HOW IT WAS! POW/MIA IN KOREA POW ISSUES Page 3 of 3

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POW Issues

• An Examination of US Policy Toward POW/MIAs
• Korean War POW Overview
• 23 Non-Repatriates
  

• POW Statistics

• Roy Manring - Survivor of the Hill 303 Massacre
• North Korea and the US have Reached an Agreement (Jun 97):
  
• U.S. Tracked American Korean POWs in China (Feb 98)
  
• 72 year-old POW Escapes from North Korea (Oct 98)
  
• Two S.Korean POWs Escape North after Decades (Dec 98)
• North Korea's dirty secrets: Are US POWs among those still held by Pyongyang? (Dec 98)
• Two S. Korean POWs under investigation (Dec 98)
• South Korean president proposes spies-for-POW exchange with North
• CORRECTED - North Korea holds 231 South Korean POWs (Mar 99)
• Web Site Helps Korean War Vets: www.koreanwar.org (Mar 99)
• South Korea Seeks International Help in Repatriation of POWs from North (Mar 99)
• Four N.Korean Defectors Arrive in Seoul (Mar 99)
• N. Korean POW kept alive the meaning of the flag (Jun 99)
• POW Camp Numbers & Names
  • Principal POW Holding Points
  • Temporary Urban Holding Points
  • Manchurian Holding Point

• POW Camps and MIA Issues -- Camp locations and correspondence of Ex-POW groups
  
• Korean War Project: POW camps and MIA Issues
  
• Korean War Project -- Main index
  
• Website for the Korean War Veterans National Museum and Library -- Launched Nov 98
  
• Korean War Historical Documents
• Korea-POW: A Thousand Days With Life On Hold 1950-1953 -- by Arden Allen Rowley
• Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, CWO Benjamin K. Humphreys Memorial Post 10223 -- Pyongtaek, Korea
• Korean War Museum, Oral Histories -- Illinois

Viper POW/MIA Awareness Award (NR)

Greg Crossman POW/MIA Greg's POW/MIA Page (N/A)

Burt's Patriot Award Burt's Place (N/A)

"This was America's first limited war, a war that the United States and the United Nations officially did not try to win. Without achieving a clear battlefield or political victory, soldiers, politicians, news media, and the American public largely felt that they were denied their accustomed victory....The war was far away for most American people. After early successful counter-attacks, the war settled into mountain and hill trench warfare. ... The sense that the human and material costs of fighting in Korea were worth it was essentially missing. America was not accustomed to military and political stalemates."

"...American service men and women came home without a sense of victory. Korean war veterans faced unheralded return homes. The Korean War became "The Forgotten War" in the consciousness of the American public."

--American Images of Korea, Craig S. Coleman, Ph.D.

An Examiniation of US Policy Toward POW/MIAs

By the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Republican Staff, Thursday, May 23, 1991. Prepared by the Minority Staff of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Ranking Member. Reprinted verbatim is the section relating to the Korean War only (pp. 4-1 to 4-13).

THE KOREAN WAR

Unlike the result in World War II, Allied forces did not achieve a military victory in Korea. The Korean War ended at the negotiating table between Communist North Korean representatives and United Nations representatives.

With regard to POW repatriation, the North Koreans initially demanded an "all-for-all" prisoner exchange. In other words, the North Koreans wanted an agreement similar to the Yalta Agreement of World War II. The United States was reluctant to agree to this formula based on its World War II experience with mandatory repatriation, knowing that thousands of those forced to return to the Soviet Union were either shot or interned in slave labor camps, where most of them died. After two long years of negotiations, the North Koreans agreed to the principle of voluntary or "non-forcible repatriation." This agreement stated that each side would release only those prisoners who wished to return to their respective countries.

Operation BIG SWITCH was the name given to the largest and final exchange of prisoners between the North Koreans and the U.N. forces, and occurred over a one-month period from August 5, 1953 to September 6, 1953 [Source Korean War Almanac, Harry G. Summers, Jr., Colonel of Infantry, Facts on File, pp. 33,62]. Chinese and North Korean POWs were returned to North Korea, and U.S. and other U.N. troops were returned to South Korea. Approximately 14,200 Communist Chinese POWs elected not to return to the Peoples Republic of China; but only 21 American POWs elected to stay with the Communist forces, and likely went to China. These 21 Americans are defectors and obviously are not considered as unrepatriated U.S. POWs.

However, U.S. government documents state that nearly one thousand known captive U.S. POWs--and an undetermined number of some 8,000 U.S. MIAs--were not repatriated at the end of the Korean War. Three days after the start of operation BIG SWITCH, the New York Times reported that, Gen. James A. VanFleet, retired commander of the United States Eighth Army in Korea, estimated tonight that a large percentage of the 8,000 American soldiers listed as missing in Korea were alive ["8,000 Missing, VanFleet Says," The New York Times, August 8, 1953.]

