They remembered "the stitches on a woman's forehead."

Quang Ngai= Hwang Sang Cheol/ reporter of The Hankyoreh21
Translated by Yoon Yong Ah

Only by using a battle map we found the village where Kim's company had passed through 34 years before. Today the name of this village is Phuoc Binh.
   We stand at the shore of Tra Khuc river. The Tra Khuc river winds its way, from west to east, through Son Tinh. The Blue Dragon Unit carried out the Yong Anh(Dragon Eyes) plan to keep the river under their control. During the Vietnam War, lots of blood from both Korean and Vietnamese young people flowed into this river. It might be hopeless to search for all the truth of our bloody history only with an old battle map. How can we find the very bomb pit where 29 Vietnamese civilians were killed by Korean soldiers? Everywhere we go, we can find so many bomb pits in Vietnam. Additionally, there is no village called An Tuyet in Vietnam, where Kim was said to have visited. There is however a village called An Thiet. We started our survey from An Thiet.

   Villagers hold the memorial service for their family members killed by Korean soldiers on the same day

On the morning of March 18, we drove to An Thiet. Whenever we meet Vietnamese people, we ask the present name and the old name of their villages. As soon as we arrive at An Thiet, we ask the chief of the village about the massive killings in the bomb pit. He says that villagers hold the memorial service for those killed by Korean soldiers, but he hasn't heard about any massive and systematical killings by Korean soldiers. He adds that An Tuyet 2 in Kim's memory must be An Thiet now, and An Tuyet 1 might be Phuoc Binh. There is no Phuoc Binh in our battle map.
   We drive to the south and turn to the northwest to go to Phuoc Binh. I find that a monument stands in the center of a village. "Phuoc Binh Massacre of Civilians by South Korean Soldiers. They murdered 68 civilians on December 9, 1966." It is certain that Korean soldiers visited this village, but the date was different from what Kim remembered. It should be November 10 by the solar calendar.
   Hearing that South Korean reporters are visiting the village, many villagers come out to see us. Le Thi Thiet, a 65 year old woman, corrects the date of the monument. "It was September 27 by the lunar calendar. At around 7:00 a.m., Korean soldiers came in the village from Lam Loc. They set fire to the houses and shot villagers." On that day, she was in her house with her two children. Korean soldiers fired her house and marched her to a earthen bomb shelter. She saw that her aunt and uncle were dead in the bunker. Korean soldiers tried to push her into the bunker too. "Showing my babies, I begged Korean soldiers for our lives. My sister and my two babies also begged them. Korean soldiers didn't kill us."
   The others in the village hold a memorial service for their family members murdered by Korean soldiers on the same date as Le Thi Thiet's. We think that her memory of the date when massive killings were done by Korean soldiers is right. Her testimony that Korean troops entered the village from Lam Loc agrees with Kim's. At the first day of the Yong Anh(Dragon Eyes) plan, Company 7 spent a night near Lam Loc.
   After cutting rice plants, Vo Thong, a 69 year old man, was coming back home with Mong, a neighbor, that morning. When they met Korean soldiers, they tried to communicate with Korean soldiers in Chinese letters. "Mong told Korean soldiers 'I'm not V.C. (the Viet Cong), but a poor farmer.' Soldiers let Mong go." Vo Thong said. Because Vo Thong didn't know Chinese letters, he couldn't tell Korean soldiers that he was not a Viet Cong guerrilla. Korean soldiers marched Vo Thong and stood him in front of a tree. When soldiers pointed a gun at Vo Thong, villagers yelled, "He isn't a V.C.." Thanks to the protests by villagers, Vo Thong could run away and hid under sand until it was dark. "I didn't know what had happened outside of my village, but there was no guerrillas in my village. I cannot imagine anybody who would try to shoot the troop of Korean soldiers as they patrolled, unless he wanted to kill himself and all the rest of the villagers."

   Many women were raped by Korean soldiers behind a hedge.

   Kim said that there was little resistance by the villagers but the soldiers "swept off" the village. Is the burned village Phuoc Binh? We need conclusive proof to decide that it is Phuoc Binh. At Phuoc Binh, many people eagerly come to us to tell what happened at the day. They seem to think that they have no more chance to tell the truth except now. A Vietnamese, who is helping us, says, "There is a witness who remembers a woman who had stitches taken on her forehead by a Korean medic." A young woman...an injured forehead...We hit upon the idea of the Vietnamese woman whom Kim talked about. We hurry to see a witness. Ha Thi Hoi, a 76-year-old woman, is waiting for us. She says, "Korean soldiers broke into my house and took my sister-in-law out. She had fair skin and she was the most beautiful woman in the village. When she came back home, she had stitches on her forehead. Her black clothes were torn out and she had some scars on her arms..." The story of Ha Thi Hoi accords exactly with Kim's testimony.
   The woman with stitches on her forehead was Le Thi Ngoc, and was 24-years-old at that time. Hoi, a sister-in-law, doesn't know the exact situation because she wasn't taken out by the Korean soldiers. Nguyen Than Le, 46-year-old man who was a witness to the events, leads us to the place where atrocities were done by Korean soldiers. With his guidance, we drive across a big ditch and arrive in front of a house. He points to a field where Korean soldiers gathered the villagers together. It used to be an empty place surrounded by high hedges at that time. Nguyen Than Le says, "Le Thi Ngoc was sitting with her head lowered. A Korean soldier pulled her head back. Once he looked at her face and they took only her away. Over there, they raped her in turn." The place where she was raped by the soldiers was only about 10m away from a group of villagers. "Help me please!", Ngoc shouted. Some villagers tried to stand up to save her, but they were prevented by other Korean soldiers with guns. After a while, she ran out from there, but soon she was taken back by the soldiers. "Korean soldiers talked to each other in Korean. I could hear 'V.C, V.C.' Then a soldier hit her forehead with his gun. She bled from her injured forehead."
   Suddenly, the Korean soldiers pointed their guns to the villagers. Because a man with a long nose and brown and white hair, who might be a westerner, dissuaded Koreans by waving his hands, the soldiers didn't kill the villagers. The Korean soldiers took only two men away among a group of people. Later they were found dead with their ears cut off. The others survived. "After the Korean soldiers left, Ngoc was found with stitches on her forehead, but she didn't know who stitched her up. She lost her mind completely.

