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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-05449 to 363-05454.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-05449 to 363-05454
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Title
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Article about South Korean battalions
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Description
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Original title: "Koreans", Keever's title: "Republic of Korean Troops: They are 'the old Japanses Army (of World War II) - with an American Veneer'", Article about South Korean battalion, published for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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Beverly Deepe
6 4A Hong Thap Tu
Saigon, Vietnam
December 10, 1966
Sent to Pittsbuye
ادی نہیں
Dec. 23/66.
Koreans--page I
WITH THE KOREAN "TIGER" DIVISION, SOUTH VIETNAM--During a sustained.
surveillance operation one mile from the Cambodian border, unit a 1300 man
South Korean battalion, flanked by American units, dug its foxheles and inter-
CLAY.
looking trenchlines eight feet deep into the red fudge-like y Each command
post and fighting bunkder was roofed with three tiers of huge legs made to
withstand withering Communist mortar barrages.
An American helicopter pilot, delivering supplies into the battle zone,
exclained, "This looks just like the old Japanese pillboxes of World War II."
He was so impressed he started filming with his home movie camera.
really makes our troops look sick, doesnt it ?" He said.
"This
I've flown the
American and the Australian troops around but the ROK's are by far the best."
The troopers from the Republic of Korea are commonly called ROK's by the
American GI's; some Koreans affectionately call each other ROK-heads.
One Korean officier explained proudly, "We know the American troops don't
dig in--but we do. We can never find the American trenches." He laughed
mode stly, "but sometimes when we leave an area we turn over trenches to the
Americans."
(More)
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Deepe
Koreans--page 2
In Saigon, one Western diplomat explained, "The Koreans are the same army
that kicked the British out of Singapore and Burma in World War II. They are
the old Japanese
army--with an American veneer. #
The mission of the ROK Tiger Division--which reached the Yalu River during
the Korea War--is to secure and keep open the infamous Route 19, the major ar-
tory for logistical supplies from the South Ca China Sea to the Communist -
infested jungled highlands near Cambodia. In early 1965, the Communist, for the
e
first time in the history of the current Vietnam conflict, established a twenty
five mile frontline along the highway--thus severing Vietnam in half-and held it
for several days. This was the lowest obb of the Vietnam war.
760
Today, a measure of the Tiger Division's effectiveness is that the U
square mile area of their responsibility is the only major chunk of the country
Roads
that un-escorted, un-armed jeeps can drive the reas at night. Even in the Saigon
REACH
area, American troops drive in armed convoys once they reach the city limits of
Roads
the semi-besieged capital. More than sixty miles of reads are open to day and
Rode
night traffic troughout the Korean-secured area; this correspondent Rote with
the Vietnamese province chief throughout the tiniest of village reads without
escort. Vietnamese population that has returned to government anti-Communist
control has increased by eighty percent.
(More)
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Deepe
Koreans page 3
Crities of American military tactics within Vietnam believe more emphasis
should be placed on deploying American units to defend Vietnamese villagers,
as the ROK s do, rather than lauching large-scale offensive operations into
non-populated, Communist-controlled jungle strengholds.
If the Tiger Division has quickly earned the reputation of being the most
effective unit in Vietnam, it is also often accused of being the most "ruthlese"
not only to the Viet Cong, but also to the Vietnamese population. This
widespread accusation was articulated by one American officier who explained
matter-of-fastly.
"If the ROK troops receive a single shot from a village on an operation,
that village is gone. The Vietnamese villagers are terrified of the Koreans.
On one operation in February, the ROK's were sent up north to secure the road.
Once the villagers along the road heard the Koreans were coming, they all
bugged out no one would stay around to see what happened. But, if the ROK s
go into a village and do not receive fire, they greet that village with open
arms.
1
Koreans officiers hotly deny they mistreat the local population during
the heat of battle, and the division headquarters staff has anohed a massive
psychological warfare operation saying that the Korean troops have come to help
the Vietnamese villagers.
