The Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has issued this memorandum, considering it necessary to inform the world community once again of the truth about the GIs' killings of people in the northern half of Korea during the Korean War in reflection of the will and call of the world people who value justice, peace and human rights.
The international treaties and war laws and regulations, including The Hague and Geneva Conventions, ban bombing and bombarding non-combatants and urban and rural districts, houses and buildings that are not military targets.
On June 29, 1950, however, the then U.S. president, Truman issued an order to the U.S. air and naval forces to start bombing operations against all parts of the northern half of Korea under the already worked out operational plan. On Truman's command, the U.S. aggressors carried out indiscriminate bombing and naval bombardment against all urban and rural areas in the north. From the early period of the war, they conducted saturation bombings of Pyongyang, the capital city of the DPRK.
More than 80 U.S. bombers raided Pyongyang from June 29 to July 3, 1950, killing 48 innocent civilians by indiscriminate bombings, rocket and machine-gun firing. On August 7, 1950, 33 B-29s dropped 450bombs on Pyongyang, killing at least 70 civilians, including over 20 women. As they sustained repeated setbacks in the war, the US intensified air raids on Pyongyang.
More than 10,000 U.S. planes made over 250 air raids on Pyongyang from July 11 to August 20, 1951 dropping as many as 4,000 bombs, killing at least 4,000 innocent civilians and wounding 2,500 others.
On March 25, 1952, a total of 63 U.S. planes, including 24 B-29s, carried out 39 air raids on Pyongyang. They dropped 1,370 bombs, taking lives of at least 120 civilians. From the daytime of July 11 to 12, upwards of 400 U.S. military planes dropped more than 6,000 napalm bombs and time bombs, killing at least 8,000 young and old men and women and children.
During the war, the U.S. aggressors made more than 1,400 air raids on Pyongyang dropping over 428,000 bombs, destroying all industrial establishments, educational, health and public service facilities and dwelling houses and killing many innocent civilians.
They also indiscriminately bombed other cities. Between July 2 and August 3, 1950, the U.S. planes bombed and strafed Hamhung and Hungnam areas 200 times, killing 297 civilians and seriously wounding 446 others.
In early August of 1950, U.S. planes dropped 28 bombs on the Hungnam Central Hospital, killing 18 physicians, nurses and 117 patients, including a woman at childbirth, and wounding 108 patients. On the same day, they dropped large bombs over the Hungnam Nursery and strafed it, killing 52 children aged between six months and four years. Among them were a nurse who died with three children in her arms and one or two years old children who breathed their last breath clutching toys in their hands.
On July 6 and 8, 1950, U.S. planes dropped 200 bombs on Nampho and strafed it, slaying as many as 400 civilians. On August 27, 30 and 31 and on September 4, they continued bombing and strafing it daily, killing 304 civilians. On August 31, they dropped bombs on the civilians at work to rehabilitate and rearrange the houses and the city, which had been badly destroyed by their bombing, massacring 197 of them.
On August 19, 1950 alone, Chongjin was raided by upwards of 60 U.S. bombers. They dropped 1,012 bombs, killing 1,034 citizens, including 393 women and wounding 2,347 others.
On November 8, 1950, 100 U.S. bombers indiscriminately dropped bombs and fire bombs over Sinuiju, destroying 9,000 houses and killing at least 5,000 citizens, including over 4,000 women and children and wounding 3,155 others.
From July 2 to 27, 1950, U.S. bombers and fighter planes made 12 air raids on the area of Wonsan. They slew 1,647 people, including 739 women and 325 children and wounded 2,267 others by saturation bombing and strafing.
The U.S. aggressors made air raids not only on rural villages but also on cities, even on a solitary house deep in a mountain, killing innocent civilians. On July 3, 1950, four U.S. military planes strafed peasants at work in paddy and non-paddy fields in Pongsan County, Hwanghae Province, slaying at least 10 of them and wounding 8 others. The next day, four U.S. bombers dropped eight bombs over the peasants at weeding in Pyoksong County, killing 9 of them on the spot.
Between September 26 and October 23, 1952, U.S. planes dropped 5,120 bombs over rural areas of Hongwon County, South Hamgyong Province, and massacring 370 innocent civilians. On September 28, they dropped 50 bombs over Munam-ri, Puk-myon, Huichon County, and killing 115 peaceable civilians.
