Oct. 3, 1945 - Seoul: Hodge tells his staff:
"Running Japs is the minor problem. The Koreans bleat loudly about being robbed and beaten by Japs but there is little evidence of this... .. I do not know a more 'muddle-headed' bunch of individuals. In looking back at their history one sees that the Koreans have raped, pillaged, and murdered at any opportunity. They love to boat up people."
Well, on our part, we the Korean people will remember Hodge and MacArthur the worst enemies of Korea in the 20th century and someday these will be tried as war criminals.
Photo: Syngman Rhee and Gen. Hodge
Oct. 8, 1945 - Pyongyang: Gen. Romanenko calls for a congress of representatives of the Interim People's Committee of the five provinces of N. Korea. The attendees are assigned to form a governing body to administer N. Korea.
Oct. 12, 1945 - Tokyo: MacArthur orders Col. Preston Goodfellow, former Deputy Director of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), to fetch Syngman Rhee from America. Rhee owes this fortune to Chiang Kai Sek. MacArthur was looking for a Korean leader he could count on and asked Chiang Kai Sek for a recommendation. Chiang came out with two names: Kim Ku and Rhee Syngman.
MacArthur orders Gen. Hodge to treat Rhee with respect and do whatever in Hodge's power to anoint Rhee as the chosen puppet to control Korean mobs.
Rhee has been trying to return home since Aug. 15, 1945, but the US State Dept. would not issue him a passport for his travel. Sometime in 1940's Rhee was enrolled into the OSS by Col. Preston Goodfellow. The OSS wanted 'Col. Rhee' to organize an espionage network inside Korea using Korean patriots.
However, "Col. Rhee" could not find a single Korean for this job. Rhee has given out "concessions" in post-war Korea to a number of his supporters including Goodfellow in return for their support for independence of Korea.
Rhee was born on March 26, 1876, a son of a yangban, Rhee Kynong Sun. He attended an American Methodist missionary school. Rhee organized students to oppose the corrupt Yi government and spent six years in jail for his "treason". While in prison, he became a Christian. In 1904, the Yi government sent Rhee (because of his English and American connection) to US in order to implement the US-Korea Friendship Treaty signed in 1885. The Yi officials were unaware of the secret agreement US had made with Japan whereby Japan would have Korea and Manchuria, and US would have the Philippines.
Pres. Teddy Roosevelt stated in public that "Korea itself is helpless to enforce the treaty and it is out of the question to suppose that any other nation, with no interests of its own at stake, would do for the Koreans what they were utterly unable to do for themselves."
From 1922 to 1945, Rhee attempted to pass himself off as the sole representative of Korea even though the Korean Provisional Government disowned him in 1925. The US State Dept. officials wrote him off as an old man out of touch and representing no one but himself in Korea.
He supported himself through contributions from other Koreans in US. In 1943, the Korean National Association in US accused Rhee of misuse of money earmarked for independence activities. Rhee did not have the means to return to Korea in August 1945. Thus, his fate was saved by his hero and master, Gen. Doug MacArthur.
Oct. 12, 1945 - Sinuiju: The 2,000 vanguards of the Korean Volunteer Army (KVA) return home. KVA was with the 8th Route Army and numbered 600-800 men at the time of liberation. Mu Chong commanded the artillery section of the 8th Route. Mu was born in 1905 in Hamgyong Bukdo and went to China in 1922. He joined the warlord Yen Hsishan and became an expert on artillery.
He was with Chiang's Northern Expedition as an artillery lieutenant. Mu joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1927. Mao Zedung put Mu Chong in charge of his artillery brigade. Mu was in Mao's vanguards of the Long March and was wounded several times. After reaching the safe haven of Yenan, he commanded the KVA. Mu Chong fought many battles on the side of the 8th Route Army.
Other notable KVA commanders are: Kim Kang participated in the Long March; Kim Ho graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy; and many others who rose to high ranks in the Chinese Red Army. As the vanguards marched toward Korea, many recruits joined up and its ranks swelled to over 2,000 by the time they reached the border. Most of the KVA soldiers "volunteered" to remain in Manchuria and fight Chiang Kai Sek. The KVA is to grow into a major fighting army of over 120,000 men by the time the Korean War started in 1950.
