The Mt. Songak Battle of 1949 - A Prelude to the Korean War
Lee Wha Rang, January 18, 2004
In the early morning mist on May 3, 1948, a reinforced battalion of the People's Army mounted a general attack on South Korean army position on Mt. Songak (송악산 - 松嶽山)·and occupied a large tract of land near Kaesung. The South Korean army was totally unprepared for the onslaught and was beaten back with heavy casualties. The South Korean army poured in fresh troops and retook the lost ground after major battles that lasted five days. Until this battle, there had been other skirmished on much smaller scales involving a few hundred soldiers on each side, but the Songak battle involved full-strength regiments on both sides.
Mt. Songak hugs Kaesung and straddles the 38th Parallel. Before the Korean War, Kaesung was in South Korea but obtained potable water from North Korea. After the war, Kaesong belongs to North Korea and has become a household word on account of the endless armistice talks held nearby. Kaesung was the capital city of Koryo and has many historical sites still waiting to be excavated by the archeologists. It is ironic that Kaesung was the site of the first major battle and the first major city to fall in June 1950. Before the war, Kaesung's population was about 100,000.
Photo: Aerial views of Kaeson and Mt. Songak.
Mt. Songak has two major peaks: before the Korea War, Peak 485 was in South Korea and Peak 488, slightly taller, was in North Korea. Both peaks had military posts, which were close enough for the opposing sentries to chat - "Have you guys eaten supper yet?", "What did you eat?"
The 11th Regiment of the First Division of the Republic of Korea Army began constructing defensive lines for Kaesong in November 1948. A 1000+ unit of the 3rd Regiment of the People's Army First Division stationed in Namchun near Kaesong began to move south on April 25, 1949. The ROKA First Division was commanded by Brigadier Kim Suk-won, a former colonel in the Japanese Army and the People's Army First Division was commanded by Choe Hyun, an anti-Japanese guerrilla commander. These two adversaries had fought several battles in Manchuria before the Liberation.
On May 3, 1949, the enemy mounted a surprise attack on Peak 292. The ROKA defenders of the peak were driven back with heavy casualties. Captain Kim Young-jik (in charge of training of non-commissioned officers of the regiment) and Captain Chae Myung-sin of the 4th Company, who was in training at Munsan, rallied the troops and fought back
Photo: An ROKA guard post at Mt. Songak.
On May 3rd, an enemy force of about 400 men attacked and occupied Peak 292. The enemy began to move against the 2nd Battalion of the 11th Regiment. The 1st Battalion of the First Division in Munsan sent the 3rd and 4th companies to the defense of Kaeson. A training unit of non-commissioned officers en routed to a training center at Yung-ahn was ordered back to the front. The 6th Artillery Battalion of Capt. Roh Jae-hyun was rushed to the battle from Young-dung-po.
The enemy had superior fire power and fortified machinegun nests mowed down the ROKA troops, who had no weapons to know out the pillboxes. A suicide squad of nine volunteers led by Lt. Kim Sung-hun crept to the pillbox and exploded 81mm cannon shells. The pillboxes were blown apart and the troops retook all lost ground in hand-to-hand combats. Captain Kim Young-jik was killed in action.
Photo: An ROKA wounded is being evacuated from Mt. Songak.
To add salt to injury, on the day of the attack, Major Pyo Mu-won (表武源), commander of the 1st Battalion of the 8th Regiment stationed in Chunchun, defected to north with 456 men. On the following day (May 5), Major Kang Tae-mu (姜泰武), commander of the 2nd battalion of the 6th Regiment in Hongchun, defected with 294 men. Both majors belonged to a secret Workers Party cell headed by Oh Il-gyun, who was arrested in Cheju a few days earlier. They feared an imminent arrest and decided to defect..
On May 10, the South Korean warship #508 of the 2nd Special Forces Unit defected to North Korea while on a guard duty near Jumun-jin. Thus in less than a week, two elite battalions and a modern warship defected to North Korea, and the daunted First Division of Col. Kim Suk-won was bloodied.
