[KS] Korea during WWII

[Robert M Oppenheim]

At the risk of a slight tangent, every year in Intro I repeat the claim that Mitsubishi, for instance, moved some of their aircraft production to the Korean peninsula because it was out of range - which is different than saying that the US didn't bomb Korea for some other reason.  This is out of Carter Eckert's book, if I recall.  Am I mistaken?

Rob

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Subject: Re: [KS] Korea during WWII

This is an interesting question seeing that the US did bomb Taiwan. My guess is that US bombing missions were inching their way north and the Korean peninsula was not on that route at the time. That Rhee had an in with Roosevelt I would doubt very much. I think people in D.C. were rather sick of him by that time. Also, Roosevelt did not live much longer after the major bombings of Tokyo began in March 1945. Perhaps the US was not familiar with the potential targets available in Korea??

Mark Caprio


2013/6/10 shultz at hawaii.edu<mailto:shultz at hawaii.edu> <shultz at hawaii.edu<mailto:shultz at hawaii.edu>>
This is purely anecdotal but when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Pusan in the 60s one of my colleagues at the school where I was teaching mentioned how B-29s routinely flew over Korea but never dropped bombs. To Koreans it was an inspiration that help was possibly on its way and Japan did not rule the skies.
Ned Shultz

On 6/10/2013 10:50 AM, Bill Streifer wrote:
I am very familiar with B-29 military targets in Japan during WWII, but for some reason Korean industry is not on that list. Yes, the ports were mined to prevent war materials from reaching Japan, but Wonsan, Pyongyang, Seoul and Hungnam were never bombed, not even once.

American B-29 "experts" have offered several explanations, but I found them all to be inadequate. My thought is that Syngman Rhee struck some sort of deal with President Roosevelt? Does anyone have another explanation?

Bill Streifer



--
Edward J. Shultz
Dean, School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Assistant Vice Chancellor, International Programs
University of Hawaii at Manoa
808-956-8818<tel:808-956-8818>

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