hankyoreh

Heo Jang-hwan

At the Battle of Hwacheon Reservoir in May 1951 during the Korean War, a numerically inferior force of South Korean and American troops engaged the Chinese army and won a great victory in which 24,141 Chinese were killed. This is often compared to the Battle of Salsu in AD 612, in which the outnumbered forces of the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo defeated and slaughtered a massive host from the Sui Dynasty of China.

The reason the UN forces and the Chinese fought so fiercely over Hwacheon Reservoir (today called Paro Lake) was to take control of the hydroelectric plant at Hwacheon Dam. For South Korea, taking the dam was essential since it had so few sources of power at the time, while for North Korea, the dam was a strategic stronghold it could not afford to lose for the same reason.

After the fighting was over, the South Korean and American troops faced the daunting task of dealing with Chinese corpses strewn across the battlefield. The late Heo Jang-won, who fought in the battle as a military engineer with the rank of first lieutenant in the 6th Division, vividly described the area around Paro Lake to his younger brother Heo Jang-hwan as a veritable living hell.

“There were so many bodies, and the weather was getting hotter. They must have thought the simplest way of disposing the bodies was to dump them in Paro Lake. My brother said that after the battle was over, the South Korean and American forces used bulldozers and other heavy equipment to push the bodies of Chinese troops scattered across the surrounding hills and fields into Paro Lake,” Heo Jang-hwan said.

According to an annal published by Hwacheon County that records the events of the Battle of Hwacheon Reservoir, “The retreating enemies were caught in a pincer, and most of them ended up buried in Hwacheon Reservoir. The shores of the reservoir and the surrounding ravines were covered with the bodies of the enemy. As South Korean support units advanced, they had to use bulldozers to push corpses out of the way. This was a slaughterhouse for the Chinese Communist troops.”

If it is true that UN forces deliberately dumped bodies of Chinese troops into Paro Lake during the Korean War, that would be a violation of the Geneva Convention, some argue. Article 17 of the Geneva Convention states that dead enemy troops must be buried according to their religious customs and that their remains must eventually be repatriated.

In 2001, Hwacheon County suggested that the central government recover the remains of Chinese troops from Paro Lake and set up a memorial in their honor, but the government did nothing about this. Locals think this was because the US would have been reluctant to acknowledge that its troops had dumped masses of enemy bodies into a reservoir, given the US advocacy of human rights around the world. They think that Seoul has not taken action out of concern for what the US might think.

An image of Chinese POWs after the Battle of Hwacheon Reservoir. (provided by Hwacheon County Office)

There are also numerous obstacles that must be overcome before the remains of the Chinese troops can be recovered. In 2007, South Korea’s Defense Ministry set up a group to recover and identity the remains of dead soldiers. So far, the greatest number of soldiers whose remains have been recovered in a single location is about 70. Compared to the projects the group has undertaken so far, recovering the remains of Chinese troops from Paro Lake would be on a vastly larger different scale. Furthermore, the Act on the Recovery of Remains of Soldiers Killed in the Korean War states that recovery efforts must prioritize South Korea’s fallen soldiers.

“We have sometimes repatriated remains of Chinese troops that we have recovered while looking for South Korean remains. But we have never engaged in recovery efforts aimed at finding Chinese troops,” a group spokesperson said.

Another difficulty is the fact that it would be necessary to throw open the floodgates and completely drain the lake, which is 50m deep. Because of several factors – including flooding and the flow of water, it is assumed that the bodies of the Chinese troops are concentrated close to the floodgates of Hwacheon Dam. But if the water in Paro Lake is drained to recover the bodies, there might be pushback from fishermen who operate there. Furthermore, the news that more than 20,000 Chinese troops lie beneath the surface of Paro Lake is sure to be an unpleasant discovery not only for the fishermen but for all who live nearby.

A monument to the Battle of Hwacheon Reservoir near what is now known as Paro Lake.

“Difficult as it may be, it would be best to dispose of this issue by recovering the remains of the Chinese troops. Paro Lake is upstream from Paldang Lake, and it’s shocking to think that water containing the remains of more than 20,000 Chinese troops is being used as the source of drinking water for the residents of the Seoul area,” said Heo Jang-hwan, co-president of the Korea-China International Friendship, Contact and Peace Promotion Society.

By Park Soo-hyuk, Gangwon correspondent

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