61st anniversary of start of Yosu Rebellion.

Monday is the 61st anniversary of the start of the "Yŏsu Rebellion," or the "Yŏsu-Sunchŏn Incident," or the "Yŏsu-Sunchŏn Rebellion," or however you would like to render it in English. The 여순반란사건 was a crackdown against suspected communists in Jeollanam-do, specifically the cities written now as Yeosu and Suncheon, that resulted in, depending on the source, hundreds or even thousands deaths, and foreshadowed the larger war that would come two years later. This year's anniversary snuck up on me, so I prepared little new material, and instead I'll direct your attention to what I wrote in October, 2008, and to the collection of posts in the "1948 Yosu-Sunchon Incident" category.



That's one of several pictures from Yeosu in late 1948 taken by photographers for Life magazine. There are others on this Korean blog, some of which are graphic.

Here's what's written on the placard outside of Suncheon Station:

The Yosun Incident broke out on Oct. 19, 1948, when the 14th Regiment of the National Defense Guard of South Korea refused to move to Jeju Island on a mission to put down an armed uprising protesting against the estasblishment of the government by South Korea alone. When about 2,000 soldiers marched into downtown Yeosu, the civilians,students and local leftists, who were suffering from economic distress after the establishment of the new government, joined the soldiers. The insurgent forces instantly occupied eastern areas of Jeonnam Province, i.e., Suncheon, Gwangyang, Gurye, Boseong, Goheung, and Gokseong. The government established the quell force headquarter in Gwangju and defeated the insurgent forces in Suncheon on Oct. 23 and in Yeosu on Oct. 27. During the search operation against the civilian collaborators, many innocent civilians were executed without trial. The number of victims of the Yosun Incident is estimated to be about 10,000 including policement, soldiers, and civilians, though the exact number is not known.
The Yosun Incident served as a momentum for establishing 'anti-communism' as the national idiology for South Korea and fixation of the partition of the Korean peninsula.

Here's a small excerpt from a book The Korean War 1945 to 1953, quoted last year, reminding that there was brutality on both sides:

The civilian rebels included at least 70 teachers. The head of the Yosu's People's Committee was Song Uk, prinicipal of the Yosu Girls' Middle School---the girls were described as "redder than the inside of a watermelon" and proved it when, armed with Japanese rifles, they fought in the vain defense of the city.

In Sunchon some people were summarily executed, but others were tried by a People's Court. While some were found innocent or merely castigated, most were beaten and then executed. The police chief got the worst of it. His eyes were plucked out and he was dragged by car along the streets. Shot, his gas-drenched body was tied to a pole and set on fire. Some 900 people, among them 400 police, were killed in Sunchon by the rebels.

And from a 1948 report by Carl Mydans---the man who the photographs for Life---that appeared in Time magazine:

When darkness came, Communist execution squads went from house to house, shooting "rightists" in their beds or marching them to collection points where they were mowed down. In 2-3-days, 500 civilians were slaughtered. U.S. Lieuts. Stewart M. Greenbaum and Gordon Mohr, Army observers in Sunchon, narrowly escaped death. The rebel sergeant assigned to kill them was an old friend, who had drunk beer with them in their billet many times. He took the two officers into a field, fired into the ground and then led them to the Presbyterian Mission of Dr. John Curtis Crane, who was barricaded in with his wife and four other missionaries.

From one of the doctor's shirts and a few colored rags the ladies made a 16-star, eleven-stripe U.S. flag and put it up. The rebels began pounding at the compound gate, yelling: "Let's kill the Americans!" Suddenly one shouted: "No, no, not them; they are my friends." It was the lieutenants' friend, the sergeant. The rebels went away.

For the first few hours the loyal troops who retook Sunchon were as savage as the Communists had been. On the big compound of the Sunchon Agricultural and Forestry School we found what was left of the entire population of Sunchon. Women with babies on their backs watched without expression as their husbands and sons were beaten with clubs, rifle butts and steel helmets. They saw 22 of them marched away to the primary school nearby, and heard the volley of rifles which killed them.

The placard on the Suncheon National University campus reads:

At the time of the Yosun Incident, the quell force, made up of police and defense guard troops, used the Suncheon Middle School of Farming and Forestry (the predecessor of the present Sunchon National University) as their camp and
headquarter when they attacked the insurgent forces in downtown Suncheon on Oct. 22th. The nearby Suncheon Northern Elementary School was the site of questioning and executing of civilians who were suspected of taking sides with the insurgents. The victims were executed without trial on the levee of a rice paddy behind the school's auditorium.

Source.