(More)
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DEEPY
Korean--page 4
MA
SI
The total 45,000 Korean military commitment to Vietnam, beside the Tiger
Division of 14000 troops, includes in other parts of Vietnam the White Horse
Division, one Marine Regiment, one engineering battalion, and one surgical unit.
To date, since their arrival in March, 1965, Korean forces have killed
5459 Communists, captured 1439 prisoners and 1226 weapons and detained 362I
suspects. Total Korean casualities were: 518 killed, 1398 wounded. In short,
for every Rok soldier killed in action, ten Communists were killed.
800.
"My regiment has killed see Viet Cong," Col. Shin Hyun Su, commander of
the Ist Cavalary Regiment explained. "May be some number of innocent people
are included in this figure. I'm very, very sorry; very, very sorry,
causes this.
but war
"I've lost alot of Korean soldiers too. When the tiger Division left
Korea, the wives of many of men came to me and pleaded that I take good care of
their husbands. Now, I'm about ready to go home and at night I worry what I
can say to these wives of my dead soldiers."
But, it is in civic action for the Vietnamese villagers even more than
their military operation that the Koreans clearly outshine other allied troops
in Vietnam, With great modesty, Korean officiers explained that, "we are Asian
like Vie tnamese and we have the some traditions, customs and philosophers."
While the Koreans have spent much more time then the Americans attempting to
learn Vietnamese language, the old Korean sergeants communicate with the
grey-bearded village chiefs by writing Chinese characters on pieces
or the palm of their hands.
of paper
(Mona)
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Deepe
Korean--page 5
Korean troops, many of them rice-padgy farm boys, often volunteer to help
Vietnamese villagers plant or harvest rice or weave the thatch roofs for a new
village to be re-built. The Korean form of Karate, called Tao Kwon Do is taught
to hundreds of Vietnamese soldiers and students.
Medical aid stations, made of
ammunition boxes, are constructed in the popular Oriental design of eight-sided
buildings. It is a little-known fact that extensive guertilla warfare was also
fought behind the lines in the Korean War--and Korean officiers and men, unlike
American commandiers in Saigon, see a wast difference between the conventional
aspects of the Korean War and the guerrilla warfare aspects.
Almost incessantly during one's stay, Korean officiers repeat, "You know
Mao Tse-Tung's doctrine that the people are the water and guerrilla are the fish.
So, if we segregate the civilian from the guerrillas, and secure the area for a
certain period, the Communist will become dried fish."
ffort,
The Korean s penny-pinching lack of waste, in comparison at the relative
extravagance of the American offert, is an impressive part of their all-Asian
civic action program. The 60th Artillery Battalion, for example, built a dam of
used artillery boxes, expended artillery shells, and American-donated coment.
Each Korean trooper donated 200 grams from his daily rice ration to pay Vietnamese
villafers for their labor. As a result, 5000 Vietnameses farmers could raise
the three crops of rice a year instead of two.
In another example, troops of the Capital Regiment collected all the
Scrops
BOMBARDE
of blown-up bridges, and downed airplanes, and ammunition casings that had bomb
Route 19 during the French-indo-China War and the current one.
(More)
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Deepe
Koreans--page 6
Col. Shin explained:
"Your remember the French Group Mobile 100 was annihiliated along Route
19, and the hard-care of that Group included the Korea Regiment--the French kr
troops that came from the Korean War direct to the French Indo-China War.
Now Korean troops hold the road which the French troops from Korea lost. It
is very strange for us.
ion
The Korean troops used the collect of steel scrap souvenirs of many
previous buttles to construct a statue of a single soldier.
"This is a monument to the dead," Col. Shin explained. "All the soldiers
of all countries who died along Route 19."
-30-
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Date
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1966, Dec. 10
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Soldiers; Korea (South). Yukkun
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B188, F7
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
