hankyoreh

"When I woke up, I was buried in rubble. Though I heard the sound of footsteps, there was no response when I shouted desperately for help. When I more fully came to, I recognized that I had just been screaming with my mouth closed."

Kim In-tae was ten years old at the time. On April 16, the Hankyoreh met him, now 66 and living in Asan, South Chungcheong Province.

Kim still vividly recalls this fighter bombing from the Korean War, but the enemy was not the North Koreans. A recently declassified U.S. document tells of how U.S. warplanes killed about 300 South Korean refugees at Dunpo-ri, South Chungcheong Province, during the Korean War. The Associated Press, quoting survivors, reported that in January 1951, U.S. warplanes killed 300 South Korean refugees while they were jammed in a storehouse at the village of Dun-po.

After the refugees kindled a fire outside to try to keep warm, survivors said the planes attacked without warning, the AP report added.

Kim had been fleeing to the southern part of the peninsula with his parents and two younger brothers, Byeong-tae and Geon-tae, in early 1951. Three days after leaving their home in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, they arrived at Dunpo-ri, where they found there were already many refugees fleeing the front lines of the fighting. Kim’s family bedded down in a village storehouse there. It would be the last time Kim saw his father and two brothers.

Kim woke up, crushed by a heavy weight - the debris from the collapsed storehouse. "There was no response as I screamed. So I crawled out," Kim recalled. "While weeping, I walked and walked to find a house with a light on inside and sought help." The house Kim found was located at Baeksapo, about 12 kilometers from the bombing site.

Kim made his way back to the bombing site 15 days later to search for his family. At that time, the site was jammed with local residents and volunteer rescuers. The storehouse had completely collapsed, and bodies were scattered all around the site. Kim said he saw at least 60 bodies laid out around the site.

"After three months, I found my mother," Kim said. "While I didn’t recognize her face because she was seriously injured, I knew she was my mother because she called my name."

Kim continued, "Whenever January arrives each year, my mind is full of painful thoughts."

But, he said, "I am thankful to see the chance of resolving the issue after documents were found in the U.S."

There were several reasons why the Dunpo-ri bombing has been unknown to the public. Another survivor, 71-year-old Lee Won-chang, who was at 15 at the time of the bombing, said, "At that time, the town’s residents had already taken refuge somewhere else, so outside refugees had gathered at the village. So, it was difficult to find out exactly who victims were.

Seventy-four-year-old Jeong Mu-seon, who was at 18 and working for a village administration office at the time of the bombing, testified, "After the bombing, some 30 volunteer rescuers buried the bodies at a nearby levee in a mass grave. Those rescuers have all passed away in the past four or five years," Jeong said, adding that more witness accounts of the incident could have been heard if the bombing had been uncovered at an earlier date. Jeong said he himself also had to carry about ten bodies to the burial site, including that of a five-year-old girl.

"At that time, only the U.S. military owned jet planes," Jeong recalled. "If a bomb was dropped from these planes, we knew that it was the U.S. military dropping the bombs."

After receiving a request for investigation from Kim In-tae last year, the Presidential Truth and Reconciliation Commission announced in March that the Dunpo-ri bombing is now included on the official list of incidents of civilian killings by the military during the Korean War, a list that currently contains 155 incidents.