"LEAVES A BALANCE OF 8,000 UNACCOUNTED FOR"

A report by the U.N. Combined Command for Reconnaissance Activity, Korea, five days into operation BIG SWITCH, stated *Figures show that the total number of MIAs, plus known captives, less those to be US repatriated, leaves a balance of 8,000 unaccounted for." (emphasis added) [Report, U.N. Combined Command for Reconnaissance Activity Korea (CCRAK). CCRAK specific request Number 66-53]

The report mentions numerous reports of U.N. POWs who were transferred to Manchuria, China, and the USSR since the beginning of hostilities in Korea. [The United States had not recognized the People's Republic of China and, as a result, the U.S. did not deal directly with the Chinese throughout the negotiations.] Specifically, the report stated many POWs transferred have been technicians and factory workers. Other POWs transferred had a knowledge of Cantonese and are reportedly used for propaganda purposes. [(CCRAK) Report, Request Number 66-53]

The number of known U.S. POWs not repatriated from the Korean War was cited by Hugh M. Milton II, Assistant Secretary of the Army in January, 1954, in a memorandum he wrote four months after the conclusion of operation BIG SWITCH. Section 3, Part B reads

B. THE UNACCOUNTED FOR AMERICANS BELIEVED TO BE STILL HELD ILLEGALLY BY THE COMMUNISTS (SECRET)

1. There are approximately 954 United States personnel falling in this group. What the Department of the Army and other interested agencies is doing about their recovery falls into two parts. First, the direct efforts of the UNC Military Armistice Commission to obtain an accurate accounting, and second, efforts by G2 of the Army, both overt and covert, to locate, identify, and recover these individuals. G2 is making an intensive effort through its information collection system world-wide, to obtain information on these people and has a plan for clandestine action to obtain the recovery of one or more to establish the case positively that prisoners are still being held by the Communists. No results have been obtained yet in this effort. The direct efforts of the UNC (United Nations Command) are being held in abeyance pending further study of the problem by the State Department....

2. A further complicating factor in the situation is that to continue to carry this personnel in a missing status is costing over one million dollars annually. It may become necessary at some future date to drop them from our records as "missing and presumed dead."

In fact, the Defense Department did in fact "drop them" from DOD records as "missing and presumed dead," as were the non-repatriated U.S. POWs from the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and World War II. In a memorandum to Milton from Major General Robert Young, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1 of the U.S. Army, Young updates Assistant Secretary Milton on the progress on dropping the U.S. POWs from DOD records

2. Under the provisions of Public Law 490 (77th Congress), the Department of the Army, after careful review of each case and interrogation of returning prisoners of war, has placed 618 soldiers, known to have been in enemy hands and unaccounted for by the Communist Forces in the following categories 313 - Finding of Death - Administratively determined, under the provisions of Public Law 490, by Department of the Army 275 - Report of Death - reported on good authority by returning prisoners. 21 - Dishonorable Discharge  4 - Under investigation, prognosis undecided. Missing in Action for over one year.  2. - Returned to Military Control [Memorandum, classified secret, "To

Hugh Milton, the Assistant Secretary of the Army, (M&RF)

Subject

United States Personnel Unaccounted for by Communist Forces,

From

Major General Robert N. Young, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, 04/29/54".

The number had already been dropped from 954 to 618 through a series of presumed findings of death for the "unaccounted-for Americans believed to be still held illegally by the Communists." Presumed findings of death were also used to whittle down the number of U.S. soldiers listed as MIA. According to the "Interim Report of U.S. Casualties," prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as of December 31, 1953 (Operation BIG SWITCH ended September 6, 1953), the total number of U.S. soldiers who had been listed as Missing in Action from the Korean War was 13,325. Still listed as MIA in January 1, 1954 were 2,953, and the figure for died, or presumed dead, was 5,140. 5,131 MIAs had been repatriated and 101 were listed as "Current captured."

'THESE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE TO BE NEGOTIATED FOR"

On June 17, 1955, almost two years after the end of operation BIG SWITCH, the Office of the Secretary of Defense issued an interim report titled, "Recovery of Unrepatriated Prisoners of War." The report admitted that "After the official repatriation efforts were completed, the U.N. Command found that it still had slightly less than 1000 U.S. PWs [not MIAs] "unaccounted for" by the Communists." [Report, classified Confidential, prepared by Defense Advisory Committee on Prisoners of War, Study Group III titled "Recovery of Unrepatriated Prisoners of War," a document presented by the Office of Special Operations, Office of the Secretaryy of Defense, written by James J. Kelleher, Report No. CPOW/3, D-1, June 8, 1955.]

Although frank and forthright, this report -- written by staff of the Office of Special Operations -- provides a glimpse into the thinking of those involved in the Korean POW issue. Sections of the report follow:

At the time of the official repatriation, some of our repatriates stated that they had been informed by the Communists that they (the Communists) were holding 'some' U.S. flyers as 'political prisoners' rather than prisoners of war and that these people would have to be 'negotiated for' through political or diplomatic channels. Due to the fact that we did not recognize the red regime in China, no political negotiations were instituted, although [the] State [Department] did have some exploratory discussions with the British in an attempt to get at the problem. The situation was relatively dormant when, in late November 1954, the Peking radio announced that 13 of these 'political prisoners' had been sentenced for 'spying'. This announcement caused a public uproar and a demand from U.S. citizens, Congressional leaders and organizations for action to effect their release. [Report, classified Confidentail, prepared by Defense Advisory Committee on Prisoners of War...]

