This list names the 22 United Nations soldiers and prisoners of war (one Briton and 21 Americans) who declined repatriation to the United Kingdom and United States after the Korean War in favor of remaining in China, and their subsequent fates. Also listed are soldiers who defected to North Korea.
Prisoner repatriation was one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the long cease-fire negotiations between the forces of the United Nations and those of China and North Korea. The warring factions finally agreed on an exchange of sick and wounded prisoners, Operation Little Switch, which was carried out in April and May 1953. That June, the two sides agreed that no prisoner who did not wish to be repatriated would be forced to do so (this had long been a sticking point in negotiations, with the Chinese and North Koreans wanting all prisoners returned to their home countries). Prisoners who did not wish to go back to their home countries would be given 90 days in a neutral compound near Panmunjom to reconsider before being allowed to stay in enemy territory. [1] Following the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement (which South Korea declined to sign) on 27 July 1953 which brought the fighting in the Korean War to a halt, the main prisoner exchange was free to proceed.
Operation Big Switch, the exchange of remaining prisoners of war, commenced in early August 1953, and lasted into December. 75,823 Communist fighters (70,183 North Koreans, 5,640 Chinese) were returned to their homelands. 12,773 U.N. soldiers (7,862 South Koreans, 3,597 Americans, and 946 British) were sent back south across the armistice line. Over 14,000 Communist soldiers, many of whom were former Republic of China soldiers who fought against the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, refused repatriation. [2] Similarly, one Briton and 23 American soldiers (along with 327 South Koreans) also refused to be returned to their homelands. Two, Corporal Claude Batchelor and Corporal Edward Dickenson, changed their minds before the 90-day window expired. Both were court-martialed and sentenced to prison terms, with Batchelor serving 4½ years and Dickenson 3½. [3]
This left 22 United Nations soldiers who voluntarily stayed with the Communists after the final exchange of prisoners. The 21 Americans were given dishonorable discharges. This had the unintended consequence of rendering them immune to court-martial when they finally returned to the United States (which the majority eventually did), because they were no longer active-duty military. However, they were still criminally culpable for any acts of collaboration or offenses against fellow prisoners committed while they were POWs.
At about 4:00 am on 24 February 1954, a train carrying the 21 American defectors crossed the Yalu River into China. The Chinese soon shipped some of the men off to study language and politics. Others went to mills, factories, and farms across Eastern China. [1]
Andrew Condron, a Scotsman of 41 (Independent) Royal Marine Commando, was the only Briton to decline repatriation. Allegations of American biological warfare during the Korean War have been reported to have influenced Condron's decision to live in China; however, those who knew him have said he was motivated by admiration of Maoism and Marxist theory. Regarding his desertion Condron said "I made my gesture because I am against war. I have spent my years in China learning a lot." [17]
The British government refused to rule out the possibility of arrest and trial if he returned to the United Kingdom. Regarding Condron, Lieutenant Colonel J. L. Lindop of the Intelligence Division of the Admiralty stated that the Royal Navy "regard Condron as a deserter and ... he is liable to be arrested and charged with desertion" and as a result it was difficult for Condron to return to the UK.
In 1955, Condron was included in the editor's list for a book entitled: Thinking Soldiers – by Men Who Fought in Korea. In the following quotation written by Condron he expresses his disillusionment with military life:
'... the soldier today can no longer be viewed as a robot. The more different kinds of experience he has, the more he fits them together in his mind. That is why all those who consider the soldier merely as a thing to be used, like the rifle he carries or the pack he wears, are bound to come out very badly in their calculations. Our experience, and that of the men who wrote this book, included battle, capture and much thought in Korea. We were a few among many thousands. [18] [19]
Despite political and personal reasons for his defection, Condron's lifestyle in China challenged the core socialist values of the regime. The Foreign Office and British Embassy in Beijing reported Condron had been drinking "on a fairly hearty scale" and fraternising with Chinese girls, which was taboo at the time. In 1959 Condron was in a relationship with Jaquelin Hsiung-Baudet, an illegitimate daughter of the French diplomat Philipe Baudet whom he met while working as an English teacher at the Beijing Language and Culture University. [17]
Condron returned to the United Kingdom in 1960 due to growing xenophobia in China, [20] and received an honourable discharge from the Royal Marines. In 1962 Jaquelin moved to the UK to join her then husband. In 1963 Condron worked selling the Encyclopædia Britannica door-to-door, while Jaquelin worked at the BBC World Service. Condron and his wife had a son, Simon, who attended the University of Cambridge in the 1970s. Jaquelin divorced Condron due to alcoholism and later emigrated to the US. His son, Simon, worked at the BBC and Condron lived in his London flat [21] until his death in March 1996 aged 68. [22]
Seven additional American servicemen are known to have defected to North Korea since the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement:
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, cause, or doctrine to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.
Charles Robert Jenkins was a United States Army deserter, North Korean prisoner, and voice for Japanese abductees in North Korea.
Larry Wu-tai Chin was a Chinese Communist spy who worked for the United States Government for 37 years (1944–1981), including positions at the U.S. Army and the CIA, while secretly being a mole for the Chinese Communist Party's intelligence apparatus from the very beginning. He kept passing classified documents and secret information to the People's Republic of China even after his retirement, until he was finally exposed in 1985.
The People's Volunteer Army (PVA), officially the Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV), was the armed expeditionary forces deployed by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the PVA were actually transferred from the People's Liberation Army under the orders of Chairman Mao Zedong, the PVA was separately constituted in order to prevent an official war with the United States. The PVA entered Korea on 19 October 1950 and completely withdrew by October 1958. The nominal commander and political commissar of the PVA was Peng Dehuai before the ceasefire agreement in 1953, although both Chen Geng and Deng Hua served as the acting commander and commissar after April 1952 following Peng's illness. The initial units in the PVA included 38th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 50th, 66th Corps; totalling 250,000 men. About 3 million Chinese civilian and military personnel had served in Korea throughout the war.
