Precursor to the Mỹ Lai Massacre: 1968 Phong Nhị, Phong Nhất_#3
Chapter 3: The Blue House Raid and Thuy Bo
It was around 10:00 pm when a sudden burst of gunshot filled the night skies of Seoul with shock and, to the same extent, fear. The explosion faded into a distant echo after resounding between Inwangsan and Pugaksan (mountains near Seoul).
It was Sunday, January 21,1968. Every South Korean channel, including the central broadcasting station, KBS, was wrapping up its last TV show of the night. Those who were listening to the radio lowered the volume and looked out through the windows of their homes. Those who had already fallen asleep got up and awoke family members who were still asleep. Audiences who, from 9:00 pm, were watching the last episode of “The Older Woman” at the Academy Theater, located in Sejong-ro (central Seoul), would be oblivious to what had happened until close to 11:00 pm.
Cheongun-dong, Jongro-gu, Seoul; the statue of Choi Kyu-sik, former Chief of the Jongro Police Station, who died in battle during the Blue House raid on January 21, 1968. To the bottom right, there is a carved man wearing a laurel wreath and a carved dove. Photo taken in October of 2013.
The sound of gunshots continued beyond curfew hours (implemented in South Korea from September 1945 to January 1982, whereby citizens were not allowed outside of their homes between certain designated hours; in 1968, curfew hours were from 12:00-4:00 am). It was during the worst of the winter cold, at -9℃. Yet the chill that ran through Seoul that day wasn’t from the weather alone.
The communist guerrillas had made a surprise appearance, fully armed at that. These guerrillas, who were referred to as “spy murderers” or “murder units” by the press, had come down as far as 500m in front of the Blue House. There were 31 of them in total. It was later revealed that they were special forces of base 6, unit 124 of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Scout Department of National Security. They departed around 2:00 pm on January 16 from their base headquarters in Yŏnsan-gun, Hwanghae Province, managed to get through the barbed wire that the U.S. army 2nd division installed along the Military Demarcation Line on the night of the 18th, and trekked across the frozen Imjin River. They traveled through the rugged mountain ranges of South Korea and finally made their way down from Samo Rock (a landmark of the Bukhan Mountain) in the direction of Segeomjeong. The men were wearing dark gray suits and black sneakers lined with white rubber bands. The handguns, machine guns, grenades, and live ammunition inside their coats created a bulge around their waists. Their mission was to raid the Blue House, assassinate President Park Chung-hee along with key government officials, and hijack a car to drive back up north.
Meanwhile in Vietnam...
A loud vibration filled the rural village of Thủy Bồ, located in Điện Thọ, Điện Bàn district in central Vietnam. All other noise was drowned out by the blaring palpitation from the two helicopters that had landed near its entrance in Go Soi. The young rice plants in the fields struggled to stand against the strong gust produced by the propellers. It was 10:00 am, January 20, 1968, right about time for rice planting. Soldiers descended from the helicopters, around a platoon of armed forces from the ROK Marine, 2nd brigade. They entered Thủy Bồ in a line of march. The 2nd brigade had now for a month been in the process of relocating its military post from Chu Lai, south of Quảng Nam Province, to Hội An, which is near Thủy Bồ. In order to settle into their new military post, they were executing the Flying Dragon Operation in the entirety of the Quảng Nam Province.
At the same time in another part of the world, North Korean special forces were making their way toward Bibong, a mountainous area closest to the center of Seoul. As soon as the initial gunshot was fired, Choi Kyu-sik (38) Chief of the Jongro Police Station, fell to the ground. A gunfight had broken out because Choi demanded that the North Korean Special Forces identify themselves. These men had made it through mountainous areas all the way down to the Blue House in the heart of town, and had earlier managed to circumvent one of Choi’s subordinates request for investigation. Found at the site bloody and unconscious, Choi died in transit as he was being rushed over to the police hospital. The North Korean forces dispersed themselves throughout the area and threw hand grenades at four of the local buses that carried passengers. Three people, including, Kim Hyung-ki (17) who was a senior at Cheong-un Middle School, lost their lives, and two others were injured as a result. Nevertheless, the Blue House attack was a failure, and eventually, each remaining man was left to his own device to scatter in whichever direction he deemed would best preserve his own life. Some hid in the alleys among private homes, while others ran for their lives toward Bukhansan (the closest mountain to Seoul).
