I’m not really into war history, but I’ve read several times in passing that the South Korean soldiers who served in Vietnam were notorious for their cruelty and murderous tactics. Given the horrible behavior of the ARVN and American troops at the time, how in the world did the Koreans become known as particularly brutal? I’m almost afraid to hear of what horrors they unleashed upon the Vietnamese.
If this is more than just a myth, my next question is why? I’m not aware of any historical rivalry between the two nations. Have Koreans used harsh tactics in all of their wars or just this one? Are there cultural/political/other reasons behind this sort of behavior?
Can’t answer most of your questions but can add something on this part:
I have read several biographies of survivors of Japanese POW camps from the second world war. Unfortunately I don’t have any here to cite, but there was a common thread through many of them that the Korean guards employed by the Japanese were widely regarded as more brutal than the Japanese.
I wrote a very elaborate response in which I defended myself for being the “Cite please?” guy, but I think that
Cite please?
Is the best response to posts in which someone claims that a Japanese claim that the Koreans are not the best prison camp hosts available is support for the statement that
Because I’m sure you’d be filled with warm fuzzies upon tales of the treatment of the non-communists involved in these conflicts.
And now I must reply to my own post with another first the “shouldn’t this be in the X forum” and request that the entire thread be moved to Great Debates, as my reply demonstrates that GQ is inappropriate.
I assume this refers to my post above. I think that you may have got the wrong impression. As I noted in my post I was responding to a very specific part of the OP, namely “Have Koreans used harsh tactics in all of their wars or just this one?”.
I was not making any assertions about the behaviour of Korean soldiers in the Vietnam war or any other war except WWII for that matter.
Further I don’t believe I made any “claims that a Japanese claims” my statement specifically referred to claims by Allied POWs.
I can’t find a cite at the moment but I recall that around 150 Korean POW camp guards were convicted of war crimes after WWII.
From memory you could also read Eric Lomax’s autobiography " The railway man" in which he makes precisely this observation regarding his time in Japanese WWII prisoner of war camps
You are correct, I was referring to your statement only in part but was too inspecific. I was first referring to the broad implication that somehow ARVN and US troops are responsible for atrocities that only Koreans can hope to approach in the Vietnam war. I did so by reference to the improprieties of the Japanese during WWII towards the Koreans, because YOU implied that the WWII activites of Koreans had some bearing on the likelyhood that Koreans involved in Nam would behave similary (and I say Korean to mean SKoreans).
Your cites may support your position, whatever that might be. But I can cite plenty of greivances of Korean folks towards the Japanese and their treatment during WWII which include quite a few instances of impression into military units to support and enforce the rule of the empire of the chrysanthemum. “Good” families willingly allowed the impression of their boys, thinking it was the wave of the future. I’ll cite, if called upon, the injustices suffered by Koreans, and I suppose as best I can the relative brutality, and then perhaps we can develop some sort of scale (but the googling and citing of postings makes me bleerly eyed, especially these types of things) of who was brutalist(?).
It wouldn’t surprise me that 150 korean soldiers were prosecuted following WWII as Japanese war criminals. There were certainly enough WCs to go around. But to say that they are cruel somehow by nature, LIKE U.S. AND ARVN TROOPS ARE, BUT STILL, EVEN CRUELER? I guess this is really where a “scale of brutality” would really have any reference to the OP that started this thread.
And please, let me be clear that I’ve got no axe to grind against the Empire of Japan. I beg forgiveness for bringing up that discussion, as time has past and wrongs have been recognized. And I’m aware that that isnt the OP. So if can we have an example of say, an American atrocity, an ARVN atrocity, and a S.Korean atrocity, then a scale of the relevant atrocity-ness of each, perhaps that is more on point?
Please believe me when I say that I am not trying to engage in a slanging match here but I think you are misunderstanding the point (and trust me it is a pretty minor point which I think I am regretting I ever raised) that I am making and I think perhaps that is because I am not being clear in what I am saying.
I am not trying to assert that Koreans committed more war crimes than others - I know for a fact that they did not
I am not trying to assert that Koreans were the authors or perpetrators of the majority of the atrocities committed in the Pacific in WWII - I know for a fact that they were not
I am not trying to assert anything about the behaviour of koreans during the Vietnam War or any other war except WWII - I do not have any knowledge of that and would not try to assert any such knowledge.
I am not trying to state that nobody else except the Koreans did bad things in WWII (or any other war) - such a statement would be absurd. There is probably not a nation on earth that can be proud of all of the things it soldiers have done during war time.
I am not trying to imply any link between the actions of a certain group of Korean soldiers during WWII and all other Koreans at that time or at any time at all.
I am not trying to say that because a certain group of korean soldiers committed atrocities during WWII that all Korean soldiers or all koreans are evil - patently that would be absurd.
All I am trying to do is give evidence of one particular example to answer part of the question raised in the opening post: are there other examples of korean brutality during war time.
I think my mistake was not spelling out what I was trying to say when I wrote my original first response to the OP. My apologies.
I hope this has cleared things up. I won’t say anymore.
I hear you Motog , but the OP was a bit more inflamatory than that, and I was reacting to that without adequately reflecting it …
I reacted to your proposed evidence that they had reacted brutally at some point in the past, but my dispute was not really with you to begin with, I guess. I haven’t seen argument that supports the allegation that they have, in any way in the world, become known as particularly brutal, unless we are talking about North Korean Gmen, but that’s not what I think the OP was getting at.
No cites, but as a serviceman in Viet Nam at the time I can tell you that the ROK Marines had a reputation as some seriously bad mofos. A squad of them lived in a hut next to us for a time and they seemed to shun anyone who wasn’t them. They were aggressive and trained constantly. Discipline consisted of physical beatings.
I worked with some Korean civilians who were there as employees of Philco-Ford. They were decent enough guys for the most part, but they disliked the Vietnamese, regardless of geographical origin. Based on the confrontations I saw with Vietnamese co-workers, I can only imagine how the enemy must have been treated by active ROK military.
I too heard the stories of eviscerated and decapitated VC and NVA, but have no firsthand knowledge of this happening.
From reading accounts of WWII and the Korean conflict, it would seem that Asians in general have a different view of conducting warfare than we in the west.
For what it’s worth, the Turks had an equally brutal image. It was my impression that Charlie avoided contact with them at all costs.
Something just occurred to me . . . and this is a total hijack . . . but Chefguy , were you ever monikered “Old Ron” in a certain hostel in a certain Asian country?
I’d heard “somewhere” (Probably here) that in Vietnam, South Korean troops weren’t allowed to fire unless fired upon…so their infantry would occasionally destroy small villages with their bare hands.
I can offer now further information, or even a halfway decent cite.
I heard a similar story from a former boss who served with the Australian army in Vietnam. I cant vouch for his story but as he relayed it to me the ROK troops were highly respected by friend and enemy alike for their martial prowess and even more so for their general fearsomeness. Supposedly an ROK unit was being troubled by a persistent mortar that shelled their compound at nights. They sent out a patrol, captured the mortar crew and skinned them alive. My boss told this story in a curious combination of awe and admiration but then he was a strange man who kept a picture of himself as a young engineer standing around a mass grave in his office.