Oct. 14, 1945 - Kim Il Sung is given a hero's welcome at the Pyongyang Municipal Stadium. Early 1920's, the Korean nationalists split into Rhee's US faction, Nationalist Chinese faction (KPG), Chinese Communist (Yenan group) and Soviet faction (Soviet-Koreans). The Soviets were eager to support the Korean nationalists as an ally against the Japanese. The communists developed popular support among farmers and workers in Korea.
Oct. 14, 1945 - The Soviet political units replace the combat troops. The new guys are not friendly at all - not like the combat troops. In most wars, the soldiers who do the fighting have much respect for human life and do not kill or harm enemy prisoners or civilians. It is the non-combat soldiers, who follow the front-line, who commit most war crimes. The combat soldiers are the first to forgive their former enemies - but the non-combat people (those who manage to stay out of the killing zones) are the last to forgive. I guess this is how they prove their manhood and patriotism.
Many Koreans in Russian army uniforms arrive. Among them are several teenagers of my brother's age. One guy (a tall handsome kid of about 15) likes to show off his pistols. He has eight pistols of different size and shape on his person. He says the Chinese Mauser (actually a submachine gun) is the best.
He teaches me how to shoot a pistol - stretch your arm and arch it down and forward from over your head to the level of your eyes and pull the trigger as the gun barrel lines up with your eyesight and the target. Always aim at the upper body and hit at least twice for sure kill. As the gun recoils, your arm arches up and you start the arching down motion for the next shot. Use a slow jumping motion to absorb the gun recoil. And so on.
Life after liberation is tough. Not many jobs are available and everything is in short supply. Food is very scarce and inflation is sky rocketing. My father is struggling to feed his three spouses and their kids. He trucks in frozen fish (myong tae) and oranges from Changjin and barters them for other edibles - wheat, potatoes and bits of meat.
Oct. 16, 1945 -- MacArthur flies Rhee in his personal airplane from Tokyo to Seoul. Rhee is surrounded by American "advisers" - Col. Goodfellow (military intelligence), Robert Oliver (speech writer), and Harold Noble (American contact). MacArthur asks Rhee to work with Kim Ku and other nationalists to form a democratic governing body, but Rhee wants a Christian anti-Communist dictatorship. Rhee hires ex-Japanese police and military from N. Korea (Northwest Group) and starts to build a dictatorship. Gen. Hodge places Rhee under surveillance. US CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) taps Rhee's phones and reads his mails - both incoming and outgoing.
Photo: Kim Il Sung and his Soviet adviser Col. Itzyatzev
Oct. 20, 1945 - Seoul: Rhee officially denounces communists and refuses to work with the Korean People's Republic. Rhee embraces Hodge's policies and accepts pro-Japanese Koreans and feudal landlord yanbans. Rhee's anti-Communist stand enrages the Soviets and many Korean nationalists.
Oct. 26, 1945 - Washington: The State Dept. receives a confidential cable from its representative in Korea (William Langdon) -
"As for favoring plutocracy in, and excluding popular left wingers from, Military Government, it is quite probable that at the beginning we may have picked out a disproportionate number of rich and conservative persons. But how were we to know who was who among unfamiliar people. For practical purposes we had to hire people who spoke English, and it so happened that these persons and their friends came largely from moneyed classes because English had been a luxury among Koreans. But Military Government long ago realized the unrepresentative character of its Korean. structures and is fast broadening the social base of that structure."
As Bruce Cumings points out:
"Langdon was protesting innocence to his superiors in Washington. He was, consciously or unconsciously, trying to deceive them, however, for Yo Un Hyon also spoke English; his brother, Yo Un Hong, was a graduate of Wooster College in Ohio; and many other leftist leaders spoke English."
The Soviets cooperate with the People's Committee. All pro-Japanese traitors are booted out (and some killed). The Committee proceeds to implement the 27-point platform of the People's Republic of Korea although the Soviets have not formally recognized it. Street names are changed to pre-Japanese names. All things Japanese are forbidden - no Japanese songs, books and language. By contrast, in S. Korea, people are still using Japanese books and Japanese songs are popular. What are wrong these people? Aren't they Koreans?
Nov. 2, 1945 - Seoul: Kim Ku receives US permission to return home. Hodge is nit happy with Rhee and hopes to use Kim Ku as a possible replacement for Rhee. Kim Ku is forced to sign a statement promising that he will not represent the Korean Provisional Government in Seoul.