A flare was shot up by the 30th Battalion of the Capital Garrison Command, directed by Lieutenant Chun Doo-hwan (37; who would seize power as president twelve years later in 1980 through a military insurrection/ coup d'état). The night sky of Seoul lit up as if it were mid-afternoon, rendering the fugitives more distressed than they already were. The search continued until January 28, its radius extending beyond Seoul to include the cities of Goyang, Paju and Pocheon in the northern region of Gyeonggi Province.
A similarly chaotic environment unfolded in Thủy Bồ, a the ROK Marines began shooting as they made their way into the village. Escape was the only way to survive. Nguyễn Thị Nhi(53) hid in the dark basement of her home, carrying her 3 year-old grandson on her back. The soldiers knew to search even the air shelters of each house by now, however. They would either throw grenades into the basement or gesture for the villagers to come out from hiding and then shoot them in the open. Thị Nhi had to witness her grandson’s skull exploding into pieces before her very own eyes. She too fell unconscious from a shot thereafter which blasted off the lower part of her jaw, along with half her tongue.
It was clear that the soldiers were extremely upset about something. It just wasn’t clear what exactly had stirred their anger so, and why they were resorting to such despicable means to blow off steam. Had they been sniped in the middle of operation? Had they acquired some kind of hard evidence that the sniper was hiding somewhere in Thủy Bồ? Whatever the case, that day, 145 civilian victims in the village of Thủy Bồ paid the price for the rage of the ROK troops.
A memorial cenotaph for the massacre victims of Thuy Bo, Quang Nam Province (January 20, 1968). Statues of a fallen mother, a crying baby, a woman enraged, among others. Photo taken in February of 2014.
The same degree of rage filled entire country of South Korea. Lee Ik-su (46), the 15th regimental commander of the 6th corps, was shot in the chest with a machine gun. Twenty-two officers and enlisted men died in battle. South Korea’s casualties, including civilians, amounted to a total of 30. The majority of the North Korean Special Forces, 28 or 29 out of the 31, incurred a tragic death as well. Kim Chun-sik, who was first to be arrested at the site, was brought to the Bureau of Public Safety where he detonated himself with a hand grenade. There were those who were burned to death by a flamethrower, as well as those who were decapitated or whose limbs were dismembered from the battle. Only one or two escaped safely back up north, and second lieutenant Kim Sun-jo (26) was the only person to surrender.
The two violent incidents, one in Seoul, Korea and the other in Thủy Bồ, Vietnam, took place a day apart from each other. One pointedly targeted the very institutional authority of a particular state, while the other just so happened to be directed at a group of commoners. One was covered extensively by the press, while the other was never made known.
The Thủy Bồ attack filled the residents of Quảng Nam Province with angst. They instinctively knew that there was something unusual about the 2nd ROK Marine Division who decided to settle in Quang Nam Province and Hoi An. Their premonition didn’t betray them. On February 12, 23 days after the Thuy Bo incident, 74 people in the villages of Phong Nhi and Phong Nhất in the Dien Banh District were murdered en masse by these very marines. 10 days after the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất Massacre, 135 villagers from Hami, Dien Duong District, and 7 days after the Hami incident, 62 people from Xuyen Tay of Duy Xuyen District shared the same tragic fate.
The 2nd Marine (Blue Dragon) Division was the very first combat unit to arrive in South Vietnam. They landed in Cam Ranh Bay on October 9, 1965. On October 25, the Capital Mechanized Infantry Division, also known as Brave Tiger Division, landed in Quy Nhơn. The following year on September 5, 1966, the 9th Infantry Division, also known as White Horse, landed in Nha Trang. As the annually-dispatched 50,000 ROK troops engaged in their search-and-destroy mission against the Viet Cong in South Vietnam year after year, rumors relating to massacres were spreading like wildfire. The tension and rage that was unleashed unduly on Thuy Bo and Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất in 1968, had actually been building up as early as in 1965.
