at the end of a mine shaft blede Chun shines a torch on a terrible secret the remains of more than three and a half thousand civilians executed for being suspected socialists or leftist sympathizers this is just one of 160 known Mass Graves across South Korea containing the remains of tens of thousands of massacred civilians why is the Korean War so boring of course I don't think it's boring but isn't it one of the most overlooked Wars of the 20th century after all it's referred to as the Forgotten War is this because nothing of consequence happened aside from the ongoing conflict between the two countries which has threatened to go nuclear dozens of times the Korean war from 1950 to 1953 had one of the highest numbers of Civilian casualties of any War since World War II killing three million people in just three years just to compare that's roughly the number of people that died in Vietnam and that were lasted decades why is that the case well as a result of the Korean War North Korea and South Korea became some of the most heavily bombed countries in history with four times the tonnage of bombs dropped on Japan including the two atomic bombs dropped on the Korean peninsula by the U. S Air Force's own estimates the destruction of Korea was actually proportionately greater than that of Japan after the bombs there are probably a few reasons why the United States government and the society at large have made such a concentrated effort to forget the war in Korea these reasons have been observed and documented elsewhere namely the lack of a coherent Victory on behalf of the United States the lack of reporting on civilian casualties which is seen by some as a consequence of McCarthyism which ran rampant in the 1950s and also seen by others as a Callison difference to the suffering of the Korean people probably a more important reason at the end of the day today North Korea is held up firmly as an enemy of the United States eliciting sustained criticism from the state and American Media its development and testing of nuclear weapons has been portrayed as an aggressive and unjustifiable threat to the world its people ruled by a despotic maniac that hates the United States based on distortions and lies this is important to upholding the view of North Korea as an enemy of the United States which justifies the aggressive policies of the U. S and South Korea like their routine war games which boldly simulate a full-scale invasion of the North is it therefore bold to assume that a primary reason that the Korean War has become the so-called forgotten war is that the facts of the war inconveniently contradict the justification of a massively important U.
S policy namely that number one North Korea is Justified in creating and maintaining a nuclear Arsenal and number two the North Korean population is Justified in their negative opinion of the United States let's go over exactly why first of all everything you've been told about the Korean War has been a lie at 4am on the morning of Sunday June 25th 1950 North Korea embarked on a surprise full-scale invasion of the South the weak and poorly trained South Korean troops didn't stand a chance North Korean troops rapidly Advanced South and quickly captured Seoul this prompted a U. S invasion though it's not often talked about there were already frequent and sizable incursions and battles fought between the North and South prior to the war the U. S state Department even said as much in their bulletin in April 1950.
the boundary at the 38th parallel is a real front line there is constant fighting there are very real battles involving perhaps one or two thousand men even more interesting is that South Korea reportedly invaded North Korea prior to June 25th this is a very controversial statement it's funny though while reading a 1973 article about the Korean war in the China quarterly written by a Robert R Simmons I found a stunning admission Simmons had been highly critical of the claim of a South Korean invasion of the North Korean town of heiju American Military histories lack any account of the South Korean attack on hiju Simmons wrote the reason would appear to be that no such assault took place but an edit at the end of the article brings some new information to light the story may be bizarre but it rings true Simmons concedes that the so-called rumor was actually traced to the official military history of the Korean War published by the ministry of Defense of South Korea so who really fired the first shot and in the end does it even really matter given the context the advance of the dprk would prompt an ugly period of the war one that has been provably erased from history following the surrender of Japan which ended World War II the U. S occupation plucked a sigmin re who had lived in the U. S for decades he was a fervent Christian and anti-communist and would lead the U.
S army military government and Korea he would use his Newfound powers to imprison at least 30 000 people on top of that he'd established an official re-education program for suspected leftists and sympathizers which included up to 300 000 people the National Rehabilitation and guidance League known as the Bodo League mandated as official policy that left-wingers and Communists had to join in order for the government to keep track of them it was reportedly modeled after the Japanese internment and re-education system during their occupation of Korea it's known now that the vast majority of Bodo League members were not in fact leftists or even liberals but placed into the program to fill local police quotas up to 70 percent of them were non-political just very poor in what's been called by Korean authors as the summer of Terror South Korean forces emptied prisons across the country then lined up the detainees and shot them individually in the head victims were then thrown into Mass Graves dumped into mine shafts or tossed into the ocean It is believed that 30 000 political prisoners were killed at the time virtually all of them since that was approximately the number of political prisoners that existed at the time in one single incident on July 2nd truckloads of police entered dejon and forced locals to dig six large pits each 200 yards long then detainees from the local dejon prison were transported and trucks to the pits where they'd be slaughtered mostly with bullets to the head and having their heads chopped off with swords bodies were densely packed into the pits the South Koreans took three days to kill all the prisoners seven thousand in all Americans were present supervised the killings and even took pictures of the atrocity which were kept secret for half a century the Americans were present at many of these massacres making it a matter of policy to keep them secret so they blamed the killings on communists the Pentagon even subsidized a film called the crime of Korea narrated by Humphrey Bogard telling their story of what happened at dejon these men women and children were not killed Accidentally In the Heat of battle they were murdered to warn the survivors that if you didn't let the Communist monster swallow you alive you'd rather have you dead the mass murders were part of a broader effort aimed at killing virtually all Korean leftists those identified through their membership to the Bodo League were hunted down not only in prisons but in their homes they would often dig their own Graves and be shot by the hundreds even thousands the method of execution was almost always the same the way the remains lie underground show that the victims must have nailed down with their hands tied behind them at the edge of a long ditch before being shot dead these killings remained hidden away due to suppression as well as fear of speaking out against the right-wing dictatorships of post-war Korea they would be exposed to the world through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by South Korea in 2005. South Korean investigators have been exhuming Mass Graves and taking testimony as part of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission the commission would be modeled after the one South Africa created following apartheid conservatives attacked us ideologically slandering our work as leftist defensive on the right South Korean historian Kim Dong Chun was appointed to lead the subcommittee on quote Mass civilian sacrifice Kim believes that an estimate of one hundred thousand people killed in the summer of 1950 is quote very conservative and that it's likely double that or even more comprising up to two-thirds of the total membership of the Bodo League the Americans not only knew about the massacres and were present at many of them they also conducted hundreds of their own in the first three years of the Truth and Reconciliation commission's investigation they tallied at least 215 attributed to U. S soldiers the most famous of which being the no gun REM Massacre exposed to the world only in 1999 the no gun REM Massacre was carried out the day that a directive was issued to U.
S troops simply to fire on approaching refugees a confidential letter from U. S ambassador to South Korea John muccio signed on that fateful day on July 26 1950 reads if refugees do appear from north of U.