Nov. 10, 1945 - Seoul: Hodge shuts down the Maeil Ilbo (Daily News) and imposes a statewide press censorship.
Nov. 12, 1945 - Seoul: Hodge makes his famous "volcano" statement to his staff and MacArthur:
"The US occupation of Korea under present conditions and policies is surely drifting to the edge of a political-economic abyss from which it can never be retrieved with any credit to United States prestige in the Far East. Positive action on the international level of the seizure of complete initiative in South Korea by the US in the near future is absolutely essential to stop this drift."
The American misconception of the Korean communism has led them to embrace any groups who are opposed the communists regardless of their background. The Americans openly employ military and police officers that participated in Japanese anti-guerrilla campaigns in Manchuria. Hodge's pro-Japanese and anti-Korean antics have alienated Korean patriots; Korean nationalists and leftists alike would not work with Hodge and his Korean stooges. Collaborators are back in power and continue the Japanese persecution of the patriots using Japanese legal codes and American military.
Nov. 19, 1945 - Pyongyang: The Interim People's Committee meets again and creates the Five-Province Administrative Bureau - a de facto government of N. Korea. Cho Man Sik is elected president of the Bureau.
Nov. 23, 1945 - Seoul: Kim Ku and his followers return home from Chung King, China. Hodge provides American MP escorts and living quarters for Kim Ku and his men. The other members of the KPG return home a few days later. Hodge is to find soon that Kim Ku is no puppet who can be manipulated and that Kim Ku, like Syngman Rhee, has no popular support of the Korean people.
To the dismay of Hodge, Kim Ku's team proclaims - "We will have to discharge all officials appointed by the interpreters of Military Government. After August 14, 1945 all pro-Japanese and national traitors under the Japanese first went into hiding.. And later come out to buy off the interpreters so that they would get positions in the provincial governments, the district government and the police. We must clean out all these people, and at the same time stop this spirit of dependence on foreign countries."
Dec. 5, 1945 - Seoul: Hodge creates the Korean Military English School to train officers for a S. Korean army to be created. The first class consists of 60 students - 20 former Japanese servicemen, 20 from Kwantung (Manchuokuo) Army, and 20 from the KPG (Korean Provisional Government) Army (Kwan Bok Gun).
Some 50,000 Koreans served in the Japanese Army during WW2, mostly as lowly privates and forced into the Army. However, several hundred Korean traitors did volunteer and achieved junior officer ranks (lieutenants and captains). The nationalists and communists refuse to enroll in the School with the Japanese collaborators. Furthermore, Hodge stipulates that "no Korean with a Japanese prison record" would be accepted.
The collaborators (and their Japanese ranks) include: Yi Ung Jun (Col. - 1st ROKA chief-of-staff), Won Yong Duk (Lt. Col. - 1st commander of ROKA), Yu Chae Hung (Maj.), Chae Pyon Duk (Maj.), Chang Do Yong (Capt.), Choe Chang Un, Choe Kyong Nok, Chong Il Gwon, Kang Mun Bong, Kim Chae Gyu, Kim Hong Jun, Kim Paik Il, Kim Suk Pom, Kim Tong Ha, Park Sung Yup, Park Jung HeePark Im Hang, Park Ki Yong, Yang Kuk Chin, Yi Chong Chan, Yi Chu Il, Yi Han Nim, and Yun Tae Il (all Lt. or Capt.). These individuals are to become the founding members of the S. Korean Army (ROKA).
Dec. 8, 1945 - Seoul: Hodge issues Ordinance #34 that prohibits labor strikes and labor movements. The Americans are on the side of Korean capitalists fighting against the "communists" behind labor movements.
Photo: A "communist" is arrested by Japanese-trained S Korean National Police
Dec. 12, 1945 - Seoul: US outlaws the People's Committees in S Korea. This spells the death of the Korean People's Republic and plants the seed of the Korean War. This action by the USMGIK is met by violence by labor unions and peasant associations all across S. Korea. People's Committees start armed insurrection against the new colonials and the police staffed by pro-Japanese traitors. Gen. Hodge has 43,000 US soldiers to pacify S. Korean people. South Korean nationalists are split into some 113 factions and engage in political terrorism.
