Part Four: Aftermath

July 21, 2020 - It is another warm July day in Daejeon. The sound of apartment building construction is omnipresent in my area of the city.  Down below, people go about their daily business, wearing their masks even though the warnings about the latest COVID outbreak in the city have ramped down. An unspectacular Tuesday in the middle of the country during an average Korean summer (halfway through a very notable year).

Seventy years ago, on July 21, 1950, it was a far different scene.  Daejeon (then spelled Taejeon) was in ruins, smoldering after two days of intense urban fighting between the North Korean army and the United States' 24th Division.  Buildings and trees were flattened; streets were strewn with debris.

Beginning at 6 p.m. on July 20th, the 24th Division sounded general retreat and got out as best they could, fighting their way out via the escape route to the southeast.  The division had been mauled over the course of two weeks since the initial Battle of Osan on July 5th, and had suffered 3,600 casualties (about a third of its strength).  Roughly one third of that number were lost in Daejeon.  The casualties for the North Koreans are unknown, but have been calculated by some as roughly equal to this, with the additional loss of armor (again, mainly in the Daejeon battle).

This image of the ruins of Daejeon (taken on Sept. 30, 1950, after the city was liberated)
is part of a set of photos located in the Boston Globe.  With some effort,
you could try to align the mountains in the background with the modern landscape,
and pinpoint the area where the picture was taken.

The surviving elements of the 24th Division linked up with other American forces (who had arrived from Japan), went into reserve and rested, were reformed, and then fought on at the Busan perimeter.  For its delaying actions in and around the city, the soldiers of the 24th Infantry Division were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation.  Daejeon would represent, in some ways, the high water mark for the North Koreans, who by the end of the same year, would be pushed all the way back to their northern border with China.

General William F. Dean, who had joined tank-hunter teams in the city, and had helped wounded soldiers on the way out, was just beginning his odyssey.  He was thrown from his jeep during a crash as he tried to leave, and became separated from his unit.  On foot, for the next 30 days, Dean hiked his way laboriously, with a broken shoulder, through the Korean landscape, attempting to get to Daegu.  He was captured on August 25th, having made it 35 miles south of Daejeon, and transferred to a North Korean prisoner camp for the remainder of the war.  His memoir details out his eventual capture, wrestled to the ground by an informant, as he tries to draw his pistol to engage his pursuers, truly Herculean in his efforts not to get captured.

William F. Dean colorized coin
(available on ebay!)

He was the highest-ranking officer to ever be made a prisoner by the North Koreans, and survived interrogations, but received relatively humane treatment after his identity was revealed, and the U.S. Army was aware of his being captured (until late in 1951, it was assumed he had been killed during the battle).  He was released on Sept. 4, 1953, and returned to a quiet life in San Francisco after a ticker-tape parade through New York City.

If ever a person's life was worthy of a movie, I think of General Dean, and am as impressed with his tale of survival after the battle (especially as I have come to know the steep hills and plunging valleys of the Korean hiking world), as with his battle exploits within the city.

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Daejeon the city spent two months under North Korean control before it was recaptured on September 28, 1950, shortly after the Incheon landings.  As the 24th Infantry Division once more entered the city, there was a report of yet another massacre, as the North Koreans executed 60 Americans in a prison area and a large number of South Koreans (civilians and soldiers) before retreating north.

Daejeon has only a few monuments to remind the casual resident of what took place 70 years ago, and has grown much since 1950, expanding outward, to the north toward the Guem River, and to the west toward Gyeryongsan Mountain.  But I can't help but notice, as I wander around, that there is a "newness" to the city, and that it is very difficult to find any significant clusters of old buildings (pre-1950), which makes me appreciate the fact of having to build a city anew from the rubble of war.  Those that survived, like the Japanese-constructed stone bank building in the market area, and the Dongchundang House, on the eastern fringes of the city, stick out like sore thumbs among the recently-constructed concrete apartment buildings and shops.

Mysterious photo of "victory parade" through Daejeon
(posted by a Korean pinterest user)

The same seems to apply to foliage, as one does not see many "older" trees in and about the city, and I wonder as I perambulate the mountains at the imprint of foxholes on the ridgelines and deep in the forest.  Are these left over from the battle long ago, or are they more recent additions from South Korean army training exercises?

