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href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/08/state-of-fear-how-historys-deadliest-bombing-campaign-created-todays-crisis-in-korea/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/08/state-of-fear-how-historys-deadliest-bombing-campaign-created-todays-crisis-in-korea/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">State of Fear: How History’s Deadliest
Bombing Campaign Created Today’s Crisis in Korea</h1>
Ted Nace - Deceber 8, 2017</div>
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<p>As the world watches with mounting concern the growing
tensions and bellicose rhetoric between the United
States and North Korea, one of the most remarkable
aspects of the situation is the absence of any public
acknowledgement of the underlying reason for North
Korean fears—or, as termed by United Nations Ambassador
Nikki Haley, “state of paranoia”—namely, the horrific
firebombing campaign waged by the U.S. Air Force during
the Korean War and the unprecedented death toll that
resulted from that bombing.</p>
<p>Although the full facts will never be known, the
available evidence points toward the conclusion that the
firebombing of North Korea’s cities, towns, and villages
produced <a
href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bombing_of_North_Korea_1950-1953#Death_Toll"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">more civilian deaths</a>
than any other bombing campaign in history.</p>
<p>Historian Bruce Cumings <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZHtJG9UG7A"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">describes</a> the
bombing campaign as “probably one of the worst episodes
of unrestrained American violence against another
people, but it’s certainly the one that the fewest
Americans know about.”</p>
<p>The campaign, carried out from 1950 to 1953, killed 2
million North Koreans, according to General Curtis
LeMay, the head of the Strategic Air Command and the
organizer of the firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese
cities. In 1984, LeMay <a
href="http://www.newsweek.com/us-forget-korean-war-led-crisis-north-592630"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">told the Office of Air
Force History</a> that the bombing of North Korea had
“killed off 20 percent of the population.”</p>
<p>Other sources cite a somewhat lower number. According
to a <a
href="http://files.prio.org/ReplicationData/BattleDeathsDataset/PRIO%20Battle%20Deaths%20Dataset%203.0%20Documentation.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">data set</a> developed
by researchers at the Centre for the Study of Civil War
(CSCW) and the International Peace Research Institute,
Oslo (PRIO), the “best estimate” of civilian deaths in
North Korea is 995,000, with a low estimate of 645,000
and a high estimate of 1.5 million.</p>
<p>Though half of LeMay’s estimate, the CSCW/PRIO estimate
of 995,000 deaths still exceeds the civilian death tolls
of any other bombing campaign, including the Allied
firebombing of German cities in World War II, which
claimed as estimated 400,000 to 600,000 lives; the
firebombing and nuclear bombing of Japanese cities,
which caused an estimated <a
href="https://archive.org/stream/effectsofbombing00unit#page/n4/mode/1up"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">330,000</a> to <a
href="https://archive.org/stream/effectsofstrateg00unit#page/n3/mode/2up"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">900,000</a> deaths; and
the bombing of <a
href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bombing_of_North_Korea_1950-1953#Death_Toll"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indochina</a> from 1964
to 1973, which caused an estimated 121,000 to 361,000
deaths overall during <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Operation Rolling
Thunder</a>, <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Operation Linebacker</a>,
and <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Operation Linebacker II</a>
(Vietnam); Operation Menu and <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Operation Freedom Deal</a>
(Cambodia), and <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barrel_Roll"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Operation Barrel Roll</a>
(Laos).</p>
<p>The heavy death toll from the bombing of North Korea is
especially notable in view of the relatively modest
population of the country: just 9.7 million people in
1950. By comparison, there were 65 million people in
Germany and 72 million people in Japan at the end of
World War II.</p>
<p>The attacks by the U.S. Air Force against North Korea
used the firebombing tactics that had been developed in
the World War II bombing of Europe and Japan: explosives
to break up buildings, napalm, and other incendiaries to
ignite massive fires, and strafing to prevent
fire-fighting crews from extinguishing the blazes.</p>
<p>The use of these tactics was not a foregone conclusion.