The eleven U.S. "political prisoners," were not the only U.S. servicemen the Chinese held after the Korean War. The New York Times, reported

Communist China is holding prisoner other United States Air Force personnel besides the eleven who were recently sentenced on spying charges following their capture during the Korean War. This information was brought out of China by Squadron Leader Andrew R. MacKenzie, a Canadian flier who was released today by the Chinese at the Hong Kong border. He reached freedom here two years to the day after he was shot down and fell into Chinese hands in North Korea...Held back from the Korean War prisoner exchange, he was released by the Peiping [sic] regime following a period of negotiations through diplomatic channels...Wing Comdr. Donald Skene, his brother-in-law who was sent here from Canada to see him, said guardedly at a press conference later that an undisclosed number of United States airmen had been in the same camp with Squadron Leader MacKenzie...Wing Commander Skene said none of the Americans in the camp was on the list of eleven whose sentencing was announced by the Chinese November 23 [1954]. ["Freed Flier Says Peiping is Holding More U.S. Airmen, Canadian Now in Hong Kong Brings News of Americans Other than 11 Jailed," the New York Times, December 6, 1954.

Korean War POW Overview

Source verbatim, pp. 387-388 "Conflict The History of the Korean War"

by Robert Leckie, Da Capo Press, New York, 1962.

"Big Switch began on August 5 and lasted through the first week of September. The United Nations returned to the Communists 70,159 North Koreans and 5,640 Chinese seeking repatriation, a total of 75,799. The Communists sent back 12,757 prisoners, or 3,597 Americans, 1,312 other UN troops and 7,848 of the 65,000 South Koreans whom Pyongyang had once boasted of capturing. These troops were brought to Freedom Village constructed near Panmunjom, given delousing treatment, food and new clothes, and then subjected to extensive questioning about life in Communist prison camps.  Their replies provided the evidence from which the U.S. Defense Department concluded that more than 6,000 Americans troops and 5,500 other soldiers--most of the latter ROKs--had perished after falling into Communist hands. Half of these 11,500 men were the victims of Communist atrocities, and the other half died in imprisonment. The U.S. Army alone was able to prove that 1,036 of its soldiers had been murdered after caputre. It was also proven that 2,370 Americans had died after reaching the prison camps. True enough, many of these men perished because they were not accustomed, as were their Communist captors, to the intense cold and coarse food of the Korean north. But there were others who died because the Communists were either indifferent to their responsibilities toward them as prisoners or had brutally refused them food or medical care in an attempt to force them to collaborate."

23 Non-Repatriates

At the close of the Korean War, only a handful of American POWs chose the communist way of life over democracy. The 21 Americans who decided not to return to the United States are listed below:

All of these former POWs returned to the United States eventually, with the exception of Rufus Douglas, who died in China, James Veneris, who still lives in China, and John Dunn who lives in Czechoslovakia. At least three of the 23 are now deceased. On two occasions, James Veneris has returned to the United States to visit relatives in California.  Former POW Howard Adams just came back to the United States a few years ago.

On the 26th of April 1953, Operation Little Switch ended. Both sides were given additional time for those how refused to go home to think it over. On 21 October 1953, Ed Dickenson decided to come over to the UN lines. Batchelor came over on 2 January 1954, just before the final deadline. Both were under the impression that if they came over the line there would be no disciplinary action taken against them. Instead, they were court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to 20 years hard labor for Batchelor and 10 years for Dickenson. Neither of them completed their sentences; they were both paroled after 4 or 5 years.  One non-American also refused repatriation. He was Andrew Condron, Scot who was serving in the 41st Royal Marines and was captured at the Chosin Reservoir in November 1950. Like the Americans, he eventually returned home to the United Kingdom. The British government did not court-martial him, nor did they take any disciplinary action against him. It is believed he died a few years ago.

POW Statistics

Prisoners: 2701 died + 4418 returned alive + 21 refused repatriation = 7140 total.  Dates of Little Switch, 20 April to 3 May 1953.  Dates of Big Switch, 5 Aug to 6 September 1953. 

The following was excerpted from POW News (July 95).

Department of Defense
POW/MIA Bulletin
American Debriefing Report of Former South Korean POW,
Lieutenant Cho Chang-Ho

On February 14, 1995, U.S. officials debriefed retired 1Lt. Cho Chang-Ho, a former Korean War POW who escaped from North Korea to South Korea in March 1994. During the debriefing, Cho confirmed earlier reports that he did not observe any American POWs after following his initial month of captivity in late May, mid-June 1952. However, Lt. Cho did report he had heard from South Korean POWs in late 1952 that there were large numbers of American POWs being held at various wartime POW camps.

Other significant comments from Lt. Cho concerned the location of POW burial sites. He stated that several POWs were buried at the foot of an unnamed mountain.

This burial took place while South Korean and American POWs were marching away from the front lines to the rear POW camps.

