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One of the points of contention
which delayed signing of the Armistice was how to
deal with POWs who did not wish to be
repatriated. We had over 137,000 communist
prisoners by January 1952, and about a third of
them did not wish to be repatriated, which was a
serious embarassment for the enemy. As contrast,
the enemy ended up with about 13,500 prisoners
from all UN forces, of whom 347 refused
repatriation, including 21 Americans. To enflame
this situation even further were the events that
took place in the UN Command Koje-do POW
camp.
The Geneva Convention of 1949 on
prisoners of war was designed primarily to
protect prisoners, and completely failed to
foresee the development of hard-core, organized
prisoner groups or to provide protection for
captor nations in dealing with their stubborn,
armed resistance. Whatever attempts UNC made to
control them reflected adversely on the UNC in
the public view, further weakening our ability to
control and restrain the camp compounds. With
North Korean and Chinese leaders, including
agents who deliberately allowed themselves to be
captured in order to organize cells of
resistance, the Koje-do compounds soon turned to
beatings and other coercion to subjugate
disillusioned anti-communist prisoners, including
the murder of scores of such prisoners.
Attempts to screen the prisoners
to decide who wished repatriation led to several
bloody riots instigated by the communist
leadership, with scores of POWs being killed by
UNC troops and others murdered by the communists.
Only about 1500 prisoners actually took part in
the riots, strongly suggesting that only the
hard-core leadership was primarily involved. When
UNC teams did begin screening the prisoners
beginning April 8 1952, they were astonished to
find that only 70,000 of the 170,000 military and
civilian prisoners consented to repatriation.
This was the root cause for the POW capture of
Koje commandant General Dodd.
Photos of Koje-do POW compound 76 at this
time.
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