Here is an update on the search for American Korean War POWs taken to the Soviet Union:
Pentagon officials leading efforts to recover missing American service members told their Russian counterparts in May there is no evidence that U.S. prisoners of the Korean War were brought into the Soviet Union, dismissing intelligence reports and eyewitness testimony compiled over the last two decades.
American officials made the claim during a May meeting of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, and experts say it could undermine the Defense Department’s efforts to recover further information about the more than 7,800 military personnel still unaccounted for from the Korean War of the 1950s.
Michael Linnington, who until recently directed the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, told Russian officials participating in the forum that the Pentagon has “no evidence” that missing troops ended up in the Soviet Union by way of China.
Linnington’s comments angered experts who say the move will signal to the Russians that the U.S. government is no longer interested in pursuing a lead that it has chased for decades. [Free Beacon]
You can read more at the link, but there has been pretty convincing evidence shown over the years that Korean War POWs were taken to the Soviet Union for intelligence gathering of American aircraft technology. The book American Trophies provides a detailed look at the evidence of these POWs being taken to the Soviet Union that is discussed in the rest of the article.
Korean War Service: Commanded the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC)
Introduction
The Korean War began when communist North Korean troops invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. The war on the Korean peninsula would eventually draw in multiple United Nations countries to defend the South as well as the Chinese in defense of the North. The war would ultimately last for just over 3 bloody years when the armistice agreement was signed at Panmunjom between the combatants on July 27, 1953. However, something that few people realize is that the war could have likely ended in early 1952 if it wasn’t for one issue that had the negotiating parties deeply divided; the repatriation of prisoners.
The peace talks at Panmunjom began on October 25, 1951 after the Chinese had launched their 2nd Spring Offensive in April of that year and were soundly defeated by the United Nations forces. That summer the Chinese had not been able to make any gains as the UN forces had hardened their defensive lines along the vicinity of the 38th parallel after the Chinese offensive. This caused the war to turn into a fight to hold strategic hill tops that would cost a huge amount of casualties for offensive forces to capture. So by that fall it was in each sides interest to enter into peace talks to end the war since both sides were not willing to accept the huge casualties it would take to try and win the war through military means.
Geoje-do Island POW Camp.
Determining the demarcation line between the two countries and the rules and regulations of the armistice was the easy part of the negotiations. However, what was not easy was how to handle the issue of prisoners of war that did not want to return to their home countries. At the time of the peace talks the United Nations forces held up to 170,000 communist prisoners at the Geoje Island POW camp. Of these prisoners tens of thousands of them were either former Chinese Nationalist soldiers or South Koreans that were forced to join the Communist ranks during the war. These prisoners as well as others that were convinced of the validity of the democratic side of the conflict did not want to be returned to China or North Korea. The United Nations side did not want to be in the position of having to forcibly repatriate these prisoners to the Communist side because morally this was not the right thing to do, but also it would have been political suicide for the leaders that approved it. You can read more about the Geoje POW camp at the below links:
So the UN continued to negotiate with the Communists in order to get them to agree that prisoners should not be forcibly repatriated. Unfortunately this caused the Korean War to be extended for two more years largely over this issue. In 1952 as the Communist negotiators continued to demand that all the prisoners be sent back to North Korea and China , the Geoje Island POW camp uprising happened. The Communist POW’s were able to forcibly detain the camp’s commandant US Brigadier General Francis Dodd. The general was only released after the prisoners were able to get General Dodd to sign a statement saying that the US would stop torturing and abusing the prisoners. The US was not torturing the prisoners but the Communists were able to score a major propaganda victory with the statement.
At the armistice talks whenever the UN side claimed that some of the prisoners did not want to be repatriated, the communist negotiators would counter that the prisoners only say that because they are being inhumanely tortured on the island. Fortunately by June 1952 under the leadership of Brigadier General Haydon Boatner the uprising was put down, but the propaganda damage done to the UN was enough to damage the peace talks for the rest of the year. In fact it wasn’t until March 1953 that a breakthrough was made in the armistice talks when the Communists agreed to a Red Cross sponsored idea to exchange injured and sick prisoners. The Communist side also went as far to say that the successful conclusion of the prisoner exchange would open the door to a wider agreement on the POW repatriation issue. The transfer of wounded and sick prisoners became known as Operation Little Switch and was executed between April 20 to May 3, 1953. Throughout the operation the Communists claimed that their prisoners were tortured and brainwashed, but ultimately it was completed successfully despite the usual Communist propaganda games. The Communists turned over 684 soldiers which included 149 Americans, 471 South Koreans, 32 British, 15 Turks, 6 Colombians, 5 Australians, 2 Canadians, and 1 prisoner each from the Philippines, South Africa, Greece, and the Netherlands. The UNC transferred over 1,030 Chinese and 5,194 North Koreans prisoners plus 446 civilians for a total of 6,670 people .