Lt. Cho was captured alone by Chinese Army troops on May 18, 1951, In Hyon-ni, Inju-gun, Kangwon-do (east coast of South Korea).

A week later, he was turned over to the North Korean Army's Fifth Corps headquarters at Changansa (a Buddhist monastery) in Kumgang-san, Kangwon-do(north of the DMZ on the east coast). When he arrived at Changansa, Lt. Cho observed approximately 700-800 South Korean Army POWs and approximately 70-80 American POWs at the Fifth Corps headquarters. Lt. Cho, who knew that the U.S. Army's 7th Division was deployed in that area, surmised that the U.S. POWs were members of the 7th Division. They were young, approximately one-third were black.

Later, all of these South Korean and American POWs were moved on foot from Changansa to Sinan, Kangwon-do (30-40 miles from Changansa).

En-route to Sinan, Lt. Cho observed several American POWs who died after suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea caused by eating raw corn.

Fellow prisoners buried them at the foot of an unnamed mountain in shallow graves approximately one meter deep, and placed a piece of straw mat over the bodies, and covered them with soil.

After arriving at Sinan, the American POWs were separated from the South Koreans and taken by truck to an unknown destination. South Korean and American POWs were not permitted to talk to each other. Lt. Cho did not observe any American POWs other than those mentioned above. In the summer of 1951, still at Sinan, Lt. Cho was debriefed at military reception centers in Moranbong-guyok, Pyongyand and in Kaesong.

In May 1952, he attempted to escape but was captured and sent to a prison in Wonsan. Later, Lt. Cho was moved to different prisons in Hoechang, Tokchon and Manpo.

In late 1952, while he was at the Manpo prison, many South Korean POWs were sent there from different POW camps to serve prison terms because they were North Koreans who served in the South Korean Army. At that time, Lt. Cho heard from South Korean POWs that there were large POW camps controlled by the Chinese in Usi, Ch'olma, Pyoktong, and Ch'olsan, all located in P'yongan-pukto.

He also heard from South Korean POWs that there was a large number of U.S. POWs, together with South Korean POWs.

Roy Manring

This is long story that was ran in the New Albany, IN Tribune on June 8th, 1994; prior to his receipt of the POW medal at Fort Knox.: "The scars of war"  Veteran battling vivid memories of massacre by Ken Hardin, Tribune Staff Writer

Roy Manring carries painful reminders of the day he somehow survived a nightmare most people couldn't imagine.  He has 12 scars from bullet wounds that riddled his torso, legs and arms, plus one on his head from a grazing bullet fired by an American GI who mistook him for the North Korean enemy. He also suffered two bayonet wounds when North Koreans waded through their victims, stabbing them to make sure they were dead.

Most of all, he remembers lying amoung 45 or 46 or his dead comrades, and knowing that the North Koreans were coming back. "I had a psychiatrist tell me I shouldn't let it bother me no more.  I quit going to see her," said Manring, 62, one of only three living survivors of a Korean War atrocity that became known as the Hill 303 Massacre. "I said, 'How can you tell me that this shouldn't bother me no more?  It's never happended to you,'" he said with tears in his eyes. Manring, who settled in New Albany after his wedding in 1953, and the other two massacred survivors will be honored in a public ceremony on July 4 at Fort Knox, Ky., where they took their basic training 44 years ago. An 18-year-old who went into the Army on $500 bet with his hometown buddies from Chicago, Manring was shipped straight to Japan as part of the post-World War II occupying force there.  By July 1950, the Korean War had broken out, and-his 1st Calvary Regiment H Company found itself in the heat of battle.

His regiment lost several men when it first hit the beach, Manring said, and in the 31 days of fighting from hill to hill that followed, H Company's ranks dwindled from about 65 to 26 men.
During that time, Manring and a buddy blocked a roadway with a jeep to ward off sniper fire, an act of bravery that his commander, Lt. Cecil Neuman Jr., said probable would earn them the Silver Star.

Neuman didn't live long enough to put Manring's name in for the medal. On Aug. 14, 1950, the company got word that a group of South Koreans was coming to help them hold their position in enemy territory.

Manring later testified before Sen. Joseph McCarthy's hearings on Korean War atrocities that the company thought it was odd the South Koreans were coming up from deeper in enemy territory.  The Americans opened fire. But Neuman ordered them to stop shooting, and the group-actually walked up and shook the Americans' hands and then took away their weapons. They were taken prisoner and forced for three days and four nights to march through gullies and ravines.  They laid low as American artillery bombarded their positions.

Manring said none of the prisoners were hit by mortar fire, but occasionally they would hear the screams of a captor who had been walking outside a gully.

The North Koreans had told them they were taking them across the Noktog River to a POW camp, where they "would be taken care of,' Manring said. Daily rations on the march consisted of one apple for every three men, and water was scarce.

Along the march, the North Koreans picked up some other POWs, making the ranks about 48 men, Manring said. One American was able to slip out of the bonds that tied him to other prisoners.  The North Koreans caught him, and beat his neck with a trenching tool until they decapitated him, Manring said.  Others would be taken off to the side and never return.

