Free The Korean War: A History by Bruce Cumings

battle at Dongning in September 1933, when Chinese leaders mounted an unusually large attack on this city, aided by two Korean guerrilla companies led by Kim. His units rescued a Chinese commander (Shih Chung-hung) in this battle, and from then on Kim was a confidant of top Chinese leaders—which saved Kim when he himself was arrested by Chinese comrades on suspicion of being a traitor. Commander Shih declared that “a great figure like Kim Il Sung” could not be “a Japanese running dog,” and said he would take his guerrillas and leave the Communist Party if it convicted Kim. 17

     
    Kim Il Sung with his wife and son, Kim Jong Il, circa 1947.
U.S. National Archives
     
    Kim took a leading role in trying to forge Sino-Korean cooperation in the Manchurian guerrilla struggle, helped along by his fluency in Chinese. After the establishment of Manchukuo around 80 percent of anti-Japanese guerrillas and upward of 90 percent of the members of the “Chinese Communist Party” were Korean. By February 1936 a formidable Sino-Korean army had emerged, with Kim commanding the 3rd Division and several Chinese regimental commanders under him. Koreans were still the largest ethnic force in the late 1930s, constituting 80 percent of two regiments, 50 percent of another, and so on. By this time Kim was “the leader of Korean communists in eastern Manchuria with a great reputation and a high position,” in the estimation of Han Hong-koo. “Kim Il Sung fought all during 1938 and 1939,” Dae-sook Suh wrote, “mostly in southern and southeastern Manchuria. There were numerous [published] accounts of his activities, such as the Liudaogou raid of April 26, 1938, and his raid into Korea once again in May 1939.” 18

     
    North Korean Defense Minister Choe Yong-gon, circa 1948.
U.S. National Archives
     
    He was not alone, though, working with other Korean guerrilla leaders with their own detachments, such as Choe Yong-gon (minister of defense when the Korean War began), Kim Chaek, and Choe Hyon. Kim’s reputation was also plumped up by the Japanese, whose newspapers featured the conflict between him and the Korean quislings whom the Japanese employed to track him down and kill him, such as Col. Kim Sok-won (then known as Kaneyama Shakugen); he reported to Gen. Nozoe Shotoku, commander of the “Special Kim Detachment” of the Imperial Army. Colonel Kim’sgreatest success came in February 1940, when he killed Yang Jingyu, a famous Chinese guerrilla and close comrade of Kim Il Sung. In April, Nozoe’s forces captured Kim Hye-sun, thought to be Kim’s first wife; the Japanese tried in vain to use her to lure Kim out of hiding, and then murdered her. 19 Maeda Takashi headed another Japanese Special Police unit, with many Koreans in it, that tracked Kim’s guerrillas for months in early 1940. Maeda’s forces finally caught up with Kim when his guerrillas attacked them on March 13, 1940. After both sides suffered casualties, Kim’s group released POWs so they could move faster; Maeda pursued him for nearly two weeks, stumbling into a trap on March 25. Kim threw 250 guerrillas at 150 soldiers in Maeda’s unit, defeating them and killing Maeda, fifty-eight Japanese, and seventeen others attached to the force, and taking thirteen prisoners and large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
    In September 1939, the month when Hitler invaded Poland and started World War II, the Japanese mobilized a “massive punitive expedition” consisting of six battalions of the Kwantung Army and 20,000 men of the Manchurian Army and police force in a six-month guerrilla-suppression campaign, the main target being those led by Kim Il Sung and Choe Hyon. In September 1940 an even larger force embarked on a counterinsurgency campaign against Chinese and Korean guerrillas:
    The punitive operation was conducted for one year and eight months until the end of March 1941, and the bandits, excluding those led by Kim Il Sung, were completely annihilated. The