Pictures of Korea from the 40s and 50s from Life magazine.

Life magazine has posted its photo archives on Google. There are roughly 200 for "Korea," mostly taken in the 1940s and 50s, most during the Korean War. There are a few showing the aftermath of uprisings in 1948, which I figured may have taken place in Suncheon and Yeosu. The Yosu-Sunchon Uprising happened in October, 1948, and the photographer Carl Mydans was also a journalist who filed stories on the incident. I won't link to those pictures directly, as they're of bloodied corpses, but you can browse the gallery yourself. My hunch was confirmed when I saw the sixteen pictures of "Yosu," some of which are unpleasant, taken by Mydans. "Seoul" turns up more pictures.



You also get some interesting results for "Cholla," a common old spelling of "Jeolla." Again, some are quite unpleasant. Here's one showing Hwasun county, outside of Gwangju.



And here's one of present-day Yeongam:



There are a couple photographs of Nim Churl Jin, an "ex-Communist guerilla" who spent two years "in the hills," reuniting with his family who had thought he was dead. Perhaps the hills refer to the area around Jirisan. Here's one from "Cholla-Namando" with the caption

Ex-Communist guerrilla Nim Churl Jin, homesick, ill & disillusioned with Communism, after two years in the hills with guerrilla forces, walking down road to his family's home.

The photos of Nim were important enough to warrant mention on an older version of the photographer's Wikipedia page, which says Margaret Bourke-White considered them among the most important of her career. The recent edition of the page says Bourke-White worked around the Jiri mountains, which were a refuge of Communist forces.