According to United States policies in effect at the
onset of the Korean War, firebombing directed at
civilian populations was forbidden. A year earlier, in
1949, a series of U.S. Navy admirals had <a
href="http://apjjf.org/2014/12/37/Sahr-Conway-Lanz/4180/article.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">condemned</a> such
tactics in testimony before Congressional hearings.
During this “Revolt of the Admirals,” the Navy had taken
issue with their Air Force colleagues, contending that
attacks carried out against civilian populations were
counterproductive from a military perspective and
violated global moral norms.</p>
<p>Coming at a time when the Nuremberg tribunals had
heightened public awareness of war crimes, the
criticisms of the Navy admirals found a sympathetic ear
in the court of public opinion. Consequently, attacking
civilian populations was forbidden as a matter of U.S.
policy at the beginning of the Korean War. When Air
Force General George E. Stratemeyer <a
href="http://apjjf.org/2014/12/37/Sahr-Conway-Lanz/4180/article.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">requested permission</a>
to use the same firebombing methods on five North Korean
cities that “brought Japan to its knees,” General
Douglas MacArthur denied the request, citing “general
policy.”</p>
<p>Five months into the war, with Chinese forces having
intervened on the side of North Korea and UN forces in
retreat, General MacArthur changed his position,
agreeing to General Stratemeyer’s request on November 3,
1950, to burn the North Korean city of Kanggye and
several other towns: “Burn it if you so desire. Not only
that, Strat, but burn and destroy as a lesson to any
other of those towns that you consider of military value
to the enemy.” The same evening, MacArthur’s chief of
staff told Stratemeyer that the firebombing of Sinuiju
had also been approved. In his diary, Stratemeyer
summarized the instructions as follows: “Every
installation, facility, and village in North Korea now
becomes a military and tactical target.” Stratemeyer
sent orders to the Fifth Air Force and Bomber Command to
“destroy every means of communications and every
installation, factory, city, and village.”</p>
<p>While the Air Force was blunt in its own internal
communications about the nature of the bombing
campaign—including maps showing the exact percentage of
each city that had been incinerated—<a
href="http://apjjf.org/2014/12/37/Sahr-Conway-Lanz/4180/article.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">communications to the
press</a> described the bombing campaign as one
directed solely at “enemy troop concentrations, supply
dumps, war plants, and communication lines.”</p>
<p>The orders given to the Fifth Air Force were more
clear: “Aircraft under Fifth Air Force control will
destroy all other targets including all buildings
capable of affording shelter.”</p>
<p>Within less than three weeks of the initial assault on
Kanggye, <a
href="http://apjjf.org/2014/12/37/Sahr-Conway-Lanz/4180/article.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">ten cities</a> had been
burned, including Ch’osan (85%), Hoeryong (90%),
Huich’on (75%), Kanggye (75%), Kointong (90%),
Manp’ochin (95%), Namsi (90%), Sakchu (75%), Sinuichu
(60%), and Uichu (20%).</p>
<p>On November 17, 1950, General MacArthur <a
href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14672715.2012.711980"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> U.S.
