Bronze Star.  After the 1984 JSA shootout Mizusawa would go on to have a distinguished military career.  He retired as a Major General in 2013.  After retiring he got involved in politics and became a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign.

The deceased PFC Chang and the wounded PFC Burgoyne were both recognized with Bronze Stars with Valor as well.  PFC Burgoyne who was shot in the face would eventually recover from his wounds:

However none of the soldiers who fought at the JSA that day received valor awards or were recognized with the Combat Infantrymen’s Badge (CIB).  The CIB is big honor for infantrymen to wear and at the time firefights at the DMZ were not included as part of the criteria for issuing it.  That policy did not change until 2000 when Congressional lobbying was able to get the regulations changed and all soldiers who fought that day in the JSA were recognized with CIBs.  They additionally could wear a combat patch on their right sleeve.  Furthermore various valor awards were issued as well.

The highest valor medal issued for the 1984 JSA shootout was the Silver Star that was awarded to members of Staff Sergeant Richard Lamb’s squad.  Lamb was the noncommissioned officer who led the QRF squad that assaulted through the Sunken Garden and forced the North Koreans to surrender to end the shootout.  SSG Lamb would go on to join the Special Forces, was wounded at the Battle of Mogadishu, and ended his career serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He retired as a Command Sergeant Major in 2003.

Not every soldier was able to receive their valor award in 2000.  Private First Class Mark Deville was a member of the squad that the Pentagon could not track down to award a medal to.  He was working as a prison guard in Florida at the time and had lost contact with his old military buddies.  It wasn’t until 2014 that Deville did a Google search of himself and found that he had been awarded a Silver Star for his combat actions 30 years ago during the JSA shootout.

Remembrance

Today the events of the November 23, 1984 shootout at the JSA are remembered with an annual ceremony.  During these annual ceremonies flowers are laid at a memorial marker at the JSA in remembrance of Private First Class Chang Myong-ki.

Chang’s parents and other family members often attend the annual ceremony.  Soldiers who were at the JSA that day have also attended the ceremony as well.  For example the then Major General Bert Mizusawa attended one of the ceremonies in 2011.  Here is what he had to say about the significance of the events that day:

“The firefight was, in many ways, the last hot battle of the Cold War fought between a Soviet proxy and the U.S.-Korean alliance that was proudly embodied in the bravery and sacrifice of the young two-man team of Jang and Burgoyne,” he said. “For that, all members past and present of this great unit, and the Jang family, should be … proud.

“While their actions were very brief … the consequences of their actions I think will earn a significant place in our world history,” he continued.

Mizusawa went on to explain that diaries released in recent years suggest that then-President Ronald Reagan was surprised by how the Soviet Union reacted to “the unheralded 1984 Soviet defector incident” and, as a result, he was inspired to take a “hardline stance” toward the U.S. adversary which “accelerated the demise of the Soviet empire and helped end the Cold War.”

“This defector incident confirmed to our strong-willed president at the time that he should face down the Soviet leadership,” said Mizusawa, who now serves as deputy director for strategic initiatives for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  [Stars & Stripes]

I think it is good that the Pentagon has recognized the soldiers who fought that day with the appropriate valor awards and recognition.  I also think it is great the JSA security battalion continues to honor the memory of PFC Jang who was killed in the JSA shootout.  However, what I think is still missing is a heartfelt thank you from Vasily Matuzok.  If he is still alive, Matuzok would be in mid-50’s by now, I really think he owes it to Jang Myung-ki’s family and the JSA veterans that served that day to attend one of these ceremonies.  At the ceremony he should thank everyone who put it all on the line for him that day.  In PFC Jang’s case he gave all he had so Matuzok could live in freedom in the United States.  This is a heavy burden that hopefully Matuzok has never forgotten because clearly the veterans stationed at the JSA on November 23, 1984 have never forgotten and neither should he.

Further Reading:

• A Forty Minute Korean War (Army History.org)
• Fire Fight in Panmunjom (JSA Vets)
• The Quite Victory (JSA Vets)
• 20 Years Later Remembering  A Deadly Firefight at Korea’s DMZ (Stars & Stripes)
• General Revisits Deadly 1984 Thanksgiving Firefight at DMZ (Stars & Stripes)
• A Russian Crosses the Line: A Different Kind of North Korean Defection (NK News)
• Merry Mad Monks on the DMZ (Merry Mad Monks website)

I am willing to bet that if a similar situation at the JSA were to play out again the North Koreans will probably commit bigger armistice violations by going across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and try to drag the defector back.  In such a case would the US and ROK troops shoot at them?  I hope this is a response the JSA guards are trained to execute if need be:

North Korea violated an armistice agreement with South Korea this month when North Korean soldiers shot and wounded a North Korean soldier as he defected across their border and it must not do so again, South Korea’s defense minister said on Monday.

The defector, a North Korean soldier identified only by his surname, Oh, was critically wounded but has been recovering in hospital in South Korea.

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between North Korea and the international community over its nuclear weapons program, but the North has not publicly responded to the defection at the sensitive border.

South Korean Minister of Defence Song Young-moo issued his warning to the North while on a visit to the border where he commended South Korean soldiers at a Joint Security Area (JSA), in the so-called Truce Village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarized zone, for rescuing the defector.

A North Korean border guard briefly crossed the border with the South in the chase for the defector on Nov. 13 – a video released by the U.N. Command (UNC) in Seoul showed – a violation of the ceasefire accord between North and South at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Shooting towards the South at a defecting person, that’s a violation of the armistice agreement,” Song said.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

Acting U.S. ambassador posts picture showing North Koreans digging trench near MDL https://t.co/anmcbvHuii pic.twitter.com/CLUvMSe6mb

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) November 24, 2017

These finding are unsurprising based off what has already been reported about this incident:

North Korean troops violated an armistice agreement last week when they were chasing a fellow soldier defecting to South Korea through the Joint Security Area (JSA) at the truce village of Panmunjeom, the United Nations Command (UNC) announced Wednesday.

Releasing video clips lasting around seven minutes showing the incident, the UNC said the (North) Korean People’s Army (KPA) violated the Armistice Agreement twice when its border security guards fired weapons across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) after the defector had entered the South and when one KPA soldier temporarily crossed the line for a few seconds.  [Korea Times]

Here are the details of the incident:

Closed-circuit television footage the UNC released starts with the defector approaching in a vehicle across the 72-hour Bridge, with the CCTV timeline that reads “2017-11-13 15:11.”

After the vehicle driven by the defector in a KPA uniform became stuck along a row of JSA buildings, he got out and ran south across the MDL.

While the defector was running south, four North Korean guards, armed with pistols and rifles, engaged him with direct fire, during which time some of the gunshots flew over the MDL, and one soldier briefly crossed the line before returning back to the north side of the JSA.

Separate footage from a thermal observation device showed two members of South Korea’s JSA security battalion crawling along the ground to recover the wounded defector lying against a wall, while one member covered the retreat, prior to his evacuation for medical treatment.

The UNC said its investigation team determined JSA security battalion personnel took appropriate actions during the incident, which resulted in a “de-escalation of tension and no loss of life.”

You can read more at the link and below is the video:

The biggest take away I saw from the video was that I was surprised the North Koreans had no vehicle checkpoints on the way to their side of the JSA.  This soldier came very close to being able to drive across the Military Demarcation Line within the JSA if his vehicle did not get stuck.  I would imagine vehicle checkpoints have since been put into place by the North Koreans to prevent this from happening again.