With the successful conclusion of Operation Little Switch the negotiations at Panmujom continued until a final armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. The armistice stipulated that a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission would be formed to handle the transfer of prisoners between the combatants. The nations selected to form the NNRC was Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and India. It was agreed by the negotiators that the NNRC lead country would be India since they were tasked to provide a brigade of soldiers to provide security for the prisoner exchange. Not only would the Indians provide security, but they would also be responsible for carrying out the entire prisoner exchange which become known as Operation Big Switch. The operation would not be something as easy as ensuring prisoners were handed back to their home countries. Due to the repatriation issue it was agreed upon that all the prisoners would have the option of choosing which side they wanted to be repatriated to. However, the soldiers that did not want to be repatriated to their home country would have to wait 90 days in a holding camp located in the newly created Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) before being released in order to give them time to change their minds. The prisoner exchange was going to be a difficult mission for the Indians that had the attention of the entire world watching how it was carried out. The Indian government wanted to make sure that they had the best person possible in charge of such a sensitive mission and the person they turned to was Lieutenant General Subayya Kadenera Thimayya.
LTG Thimayya Before the Korean War
Subayya Kadenera Thimayya who was called “Timmy” by his British colleagues, was born March 30, 1906 in the city of Madikeri in the district of Kodagu in India. He was the son of a wealthy farmer who’s family had a long line of military service. Thimayya would eventually continue this tradition of military service, but not before beginning at the age of 8 to attend private foreign run schools. After his schooling was completed, in 1922 at the age of 16 he enrolled into the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College. After graduation Thimayya was one of six Indian cadets chosen to attend the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Thimayya graduated from Sandhurst in 1926 and received a commission into the British Indian Army. His older and younger brothers would also go on to join the Indian Army as well.
One of his assignments during his early military career was with the Scottish 2nd Highland Infantry Regiment stationed in Baghdad, Iraq. He achieved some acclaim when he led an operation into King Feisel’s palace to rescue a group of women that were supposedly being victimized within the palace. He would then go on in 1930 to spend a few years in the Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan battling the Pashtun tribes that continue to plague the area to this day.
General Thimayya would then go on to distinguish himself during World War II. During the war India was still part of the British empire and General Thimayya was part of the British colonial military in India battling the Japanese. During the war General Thimayya had the distinction of being the only Indian to ever command a British combat brigade as part of the British offensive into Japanese occupied Burma that became known as the Battle of the Arafan. He received the British Distinguished Service Order for his service for the British military during World War II. At the end of the war General Thimayya would then go on to be an Indian signatory to the Japanese surrender at Singapore
After World War II, India was divided when the British carved out Pakistan as its own country and granted India its independence. However, this division led to new fighting that General Thimayya took part in as he led Indian military forces in defeating its Pakistani rivals and holding Kashmir as part of India during the first Kargil War of 1948.
The Indian Military During the Korean War
After the Korean War started in June 1950 the Indians were not eager to get involved in another shooting war when they were already facing hostilities at home from Pakistan as well as border disputes with China. The Indians however wanted to show support for the new United Nations and decided on deploying medical support personnel only to support the international effort in Korea. The Indians deployed the 60th Parachute Field Ambulance unit that consisted of 627 medical personnel under the command of Lieutenant Colonel A.G. Rangaraj.
Indian Army medical troops during the Korean War. Picture via the Chosun Ilbo.
The unit arrived in Pyongyang on December 4, 1950, just in time to take part in 8th Army’s withdrawal out of North Korea. On December 14, 1950, it formally became the medical evacuation unit for the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade (later redesignated the 28th British Commonwealth Brigade.) It supported this unit throughout the war and became well known for the quality medical care they provided to the British Commonwealth Brigade.
Indian Army medical unit encampment during the Korean War. Picture via the Chosun Ilbo.
However, with the signing of the armistice agreement the Indians were actually going to deploy a far larger 5,000 man combat brigade to the peninsula than what they had in country during the actual war. This brigade sized element was called the Custodian Force of India (CFI) and by assigning Lieutenant General Thimayya to lead this force India was clearly signaling to both the UN and the Communists that they were sending their best to execute this mission. General Thimayya was under strict orders from the Indian government to be impartial during all his dealings as the head of the NNRC which caused accusations from both sides that he was bias. This perception of bias immediately caused problems for General Thimayya with the ROK government. The South Korean President Syngman Rhee who was opposed to the armistice, forbid the Indian troops from landing in South Korea. Thus the United Nations Command (UNC) had to coordinate to fly the Indian soldiers assigned to the DMZ by helicopter which at the time was the largest helicopter airlift operation in history. The Indians named the camp they stayed at in the DMZ, Camp Nagar which meant “Indian City”. The other camp that housed the soldiers from the other four NNRC countries was called Shanti Nagar which meant City of Peace”.
In this map of the repatriation camps notice that the southern camp the Indians maintained was much larger than the northern camp because of the difference in POW’s held between the two sides. Map via the Korean War Educator.
With the soldiers and logistics in place, General Thimayya set forth to accomplish his mission of repatriating the prisoners. Operation Big Switch began on August 5, 1953 and this would be the easiest part of the operation. The UNC held 132,000 prisoners while the Communists held 12,773 prisoners. All of these prisoners had the choice of whether or not they wanted to be repatriated. The vast majority of prisoners wanted to return home and each side had 60 days to hand the prisoners over. The UNC handed over 75,823 (70,183 North Koreans and 5,640 Chinese) while the Communists handed over 12,773 prisoners. (7,862 South Koreans, 3,597 Americans, 945 British, 229 Turks, 40 Filipinos, 30 Canadians, 22 Colombians, 21 Australians, 12 Frenchmen, 8 South Africans, 2 Greeks, 2 Dutch, and 1 prisoner each from Belgium, New Zealand, and Japan).