On the night of January 17, 1953, U.S. bombers dropped at least 220 bombs over Hongwon-myon, Hongwon County, and killing over 100 civilians in cold blood. The U.S. aggressors amassed warships in the East and West Seas of Korea to commit and indiscriminate naval bombardment on the coastal areas almost every day.
In August 1951 alone, U.S. military planes dropped 2,122 bombs over North Hamgyong Province and its naval guns fired 6,089 shells at it, leaving 2,857 peaceable people dead. On January 15, 1953, the U.S. aggressors made concentration bombardment on coastal areas of the Province, killing 367 inhabitants. On January 17 one U.S. cruiser and ten U.S. destroyers sailed to waters off Chongjin and fired 245 shells, killing 189 guiltless citizens.
Practically all the east and west coastal areas of the northern half of Korea including Wonsan, Chongjin and Haeju were not safe from the U.S. naval bombardment and it claimed many lives of people. Not a single day passed by in all parts of the northern half of Korea during the war without seeing bombing and bombardment by the U.S. aggression troops. Town and country were reduced to ashes and several millions of peaceable inhabitants killed.
In the three-year war U.S. air force planes made 800,000 sorties and planes of the U.S. marines and navy 250,000 sorties into the northern half of Korea 85 percent of which was to bomb and strafe civilian targets and people. Napalm and other bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes totaled nearly 600,000 tons, which was 3.7 times the 161,425 tons of bombs they dropped over Japan proper during the Pacific War. This means that so many bombs were dropped over the territory of the northern half of Korea less than one-third of the Japanese territory.
The fact-finding group of the Women's International Democratic Federation in its report on the investigation made into the GIs' atrocities in the northern half of Korea during the war, said: "Every fact proves that this was a war of mass destruction, in which much more houses and food rather than military targets and war supplies were destroyed and more women and aged men than combatants killed. This war was against life itself."
"Soldiers of the U.N. Forces, kill everyone. Don't let your hands tremble even when those who appear before you are children or old people. By doing so, you will save yourselves from destruction and fully discharge your mission as soldiers of the U.N. Forces."
During the temporary occupation of areas of the northern half of Korea, the U.S. aggressors arrested innocent people at random and shot them to death en mass. They shot to death more than 500 guiltless people on Mt. Sudo in Ryongdang-ri, Haeju, and Hwanghae Province on November 7, 1950 and then mercilessly killed over 600 people in the Haugogae valley in Kumsan-myon, Pyoksong County. In Sariwon City on December 5 they arrested and took at least 950 inhabitants to Mt.Mara and then machine-gunned them to death.
In Pyongyang, they arrested over 4,000 innocent citizens and shot them to death in the yard of the Pyongyang Prison. And they threw the corpse into 21 air-raid shelters and three wells and reservoirs.
The U.S. aggressors shot to death guiltless people wherever they went in areas under their occupation irrespective of sex and age. They shot to death over 80 innocent people in Riwon County and 60 in Jinhung-ri, Jinphyong-myon, Yonghung County, and South Hamgyong Province.
They committed monstrous massacres in Sinchon County that baffled human imagination. Harrison, who commanded the U.S. troops occupying Sinchon, ordered his soldiers to commit war crimes: "My order is the law and its violators will be shot to death without condition".
On October 18, 1950, the U.S. aggressors arrested more than 900 innocent civilians and herded them into the air-raid shelter of the Sinchon County Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and set fire after pouring gasoline over them killing every one. Using the same method, they murdered more than 1,550 civilians in the air-raid shelter and its surrounding areas over a period of several days.
In November, they murdered over 580 people in cold blood in Unbong-ri. Onchon-myon, Sinchon County, or 70 percent of its population. Among them were 80 old people, 310 women and 100 children. On December 7 alone, 900 innocent villagers were brutally killed in Wonam-ri, Sinchon County. Among them were 400 mothers and 102 children.
Saying "It is too good for both mothers and babies to be together," they separated babies from their mothers and herded them into different warehouses. They poured gasoline on the crying babies and set them on fire. Not content with this, they threw hand grenades to them, massacring all of them.
In the occupied areas, the U.S. aggressors stooped to all forms of brutality. They buried groups of innocent civilians alive, threw them into river or fire, killing them all. On the Nam Mountain, Yonan town, South Hwanghae Province, they herded more than 1,000 innocent civilians into a trench and buried them alive. At least 20 children were buried alive in a small village in Sangjikjol-ri, Tanchon-myon, Tanchon County, and South Hamgyong Province.