Major Kang Tae-mu commanded a regiment of the People's Army during the Korean War and attained high-tanks in the People's Army. After the war, he served in various political organizations. His wartime exploits are depicted in a series of movies made in North Korea. While attending the Rip-gyo (立敎) University of Kyodo, he joined the Japanese Army during World War II. Major Pyo graduated from Daisei ( 大成) High School of Tokyo and enlisted in the Japanese Army attaining the rank of sergeant when WWII ended.
Photo: Brigadier Kim Suk-won directing the Mt. Songak battle assisted an American military advisor.
Kang and Pyo were classmates of Park Jung-hee (former military dictator) in the 2nd graduating class of the South Korean Officers Training School. Park was also a member of the Workers' Party and was arrested in the aftermath of the Yosu Mutiny of October 19, 1948. Park was sentenced to die but his life was saved because of his recanting of Communism and extraordinary cooperation with the anti-Red investigators. Today, the Korean Military Academy proudly lists all of its graduates - but Maj. Kang and Maj. Pyo are not on the list. Likewise, Gen. Song Ho-sung, the first commander of the Army, is not listed anywhere - because Gen. Song, too, defected to North Korea.
As mentioned earlier Kim Suk-won and Choe Hyun had crossed swords earlier during World War II in Manchuria. Kim Suk Won was born in Seoul on September 29, 1893. In 1909, he went to Japan to prep for the Japanese Military Academy and was accepted in the 27th class of 1913. Baik Hong Suk was in the same class. Chai Byong Duk, the commander of Rhee's army when the Korean War broke out married Baik's daughter. Kim graduated in May 1915 and was assigned to the 617th Regiment of Osaka, the 4th division of the Imperial Army. After two years with the regiment, Kim was commissioned 1st lieutenant of infantry. By 1931, Kim commanded a machine-gun company and participated in the invasion of China. Kim Suk Won's primary duty was to eradicate anti-Japanese 'bandits' -- Communist and nationalist Koreans fighting for Korean independence.
Photo: Choe Hyun and Kim Il Sung. Choe Hyun commanded the First Army Corp in the fall of 1950. Choe reorganized the defeated People's Army troops fleeing from the Nakdong front into an army. His army operated in areas south of the front and successful in cutting UN supply routes.
He served the Emperor well in China and accomplished astonishing battlefield feats. The grateful Emperor rewarded him a sum of 700 won (about $200,000), a fortune in Korea at the time. Kim would brag that he personally killed several thousands Chinese soldiers and that no one in the military history had done such a great feat. Kim was promoted to a major and was relocated to the 78th Regiment, 20th division stationed in Yongsan, near Seoul.
In May 1937, Kim Suk Won led the 74th Regiment of Hamhung (commanded by Kim Ik Uk) on a mission to eradicate Kim Il Sung's bandits pestering the border-area police and military outposts around Mt. Baikdu. His force of about 2,000 men walked into a trap set by Kim Il Sung and Choe Hyun at Chiensan Pass, some distance north of Hyesanjin. Kim Il Sung had ten heavy machine guns open fire and mowed down Kim Suk Won's Japanese troops. Kim Suk Won escaped with 200 or so survivors.
Kim Suk Won completed a military officer training program run by the US military and was commissioned a colonel in the Korean army. Kim Suk Won tried to mold Rhee's army in the image of the Japanese army and crashed with his American advisors. Inn1948, Kim was put in charge of the 1st infantry division. In October of the that year, Kim Suk Won was kicked out of the army.
Photo: Kaneyama daisa (Col. Kim), 3rd from right, in the service of Emperor Hirohito. Kim Suk Won led Japanese troops to squash Korean nationalists in Manchuria.
On May 22, 1947, the US and the USSR agreed on a north-south trade pact, which lasted until March 31, 1949. During this brief period, south Korea sent North Korea medical supplies, electric devices, raw rubber, textiles, auto parts and other merchandise, while North Korea bartered fish and carbide and other raw materials. The goods were exchanged at Tosung (土城), Daiwong-ri (大院里), Yangmun-ri (梁文里) and other villages alon the 38th Parallel. There was a great deal of money to be made in these barter deals and the army controlled these sites. One had to get army permits to participate in the trades.
