Place of birth: PyeongYang
Last known address: Sangdo-dong Seoul
Date of abduction: July 7, 1950
Place of abduction: Gwandong Machinery Work
Occupation: Employee of Gwandong Machinery Work
Experience: Voluntary Firefighter, Cottage craftsman, factory owner
Gwandong Machinery Work

Date of Interview: September 21, 2004
Place: of Interview: Interviewee’s home
Interviewee: Kim Il-sun
Interviewer: Sah Yoo-jin


Path of Abduction and Escape
July 7: Gwandong Machinery Work, Dorim-dong, Seoul ⇒ July 9: Gyungseong Work, Yeongdeungpo, Seoul ⇒ Short stay at a house at Donam-dong, Seoul ⇒ Sept. 3, a mountain behind Daetaryeong, where machines were hidden and air raid smashed the truck ⇒ Confined at Gwanbuk coal mine ⇒ Fled from PyeongYang




Q. What was your job before the Korean War broke out? And how were you abducted?
Answer: I lived in Sangdo-dong back then. Having had just arrived in the South and without any base, I
couldn’t afford running a big factory, so I ran a small cottage-type one. I also worked as a voluntary
firefighter in Noryangjin. When I went downtown Seoul that day (June 25, 1950), I saw many American military vehicles on the streets around 8 in the morning, and later I heard that North Korea had invaded South Korea. I hurried home and found that my wife had just delivered a baby.

Unable to go very far, I went to a place where I could look down the Han River and found that the Han River Bridge had been destroyed and I saw North Korean tanks were already rolling down south from where, I couldn’t tell. I permitted myself a wry smile, a smile of desperation, thinking everything was over. I didn’t have much money and I was not sure if I could collect payment for products I had delivered, either. In this difficult situation plus my wife’s having just delivered a baby, I could not think of leaving for any other place for refuge.

Food was very scarce. Someone told me that I could make some money for repairing bicycle tires. As I had begun that work, North Korean soldiers and Internal Policemen frequently visited me at the place. I felt uneasy. So I went to Gwandong Machinery Work in Dorim-dong, a big plant that used to manufacture mining machines during the Japanese colonial era. I once worked for that big factory for a while when I was about 20 years old. I thought I could be secure there. Fortunately, I found some familiar faces who welcomed me in.

Two days later, there was a machine that had to be transported from Gyungseong Work, another factory, to Gwandong for which a list arrived with names of able mechanics. About 20 of us were picked and sent to Gyungseong Work. Upon arrival at Gyungseong, we were guided to the 2 floor and then the door was locked from outside. Soon a North Korean army officer with a pistol came in and said, “Comrades, from now you have to do what we do.” I felt so desperate and thought this is the end. I gave everything up.

At dark they gave us some meal and then took us to Donam-dong in Seoul. We came to a house, which looked like a rich family’s house, where we rested for a while and we were loaded onto a truck together with two guards armed with guns when it was almost dark. Somewhere along the way, we were bombarded. To protect ourselves from the air raid we hid ourselves in a corn field off the road, but we were sure that we could easily be spotted from the air. However, maybe because we were in civilian clothes, no one in the field was hurt but the four who couldn’t get off the truck were killed as target seemed to the truck.

When the aircraft had left, the escort soldier ordered us to get back to the truck, which had been totally destroyed into a beehive. It was the result of four planes. Since then we had to walk.

“Where are we going?” I asked. The soldier said, “PyeongYang.”I was glad to hear that as I had originally come from PyeongYang We stopped at a place called Daetaryeong at the time when the war situation seemed against North Korea. We spent the night there and then were taken deep into a mountain behind Daetaryeong but I couldn’t tell exactly where we were as it was so deep in the mountain.

There we found that the machines had been set up there in the mountain and I realized that was the purpose of abducting and bringing us here. Some of the machines had been waiting for installation and were still under camouflage. We worked on the machines for about 4 days when a B-29 bomber flew over, left and came back. Being afraid that since it must have taken aerial photos of the place where we were and that therefore it would come back to bomb the place, soon, some of us ran to the top of the mountain. Surely enough, on the third day, it came back and showered the place with bombs. I was the only survivor among those who fled. When it over, the NK soldier asked me where had I been during the bombing. I said “I went to pick some pine tree branches to cover me up with.” .

In any case, we couldn’t stay there any longer because of the bombing. Everything had been destroyed. The soldiers, then, confined us in a nearby cave, an abandoned mine called Gwanbuk coal mine. Something suspicious happened. When other soldiers wanted to use me for something, this guy in charge stopped them from doing that. I began to think that this guy has an eye on me as I am originally from North Korea and left there for the South. I thought I am dead now. One day, another soldier was place there to replace this guy, only to be hurriedly followed by yet another one with a backpack. `When this one with backpack said something to the new replacement, the new replacement left again just in about 5 minutes with the backpack. Apparently, the replacement had no time to talk about me before he left. I was so fortunate.

Since then, I began to skip my meals, as if I couldn’t eat and drink even water, and tried to show that to them covertly. In four days, I became so sick that I could die. I went to the new guy and asked him if I could go to the clinic. “No. Do you think there is a clinic for you guys?” he replied. As I kept begging, he said yes on the fifth day to be accompanied by a guard. .When I was given a leave slip, I quickly grabbed two, unnoticed, the moment the issuing officer left his seat momentarily. I could be dead if caught. I still don’t know how could I be so daring. The slip was nothing but a piece of paper with a signature scribbled in it. With the slip, we left the mine and entered into the city of PyeongYang.

As we entered into the clinic located underground, I saw logs that supported the cave, where was a doctor-looking woman. After diagnosis, she said that I had chronic. gastritis and left me without any medicine. No sooner had we come out of the cave than an air raid began. At this, the guard jumped into an air-raid shelter, desperately and shouted at me to follow him quickly. I saw no reason to do so, and I fled, instead. I was familiar with the geography of PyeongYang city as I had grown up there and I knew an in-law of mine at Seoksudanggol ran a rice cake shop. When I got to Sinchangni. I went there to fathom the area. Using extra leave slip, I traveled on foot all night long to Pyeongchon via Sukcheon, where my hometown house was.

There, my aunt gave me some roasted grain powder and directed me to a place, where I should meet some people who would render me help. I met them and stayed there for about 10 days, when UN paratroopers landed in Sukcheon. Liberated village people gathered guns, blankets, etc. that the North Korean army had left behind before retreat, with which they maintained public order in the area.

Soon, an opportunity arrived for me to return home when a team of some professors on a jeep with a trailer came. They gave me a lift to Seonggyeri. Had I continued the riding, I could have easily returned to Seoul. However, at Seonggyeri, I noticed MPs who were checking people at a check point. I was afraid they might take me for a North Korean soldier as my hair had been cut short. I got off the trailer and went back to my hometown. I had to wait there until the time of the Jan. 4 Retreat before I could return to Seoul.

Q. Where was the Gyeongseong Work located at?
Answer: Yeongdeungpo.