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A 1944 Korean Rebellion Within the Japanese Army: The Testimony of Lieutenant Cheon Sanghwa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Kiriyama Keiichi
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Korean students secretly planned a rebellion in the 30th Division of the Japanese army based in Heijyo (now Pyongyang, in North Korea). Cheon Sanghwa, a staff officer, was a participant in the plan. He fought against Japan for an independent Korea. [2] By sabotaging the Japanese army from inside, he contributed to Japan's defeat in the Second World War. This was in 1944. Now eighty-seven years old, he lives in Seoul. This year is the 65th anniversary of Korean students departing for the front. These students, who were not subject to the normal draft, were forced to volunteer for the Japanese army. Wishing for the independence of their country from Japan, they must have felt conflicted over volunteering. This is “the verbatim record” of the life and death experiences of Cheon Sanghwa.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 21 , May 2009 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

References

Translator's Notes

[1] I thank Dr. Ronald Toby of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Dr. Sonia Ryang of the University of Iowa for their kindness and help in reading Korean proper names.

[2] Korea was annexed by Japan from 1910-1945.

[3] Koreans were forced to take Japanese names.