Dec. 16, 1945 - Seoul: Hodge reports to MacArthur -
"After 3 months in occupation of south Korea, I have reached the following definite conclusions. These are considered a further crystallization of previous reports.
The dual occupation of Korea with Russian north and US south ...
impose an impossible condition upon our occupation missions of establishing sound economy and preparing Korea for future independence. In South Korea, the US is blamed for the partition and [there is growing resentment against all Americans in the area including passive resistance.... Every day of drifting under this situation makes our position in Korea more untenable and decreases our waning popularity and our effectiveness to be of service.
The word pro-American is being added to pro-Jap, national traitor, and Jap collaborator. The only advantage of Russian presence is to absorb a portion of the people's resentment against the partition of Korea. Every Korean knows full well that under the dual occupation any talk of real freedom and independence is purely academic... Every day of delay fosters further and permanent division of the people."
Hodge continues:
"Under present conditions with no corrective action forthcoming, I would go so far as to recommend we give serious consideration to an agreement with Russia that both the US and Russia withdraw forces from Korea simultaneously and leave Korea to its own devices and an inevitable internal upheaval for its self purification."
MacArthur passes Hodge's report on to Truman.
Dec. 17, 1945 - Kim Il Sung is elected chairman of the North Korean Branch Bureau of the Korean Communist Party and gives his first major speech -
"Party organizations have yet to be created in a large number of factories, enterprises, and farm villages.... Procedures for admission to the Party have not been established.... A certain Kim, secretary of the Yangdok County Party Committee, for instance, was a police sergeant at the police station in that county during Japanese imperialist rule. The ranks of our Communist Party are infested with pro-Japanese elements.
The Communist Party will be able to perform its duty if it is organized in the most centralized manner, if iron discipline bordering on military discipline prevails in it, and if its Party center is a powerful and authoritative organ. If we do not continually strengthen our ties with the masses, teach them, and, in addition, learn from them, the Communist Party will not be able to become a truly mass party, competent to lead the entire working people."
Dec. 18, 1945 - Gen. Hodge creates the Constabulary, later to become the S. Korean Army, against the directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The army is led by Koreans who had served the Japanese - these include Col. Kaneyama and Lt. Park Jung Hee (later Pres. Park). Col. Kaneyama (new name Kim Suk Won) is the favorite "general" of Rhee.
An American reporter (Mark Gayn if the Chicago Sun) writes - "Rhee is a sinister and dangerous man, an anachronism who had strayed into this age to use the cliché‚s and machinery of democracy for unscrupulous and undemocratic ends." (NB: it took scores of students lives to rid Korea of this scourge in 1960. The Korean people finally caught up with Rhee after he re-elected himself in 1960 through rigged elections as he had done in all of his earlier elections in Korea.)
Dec. 20, 1945 - The 38th officially separates Koreans into two camps - 9 million in the North and 21 million in the South. The Soviet military seals off the new border and all trade and traffic across the 38th come to a halt. At a meeting held in Moscow, US, USSR and Britain agree on the formation of a provisional government of Korea after a five-year trusteeship. All of us are angry at this insult to the Korean people. The new foreign imperialists want to lord over Korea for five years! We march and shout anti-foreign slogans. The Korean communists join our ranks.
Dec. 29, 1945 - Moscow: The Big Three foreign ministers (US, USSR and Britain) agree upon a limited 4 to 5 years of trusteeship and a provisional government in the immediate future under US-Soviet tutelage. Hodge informs Song Chin U (a tutelage supporter) on the same day. Next day, Song is assassinated by Kim Ku who is passionately against any tutelage. Whereupon, Hodge sets out to mount propaganda against the Moscow agreement. Kim Ku calls a nationwide strike and orders all Korean employees of the USMGIK to orders from him (and not the Americans). Kim Ku demands immediate recognition of the KPG.
Dec. 29, 1945 - Pyongyang: The Five-Province Bureau splits into two camps: the communists supporting the Moscow agreement and the nationalists led by Cho Man Sik opposing it.
Dec. 31, 1945 - Kim Ku attempts a coup d'etat that fails. Kim is hauled into Hodge's office and told that US will kill him if he "double crossed" Hodge again. Kim Ku threatens to commit suicide in Hodge's office. The failed coup puts Kim Ku and the KPG out of action and gives rise to Syngman Rhee's acceptance by Hodge.
