I made several trips to Seoul in 2014. One afternoon, as we successfully finished the days meetings, our partner said he'd like to take us some place. We dropped our bags at the hotel, and headed over to The War Memorial of Korea.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Beautiful place...huge plaza in front...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
...large reflecting pool.
One of the most powerful displays I saw was one that I decided not to photograph. In one of the main rooms, there is a video display on the walls. The room light is dim, and it looks like you are standing on a black tile floor. But when the video ends, the lights start to come up, and lights come on under what turns out to be a glass floor. Just under my feet were the skeletal remains of a young South Korean soldier, discovered during construction of the museum. He had been listed as "Missing in Action", but has now been found and identified. His remains were left just where they were found, with shrapnel and shell casings scattered all around, a dramatic way to demonstrate that this wasn't a far-off, foreign war. It was local, right there in the city, right there among the homes of the thousands and thousands of civilians trying their best to stay out of the way. A powerful visual indeed.
During the Korean War (1951-1953), the North swept down through the South initially, before terribly costly fighting pushed them back north. Seoul is near the middle of the Korean Peninsula, and so it changed hands several times as the sides battled back and forth.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Through all this conflagration, the populace, as shown in this photo in the museum, is left to fend for themselves and try their best to get out of the way of the fighting. Here, civilians scramble to climb across the jagged structure of a bombed-out bridge over the Han River, near Seoul.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
The museum has a large indoor area, full of displays and information. But they also have a huge outdoor display of the various hardware of war.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
A P-38 Mustang...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
A Saber Jet...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Even a B-52 Bomber !
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
...and some of the devices developed to defend against them...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Them notice on the left, suspended above a portion of the reflection pool, is a small ship.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
You can go aboard, and as we did, we noticed that it was full of holes !
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
It seems that this is a replica of a patrol Caravel damaged in an attack by North Korean patrol boats in 2002. The land boundary between North and South is roughly drawn along the 38th Parallel. But as you go west, the border changes to the center of a large estuary just north and west of Seoul. As you reach the coast, the boundary becomes a line in the sea (known as the Northern Limit Line), which the North contends was drawn in an unfair way. The North still contests the line from time to time, sometimes with artillery fire (as in 2010) or with a naval attack, as in 2002. I wasn't aware of the details of 2002 until I saw a movie on a flight a few weeks back, called Northern Limit Line.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
A gattling gun on the fore-deck...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
The bridge...shot full of holes...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
You can see my friend Harri walking past stone panels mounted on each column...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
...each three characters is a soldiers name...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
...1500 names per panel...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
...and there were a LOT of columns, a LOT of panels...
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
(this is just one wing of the museum...)
Check it out:
The War Memorial of Korea
전쟁기념관
29, Itaewon-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
서울특별시 용산구 이태원로 29 (용산동1가)
Tel: +82-2-709-3139, 3114
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
My favorite Korean restaurant, and favorite dish...Mackerel !!
- Mark