All the remaining UNC prisoners were then handed over to the NNRC and housed in two camps within the DMZ in October 1953. At the camps the prisoners would be held for 90 days where each side would be able to send representatives to persuade the prisoners to return home. The UNC held 22,604 prisoners in the camp being guarded by the Indians. Most of these prisoners were former Chinese Nationalist soldiers who wanted to be repatriated to Taiwan. The Chinese had until December 23, 1953 to try and convince these prisoners to return home. The first day of trying to convince Chinese prisoners to return to China was held on October 15, 1953. The Chinese efforts were not successful since they were only able to get 10 prisoners to change their minds. The next day the Chinese requested a thousand Koreans to talk to, but the Indians could not get any Koreans to agree to meet with the Chinese representatives.
Picture of what appears to be Chinese POW’s. You can see more pictures from the photographer Jerry Rosenstein at this link.
The next day the Chinese wanted another 1,000 Chinese, but the Indians could only get 430 to attend. The Chinese could see they were having little success in their efforts to change the minds of the prisoners and began a new tactic of demanding that the Indians force the prisoners to attend the meetings. The next day the Chinese also demanded that the Koreans be forced to attend the meetings as well. The demands were likely a tactic by the Chinese to get the Indians to use force to move the prisoners which could have turned into a riot that may have led to the death of Korean prisoners. If this happened the South Korean government may have turned on the Indians.
Indian Army soldier responsible for guarding North Korean POW’s. Picture via the Korean War Educator.
The controversy lasted for two weeks until General Thimayya refused their demands to force the prisoners to attend the meetings. However, General Thimayya was also clever enough to get the Korean and Chinese prisoners to voluntarily agree to attend the meetings in order to keep the perception of Indian impartiality and to allow the Chinese to save face. However, that is not what happened as the Chinese over the next few days were only able to get a few more of the prisoners to change their minds. The Chinese had hoped to provoke discord between the UN countries with their demands as well as make the UN look like obstructionists by not having the prisoners attend the meetings and instead they ended up losing face by only being able to persuade a few of the thousands of POW’s to return to their home countries.
What appears to be an American prisoner is talked to by a South Korean delegate to return to the United States while watched by Indian troops. Picture via the Chosun Ilbo.
Interestingly enough during this timeframe the Indians took possession of the only American POW to change his mind; on October 21, 1953 Corporal Edward S. Dickenson was handed over to the Indians who proceeded to hand him over to the US military. Interestingly enough 22 American POWs refused to be repatriated despite General Thimayya’s best efforts.
December 15, 1953 Stars & Stripes newspaper article.
The only other UNC prisoners who changed their minds were seven ROK POW’s. Four of these prisoners were a husband and wife with two small children who agreed to be repatriated on November 16, 1953. When the UNC began their attempts to convince Communist held prisoners to return to their home countries they held brief to the point speeches in order to avoid allowing the prisoners to give propaganda speeches back at the presenters. The UNC believed that the Communists only brought hardcore communists to the northern camp that could not be convinced to go back to their home countries. The remaining POW’s were held in North Korea and the ROK Ministry of Defense has estimated that up 20,000 South Korean prisoners were not given the option of repatriation by the Communists. The missing POW’s continues to be an issue even today where the ROK government has made demands that the North Koreans return former POW’s forcibly held in North Korea. Because of the shortness of the speeches and not giving the prisoners the opportunity to make propaganda speeches the Chinese had the prisoners refuse to attend any more meetings.
General Thimayya meets with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Picture from Frontline.
When the December 23, deadline passed, of the 22,604 prisoners the UNC held, only 137 had their minds changed. Over 22,000 Communist forces soldiers wanted to voluntarily leave their home countries while the Chinese were only able to get 359 UNC prisoners to agree to stay in either China or North Korea (335 Koreans, 23 Americans, and 1 Briton). The large discrepancy of soldiers who did not want to return to their homelands was a huge propaganda blow to the Communist forces. The Chinese had hoped to embarrass the UNC by getting more prisoners to return home and they even stacked the deck by only bringing hard core communists to the repatriation camp. Despite this only 1.14% or the UNC’s prisoners decided to change their minds and return to their home countries while 2.23% of the 359 Communist held prisoners changed their minds.
Once the exchange was complete General Thimayya then had to hold the remaining prisoners for another 30 days by agreement. On January 18, 1954 General Thimayya notified the UNC and the Communists that the remaining prisoners were ready to be turned over to the countries they wanted to be repatriated to. On January 23, 1954 the remaining prisoners officially became civilians and a reception was held in South Korea to honor the freed anti-communist prisoners that was attended by officials from the ROK, Taiwan, and the UNC. After the ceremony the Chinese prisoners were loaded up into boats and transported to Taiwan under the guard of the 4th Regiment of the 3rd US Marine Division. Upon arrival in Taiwan the anti-communists prisoners were treated as national heroes.
Chinese Nationalists soldiers waving Republic of China flags and holding a picture of Chang Kai-shek begin the long journey to Taiwan. You can see more pictures from the photographer Jerry Rosenstein at this link.
General Thimayya however would see no party when he left South Korea because of his tense relationship with the ROK that became even tenser when he said voluntary repatriation was “abhorrent to me as a military man”.
