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Training base of Korean liberation army’s Project Eagle found in China

Training base of Korean liberation army’s Project Eagle found in China

Posted February. 28, 2018 08:16,   

Updated February. 28, 2018 08:16

한국어

The training base of Project Eagle, operations promoted by the Korean Provisional Government and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) for penetration of the Korean Peninsula in Xian, Shaanxi province of China, has been discovered for the first time.

The Dong-A Ilbo and the Academy of Asian Studies Department at Dankuk University visited the OSS-Korean Independence Army base in Duquzhen and a Zhongnan mountainous area in Xian from Jan. 27 to Jan. 30. OSS confidential documents currently released to the public, Baekbeom Ilji (Kim Koo’s autobiography) and testimonies of the liberation army all point out to this area. It has been confirmed that field training such as gunnery and bridge destruction took place in this area. The second army base of the liberation army in Duquzhen was also used as OSS operations center for theoretical instructions.

Baekbeom Kim Koo, the last premier of the Provisional Government and leader of the Korean independence movement, arranged for the liberation army to join forces with the Allied Forces and advance to Korea on April 3, 1945. But Korea was liberated on August 15 the same year before the operations reached Korea.

"This area is smitten with aspirations of Koreans who yearned for the country’s independence by advancing into the Korean Peninsula 73 years ago,” said Han Si-jun, the head of the Academy of Asian Studies at Dankuk University.


Won-Mo Yu onemore@donga.com