At the Rakyon Mine, the U.S. aggressors roped people, each group made up of 10-12 persons, and threw them into a shaft more than 800 meters deep, killing them. At the Unryul Mine they pushed more than 2,000 innocent civilians into a pit and dumped ores into it to bury them alive. In a valley in Ryongdang-ri, Sinchon County, Hwanghae Province, they buried alive 887 civilians and more than 170 in Pusong-ri and Kosan-ri,Jaeryong County, and at least 150 in Sangam-ri, Rinsan County.
In Kyongji-ri, Sinchon-myon, Sinchon County, Hwanghae Province, the U.S. aggressors arrested a woman for the mere reason that her father was a member of the WPK and buried her body except her head at 6 p.m. on October 19, 1950, causing her to die a horrible death. And in Kanggyo-ri, Jaeryong County, they arrested some members of the WPK and their families and committed such barbarism as burying a young couple and their parents up to their necks to face each other and then clapping and laughing at them.
More than 1,000 innocent civilians were massacred in Sinsang-ri, Anak-myon, Anak County, Hwanghae Province, and over 600 in Anak town. In Pongmyong-ri, Sangjoyang-myon, Hamju County, South Hamgyong Province, the U.S. aggressors herded at least 300 civilians into stacks of millet straw and set fire to them, killing all of them. In Raengjong-ri, Kichon-myon, Pongsan County, Hwanghae Province, they pushed more than 80 innocent civilians into a crater and covered it with millet straw before torching it.
In Soho-myon, Jaeryong County, Hwanghae Province, the U.S. aggressors arrested over 100 innocent civilians and threw them into the Jaeryong River from Soho Bridge, killing all of them. In Haeju City, at least 180 innocent citizens were taken to Haeju Port, where they were put aboard a fishing boat, their hands tied with wire, and thrown into the sea.
As many as 2,093 civilians were thrown into reservoirs and pools in areas around Ryongmun-myon and Nambu-myon to murder them. On October 21, 1950, the U.S. aggressors arrested innocent civilians in Sinchon County and threw them into the Nambu reservoir, each group of 10-20 people tied up with rope and their bodies carrying stones and straw bags of earth, killing all of them.
The U.S. aggressors wielded bayonets and threw civilians into a river from Sokdang Bridge in Sinchon County, Hwanghae Province, and killing over 2,000 innocent people from Uryong-ri, Sokdang-ri and Chongsan-ri. They killed more than 300 people in Phaechon River in Kojan-ri, Jaeryong County, and over 500 in Namdae River using the same method.
The U.S. aggressors killed innocent civilians in such a brutal manner as dismembering them or chopping them with straw-cutter or skinning them alive. On October 17, 1950, the U.S. aggressors drove two ox-carts in opposite directions with each leg of a worker of the Sinchon Rice Mill bound to them, thus tearing him apart. In Jaeryong County, Hwanghae Province they killed a member of the Children's Union by driving 4 horse carts in different directions after binding each of his limbs to a cart.
They arrested the chairman of the Kyongji-ri People's Committee, Sinchon-myon, Sinchon County, and Hwanghae Province and murdered him by driving a 10-cm long nail into his forehead. In Sangam-ri, Yonam-myon, Suan County, Hwanghae Province they killed a 17-year-old student by driving a long nail into his eye socket.
On October 23, 1950, the U.S. aggressors killed over 300 workers and their families at the Unryul Mine by dismembering them with sickles and in Samhwang-ri, Ryongmun-myon, Sinchon County, they disemboweled a pregnant woman and cut off her head with a sickle. The U.S. aggressors arrested a member of the WPK and killed him by disemboweling him and skinning him alive from his forehead to anus in Sariwon City on October 25.
After occupying Kaechon County, South Phyongan Province, the U.S. aggressors committed such barbarism as disemboweling a pregnant woman, wife of a member of the WPK, and trampling on the fetus because she refused to tell them where her husband had gone. In Song-ri, Yodok County, South Hamgyong Province, they disemboweled a pregnant woman and tore off the fetus, threatening that they would kill all descendants of "Reds."
In Onchon-myon, Sinchon County, the U.S. aggressors arrested a woman; gang raped her and killed her by driving a big stick into her genital. In Pongsin-ri, Chonju-myon, Hwangju County, Hwanghae Province, they raped several women and massacred them by burning their genitals and foreheads with soldering guns.
The U.S. aggressors in massacring innocent Korean people employed the most savage methods in history during their temporary occupation of areas of the north.