Operation Big Switch was the repatriation of all remaining prisoners of the Korean War. Ceasefire talks had been going on between the North Korean, Chinese and United Nations Command (UNC) forces since 1951, with the main point of contention being the repatriation of all prisoners to their home countries, in accordance with Article 118 of the 1949 Geneva Convention. China and North Korea wanted prisoners to be compulsorily repatriated as outlined by the Geneva Convention but the UNC insisted that prisoners who wished to remain where they were be allowed to do so. After talks dragged on for two years, the Chinese and North Koreans relented on this point, and the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on 27 July 1953.
War Trash is a novel by the Chinese author Ha Jin, who has long lived in the United States and who writes in English. It takes the form of a memoir written by the fictional character Yu Yuan, a man who eventually becomes a soldier in the Chinese People's Volunteer Army and who is sent to Korea to fight on the Communist side in the Korean War. The majority of the "memoir" is devoted to describing this experience, especially after Yu Yuan is captured by United Nations forces and imprisoned as a POW. The novel captured the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
James George Veneris (1922–2004) was an American soldier during the Korean War who was captured by the Chinese and was one of 21 American soldiers at the end of the war who decided they would rather stay in China than return to the United States.
An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China is a memoir by Corporal Clarence Adams posthumously published by the University of Massachusetts Press and edited by Della Adams and Louis H. Carlson.
Charles E. Kelly was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration for valor—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II. Kelly was the third enlisted man to be decorated with the Medal of Honor for action on the European continent, after S/Sgt Maynard H Smith 306th Bomb Group and Flight Officer John C "Red" Morgan 92nd Bomb Group, Hanover, July 28, 1943.
Samuel David Hawkins was the youngest of the American defectors of the Korean War. Hawkins was one of twenty-two American and British servicemen to defect to China after the conclusion of the war in 1953. Hawkins returned to the United States in 1957.
Sergeant Richard George Desautels was a United States Army corporal who was captured on December 1, 1950 at Sonchu by communist forces and not returned by North Korea at the end of the fighting of the Korean War. More than half a century later, the People's Republic of China admitted that Sgt. Desautels died while in captivity in China, and that his remains were buried in Shenyang, China.
Tens of thousands of South Korean soldiers were captured by North Korean and Chinese forces during the Korean War (1950–1953) but were not returned during the prisoner exchanges under the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement. Most are presumed dead, but the South Korean government estimated in 2007 that some 560 South Korean prisoners of war (POWs) still survived in North Korea. The issue of unaccounted South Korean POWs from the Korean War has been in dispute since the 1953 armistice. North Korea continues to deny that it holds these South Korean POWs. Interest in the issue has been renewed since 1994, when Cho Chang-ho, a former South Korean soldier presumed to have been killed in the war, escaped from North Korea. As of 2008, 79 former South Korean soldiers had escaped from North Korea.
Americans in North Korea consist mainly of defectors and prisoners of war during and after the Korean War, as well as their locally born descendants. Additionally, there are occasional tours and group travel which consists of Americans via train or plane from China, some with temporary lodging and stay.
Operation Beleaguer was the codename for the United States Marine Corps' occupation of northeastern China's Hebei and Shandong provinces from 1945 until 1949. The Marines were tasked with overseeing the repatriation of more than 600,000 Japanese and Koreans that remained in China at the end of World War II. During the four-year occupation, American forces engaged in several skirmishes with the People's Liberation Army while successfully evacuating thousands of foreign nationals. The United States Government attempted to mediate a peace treaty between the opposing Nationalist and Communist factions but was unsuccessful. The Marines departed Northern China in June 1949 a few months before the communists won victory in the Chinese Civil War and took control of mainland China.
Clarence Adams was an African-American GI during the Korean War. He was captured on November 29, 1950, when the People's Liberation Army overran his all-black artillery unit's position. Adams was held as a POW until the end of the war. Instead of returning to the United States during Operation Big Switch, Adams was one of 21 American soldiers who chose to settle in the People's Republic of China. As a result of their decision, these 21 Americans were considered defectors.
After the Korean War, 333 South Korean people detained in North Korea as prisoners of war chose to stay in North Korea. During subsequent decades of the Cold War, some people of South Korean origin defected to North Korea as well. They include Roy Chung, a former U.S. Army soldier who defected to North Korea through East Germany in 1979. Aside from defection, North Korea has been accused of abduction in the disappearances of some South Koreans.
The Bamboo Prison is a 1954 American Korean War–drama film directed by Lewis Seiler and starring Robert Francis, Brian Keith, Dianne Foster, and Jerome Courtland. The working title was I Was a Prisoner in Korea. The US Army denied their co-operation to the producers.
Bert Cumby was a United States military intelligence officer who served as head of research of the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Corps and led the debriefing of repatriated American prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War. In 1956 he testified to a United States Senate committee regarding an international communist conspiracy he alleged was underway, the objective of which was the admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China. According to Cumby, this was to be partially accomplished through the brainwashing of American POWs prior to their repatriation to the United States; they would, in turn, create a nucleus of domestic support for China-friendly policies within the U.S.
Claude Batchelor is a former United States Army soldier convicted by court martial of collaborating with China during the Korean War.
"P.O.W." was an American television play that was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) on October 27, 1953. It was the first episode of the series The United States Steel Hour. The production examined the physical and mental suffering of former prisoners of war returning from the Korean War. Produced and directed by Alex Segal, the production starred Richard Kiley, Gary Merrill, and Brian Keith.
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