During the northward advance of the U.S. and South Korean forces in the autumn and winter of 1950, south Korean intelligence services armed many people in the north who were dissatisfied with the northern regime, and they usually formed vigilante teams or guerrilla units to cooperate with the U.S. and South Korean forces in the flank and rear battlefields. It is worth noting that a considerable number of people in this group are also female members, and this time I will introduce Lee Jeong-sook, the most well-known of them, who was posthumously awarded the Order of Chungmuro Martial Arts in South Korea in 2012.
1. Li Zhenshu joined the Yanping army
Born in 1922 to a family of landowners in Hamhung, the capital of South Hamgyong Province, both her parents and husband lost their lives in the land reforms that followed the restoration of the north in 1945, and she herself was imprisoned in Hwanghae-do. In October 1950, the U.S.-South Korean coalition army crossed the 38th Parallel and continued northward, with great momentum to hit the Sino-North Korean border. Seeing that the time had come, Lee Jung-sook organized more than 70 like-minded people in the prison to form a guerrilla group to welcome the US and ROK troops north.
South Korean intelligence services certainly welcomed such spontaneously organized North Korean traitors and sent specialized personnel to organize and train these large and small troops. One of the partisans sent to contact Lee Jung-sook was Captain Kim Jong-byung, who was born in 1914 in Etocho, Hwanghae Province, and because he had served in the Japanese army, he left his hometown and fled south to South Korea after the restoration, and now it is most appropriate for him to command the guerrilla group formed by his compatriots.
On December 7, 1950, during the Volunteer Army's second large-scale offensive campaign against the United States and South Korea, Captain Kim Jong-byung combined several small units, including Lee Jung-sook's guerrillas, into the Yeonpyeong Force, and he was promoted to major by his superiors, and Lee Jung-sook became his assistant. The Yanping forces, which initially numbered more than 150 men, were mainly responsible for attacking the lines of communication of the Sino-Korean coalition during the second campaign, or mixing with the KPA to carry out sabotage and subversion activities.
By the end of December 1950, under the joint attack of the Sino-Korean coalition forces, the US-ROK coalition forces collapsed and were forced to retreat from the northern occupied areas, including the Yanping troops, the White Horse troops and other small forces were left behind the front, they either fled into the mountains or fled to the islands scattered on the west coast of the peninsula. The U.S. intelligence services felt that these people still had a use value, and collectively referred to these units as Unit 8240, and sent a number of intelligence warfare experts as military advisers to guide the activities of these troops.
Second, the frequent attacks of Unit 8240
Unit 8240, run by U.S. advisers and South Korean intelligence, grew to more than 23,000 members at its peak, most notably the Hakuba Unit (not the 9th Division, code-named Hakuba), which was based on islands off the west coast of North Pyongan Province, and the September Hill guerrillas, which evolved from the Yeonpyeong Forces. The September Hill guerrillas, which had grown to more than 800 at its peak, claimed to have killed more than 4,000 KPA personnel in the war, which was clearly bragging, since it had captured only 57 KPA prisoners.
Back to Li Zhenshu, because she is a woman, she generally does not take on combat tasks in the September Mountain guerrillas, but only does some logistics and reconnaissance. One of Li Zhenshu's most famous "feats" was to disguise herself as a peasant woman on January 18, 1951, and walk more than 100 miles of mountain roads to find a guerrilla group surrounded by the People's Army, and take 89 of them out of the encirclement safely.
In mid-1951, the White Horse attacked the Monaz Hill Coal Mine on the Iron Mountain Peninsula, successfully rescuing more than 2,800 Rokroese prisoners of war who were being held by the KPA to dig coal here. The large-scale attack was supported by several nearby guerrilla groups, and the September Hill guerrillas commanded by Kim Jong-byung and Lee Jung-sook also undertook reconnaissance and peripheral planning tasks during the operation.
On September 14, 1952, the September Hill guerrillas did something very influential, and a small unit under its command, led by its leader Kim Myeri, detected the garrison of the KPA Supreme Command in the Ganzhili Mine, and immediately called in US aircraft to carry out indiscriminate bombing, which also made this small unit a thorn in the eye of the KPA. Under the purge of Li Yixue, the commander of the 3rd Regiment of the 15th Division of the People's Army who later became the deputy commander, 171 of Jin Mingri's 175 brothers were killed.
Third, gradually return to the ordinary
As the war gradually entered the negotiation stage, the control of the Rear by the Sino-North Korean Coalition Army was gradually consolidated, and the range of activities of the enemy behind the enemy lines such as the White Horse Force and the September Mountain Guerrilla Force became smaller and smaller. Most of the time, they can only act as "presence forces", under the cover of the superior naval and air forces of the US military, and shrink on the islands off the west coast of the peninsula. During these boring days, Lee Jung-sook fell in love with Kim Jong-byung, who spent her days and nights with her, and in 1952 gave birth to a boy to the man who was eight years older than her.
A year after the end of the war, the September Hill guerrillas withdrew to South Korea, but Neither Major Kim Jong-byung nor Lee Jung-sook received any war medals, on the one hand, because they were not regular armed personnel registered by the South Korean Ministry of Defense, but belonged to the "special operators", on the other hand, they did not actually achieve much, their existence can only be said to be better than nothing, and they had to let the US allies pay for all kinds of logistics materials to be shipped across the sea, and the rate of return was too low.
Nevertheless, Lee Jeong-sook, because of her special female status, was touted as the "September Hill Female General" for some time after the war, and was personally received by the chief of staff of the South Korean Army. In 1960, Lee Jung-sook's story was written into a South Korean high school textbook, and South Korean director Choi Byong-yong also made the story of her and her husband Kim Jong-byung into a national policy action film "BloodBath September Mountain". However, due to the controversy between the left and right parties in South Korea, Kim Jung-sook's deeds have gradually been forgotten.
Fourth, the belated honor
By 2015, there were only 600 members of The 8240th Unit still alive, and at the request of the society, South Korean President Park Geun-hye provided these people with a subsidy of 160,000 won (about 900 yuan) each, saying that "this is a reasonable reward for veterans and survivors by the state." Many survivors scolded her for her nonsense, in contrast, the South Korean soldiers killed in the 2010 Cheonan incident can each receive 30 million won of condolence money!
Compared to these North Korean traitors, Lee Jung-sook is lucky. In order to save her parents the war honors they deserved, under the unremitting efforts of Kim Jong-byung and Lee Jung-sook's son Kim Kwang-in, on February 25, 2012, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of South Korea finally awarded Lee The National Hero Medal, which was awarded to 50 people that month. Before the 625th War Anniversary of that year, Lee Jeong-sook was posthumously awarded the Chungmuro Martial Arts Medal by the South Korean Ministry of National Defense, which is the second highest rank of the medals awarded to the Wartime Meritorious Personnel of the Korean Army, after the Taiji Martial Arts Medal.
Three years later, in 2015, Lee Jung-sook's husband, Major Kim Jong-byung, was also posthumously awarded the Chungmuro Martial Arts Medal, and both husband and wife were awarded the Chungmuro Martial Arts Medal, the first time in the history of the Korean military, although from a practical point of view, their contribution to the war may not be qualified for this medal of honor. However, Kim Kwang-jin, who served as chairman of the September Mountain Guerrilla Youth Association, was very satisfied with this, and then he deliberately transferred the remains of his parents to the Ota Xianzhong-in Temple for placement.
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