Mainichi "18 Japanese Civilians Participated in Combat During Korean War" - Citing US Top-Secret Documents

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] On the 22nd, the Mainichi Shimbun reported, citing a top-secret document held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), that 60 Japanese civilian men crossed over to the Korean Peninsula with U.S. troops during the Korean War, and 18 of them participated in combat.

Mainichi obtained the U.S. top-secret document titled "Unauthorized Transport and Use of Japanese in Korea" and reported accordingly. According to the report, most of the 60 Japanese civilians moved to the Korean Peninsula around July 1950, shortly after the outbreak of the war, and returned to Japan in January-February 1951. Mainichi stated that the actual combat participation of Japanese civilians was newly revealed.

The 843-page document reportedly contained interrogation records of the 60 Japanese civilians, Mainichi said. Among them, 46 were in their teens to twenties, the largest group, and 18 were under 20 years old, including a 9-year-old child. Forty-eight were employees at U.S. military bases in Japan at the time. Ueno Tamotsu, who was 20 years old during the war, testified that during the Battle of Daejeon, he hid in a rice paddy after U.S. 24th Division commander Major General William Dean was surrounded by North Korean troops, and that he "does not know how many North Korean soldiers he killed."

The top-secret document included records of a 12-year-old boy from Tokyo who was issued a carbine and testified that he "remembers killing 4 to 5 people," and a 20-year-old man from Osaka Prefecture who was at the front lines for seven months and testified that he "killed 15 to 20 people." Mainichi reported that among the 60 Japanese civilians who came to the Korean Peninsula at the time, one died and one went missing.

Those who returned to Japan often answered during U.S. military interrogations that the reason for traveling to the Korean Peninsula was that "(U.S. military) base superiors recommended it." A 9-year-old boy from Nagoya testified that he was "captured." Mainichi analyzed that "it is suggested that the U.S. military did not officially take them but used personal connections to bring them without formal permission." According to the interrogation records, most of the civilians who crossed over to the Korean Peninsula "swore not to disclose their travel to outsiders" and signed pledges, Mainichi reported.

Professor Onuma Hisao of Kyoai Gakuen Maebashi International University stated, "During the Korean War, the former Soviet Union and North Korea accused the United Nations (UN) that Japanese were participating as UN troops, but no official records of Japanese directly participating in combat have been found," adding, "It is necessary to investigate more thoroughly."