There was a risk: the guerrilla forces had to land with sufficient stealth so as not to alert the enemy and give them time to increase their defences. The aim of the operation was to bring the enemy to battle and thus expose them to maximum naval artillery fire. His plan was to land ground forces, consisting of 420 guerrillas, on the mainland in a bold daylight raid. On Yong Pyong Do an American, Captain George Lamm, was head of the guerrillas. The place was denuded of trees, which had been cut down for fires, and the refugees dug for shellfish along the shore. Many North Korean refugees were living on the island, struggling to survive and eking out a meagre existence from the land. The island of Yong Pyong Do lies 10 kilometres off Ponggu-yon. Bracegirdle could see the advantages, and offered the guerrillas his support for the operation. If the plan succeeded, it would provide greater security for the islands and the guerrillas who occupied them. Local intelligence had revealed that Ponggu-yon was held by at least two battalions of North Korean and Chinese troops, supported by artillery. The guerrillas sought Bracegirdle’s support for a plan to attack the mainland and push the North Koreans back from a communist-held mainland peninsula, Ponggu-yon. On 15 May, Warwick Seymour Bracegirdle, commander of the Bataan, went ashore on the island to meet the Wolfpack leaders and inspect installations. North Korea confirmed receipt of the message but then went silent, the official said.Plans for Operation Roundup began on the island of Yong Pyong Do. immediately told North Korea that King had crossed the border willfully and was not acting on orders. We obviously don't know exactly what was in his mind." She added, "I worry about how they may treat him, so want to get him back."Īsked whether King had shown signs of sympathizing with the North Korean government, Wormuth replied, "I don't think we have any information that points to that clearly."Ī senior administration official said Tuesday that the U.S. "I'm sure that he was grappling with that. "He was going to come back to the United States and face the consequences in the Army," she said. military considered King to be AWOL or a deserter, Wormuth said, "I'm not sure what we would call him." She confirmed that King had willfully crossed into North Korea after having served time in a South Korean jail for assaulting a person there and then failed to board a flight back to the U.S. “I don’t think we have successfully made contact with the North Korean authorities.”Īsked whether the U.S. “Not very much is known about his status,” Wormuth said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. officials had reached out to North Korean officials but had received no reply. does not have an embassy in North Korea, complicating any potential negotiations over King’s return.Īrmy Secretary Christine Wormuth said Thursday that U.S. and North Korea, a repressive and insular nuclear-armed nation still technically at war with the South. The incident threatened to worsen tensions between the U.S. King spent at the penitentiary was equivalent to about 100,000 won,” or about $80, said the official, who was not authorized to speak to the news media. According to legal documents, King did not cooperate when officers apprehended him in October after he caused hundreds of dollars in damage to a police patrol car as he shouted profanities about Koreans and the Korean army.
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