Then, on the morning of Aug. 18, at the foot of Hill 303, the POWs were lined up like they were going to be moved out again.  But the North Korean commander shouted a different command, and the POWs were machine-gunned down. "They didn't say why they were doing it-they just started shooting," Manring said.

He was hit 10 times, and was bleeding heavily.  But somehow he stayed rational enough to realize the North Koreans, who had momentarily left the scene of the massacre, would be back. His hands were still tied, but the bonds to the other POWs had slipped off, so he crawled under the dead body of a man he took basic training with and hoped he would be mistaken for dead. "Of all the things I remembered, lying under him is the thing that sticks with me the most," he said.  "Those guys were my buddies, and I watched them get shot.

"When the North Koreans came back, they stuck bayonets into the mound of corpses, checking for survivors.  Manring was stabbed in the leg and he grunted, but they mistook the sound as coming from the man above him, and shot throught his dead body twice striking Manring both times.

As he lay there Manring said he saw his grandfather, who had died four years earlier, come to him and tell him to get up and crawl over a nearby hill. "I said, 'Grandpa, I can't,' but he said, 'Yes you can,'" he said tearfully.  Hands still bound, he struggled for about a mile or two until he ran into an American patrol, which believing him to be the enemy fired at him.  He was hit in the head, and fell to the ground.  The soldier who hit him began to celebrate, and Manring yelled, "I'm GI, You son-of-a-bitch. "The patrol took him to a field hospital.  "The doctors said I shouldn't be alive, and I said, 'Well, I am, so patch me up,'" he recalled.

He spent the next 18 months in hospitals recovering from his wounds.  News of the massacre spread, and among Manring's visitors was Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a "swell man" who played checkers with the injured 19-year-old and eventually pinned on Manring's Purple Heart medal.  Manring's 1953 marriage to his wife Shirley, a New Albany native, was covered on NBC's "Today" television program, and 12 days later he was in Washington testifying before McCarthy's hearings.

But despite his fleeting clebrity, Manring still felt the sting of coming home from what is often called "the forgetten war."

"There was no big party waiting for me when I got off the plane," he said. Today, he's dismayed that his grandson isn't studying the Korean War at Floyd Central High School, and that he's having to fight the Veterans' Administration for the full disablility benefits he believes he deserves. And as he sees news report about the ongoing tension between the United States and North Korea, he wonders if things couldn't have turned out differently four decades ago.

"There's going to be another war over there," he said with resignation. "If they would have let MacArthur do what he wanted to do, they (the communists) wouldn't be over there right now." The July 4 public ceremony will honor Manring, and fellow survivors Fred Ryan of Cincinnati and James Rudd of Kentucky.  Two other men survived the massacre, but have since died. Manring was contacted about a year ago by a sergeant who wanted to know if he had ever received his POW medal, which usually delivered by mail.  "I told him that if it was going to be presented by the postman, I didn't want it," Manring said.

One phone call led to another, and eventually a general decided the survivors of Hill 303 deserved a full ceremony.  The recognition will be nice, Manring said, but he's more excited to have re-established contactnwith Ryan and Mudd last Christmas.  For 43 years, he had believed himself to be the sole survivor of the massacre.  "It was the best Christmas present I ever had," he said tearfully.

My father received his 100% disability last year.  Thank you for your time.  My Mother and Father have never seen the coverage of their wedding that was shown on the TODAY show, no television sets in the Rocky Mountains where they had their honeymoon.  Do you know how I could obtain a copy of the show?

Regards,

Kim Skaggs

U.S. Tracked American Korean POWs in China (Feb 98):

Associated Press February 15, 1998
By ROBERT BURNS -- Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of American servicemen were shuttled through a clandestine network of prison camps in China during the Korean War, say formerly secret U.S. Army intelligence reports, which speculate that many died in captivity from malnutrition or lack of medical care.

Rumors have persisted for years that China, which intervened on North Korea's side in the 1950-53 war, took large numbers of U.S. captives for interrogation and indoctrination in camps inside China and never accounted for them.

Declassified reports in the files of the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence now make clear that the United States knew of the prisoners, closely tracked their movements and feared for their lives.

On a visit to Beijing in January, Defense Secretary William Cohen asked top Chinese officials to open People's Liberation Army record archives and other files that might help account for missing U.S. servicemen. About 8,100 are unaccounted for from the Korean War. Cohen got no explicit assurances from President Jiang Zemin, but a Cohen aide present in the meetings said lower-level Chinese officials indicated Jiang's nonresponse should be interpreted as tacit acceptance.

China has consistently maintained that all POW questions were settled at the end of the war. Chinese troops entered the fray in the fall of 1950 in a surprise offensive that killed and captured thousands of U.S. and other United Nations troops.

It has been well documented that China, with Russian help, ran most of the POW camps in North Korea. Less well understood has been the extent of POW camps in China and what became of American and other prisoners held there.