   Witness behind a sugar crane field

  

We can conclude that the village "swept off" by Company 7 is Phuoc Binh. The place where massive killing broke out is the field of Nguyen Le, a 75-year-old man. When we arrive there, he comes out of his house breaking in to tears, and starts to tell the story. Nguyen Le fled to hide in a sugar cane field at the sight of Korean troops killing the villagers. After the Korean troops left, he returned to his house. "I saw terrible things in my house. My father was dead with rice in his mouth. My cousins were lying on their stomachs. I thought they were crawling, but they were already dead. Because of the pain, my young cousins clawed the ground and then died." When he went to the bunker at the back of the house, he saw his mother sitting with hands covering her face. He thought that because of fear his mother did so. When he lowered her hands, he found that his mother was already dead with lots of blood on her face. His niece was dead nursing her baby. Nine members of his family were murdered by Korean soldiers, but there are only the names of three people on the monuments. The names of his niece and five children are not written on it. The recorded names on the monuments are wrong. Villagers say Korean soldiers killed over 100 people that day. Listening to their stories, we don't notice that it's already dark.
   In the morning of March 19, we search out for the place where the fire-arm platoon of Company 7 killed 40-50 Vietnamese systematically. In the battle map, Vinh Loc is west of An Tuyet (1). We learn that Vinh Loc is an old name and it has been changed to a new name. When we visit Khan Ha, we fail to gather clear testimony because most villagers are drunk at a funeral. After a long stay in Khan Ha, we visit another village, Binh Ha, 300m to the east. The head of Binh Ha tells us there was no massive killings by Korean soldiers. Where did systematic killing break out? Vietnamese people tell us that it is Binh Ha and then Khan Ha, the nearest villages of Phuoc Binh to the west. Dust already falls. We wasted a day without any results. The next morning, we have to go to Da Nang to catch a flight to Ho Chi Minh City. We don't have much time.
   We call Kim in Korea to listen to his explanation about the bomb pit killings again. "It took 20 minutes to go to the place of massive killings by the Korean soldiers from the village", Kim says. We think the place might be Phuoc Binh or not far from Phuoc Binh. We walk to search for the place.
   In the early morning of March 20, we call a motorbike to go to Shun Tin. Because of thick fog, it is tough to go to Phuoc Binh. In Phuoc Binh, we ask villagers if they know where Korean soldiers gathered 40-50 Vietnamese people and killed them. Surprisingly, they tell us they know where the place is. Led by Huynh Ngoc Van, we go to the empty place 400m away from the monument, that we passed away two days before. Huynh Ngoc says, "Here we are. Korean soldiers murdered 40 people here. They fired and chucked hand grenades into the gathered people. After that, they checked every dead bodies and shot them again." I saw everything by hiding over there." Phuoc Binh consists of three small villagers. Binh Dong is the South West, Bing Trung is in the middle, and Binh Tay is in the North East region of Phuoc Binh. There was no killings in Binh Dong, but Korean soldiers shot people randomly in Binh Trung and marched the rest to Binh Tay. Then Korean soldiers shot 40 captive people from Binh Trung at the entrance of Binh Tay. This fits exactly with Kim's memories of the situation on the second day of the Yong Anh(Dragon Eyess) plan. Kim recalled, "We passed through the first village, shot randomly in the second village, and killed all the gathered people at the entrance of the third village..."
   The place of systematic killings by Korean soldiers used to be the playground of PhuocBinh School. There used to be sugar cane fields around the thatched school, and no ditch at that time. It is located 40m away from Binh Trung.
   We also meet a survivor from the massive killings in Phuoc Binh. He is Ìq Ï¡ Í·, a 54-year-old woman, who survived but lost her right leg from the explosion of hand grenades. She recalls, "Korean soldiers took all my family away. There were already many villagers gathered together. All of them were people who were arrested from Bing Trung by the Korean soldiers. "At about 10 o'clock, the soldiers shot us with machine guns and tossed hand grenades to us. We screamed and shouted...I also lost a lot of blood. Because I was lying under dead bodies, I wasn't noticed by the Korean soldiers. So I could survive that hell."
   If all testimonies of Vietnamese victims are true, it would be certain that the massive killings by Kim's Company 7 on the second day of the Yong Anh(Dragon Eyess) plan was in Phuoc Binh. As we take our leave of Phan Thi Pong with a promise to see her again, we see Tra Khuc river flowing in front of our Eyess. The fog is starting to clear.