According to the preliminary results of investigation into GIs' massacres during their temporary occupation of areas of the north, they killed more than a million innocent civilians: over 15,000 in Pyongyang City, 35,838 in Sinchon County, 25,300 in Yangyang County, 19,072 in Anak County, over 13,000 in Unryul County, some 6,000 in Haeju City, 5,998 in Pyoksong County and at least 5,000 in Anju.
The fact-finding group of the Women's International Democratic Federation in its report said that the massacres and tortures committed by the U.S. in the areas under its temporary occupation were more brutal than the atrocities committed by Hitler's Nazis in Europe. Mass killings committed by the U.S. troops during the temporary occupation of areas of the north were a wanton violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention on protecting civilians in war time.
The U.S. aggressors, however, did not hesitate to massively use germ and chemical weapons in the Korean War in flagrant violation of human morality and international laws.
While fleeing from their temporarily occupied areas of the northern half of Korea they spread smallpox and other contagious germs there. As a result, smallpox rapidly spread 7-8 days later in Pyongyang, South Phyongan Province, Kangwon Province and Hwanghae Province, which were liberated from the U.S. temporary occupation from mid-December, 1950 to January 1951. In April 1951 the number of smallpox cases reached as many as 3,500 and 10 percent of them died.
Their germ warfare engulfed the whole of the northern half of Korea in 1952. On Jan. 28, 1952 U.S. planes massively dropped flies, flees, bedbugs and other poisonous insects carrying contagious viruses over Ichon area and again spread lots of flies and fleas the next day. Flies, mosquitoes, spiders and fleas were dropped over Pyongyang and its adjacent areas on Feb. 15, 16 and 17.
Insects carrying germs were massively dropped over Sohung County, Hwanghae Province, Pakchon County, North Phyongan Province, Junghwa County, South Phyongan Province, Kowon County, South Hamgyong Province, and other areas on March 1 and 4. In the period from January to March 1952 when they began an all-out germ war the U.S. aggressors dropped various germ bombs about 804 times over 169 places in alpine, coastal and mountainous areas of the north. One fourth of the planes involved in air raids on the northern half of Korea participated in the germ war. Some days their number reached 480 planes.
The US brutally killed POWs of the KPA by using them as guinea pigs for germ weapon experiment. A warship commanded by Brigadier General Sams, the then "chief for health and welfare" of the "UN Forces General Command," was secretly at anchor close to the shore of Koje Island to put POWs of the KPA to a germ weapon test in March 1951.
The UP news said on May 18, 1951 that 36 germ experts made at least 3,000 tests using north Korean POWs as guinea pigs in the laboratory aboard a ship every day. 1,400 of those imprisoned on Koje Island were infected with a serious disease and 80 percent of the rest contracted unknown illness, the news added.
They used chemical weapon not only against cities but a small number of farmhouses. They dropped five toxic poison-gas bombs over scores of farmhouses in Haksong-ri, Munchon County, Kangwon Province on January 9, 1952, killing or poisoning innocent civilians. They made 33 poison-gas bomb attacks against various areas of the northern half of Korea from Feb. 27, 1952 to April 9. They used at least 15 million Spa napalm -shells, a mass destruction weapon.
Their planes dropped even food, leaflets and fake money containing poisonous substance. 100 won note fake money and leaflets were massively spread over areas of Kanri, South Phyongan Province, and Yonan, South Hwanghae province at night in September 1952 to poison people, and poison-treated shell-fish was dropped over Taedong County, South Phyongan Province, on May 18, 1952.
They also unhesitatingly killed POWs of the KPA by using them as guinea pigs for a poisonous substance test. The chief of the concentration camp on Koje Island took 120 POWs of the KPA belonging to its Fourth Battalion on two separate special trucks where they were detained for four hours under the pretext that they were mobilized for some work on July 7, 1952. They conducted a gas weapon test on them, making it impossible for all of them to open their eyes for two months or rendering them crippled.
On August 13, 1952, the U.S. aggressors herded many POWs of the KPA into a small wire entanglement in the second camp on Ryongcho Island and ordered two platoons to explode at least 1,000 gas shells there, inflicting serious burn upon at least 350 POWs, leaving 44 POWs unconscious and killing four others. On June 10, 1952, 27 tanks and 12 artillery pieces of the U.S. aggressors fired chemical shells at POWs of the KPA in the 76th camp on Koje Island, massacring 227 of them.