February 24, 1954 Stars & Stripes newspaper article.
Despite General Thimayya’s friction with the ROK government him and his troops were thought highly of by their American counterparts who held farewell ceremony in February 1954 to thank the Indians for their service in South Korea.
Post-Korean War Service
After the Korean War General Thimayya would later go on to be the Chief of Staff of the Indian military from 1957-1961. He went into retirement, but volunteered for UN service in 1964 when the organization needed an impartial leader to command UN troops operating on Cyprus. Due to his reputation of impartiality from his Korean War service General Thimayya was a logical choice. He once again showed himself to be an impartial and competent leader during his time in Cyprus. However, the work must have took its tool on the General as he would die of a massive heart attack on December 17, 1965 at the age of 59. Today General Thimayya is widely thought of as an Indian military hero, but his competent handling of the UNRC mission clearly makes him a Hero of the Korean War as well.
February 24, 1954 Stars & Stripes newspaper article.
More Information:
The Korean War Educator has an excellent site up that goes into great detail explaining the repatriation issue to include having pictures and text of flyers that were handed to the prisoners before being transported to the DMZ camps. The site also has the text of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) used by the troops handling the prisoners which is all interesting reading.
Note: You can read more of the ROK Drop featured series Heroes of the Korean War at the below link:
It is interesting that someone has decided to look up and see what happened to the 76 North Korean POWs after the Korean War Armistice was signed, decided to be resettled in a third country instead of remaining in South Korea or going back to North Korea:
Back in the country where they were detained as prisoners of war in the 1950s, two former North Korean soldiers now find little apparent objection or hostility, at least superficially — they were even welcomed by veterans who had fought for the South. But it’s also a trip that brings back bitter memories of war and puts them on the defensive again.
They are among the 76 North Korean POWs held in South Korea who opted to resettle abroad at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. Labeled traitors, opportunists or fence-sitters amid fierce Cold War rivalry between the Koreas, they’ve died abroad one by one and now less than a dozen are still believed to be alive.
Kim Myeong Bok and Kang Hi-dong came back to South Korea on July 23 with a South Korean movie director who’s making a documentary on ex-POWs.
The film, titled “Return Home,” is intended to trace back their turbulent lives, but the men may not be able to make one important stop. Pyongyang has not given them permission to enter North Korea.
Kim, who is 79 and lives in Brazil, is desperate to return because he thinks this is his last chance.
“I left my home when I was young and I don’t know whether my family is still alive or not. What I’ve been wishing is visiting my hometown before I die,” Kim told reporters in a tearful news conference in Seoul late last month. “My father and mother must have passed away … I still want to see even their ashes.” [Associated Press]
You can read the rest at the link, but the main reason for the POWs going to a third country was fear of discrimination in South Korea for being a former Communist and the fear of being punished for being captured by North Korea. Pictures of the former POW camp they were held at in South Korea can be viewed at the below link:
This file photo, taken during the 1950-53 Korean War and obtained on June 23, 2015, from the Beijing-based International Committee of the Red Cross Regional Delegation for East Asia, shows a South Korean soldier giving a cigarette to a Chinese prisoner of war at a prison camp on the southeastern island of Geoje. This and other rare photos, which Red Cross officials and U.S. soldiers took during the three-year conflict, give a glimpse at how the inter-Korean war drove people into terrible situations, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the start of the war, which falls on June 25. (Yonhap)
You can see pictures of the Geoje POW Camp today at the below link:
1st Lt. Alvin Anderson, one of the many repatriated POW’s to return home aboard the USNS Marine Phoenix, embracing his mother and sister as other members of his family look on. Fort Mason, CA, September 14, 1953. Herb Weiss. (Army)
Sometimes heroism in warfare is not always won on the battlefield. Heroism can also occur in the rear ranks by strong leaders organizing and motivating logistical and support units to operate at full capacity to support the frontline units. Often in warfare the rear logistical units can become to complacent due to their distance from the frontline combat units. This complacency inevitably causes inefficiency that ultimately effects the frontline soldiers. This inefficiency and displacement from combat often causes tension between the frontline and rear echelon units that usually leads to colorful names for the rear troops. This has been a fact throughout the wars America has fought. Frontline soldiers today often call the rear echelon troops Foblins (FOB is a forward operating base). During the Korean War they were known as REMF’s (Rear End Motherfu****s). It was these REMF’s that would lead to one of the most embarrassing incidents of the entire Korean War.
Koje-do is a large island located in the southeast of Korea. It covers some 383 squared kilometers and is the second largest island in Korea only behind Cheju-do Island. The island has much historical significance with it’s links to the legendary Korean Admiral Yi Sun-shin. Today the island serves as a holiday destination for people from Pusan and as the home of the Daewoo ship building industry. However, probably the most infamous incident in the island’s history has to be the Koje Island communist prisoner of war (POW) camp constructed on the island during the Korean War. Long before there was Abu Graib there was Goje Island. What happened at Abu Graib totally and utterly fails in comparison to the incompetence and horror of Goje Island during the Korean War.