"One of the most significant features in U.N. POW treatment and policy is the movement of U.N. POWs into Manchuria and into South China," an Army intelligence summary dated Dec. 15, 1951, said. Its unidentified author added that he believed "Manchurian camps house a great many U.S. POWs, and Manchuria is a staging area or collecting point for U.S. POWs." The report is one in a series of eight written at regular intervals during the war by Army intelligence officers attempting to track POW movements. Each is titled "UN Prisoners of War Camps and Conditions in Korea, Manchuria and China," and labeled "secret." They were declassified in 1996 at the request of Mark Sauter, a New York-based reporter for the syndicated TV program Inside Edition, but were not publicized until now.

The Dec. 15, 1951, report said a "careful assessment" of available intelligence on prison camps led to the conclusion that about 2,500 American POWs were being held in Manchuria, about 1,500 in other parts of China.

"Specially selected groups are sent to China in relatively small numbers to undergo political indoctrination," the report said. "Of those POWs processed in Manchuria, the ones not going to China are apparently being sent to mines and labor camps in Manchuria itself." "Because of obvious diplomatic complications ... , it follows that the communists would neither wish to return these men to U.S. control nor admit to their existence at this time," the report said. It cited "almost conclusive evidence" that some POWs were being supervised by Soviets.

"These factors, together with the usefulness of U.S. POWs in a slave labor capacity, render the ultimate fate of any U.S. personnel in Manchurian camps in grave doubt," the report said. Intelligence reports often are based on information from sources whose reliability is questionable, and wartime reports often contain errors and misunderstandings. Even so, the Army intelligence documents leave little doubt that the Chinese prison camps existed and that Americans were held in some.

A report dated June 20, 1952, said more than 1,000 American POWs were held in a former military prison outside Nanking, now called Nanjing.

"A Russian colonel named Nokelov is in charge. All POWs 20-25 years old.

Brought here from Peking (Beijing) in December 1951 for re-indoctrination in communist thought," the report said, citing a source rated as "fairly reliable."

A Feb. 15, 1952, report said without elaboration that about 500 POWs at a camp 10 miles east of Mukden, China, were being indoctrinated "pending dispatch to USSR."

The Aug. 20, 1952, installment said POWs were grouped according to perceived political leanings. Those judged by the Chinese to be promising for anti-Western propaganda were kept in what the Army described as "peace camps."

The largest of this type as of May 1952 was at Chungchun in the Manchurian region of northeastern China, the August 1952 report said.

"2,000 POWs here; they will not be exchanged," it said, meaning they would not be returned at the end of the war. It reported other peace camps in Beijing, Dandong and Shanghai. American POWs also were reported in Chinese camps in Harbin and Tsingtao, now Qingdao. The last in the series of Army intelligence reports, dated Jan. 20, 1953, said that because of a lack of reports on 12 prison camps in China since April 1952, it was assumed all 12 had been abolished.

There was no word on disposition of the prisoners.

72 YEAR-OLD POW ESCAPES FROM NORTH KOREA (OCT 98):

The following was excerpted from Clari News.

SEOUL, Oct 20 (AFP) - The name of Chang Mu-Hwan is inscribed on a memorial for the war dead at South Korea's National Cemetery, where his wife and son paid their respects for decades. But on August 10 the 72-year-old who was believed killed in action more than 40 years ago escaped North Korea, where he said he lived a life of "hell" since his capture by communist forces in 1953.

In an exclusive report documenting his dramatic escape, a Seoul broadcaster described Chang's 50-day flight which began when he swam across the Tumen River into China to realise his dream of being seeing his family again.

At first few people believed the story of the third prisoner of war to escape the communist state since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul Broadcasting Station (SBS) said. When Chang, scared and not knowing where to turn, telephoned the South Korean embassy asking for help, a female voice said she could not understand and hung up.

A private group finally stepped in and offered to help the old man. It contacted his stunned family in South Korea. Park Nam-Soon, 64, learned that her husband was alive more than four decades after she was told he was almost certainly dead. He returned here earlier this month to be reunited with her and their son.

But there were no tears. Park remembered Chang as a young man whom she married and lived with for about five years before they were separated in 1953, when he was drafted into the army. Now sitting in front of her was an old man, his back bent and with an unfamiliar face.

And Chang's problems are not over. The family will have to keep moving around South Korea, where North Korean authorities are believed to have stepped up surveillance due to a rising number of defections.

The personal pain also remains intense for the old couple. Chang had remarried in North Korea and it emerged after hours of conversation with his first wife that he had five children there. "Chang risked his life and endured hardship so that he could be reunited with his wife and the son he never knew," SBS said. "But to do this, he had to put up with more suffering -- parting with his other family in North Korea."

The end of the Korean conflict left more than 10 million Koreans from both sides separated in opposing ideological camps. Any contact is banned and thousands in each country still do not know whether their fathers, mothers or spouses are alive or dead.

At the end of the war in 1953, North Korea claimed it had detained only about 7,000 prisoners of war and returned them all to the South. There have been no handovers of prisoners since then.

But Chang is the third prisoner to escape, bringing reports that dozens of other prisoners still toil in mines and collective farms as he did.