The U.S. aggressors, however, massacred POWs of our side as they pleased during the Korean War in gross violation of the publicly recognized international laws and war law and regulations. They killed the POWs of our side by conducting various type weapon tests on them.
They took the POWs who served in KPA artillery units out of the POWs in the seventh camp under the 100th POW camp in Koje-ri, Pusan on November 20, 1950 to a point six kilometers away from southeast of the camp. The tanks, which had been deployed 200 meters from it, machine-gunned them when they were forced to sit or lie down on the ground, killing all of them.
In flagrant violation of the publicly international recognized law they staged such farces as "voluntary repatriation," "private interview and screening" and "petition for release" in a bid to detain POWs of the KPA by force. They mercilessly killed everyone who refused to comply with their demands.
As POWs of our side rejected "private interview and screening" at the 76th camp on June 10, 1952, they mobilized more than 4,000 soldiers, 22 tanks, 20 artillery pieces, 40 heavy machine-guns and light machine-guns in discriminate firing, poison-gas spraying and hand-grenade throwing for four hours, killing 276 POWs and wounding many others.
On May 27, 1952 at least 800 POWs were killed by flamethrowers at the 77th camp on Koje Island for rejecting "voluntary repatriation" and insisting on their repatriation to the northern half of Korea.
Some 1,000 U.S. soldiers encircled the 62nd POW camp on Koje Island on February 18, 1952 and fired 25 heavy machine guns and 63 light machine-guns killing 102 POWs of our side and wounding 260 others, for the mere reason that they refused to sign the application for "civil detainee."
These massacres were committed in all the POW camps and mass killings took place in more than 20 camps from March to April 1952.
According to a survey made at that time, GIs killed at least 33, 600 POWs of the KPA and tens of thousands of POWs were wounded or crippled. Indeed, the massacres committed by the U.S. aggressors during the Korean War were hideous crimes against humanity as they were a wanton violation of the publicly recognized international law and war law and regulations.
It is a commitment of the U.S. as a criminal State to strictly punish those criminals who organized and commanded the mass killings or took part in them during the Korean War and formally apologize to our Government and people and fully compensate for them.
Even today when the truth behind its mass killings has been fully disclosed the U.S. is hatching a despicable plot to conceal its crimes, far from admitting them. This is an intolerable mockery of and challenge to the Korean people as well as to the world conscience.
Keeping huge forces and sophisticated weapons in South Korea, the U.S. is watching for a chance to ignite a war. It should not misjudge us, as the situation today is quite different from that in the 1950s.
Should the U.S. attack the DPRK, our People's Army and people will not only retaliate against it a thousand times but also force it to pay for the bloods shed by the Korean people during the Korean War.
The South Korean authorities should be discreet in dealing with GIs' crimes during the war. They should bear in mind that if they persist in their moves to cover up those atrocities or to get them buried in oblivion in collusion with the U.S., they will be sternly judged by the nation for their thrice-cursed treachery.
As required by the objective and mission of its charter, the United Nations should thoroughly investigate the GIs' atrocities during the Korean War and set up a special tribunal to take an urgent measure for a severe punishment of the criminals under the international law.
If GIs' massacres of civilians during the Korean war are ignored at a time when Nazi Second World War criminals are ferreted out and punished one after another, this will be double standards as regards the "universality of human rights." Given that GIs' massacres during the Korean War were committed under the name of the "UN Forces", the UN cannot evade its responsibility for them.
Of course, all knows it that it was not the U.N. decision to let the U.S. forces go under the name of "UN Forces" but the U.S abused it. However, the UN took no measure to stop GIs from committing atrocities in wanton violation of the international law under its name at that time, thus leaving an indelible blot on its history.
As regards the mass killings committed by GIs during the Korean war in gross breach of the publicly recognized international law and regulations, the government of the DPRK has already presented at least 20 official documents to the UN Secretary General, the president of the UN General Assembly and the president of the UN Security Council informing them of the truth behind these crimes and strongly urged them to take a measure for an immediate halt to them.
The U.N., however, has paid no attention to our repeated demands and ignored them. The U.S. is still keeping the "U.N. command" in South Korea, which organized and commanded the mass killings on the spot during the Korean War to use it in carrying out its strategy. The U.N. should take an urgent step to dissolve the "Command" in view of its idea and objective or its purpose to liquidate its inglorious past.
The DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its expectation that all the governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and personages, that treasure peace, justice and human rights, will render positive cooperation in the efforts to thoroughly probe the truth about GIs' mass killings and severely punish the war criminals under the international law.