During the increasing combat on the Pusan Perimeter the US and allied forces found themselves with increasing numbers of North Korean POWs. It was decided that a camp had to be constructed to house the POWs. Goje Island was chosen as the site because of the fact that it was an island making it difficult to escape and it was far from the front making rescue attempts impossible. Additionally it was away from Pusan thus preventing the vital port in Pusan being clogged due to the amount of POWs held there, if the allies had to withdraw from Korea. The area chosen on the island to build the site a flat valley near the center of island that had access to a seaport to resupply the island from. Hap hazard housing and facilities were constructed on the site and very quickly POWs began to fill the camp. After the successful Inchon Landing Operation the amount of POWs increased greatly as even more North Korean troops were captured by the allies. With the entry of the Chinese into the war the camp continued to fill up well past it’s maximum capacity.
The following facts should give you some idea of how overcrowded the POW camp was. The facts are from March 1952, in the article “Prisoner’s Island: Tension and Tedium Rule Koje’s Barbed-Wire World”. This was an extensive story about life for the prisoners on Koje island off the east coast of South Korea. The story appeared in Vol. 32, Issue Number 13, pages 92 to 98 in the March 31, 1952 issue of LIFE magazine. Here are the facts:
Koje had 3,000 Prisoners of War under the age of 17
170,000 prisoners lived there
38,000 of the POWs were Korean civilians pressed into Red armies
21,000 were Chinese POW’s
111,000 were North Korean POWs of both sexes between the ages of 6 and 63
60% of the Chinese POWs were illiterate
24% of the Koreans were illiterate
Messages were sent from compound to compound via dragonflies
Each arriving prisoner received about $50 worth of GI uniform
Compound 66 had 2,600 North Korean officers who believed in communism
6,000 Koreans and 13,000 Chinese signed anti-Communist petitions, sometimes in blood
In February of 1952, 69 POWs in Compound 62 died in a riot
Prisoners of War on Koje studied language, history, manual crafts, modern farming, and the difference between democracy and totalitarianism.
To put the massiveness of these numbers into perspective, Abu Graib never held more than 4,000 prisoners at its peak in 2004.
Overcrowding and Incompetence
The overcrowding combined with an ideological battle within the camp made living conditions increasingly unbearable. The POWs segregated themselves into gangs that either believed in communism or capitalism and even further divided themselves by religion as Christianity was increasingly accepted by the prisoners. The gang like atmosphere in the prison bares a striking similarity to America’s prisons today by how prisoners segregate themselves into gangs based on ethnicity. The different gangs regularly fought for turf and influence in the prison camp.
The guards that secured the compound rarely if ever went inside the compound. Most of them were rear echelon troops bored and uninterested in duty on the island. The prisoners pretty much ran the prison themselves with the American soldiers standing guard outside the wire.
Due to the lax security within the compound the communist block was able to intimidate and crush opposition and when they had accumulated enough strength within the camp, they decided it was time to start waging war against the Americans from within inside the camp as well. They knew they couldn’t begin a conventional fight against the Americans because they would all just eventually be shot and killed. They decided the best way to open up another front against the Americans was to begin a propaganda war from inside the camp. This campaign would have better results than they ever could have imagined.
North Korean POW camp leader Colonel Lee Hak-ku.
On the morning of May 7th, 1952, the commander of the communist faction North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku requested that the commander of the prison, Brigadier General Francis Dodd urgently come and meet with him for an important reason. BG Dodd had met with COL Lee before and didn’t expect anything unusual from this request. In a well rehearsed and coordinated move COL Lee’s men surrounded the General and his guards and quickly subdued the guards and pushed them out of the compound and grabbed the general and moved him deep within the compound. The prisoners all pulled out their home made weapons and threatened to kill the general if any attempt to enter the compound was made. The seizure of the American general made instant headlines. Americans woke up to headlines of torture and abuse at Goje Island because the prisoners made demands that the US stop torturing, abusing, and starving them if they wanted their commander back. This was of course nonsense but to other nations around the world who didn’t know any better they of course began to wonder, “What the heck are the Americans doing on Goje Island?”
Additionally the communist block had a field day with the propaganda value of the Goje Island uprising. Here is what Pravda in Moscow wrote in response to the uprising:
Koje Island! Again the gloomy shadow of Maideneck (a Nazi extermination camp in Poland) has come upon the world, again the stench of corpses…… the groans of the tortured…… we learn that “civilized” Americans can be yet more inhuman, yet more infamous than the bloody Hitlerites. Dachau was a death camp, Maidenek was a death factory; Koje is a whole island of death. The American hangmen are torturing, tormenting, and killing unarmed people here. They are experimenting with their poisons on them….
This Kind of War
Page 398
To echo the communists claims the Red Cross condemned the treatment of prisoners on Goje Island as well. They condemned the over crowding, violence in the camp, and the lack of food reaching some prisoners because the communist leaders would store the food for themselves and only hand it out to prisoners loyal to their movement. The Red Cross also would not condone any force to put down the uprising and regain control of the camp in order to meet acceptable humanitarian standards. The Red Cross could provide no advice on how to meet acceptable standards, but was quick to criticize the Eighth Army forces guarding the prison for not meeting those standards.
COL Lee had scored a massive propaganda victory by claiming torture and abuse after capturing the general that was repeated and endorsed in newspapers across the globe. He even scored a bigger victory when another General, BG Charles Colson arrived to take charge of the camp and agreed to demands made by the prisoners to stop torture and abuse in exchange for General Dodd. Before releasing Dodd, the North Koreans put him on trial for war crimes and forced him to the statement that Colson had approved earlier.
