My first opportunity to study the Korean War in depth came in 2006 when I was offered a two-year research fellowship at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Affiliated with the War College is the U.S. Army Military History Institute, which houses the largest collection in the United States of oral history archives on the Korean War. One of the major benefits I saw of working with oral histories at the onset of this project was the visceral connection I was able to make with the subjects of my research. Although oral histories are not always reliable and must be handled with care, they are invaluable for re-creating the mood and emotions of the battlefield that underlay the actions and attitudes of the soldiers who fought there.
I was also fortunate during my research at the Institute to run into a group of South Korean researchers from South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The South Korean government had established the Commission in 2005 to investigate various incidents in Korean history, and in particular numerous atrocities committed by various government agencies during Japan’s occupation of Korea, the Korean War, and the successive authoritarian governments. The Commission was disbanded in 2010. As I sat down with the TRC researchers one evening over coffee, I discussed my project, and they offered their help. As the primary researcher on the Commission at that time, Suh Hee-gyŏng not only shared with me thousands of pages of unpublished and published reports and photos of the Commission’s findings, but also helped me navigate the daunting Korean bureaucracy in securing permission to use them. She also provided invaluable assistance in assembling materials pertaining to the mass killings that occurred early on during the Korean War. Kim Dong-ch’un, former standing commissioner of the Commission, also provided important materials; it was he who showed me what I regard as one of the most haunting photos of the war, the remains of 114 bodies discovered at Buntegol, Chŏngwŏn, Ch’ungbuk province, in 2007, which appears in this book.
I am also indebted to Balázs Szalontai for sharing some of his unpublished work with me. The book is much richer because of it. Katalin Jalsovszky, the archivist at the Hungarian National Museum, quickly and efficiently helped me to secure some rare North Korean photos of the war. I am thankful to Balázs and Chris Springer, who brought these amazing photos to my attention. John Moffett, librarian at the Needham Institute in the United Kingdom, was helpful in taking the time to locate, scan, and send dozens of photos of Joseph Needham’s trip to China in 1952. Mitchell Lerner steered me to some of his and other recent work on the USS Pueblo incident from which the book has greatly benefited. Choe Yong-ho of the Korea Institute of Military History, Ministry of National Defense, Republic of Korea, helped me to track down books, articles, and data on Korea’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Raymond Lech generously provided me with copies of transcripts of pretrial interviews, appellate reviews, memos, and letters concerning U.S. Korean War POWs. Ray allowed me to borrow this extraordinary collection—filling more than fifteen boxes—to use at my leisure before he deposited them at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, where the collection now resides. New materials about the war from the Soviet, Chinese, East German, Hungarian, and Romanian archives, all available online at the web site for the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, have enabled scholars to adopt a truly multinational approach in their study of the cold war. We now know more about the views of “other” major players in the cold war than ever before. This book is a direct beneficiary of the tremendous contributions the Wilson Center has made to advancing cold war scholarship. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Oberlin College for granting me a two-year leave during which time the bulk of the research for this book was done. I also benefited greatly from three summer research grants awarded by Oberlin for travel to Korea and other research libraries in the United States. I consider myself lucky to be teaching in such a supportive academic environment. My colleagues Ann Sherif, Pauline Chen, and Qiusha Ma have been not only wonderful mentors but also supportive friends.
During the writing phase of the project, Daniel Crewe, my editor at Profile Books in the United Kingdom, read so many drafts of this book that I have lost count. Several of the major sections of the present text were completely revised and rewritten in response to his suggestions and questions. Allan R. Millett, who read an early draft of the book, was pointed in his critical comments but made it all that much better. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Don Boose also read through an earlier draft of the manuscript and provided excellent feedback, especially on the later chapters. For her enthusiastic and unfailing support of this project, I am grateful to my editor at W. W. Norton, Maria Guarnaschelli, and her assistant, Melanie Tortoroli: Maria, for having such faith and insight into the book even as the manuscript grew longer, and Melanie, for helping me at critical points in the rewriting and for keeping everything else on track. I would also like to acknowledge my copy editor, Mary Babcock, whose meticulous attention to every detail of the book helped to improve it tremendously. Kim Preston and Bonnie Gordon have seen me through some of the more grueling stages of the book’s evolution, and I also wish to thank them here for their warm friendship and support.
My older kids, Isaac and Hannah, also contributed to this project early on: Isaac, now a cadet at West Point, for spending an entire summer with me at the Military History Institute pouring over after-action reports and writing them up, and Hannah, for her computer wizardry in organizing all my books, papers, computer files, and photos. In addition, both helped care for their younger siblings, Emma and Aaron, when mom was at work in the attic, good deeds for which I am thankful. All four kids grew up with this book, patiently tolerating my own “unending” obsession with the war without too much complaint while also providing the necessary perspective as only one’s children can do.
My greatest debt is owed to my husband, Jiyul, without whose contribution this book might never have been written. We covered a great deal of ground together; his help in surveying a broad range of materials, reading and rereading through numerous drafts of the manuscript, and above all, his enthusiasm for debating—and often correcting—the finer points of Korean War history, made the final product a much better book. These conversations became part of our daily routine and contributed to the overall richness of our daily lives. For that, I will always be grateful.
A note on source, transliteration, and naming convention: Considerations of space have precluded the inclusion of a separate bibliography. The notes include the full citation of each source when it appears for the first time in a particular chapter. Throughout the text, I have employed the McCune-Reischauer system of romanization for all Korean words and names, with the exception of well-known nonstandard romanized names, such as Syngman Rhee, Park Chung Hee, Kim Il Sung, and Kim Jong Il. As a rule, Chinese names are romanized according to the pinyin system. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese personal names are, with the exception of Syngman Rhee, written with family name first and given name last.
Sheila Miyoshi Jager
Oberlin, Ohio
December 2012