In 1994 Cho Chang-Ho became the first South Korean POW to escape the Stalinist state, raising the issue of POWs here. Three years later Yang Sun-Yung came back and claimed he knew 42 POWs who were still alive.

Chang has told authorities here that he believed 30 POWs were still being held in North Korea. He has even given them the names of their home towns. The Seoul government said it was investigating the allegations and would work towards repatriating the POWs if they are true.

North Korea's dirty secrets: Are US POWs among those still held by Pyongyang? (DEC 98):

By Michael Moran MSNBC

NEW YORK, Dec. 14 _ Forty-five years after declaring them dead, South Korea on Monday announced that two former soldiers captured during the Korean War have escaped from a slave labor camp in the Communist North. Later the same day, US defense officials announced an agreement with North Korea to create a "joint investigating team" to clear up the fate of over 8,100 US servicemen still listed as missing from the 1950-53 war. What is wrong with this picture?

THE TWO ESCAPEES, 67-year-old Kim Bok-ki, 67, and 71-year-old Park Dong-il, are the fifth South Korean soldiers to make their way back from captivity in the North since the end of the war.South Korea's intelligence agency, the Agency for National Security Planning, said Monday it was debriefing the men, who arrived in the south reportedly from China along with two of their children. The official version says they escaped after more than four decades of slave labor in a North Korean mine. South Korea's intelligence agency is not above staging such an event to blacken the name of its bitter rivals in the North. Yet US officials on Monday said they escapees appear to be genuine. And that raises some troubling questions.

LONG, TWISTED TALE

North Korea claims that all living POWs whether they were South Koreans, Americans or other United Nations troops were handed over when the war ended in 1953. But that left more than 20,000 South Korean troops and 8,100 Americans unaccounted for. For years, US officials officially discounted the idea that any of the 8,100 could still be alive. But intelligence reports persisted, including disturbing tales that some American prisoners were used as human guinea pigs for Soviet medical experiments. None of this was deemed credible, at least publicly, during the Cold War, when the United States had little leverage short of military force to do anything about it. However, the recent "escapes" of South Korean soldiers, combined with recently declassified US documents and other evidence, have lent credence to what POW/MIA families have hoped and feared for decades: that Americans are alive in North Korean prison camps.

DOGGED DETERMINATION

"Whenever something like this happens, it just gets me up and gets me going again," said Bill Sowles, who was 10 years old in 1950 when his father was captured by the Chinese, then North Korea's comrade-in-arms. "Anytime someone comes out of there with a story like this, I try to contact them. I'm going to try to contact these two as well. At some point, the Americans have to start turning up, too." North Korean prisoners of war seen leaving a prison camp on Koja Island to be transported to Inchon. Not all those held in the North came back when the war ended in 1953.

Sowles and thousands of other Korean War MIA family members tens of thousands if you add MIA's from the Vietnam era have learned the hard way that official channels are not the best way to get the truth about their fathers, brothers, husbands and friends. After years of fruitless requests to US officials, many say they have been dubbed "irrational." Their quest, they say, is viewed as a diplomatic inconvenience.

"The Pentagon is only interested in declaring people dead," said Bob Dumas, who was a 20-year-old army soldier in Korea when his 18-year-old brother was captured. "And here come two more guys alive. I won't quit. I would have stopped a long time ago if I thought he was dead."

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, evidence has emerged suggesting that hundreds of American POWs were, in fact, left behind when the war ended and that US officials essentially wrote them off. A North Korean defector, police official Oh Young Nam, claimed he had visited a prison camp in the North where elderly white and black men were kept under high security.

In November 1997, a former aide to President Eisenhower, retired Army Col. Philip Corso, told a congressional committee that he suspected at least 500 wounded and ill POWs were never turned over. An 1955 Air Force report, recently declassified, told of 137 captured pilots and crewmen who were thought to be alive when the war ended but who never returned. The most disturbing reports, however, involved medical experimentation. Jan Sejna, a high-ranking Czech defector who now works for the Central Intelligence Agency, told another congressional panel that hundreds of Americans captured in Korea and Vietnam were turned over to the Soviet Union and subsequently subjected to Nazi-style medical tests.

US officials for years dismissed Sejna's stories, despite the fact that they had hired him to work for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Since the Cold War ended, however, Soviet documents have emerged to verify at least the presence of American POWs in the Soviet Far East. The United States has been working with Russian officials to "clear up" these cases, but little progress has been made.

HIGH DIPLOMACY

Meanwhile, the appearance of these two South Korean men at this moment complicates and already intricate situation for the United States. Since 1994, the United States has been involved in a controversial diplomatic dialogue with North Korea aimed at cutting short Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions and ultimately arranging a peace treaty to end the state of war that still exists between the two Koreas.

Under the deal, which has been in almost constant danger of collapsing, the United States, Japan and South Korea are building the North a modern, proliferation-safe nuclear power plant to replace its Soviet-designed reactors, which produce the plutonium by-product needed to make nuclear weapons. In return for that, plus some oil and food shipments, the North agreed to allow international nuclear inspectors back into their facilities and foreswore nuclear weapons development.