After the release of General Dodd, General Colson retracted the signed statement made by Dodd, but by agreeing to the demands in the first place it had the effect of legitimizing the North Koreans’ claims of torture and abuse to the world’s media. The global media was having a feeding frenzy over the Goje Island story and it began to directly effect the truce negotiations being waged at Panmunjom. The US military brass was furious at what was going on at Goje Island and at General Colson for agreeing to the prisoner’s demands.
There were problems on Goje Island, but the prisoners were always fed and did what they wanted in the camp. The biggest problem on the camp was the overcrowding, because no one expanded the camp because everyone thought the war would end any day and all the prisoners would go home. The problems in the camp was not from torture or abuse, but from incompetence of the people running the camp. This incompetence would end once a man named Brigadier General Haydon Boatner.
The New Commander Takes Charge
Brigadier General Haydon Boatner was an old China hand for the US military. He served in China during World War II and spoke fluent Mandarin. He was serving as the assistant division commander of the Second Infantry Division on the frontlines of the Korean War when he went on leave for R&R in Japan. It was while on leave in Japan that he was notified that he was taking over the Geoje Island POW camp. The camp had been commanded by rear echelon troops and the Eighth Army commander General Mark Clark wanted a proven combat leader to fix the mess that the rear echelon commanders had created on Goje Island and General Boatner conveniently on leave in Japan was just the man he needed.
General Boatner soon arrived in Pusan and received a debriefing from General Colson on the situation on Goje Island. While in Pusan he even ran into the recently released General Dodd who was visibly a shaken man after being held hostage and was on his way to Tokyo to report to his superior there over the incident. Dodd would go on to be reduced one rank to colonel and forcibly retired from the military. While meeting with General Colson, Boatner was amazed how oblivious he was to the media frenzy over Goje Island. There was little access to the media in Korea, but in Tokyo the media frenzy in the newspapers could not be missed and Colson would soon find out about the frenzy after meeting with Boatner and returning to Japan where he was also disciplined for his part in the Goje Island mess.
Boatner found the lack of information reaching Korea to be even worse once he arrived on Goje Island. The first thing the command staff on Goje wanted to do once he arrived was to throw him a cocktail party. General Boatner couldn’t believe that the staff on Goje was more concerned about cocktail parties than ending the uprising and the subsequent propaganda beating the US was taking due to the mess on Goje Island. The priorities of the soldiers on Goje Island became only more evident as Boatner looked around the camp. He found soldiers in different uniforms and some soldiers carrying weapons and others not. The reason he found for the lack of weapons was the fear of accidental discharges. For a commander that had fought on Heartbreak Ridge, Boatner could not believe the attitude of the soldiers he found on Goje Island. General Boatner immediately ordered one standard uniform and put everyone under arms to the objection of the staff he inherited. They were an absolute disgrace and he was going to fix it.
Internationalizing the Problem
Boatner discovered that this attitude was allowed to manifest because many of the officers and soldiers that the Army found unfit for combat had been sent to this island instead of the frontlines. General Boatner decided it was time to start a purge to rid the camp of the unfit soldiers and leaders. He relieved over 400 soldiers from the island and now had to replace them. To replace them Eighth Army sent him combat team from the 187th Airborne from Japan, a Canadian company, a British company, a few Greek soldiers, and a Turkish company. The Eighth Army commander General Clark received a lot of criticism from the governments of the soldiers sent to Goje because these countries wanted nothing to do with what was going on with Goje Island. It was a political kryptonite that everyone wanted to steer clear of, but General Clark felt the problem on Goje was a UN problem and not solely a US problem and by sending foreign units there it internationalized the problem.
Expanding the Camp
After General Boatner had successfully conducted his purge and refocused the attention of the camp on regaining control of the prisoners and not holding cocktail parties, he then focused on expanding the camp in order to break up the organized groups of prisoners. Boatner know that he had to expand the compound quickly because the camp was not only making international headlines that were disgracing the country, but was also being used for political fodder during the negotiations at Panmunjom.
One of the most sensitive issues being discussed during the negotiations was the return of POWs at Goje Island. The allies wanted to give the prisoners an option of either staying in South Korea or returning to North Korea or China. The Chinese and North Korean negotiators wanted all the prisoners sent back to North Korea and China. When challenged that many of the prisoners wanted to stay in South Korea the communist negotiators would counter that the prisoners only say that because they are being inhumanely tortured on the island and would hold up western media reports that had sensationalized what was going on at Goje Island to prove it. Additionally images of the daily protests at the Goje camp complete with prisoners chanting communist slogans and holding up pictures of Marxist leaders were filling the daily newspapers across the globe feeding the perception of torture, abuse, and the fact that all the prisoners wanted to be returned to North Korea and China.
An engineer unit was sent to Goje to help expand the camp. Initially the engineer commander was more concerned about building a new PX for the soldiers than expanding the camp, but General Boatner set him straight and ordered his men to work 24 hours a day building the new barracks to house the prisoners. The PX could wait.
Breaking the Enemy’s Will
Along with Boatner’s efforts to restore discipline in his troops and expand the camp he also needed to break the will of the enemy. Boatner felt that since the prisoners’ commander North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku had successfully brought massive media attention on the island that at anytime he could order his men to attempt a massive prison break that would end in the deaths of many prisoners further causing disgrace to the US military and the condemnation of the world. Boatner had to work on breaking up the loyalty of the prisoners to Colonel Lee.