One of the greatest mysteries is what happened to Daejeon during that two months it was occupied, and who was left in the city?  I understand that many of the residents had fled either before or during the battle to safer areas.  Did the North Koreans attempt to set up any sort of administration or did they kidnap people and bring them north?  I have found little to nothing about this, although the record of the massacre the week before the city was recaptured point toward bleak answers.  I have also found a fascinating YouTube video of a North Korean tour guide leading people through a "Battle of Taejon" display located in the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Memorial.  For them, it one of their greatest victories of the war.  Be warned: the uniformed guide uses North Korean facts and statistics.

There are a few clues that do give an idea about the city at that time.  There is one unsubstantiated grainy photo of a "victory parade" through the city, mainly tanks and motorcycles driving past blasted buildings, and if it is an actual photograph, there is no one standing about to cheer them on.  There is also the unsettling report of the massacre in the prison, which indicates that the North Koreans did keep prisoners in town.  Finally, there are many photos of the famous "William F. Dean" tank, with graffiti spray-painted on it.  These were taken after the city was recaptured, which indicates that the North Koreans never bothered to retrieve or repair it, which indicates a level of inactivity in the city.  My educated guess is that the bulk of the North Korean forces headed toward the Busan perimeter, and that only the smallest of garrisons was kept in the city.  But it would be interesting to find out more information about this someday.

One of many images of the tank that Dean
helped to blow up with the graffiti on the side
of the turret.  More of them are located at this blog page.

There are other stories that remain.  I have read that the William F. Dean tank remained in the city, at some intersection in town (perhaps as a kind of monument in the midst of a roundabout), until the 1990's, when it was towed away for scrap.  This fascinates me, although I have yet to see any photographic proof of it, and I would think that somebody, somewhere in the city, would have a picture of that.  I also have heard rumors that a group of North Koreans held out in the Bumonsan Mountain area, and were killed, and buried there, but I have found no concrete evidence of that either.

Stories come and go of the battle long ago, and Daejeon moves on to the future.

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Yesterday, on July 20th, I rode the subway out to the City Hall area to note some specifics at the Battle of Daejeon Memorial.  The rain had let up, and I was done with my work for the day.

I looked carefully at the list of 818 names that had been etched in the stone at the corner of Boramae Park, and took some notes.  The men who fought in the city had come from 46 states (Alaska, Montana, Nevada, and Wyoming the only exceptions).  Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands were listed as well as three names under "Etc."  Pennsylvania seemed to have lost the most in the turmoil, as 73 names were listed under that state's name.  I thought about the crushing news reaching the families in each of those states, about the awful horror those men had experienced in the city, and how different things were now; how modern, peaceful and "normal" it all was.

Names on Stone

I looked at my phone and gasped as I noticed the time.  It was 6 p.m., the exact hour that final retreat had been called out of the city.  Here I was, the lone foreigner, 70 years later, standing before the monument at the final hour of the final day of battle.  I had to sit and compose myself a bit on one of the nearby benches, as a flood of emotions overwhelmed me.

I looked up and observed the scene around me.  A little girl, in bright pink pants, was chasing a pigeon, as her father and mother laughed, and took pictures of her.  A teenage boy had let his Pomeranian loose, and it bounded onto the roped-off grass, freed from its leash.  Business people, obviously relieved to be done with their work day, strolled along the dirt path, looking at their phones, and laughing and joking with each other, over the thrum of rush hour traffic in the distance.

I felt curiously part of everything, and yet alone.  Who was I to care for these men, and these events, which I had no real part in, and no family connection to?  A stranger who only by chance had moved into Daejeon in 2014.  

I couldn't quite will myself to leave, and so I sat a few more minutes.

I turned to look at the monument and suddenly noticed an older man, well-dressed, also off work, carrying a small umbrella, with his arms folded behind his back.  He was quietly reading the words on the front stone of the monument, reviewing the synopsis of the Battle of Daejeon.  He looked up, observed the other stones of the memorial, and then turned toward me, and started to walk away.  For the briefest moments, we glanced at each other, and I could sense a sort of sadness on his part, or perhaps just the wisdom of something he had forgotten and now remembered.

Another person, thankfully, had borne witness.

And with that, I was free to go.

Battle of Daejeon Memorial at Boramae Park