Ambassador to Korea John J. Muccio, “Unfortunately, this
area will be left a desert.” By “this area” MacArthur
meant the entire area between “our present positions and
the border.”</p>
<p>As the Air Force continued burning cities, it kept
careful track of the <a
href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bombing_of_North_Korea_1950-1953"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">resulting levels of
destruction</a>:</p>
<p>* Anju – 15%<br>
* Chinnampo (Namp’o)- 80%<br>
* Chongju (Chŏngju) – 60%<br>
* Haeju – 75%<br>
* Hamhung (Hamhŭng) – 80%<br>
* Hungnam (Hŭngnam) – 85%<br>
* Hwangju (Hwangju County) – 97%<br>
* Kanggye – 60% (reduced from previous estimate of 75%)<br>
* Kunu-ri (Kunu-dong)- 100%<br>
*Kyomipo (Songnim) – 80%<br>
* Musan – 5%<br>
* Najin (Rashin) – 5%<br>
* Pyongyang – 75%<br>
* Sariwon (Sariwŏn) – 95%<br>
* Sinanju – 100%<br>
* Sinuiju – 50%<br>
* Songjin (Kimchaek) – 50%<br>
* Sunan (Sunan-guyok) – 90%<br>
* Unggi (Sonbong County) – 5%<br>
* Wonsan (Wŏnsan)- 80%</p>
<p>In May 1951, an international fact-finding team stated,
“The members, in the whole course of their journey, did
not see one town that had not been destroyed, and there
were very few undamaged villages.”</p>
<p>On June 25, 1951, General O’Donnell, commander of the
Far Eastern Air Force Bomber Command, <a
href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XMJpnYmKNQsC&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=O%27Donnell+%22just+a+terrible+mess%22&source=bl&ots=MP7xilDwbr&sig=epBj1Z-0AbBJxcE-iLTjYjoTZ_c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQroXSruTXAhWGKGMKHf4BDrcQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=O%27Donnell%20%22just%20a%20terrible%20mess%22&f=false"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a> in answer
to a question from Senator Stennis (“…North Korea has
been virtually destroyed, hasn’t it?):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Oh, yes; … I would say that the entire, almost the
entire Korean Peninsula is just a terrible mess.
Everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing
worthy of the name … Just before the Chinese came in
we were grounded. There were no more targets in
Korea.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In August 1951, war correspondent Tibor Meray <a
href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yKN_q-TqYYgC&pg=PA298&lpg=PA298&dq=Tibor+Meray+%22collection+of+chimneys%22&source=bl&ots=BhiHf8ePVR&sig=o1-Q1n8Ja-lHf3DNVQFmj1ysLIE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCh-3mruTXAhUMwWMKHcCpD3cQ6AEIPzAH#v=onepage&q=Tibor%20Meray%20%22collection%20of%20chimneys%22&f=false"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a> that he had
witnessed “a complete devastation between the Yalu River
and the capital.” He said that there were “no more
cities in North Korea.” He added, “My impression was
that I am traveling on the moon because there was only
devastation…. [E]very city was a collection of
chimneys.”</p>
<p>Several factors combined to intensify the deadliness of
the firebombing attacks. As had been learned in World
War II, incendiary attacks could devastate cities with
incredible speed: the Royal Air Force’s firebombing <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_W%C3%BCrzburg_in_World_War_II"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">attack on</a> Würzburg,
Germany, in the closing months of World War II had
required only 20 minutes to envelop the city in a
firestorm with temperatures estimated at 1500–2000°C.</p>
<p>Another factor contributing to the deadliness of
attacks was the severity of North Korea’s winter. In
Pyongyang, the average low temperature in January is 8°
Fahrenheit. Since the most severe bombing took place in
November 1950, those who escaped immediate death by fire
were left at risk of death by exposure in the days and
months that followed. Survivors created makeshift
shelters in canyons, caves, or abandoned cellars. In May
1951 a visiting delegation to the bombed city of Sinuiju
from the Women’s International Democratic Federation
(WIDF) <a
href="http://s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/93639/1/07_Taewoo%20Kim.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants live in
dug-outs made of earth supported from salvaged timber.
Some of these dug-outs have roofs made of tiles and
timber, salvaged from destroyed buildings. Others are
living in cellars that remained after the bombardment
and still others in thatched tents with the frame-work
of destroyed buildings and in huts made of unmortared
brick and rubble.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Pyongyang, the delegation described a family of five
members, including a three-year-old child and an
eight-month-old infant, living in an underground space
measuring two square meters that could only be entered
by crawling through a three-meter tunnel.</p>
<p>A third deadly factor was the extensive use of napalm.