The prisoners would challenge General Boatner’s authority on just his second day on the job. A Chinese faction of soldiers loyal to Colonel Lee began to cause a commotion in the camp. General Boatner went to the camp to see what was going on. He was amazed to see 6,500 Chinese soldiers in perfect formation chanting slogans and holding propaganda signs. Outside the wire the American soldiers were gathered hooting and hollering back at the Chinese. It was a chaotic scene that Boatner was quick to get control of. He ordered his aid to bring the commander of the US soldiers to him and the Chinese commander. Boatner proceeded to scald the US commander to take control of his men. The commander, a lieutenant colonel had served under General Boatner on the frontlines of the war and quickly responded and got control of his men and stopped the hollering at the Chinese.
Boatner than turned his attention to the Chinese commander who was a colonel in the Chinese Army that spoke a northern Chinese accent that Boatner understood completely. The colonel not realizing Boatner could speak Chinese brought an interpreter with him that reiterated demands about the Geneva Convention, Panmunjom, and the usual communist talking points of the day. General Boatner, to the Chinese commander’s shock, responded in perfect Mandarin that he was full of crap and then proceeded to tell him the names of respected Chinese generals he had fought with during World War II. The fact that he could speak Mandarin combined with his association with prominent Chinese commanders impressed the Chinese commander. The Chinese commander agreed to end the protest and through small acts of Chinese cultural understanding over the proceeding days Boatner was able to win the respect of the Chinese commander. In just a few short days General Boatner had already eroded support for Colonel Lee Hak-ku’s uprising in the prison.
Next Boatner turned his attention to eliminating the communist propaganda such as signs and statues that had been erected around the camp. Boatner wanted to avoid one large operation that the prisoners could organize against and cause a massive incident that could turn into blood shed which would be reported around the world. Boatner decided instead to use well timed raids that featured tanks backed with soldiers trained in riot control. Boatner’s men raided one compound at a time over a series of days to slowly destroy all the propaganda around the camp thus avoiding one large operation. Slowly but surely General Boatner was able to eliminate the communist propaganda inside the camp. In the first week of Boatner’s command it was clear to all the prisoners that there was a new boss in town and it wasn’t Colonel Lee Hak-ku.
Isolating the Prisoners
It was long known that villagers outside of the Goje POW camp were helping the prisoners inside the camp with supplies and the sending of messages back to their masters in North Korea and in turn influencing the on going negotiations at Panmunjom. Many of the villagers on Goje were actually North Korean civilians relocated from Wonsan and Hangnum in North Korea. Among the evacuated civilians were many North Korean agents that were aiding the prisoners in the camp. General Boatner knew he had to stop this rat line running from Goje to Panmunjom and the only way to do that would be by forcibly moving thousands of villagers away from the camp.
The problem with doing that was that with the Red Cross and media hanging around would condemn such an act. However, the problem with the civilians supporting the prisoners got so bad that Boatner had to do something about them before he could move on fully ending the uprising in the prison. Boatner sent trucks to the village to move the villagers. The military in two days was able to move the entire village and burn the huts down. It brought some bad headlines in the short term, but in long term it totally isolated the North Korean leadership within the prison.
Ending the Revolt
It took 30 days for the engineers to complete the expansion of the prison and during this time General Boatner was able to restore discipline among his own troops, divide loyalties within the prison, and end the rat line of communications from and to the prison. The last thing that had to be done was to end the revolt and restore order.
With the new camp constructed the time was now here to begin moving prisoners into the new and more secure compound. There was tens of thousands of prisoners total on Goje divided in separate camps of 6,500 prisoners. General Boatner chose the most violent camp with the head communist leadership, including Colonel Lee Hak-ku in Camp 76 to begin the movement of the prisoners from. Boatner felt that by crushing opposition here first, it would set an example to the rest of the prisoners. Using crack paratroopers from the 187th Airborne Brigade, Boatner had his men completely surround Camp 76. The men were under very explicit orders to use non-lethal means to move the prisoners and could only shoot to kill with the permission of the commanding officer only. It was imperative that the operation didn’t turn into a blood bath for the world’s media to report. The paratroopers had trained for weeks for this operation and were ready to put down the uprising by chopping off it’s head at Camp 76.
Weapons found hidden within the Geoje Island POW camp.
All at once on June 10th, 1952, the soldiers cut down the wire around the camp and moved in. The paratroopers moved in slowly and deliberately subduing prisoners. As they moved further into the camp the prisoners set fire to the buildings creating a smoke screen to fight the paratroopers in. The paratroopers began throwing concussion grenades into the smoke which had the effect of breaking up the frontlines of the resistance. As prisoners fled the impact of the grenades they were quickly captured by the paratroopers. The last 150 holdouts made one last ditch effort to fight off the paratroopers by hunkering down in trenches they had dug. As the paratroopers closed in on the trenches some of the prisoners panicked and ran towards the paratroopers to give themselves up. However, as they ran from the trenches the hard core communist cadre chased after them and killed some of the defectors. The paratroopers quickly moved in to stop the slaughter and a melee ensued. You can watch historic video footage of the operation at this link.