The North's compliance has been in constant doubt ever since and currently US officials are trying to gain access to an underground construction project suspected of being a new nuclear research facility. In nuclear diplomacy as in questions about the men it sent to fight the Korean war, the United States is relying on Pyongyang's "word" even as its coal mines disgorge men held prisoner for 45 years. Are Americans, too, held in the North? Asking the North Koreans would not seem to be the way to find out. But then, as Sowles, Dumas and thousands of others have discovered, asking Uncle Sam hasn't been a great help either.

Michael Moran is MSNBC's International Editor.

TWO S.KOREAN POWS ESCAPE NORTH AFTER DECADES (DEC 98):

The following was excerpted from Clari News.

SEOUL, Dec 14 (AFP) - Two South Korean soldiers believed to have been killed during the 1950-53 Korean War have escaped from communist North Korea and returned home after more than 45 years, officials said Monday.

"The two prisoners of war, and two other family members have returned to South Korea through a third country," an official at the National Security Planning agency said. The term "third country" is generally taken to indicate China. Beijing has an agreement with North Korea to repatriate any of its citizens and is keen not to be identified in any defections.

Another government official said the two had been declared dead after the Korean War by South Korean authorities, who last month claimed about 136 prisoners of war, also believed dead, were still alive and being held captive in Stalinist North Korea.

"The two had been declared dead in South Korea. But now they have returned home, alive after all those years in North Korea," the official said.

The NSP said the two POWs -- Kim Bok-Ki, 67, and Park Dong-Il, 71 -- were undergoing questioning over their escape from the reclusive state after being captured in July 1953 during the war in Kumhwa, northern Kangwon province.

"After being caught, the POWs (prisoners of war) were then sent to work in the mines," he said. They somehow managed to escape Stalinist North Korea, which shares a land border with neighbouring China.

He said the son and daughter, believed to be husband and wife, of the two POWs had arrived here with their fathers, but no further details were immediately available. "It seems like the two POWs are somehow related as their children are husband and wife. We are further questioning them on their escape," the NSP official said.

Other POWs have also returned home recently claiming that more of them were languishing in the isolated Stalinist state nearly five decades after their capture. Chang Mu-Hwan, who made a dramatic escape in August after nearly 50 years in captivity said 30 of his South Korean comrades were still alive. The 72-year-old POW told stories of his "life of hell" in North Korea, saying he was subjected to a lifetime of forced labor in the state coal mines.

The old man was formally discharged from the South Korean army in October after being awarded 45-years back pay amounting to 120 million won (91,000 dollars). Chang, who was also given a monthly pension and an apartment, also reunited with his wife and son in South Korea.

The South Korean government has said it was working towards repatriating the POWs, but details were not given. South and North Korea remain technically at war as the conflict ended only with the signing of an armistice. A permanent peace treaty has never been signed.

The number of South Korean POWs held in North Korea varies. The South's military says the number is at least 28,000 but after the war North Korea said it had only detained about 7,000, and handed them over to South Korea.

POW Camps & Names

Camp 1 - Changsong 1951-53

Camp 2 - Four cluster units inland from old Pyoktong at Camp 5, 1952 - 53.

Camp 3 - Bayside Camp below Changsong, 1951 - 1953.  Camp 3 Annex was inland, 1953.

Camp 4 - Wiwon, 1952-53

Camp 5 - [old] Pyoktong, 1950-53 -- town name moved after war. 

Principal Holding Points

Susan Bean Camp, Feb. to April 1951

Suan Mining Camp, May to Dec. 1951

The Valley at Sambakkol, mainly Nov. 50 - January 1951

Death Valley at Pukchin-Tariogol, mainly Dec. 50-March 1953.

Pak's Palace northeast of Pyongyang, mainly April to December 1951.

The Peace Fighters' Camp east of Pyongyang, April to December 1951.

The Bunkers at Chiktang, southeast of Pyongyang, intermittently 1951

Kangdong, farther east of Pyongyang, intermittently 1951-52

Pike's Peak east of Sunchon from March 1952.

Pike's Peak east of Sunchon, from March 1952

"The Apex" camps at Chunggang-jin, Hanjang-ni, and An-dong, November 50 to Oct 1951

Kanggye, used by POWs from the Chosin Reservoir, December 50 to March 51

Valley #1 at Teksil-li, north of Chosin Reservoir, en route to Kanggye [same dates]. 

The Pines and Peaceful Valley, holding points just north of the mid-Korean waist [recurrent].

The Collection Camp at Holgo & Soktal-li [twin villages], northeast of Suan, from January 1952.

Temporary Urban Holding Points

Pyongyang, Seoul, Sinui-ju, Wonsan, etc.

Holding Points - Manchuria

Antung, perhaps 100 POWS in small groups for interrogation, returned to North Korea. 

Mukden, probably US + 1 Canadian, including some post-KW returnees.

Caution:  POW camp numbers go up through 36, and some were used redundantly.  For example, both Suan Mining Camp and Kanggye were called Camp 9.  Kangdong was variously called Camp 8, Camp 9, Camp 11, and Camp 12 -- but not Camp 10!

496 Captives Alive in North Korea