The ROK troops committed unspeakable atrocities in Vietnam throughout 1966. Meanwhile in Pyongyang, the Workers’ Party of Korea held its 2nd party representative conference from October 5-12. In front of the 1,275 representatives gathered, Kim Il-sung emphasized ‘unification under the socialist bloc and restoration of the solidarity of the International Communist Movement.’ On the last day of the conference, the party representatives adopted a formal declaration regarding the Vietnam situation.
“As the American imperialists expand their aggressive war in Vietnam, it is most imperative that we consolidate the socialist bloc, International Communist Movement, Labor Movement, and National Liberation Movement in order to stand against U.S. imperialism and actively aid the people of Vietnam...These imperialists have already enlisted 300,000 of their own troops, along with tens of thousands more from its supporters in order to take over South Vietnam as well as it socialist counterpart, North Vietnam. We must do all that we can to help the people of Vietnam and terminate the evil influence of these imperialists through a collective counteroffensive. It is therefore well-justified for socialist states to dispatch volunteer soldiers to Vietnam.”
-Rodong Sinmun; October 13, 1966
October of 1966, when ROK troops were officially being dispatched to Vietnam. Rodong Shinmun ridiculing the U.S. and ROK troops, falsely reporting the sweeping victory of the Viet Cong.
Upon adopting a formal declaration stating that they would ‘devote all of their resources to helping the comrades in Vietnam,’ North Korea began taking a far more offensive stance against South Korea. In a report that the commander of the U.N. forces sent to the U.N in October 3, 1968, the number of significant incidents that occurred between North and South Korea was in 1965, 69; in 1966, 59; in the following year in 1967, it made a dramatic ten-fold leap to 566. The number continually increased so that by August of 1968, it was already at 661. The number of skirmishes likewise increased in similar fashion: in 1965, 29; in 1966, 30; in 1967, 218; and again by August of 1968, it had reached 365.
From 1967-1969, North Korea sent MIG jet fighters and pilots to counter the U.S. air raids in North Vietnam. According to an August 2007 article from Vietnam’s daily newspaper…, North Korea sent 87 pilots to North Vietnam, of which 14 died in battle. There is no record indicating that North Korea dispatched ground forces. However, it increased the intensity of attack against South Korea, whose forces were annually being reduced by 50,000 and funneled into South Vietnam. From Park Chung-hee’s perspective, Vietnam was a second warfront— an addendum to the Korean War— in order to prevent the domino effect of communism in Asia, while in Kim Il-sung’s perspective, the Korean peninsula was an extended warfront of the Vietnam War.
In effect, North Korea intended for the Blue House raid to be both an offensive that would incite a revolution in South Korea, and a way for its most elite troops to support the Viet Cong remotely in the Vietnam War. A day before the raid, on January 20, North Vietnamese forces attacked Khe Sanh, the closest U.S. marine outpost to the 17th parallel, thereby inciting an intense battle for the following two months. From January 31, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong incited a surprise attack throughout the entirety of South Vietnam in what would be known as the Tet Offensive (The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than). It was as if North Korea and North Vietnam were acting out in sync.
The Blue House raid was ultimately, but not entirely, a failure. A month prior to the incident, on December 21, 1967, Park Chung-hee met with Lyndon B. Johnson in Canberra, Australia. Park had since been considering Johnson’s request to dispatch additional forces, but he had now become loath to adhere. Two days later, North Korea attacked and captured the USS Pueblo, a Banner-class environmental research (spy) ship. U.S.-ROK relations became interlaced with the crisis on the Korean peninsula. And though the U.S. was more than just a bystander, Johnson ignored Park’s request for retaliation against North Korea, which infuriated Park.
Written by humank (Journalist; Seoul, Korea) Translated and revised as necessary by April Kim (New York, NY)
The numbers in parentheses indicate the respective ages of the people at the time in 1968.
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