Once the operation was over 43 POWs had been killed and 135 wounded with half these casualties coming from the communists attacking their own people. Only one paratrooper who had been speared to death was killed in the operation. The paratroopers searched through the compound and found corpses hanging from inside the buildings to serve as an example to anyone that did not resist the Americans. They also found detailed plans by the communist to conduct a mass prison break on June 20th and slaughter anyone in there path in order to make maximum headlines against the Americans.
Outside the paratroopers found Colonel Lee hiding in a ditch and dragged him to his new compound. The leader of the communist uprising had gone down without a fight. The 6,500 prisoners in the notorious Camp 76 had been broken down and moved to the new compound and divided into more secure compounds of 500 prisoners per camp. The smaller number of prisoners per camp made it harder for them to organize and easier for the guards to manage. After this operation the rest of Goje’s prisoners voluntarily moved without confrontation to the new camp. By June 12th all the prisoners had been moved and General Boatner was firmly in charge of Goje Island. Colonel Lee and the rest of the prisoners of the Goje POW camp would never give General Boatner and his successors anymore problems for the rest of the war
Lessons Learned from the Geoje Island Incident
The US forces during the Korean War had been completely unprepared for the detaining of massive amounts of enemy prisoners. During World War II the US military dealt with few prisoners because very few Japanese ever surrendered. In the European theatre the allies didn’t start taking massive amounts of German prisoners until the war was just about over and the Germans had lost their will to fight. During the Korean War the US had taken massive amounts of prisoners and the enemy was far from being vanquished. Additionally these prisoners came from an alien culture and ideology that US commanders understood little about. Enemy prisoners looked at using prison as just another front in their war against the US and its allies.
To compound the problem the US commanders were so consumed with fighting the immediate war little emphasis was put into the handling of prisoners and possible propaganda value to the enemy for any mistreatment. Additionally the assigning of poor soldiers and officers to manage the prisoners combined with the inadequate facilities to house the prisoners would lead to strategic consequences later in the war.
The mistakes made during the Korean War in the handling of prisoners would repeat itself to a much smaller degree during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Abu Graib prison abuse controversy, but the propaganda value was just as valuable to not just the immediate enemy, but all the interests opposed to America in general as well.
Here are some of the big lessons learned I think the military can take away from these two very big historical blights on the image of the US military in the last 50 years. First of all, plans need to be made to house prisoners before going to war. Before the war even started there should have been an engineer unit designated to immediately begin building a compound to house prisoners. The Korean War was an unexpected war, but the Iraq War had plenty of prior planning and unfortunately the prior planning did little to plan for the amount of prisoners the US would end up holding. One engineer company during the Korean War built a camp to hold tens of thousands of prisoners in one month. What if the US military built a camp of similar size in the desert some where in Iraq to hold prisoners instead of Abu Graib? This would have easily prevented the overcrowding of the prison.
Secondly, Abu Graib should have never been chosen as a place to hold prisoners to begin with due to its notorious image from the Saddam Hussein era of power in Iraq. What if during the Korean War the US military started holding prisoners within Soedaemun Prison in Seoul? What kind of message would that have sent to the general Korean population during the war? During the Korean War Goeje Island was actually a well chosen location for a prison that planners during the Iraq War could have learned a lot from.
Next thing is that a mission as politically sensitive as handling prisoners of war at a detention facility should be handled by only highly professional soldiers. Who in the world thought it was a good idea to have people like Charles Graner and Lynndie England to have such authority over prisoners? Janice Karpinski was just a female version of Francis Dodd. Abu Graib was surrounded by just as much incompetence as Goje Island during the Korean War. It wasn’t until competent leadership backed by crack troops were conditions in the camp able to improve on Goje Island. The lesson learned is that highly professional units with excellent leadership that deal exclusively with handling prisoners of war should be formed before a war is even initiated. The adhoc nature of soldiers and agencies thrown together in Abu Graib caused an environment ripe for abuse.
Finally, internationalizing the Goje prison by General Boatner was a brilliant idea because it shares responsibility for anything that happens within the prison. The international media glee over Abu Graib would probably have been much more tempered if more countries were involved in the management of the prison. This is something that should become a standard practice in future conflicts.
These were all painful lessons learned in the aftermath of the Goje Island Incident that would unfortunately be forgotten 50 years later in Iraq. Military planning requires more than just maneuvering infantry and tanks and hopefully in future conflicts the US military properly plans to deal with the handling of prisoners of war. Especially when such an issue can have such strategic impact, which in the case of Abu Graib is still being felt today. The painful lessons learned from Abu Graib could have been avoided with a close study and appreciation of the experiences of General Haydon Boatner on Goeje Island.
Geoje-do Island POW Camp.
Indian Army medical troops during the Korean War. Picture via the 
Indian Army medical unit encampment during the Korean War. Picture via the 
Picture of what appears to be Chinese POW’s. You can see more pictures from the photographer Jerry Rosenstein 
What appears to be an American prisoner is talked to by a South Korean delegate to return to the United States while watched by Indian troops. Picture via the 
Chart from “The Korean War, Volume 3″ by the 
Chinese Nationalists soldiers waving Republic of China flags and holding a picture of Chang Kai-shek begin the long journey to Taiwan. You can see more pictures from the photographer Jerry Rosenstein 