Col. Kim felt that the materials being sent to North Korea would help the enemy military and thus stopped the barter in his area of command. Furthermore, he confiscated 20 truck loads of fish from North Korea. Amidst of this turmoil, the Mt. Song-ak battle erupted on May 3rd. The battle raged for several days and the 11th Regiment was badly mauled by the North Korean units led by Choe Hyon. The battalion commander was killed along with some 39 men, and many were wounded or captured.
In the aftermath of this fiasco, Kim Suk Won tried to please his troops and fed them the shanghaied fish. He sold some of the fish at Seoul's South Gate market and bought drinks, fruits and candies for his men. He also paid the civilians he had mobilized for his ill-fated battle. Now the merchants, whose fish Kim Suk Won confiscated illegally, did not sit idle; they made loud noise at high places and eventually, Chae Byong Duk sent a team to investigate the matter and ordered Kim Suk Won to return the fish to the rightful owners. However, Kim Suk Won refused to obey. While Chae claimed that Kim illegally seized the fish for illegal usage, Kim claimed that Chae profited from the trade that benefited the enemy.
Kim Suk Won was 20 years senior to Chae at the Japanese Military Academy, but Chae was Kim's superior officer and Kim was not happy about it. The mutual personal hatred of Kim and Chae eventually caught the attention of Rhee Syngman and the two were called in and told to make peace. Kim persisted and kept his personal attacks on Chae. Finally, Rhee had enough and fired both Kim and Chae in October 1949. They were discharged from the army. Rhee quietly reinstated Chae soon after, first as the armory commander and the commander of his army in April 1950. Kim Suk Won was reinstated as well. When the Korean War broke out, Kim Suk Won commanded the Capital Division and then the 3rd Division. His division engaged the enemy at Jinchun, Youngduk and other locations.
Choe Hyon was born in Jiandao, a foreign land, in 1907 when the national crisis was at its height. Choe Hyon's parents, who had brought him into the world in a land, which was struck down by an economic crisis with an unprecedented destructive power, were anxious about his future. The “annexation of Korea by Japan", the March First Popular Uprising and the massive "punitive" atrocities in Jiandao in the year of Kyongsin in 1920 were dramatic events which made young Choe Hyon´s blood boil.
The Independence Army, which was offering armed resistance in difficult conditions in a corner of Jiandao, gave him a ray of hope in those despairing, dark days. Hong Bom Do and Im Pyong Guk were his seniors and mentors. His childhood was linked inseparably with these brave, indefatigable veterans. He learned marksmanship and horsemanship from them. When he was eleven years old, his father Choe Hwa Sim, who was an Independence Army soldier under the command of Hong Bom Do, began to assign him to deliver messages. That year his father presented him with a pistol.
Photo: The Choe Hyun partisans celebrating their victory over Kim Suk Won's Japanese troops.
The massacre of 1920 drowned all the Korean settlements in Jiandao in a bloodbath. Choe Hyon lost his mother in the massacre. He followed Im Pyong Guk to the Maritime Province of Russia with his father. Although a stranger to the place, the people and their language, he resolved to fight the Japanese imperialists all his life. Commander Im Pyong Guk appointed him as his orderly and sent him to one of his detachments. An excellent horseman, Choe Hyon faithfully carried out his duty, riding between the detachment and the headquarters on horseback. When the thirteen-year-old, small boy rode like an arrow on horseback through the plain, the Russian people admired and envied him. Years later he joined Kim Il Sung's partisan unit. After liberation, Choe was became one of the most capable generals of the People's Army.
It should be mentioned that it was Choe who received Maj. Kang Tae-mu when he defected with his men and it was Choe who made Kang a regimental commander. Both Choe Hyun and Kim Suk Won died in bed from natural causes.