Developed at Harvard University in 1942, the sticky,
flammable substance was first used in War War II. It
became a key weapon during the Korean War, in which
32,557 tons were used, under a logic that historian
Bruce Cumings characterized: “They are savages, so that
gives us the right to shower napalm on innocents.” Long
after the war, Cumings <a
href="http://s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/93639/1/07_Taewoo%20Kim.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">described</a> an
encounter with one aging survivor:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“On a street corner stood a man (I think it was a man
or a woman with broad shoulders) who had a peculiar
purple crust on every visible part of his skin—thick
on his hands, thin on his arms, fully covering his
entire head and face. He was bald, he had no ears or
lips, and his eyes, lacking lids, were a grayish
white, with no pupils…. [T]his purplish crust resulted
from a drenching with napalm, after which the
untreated victim’s body was left to somehow cure
itself.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During armistice talks at the conclusion of the
fighting, U.S. commanders had run out of cities and
towns to target. In order to place pressure on the
negotiations, they now turned the bombers toward Korea’s
major dams. As <a
href="https://books.google.com/books?id=S3SQ1N3R6psC&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=%22scooped+clean%22+Korea+bombing&source=bl&ots=K4YtjvZZJR&sig=oVxP8z0zZYUQ2OVocDfpPXNKTgg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju0LGiiOTXAhUD5mMKHY3PDQIQ6AEIRzAI#v=onepage&q=%22scooped%20clean%22%20Korea%20bombing&f=false"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in New
York Times, the flood from the destruction of one dam
“scooped clean” twenty-seven miles of river valley and
destroyed thousands of acres of newly planted rice.</p>
<p>In the wake of the firebombing campaigns against
Germany and Japan during World War II, a Pentagon
research group comprising 1,000 members carried out an
exhaustive <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Bombing_Survey"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">assessment</a> known as
the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The USSBS
released 208 volumes for Europe and 108 volumes for
Japan and the Pacific, including casualty counts,
interviews with survivors, and economic surveys. These
industry-by-industry reports were so detailed that
General Motors used the results to successfully sue the
U.S. government for $32 million in damages to its German
plants.</p>
<p>After the Korean War, no survey of the bombing was done
other than the Air Force’s own internal maps showing
city-by-city destruction. These maps were kept secret
for the next twenty years. By the time the maps were
quietly <a
href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bombing_of_North_Korea_1950-1953#Death_Toll"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">declassified</a> in
1973, America’s interest in the Korean War had long
since faded. Only in recent years has the full picture
begun to emerge in studies by historians such as <a
href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14672715.2012.711980"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taewoo Kim</a> of the
Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, <a
href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-0991-8.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Conrad Crane</a> of the
U.S. Military Academy, and <a
href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15572.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Su-kyoung Hwang</a> of
the University of Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>In North Korea, the memory lives on. According to
historian <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZHtJG9UG7A"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bruce Cumings</a>, “It
was the first thing my guide brought up with me. Cumings
<a
href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ASa9WCcIHFkC&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=unhindered+machinery+of+incendiary+bombing&source=bl&ots=27AHBZOnQy&sig=YXixFr7SXNDVguQpWQJk0yCcOSk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1_o2YseTXAhVX-GMKHRH_DZsQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=unhindered%20machinery%20of%20incendiary%20bombing&f=false"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">writes</a>: “The
unhindered machinery of incendiary bombing was visited
on the North for three years, yielding a wasteland and a
surviving mole people who had learned to love the
shelter of caves, mountains, tunnels and redoubts, a
subterranean world that became the basis for
reconstructing a country and a memento for building a
fierce hatred through the ranks of the population.”</p>
<p>To this day, the firebombing of North Korea’s cities,
towns, and villages remains virtually unknown to the
general public and unacknowledged in media discussions
of the crisis, despite the obvious relevance to North
Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear deterrent. Yet without
knowing and confronting these facts, the American public
cannot begin to comprehend the fear that lies at the
heart of North Korean attitudes and actions.<br>
<br>
</p>
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