When I was first stationed in Korea 15 years ago I can remember people both Korean and retired Americans telling stories about how a black soldier was hung by Korean civilians outside of Camp Humphreys for killing a Korean man. I was always skeptical of this claim, but as it turns out there was a grain of truth to the story. I recently decided to research this story to see if I can make a GI Flashbacks article about it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the always informative Popular Gusts blog had already researched this very topic. The site posted an article from the Stars and Stripes that was published in 1971 that explained what caused a race riot to occur in the Anjeong-ri ville just outside of Camp Humphreys:
Korean protesters in Anjeong-ri hold signs after riot occurred in the ville back in 1971. The sign on the left says BLACK, BLACK, BLACK” and “Go back to cotton field,” and the sign on the right looks like it says “We don’t need any N*****”
Black GIs on Rampage
Riot-Torn Anjong-Ni—Why It Happened
By M. SGT. JIM FREELAND and JIM LEA
S&S Korea Bureau
ANJONG-NI, Korea—A sign hangs on the rear wall of the security guard house at the Camp Humphreys main gate which lists the names of 12 bars.
Beside each is a pair of nails from which a small plaque is hung to tell American GIs who are the life’s blood of this village of perhaps 2,000 population, 60 miles south of Seoul, the situation in each bar. A black plaque means the place is on limits; a yellow one means it is off limits.
Since 9:30 p.m. July 10, all the plaques have been yellow. The sign will remain that way for a very long time, Camp Humphreys commander, Col. John C. McWhorter, says.
A few minutes past 9 p.m. that Friday, 50 black soldiers from Camp Humphreys walked into Duffy’s Tavern, one of the plushest of the bars which line a pathway GIs call “the alley,” climbed up on the stage and told everyone to leave the club. In minutes, they had demolished it and moved on to three other clubs which, they say, discriminate against blacks. Those were demolished too. “They didn’t stay around each place very long,” McWhorter said.
“They hit one place, then moved to the next. Some news stories have said there were whites involved, but that is not true. This was between a group of black soldiers and Koreans.”
More than 200 MPs and Korean National Police swarmed into the area and struggled to separate the combatants. McWhorter ordered the village put off limits and the MPs began moving Americans back up Anjong-Ni’s single dusty street.
“We had about 80 men who were moving back toward the gate with a crowd of Koreans following them. The Koreans started throwing rocks and, to break up the crowd and protect the camp, we used tear gas grenades/’ he said.
“Some shots were fired from .45 cal. pistols.
“No one was shot down here. There are rumors that some people were shot but that isn’t true. All the shots were fired into the air to break up the crowds.”
Four bars were extensively damaged. Four days after the riot, young Korean men loafed amidst the wreckage, playing go (Japanese chess), coming alert only when newsmen came in too look at the damage. Then, they hobbled about.
The bar owners are claiming 20 million won ($54,000) damage and the 8th Army Claims Office is accepting claims. If they are legitimate, they will be paid, an Army spokesman said.
The damage does not appear that extensive.
There were no houses damaged. One shop window was broken, apparently by a rock, and the Koreans reportedly were throwing the rocks.
By 11:30 p.m., most of the Americans were out of the village and safely behind concertina wire which had been stretched across the gate. About 10 U.S. dependents were moved out of the village and onto the compound.
“There was one man down here on leave with his wife. We brought them on the base Friday night and moved them out the next day,” McWhorter said.
Saturday, U.S. MPs swept through the village twice in a door-to-door search for other Americans.
“There was a lot of anger out there, a lot of tension. The men who got caught in it went into hiding. They were afraid,” McWhorter said.
One man, a Negro, was caught by villagers as he tried to make his way back to Camp Humphreys Saturday and was beaten. Police rescued him. Another man, who was injured Friday night, was found during a search and was taken back to the post dispensary.
“This man was not involved in the riot. He’s one of my best EOT (equal opportunities and treatment) men, and he definitely was not involved in it.
“We don’t know, yet, exactly who was involved. We’re investigating, but no one has been charged yet. There were many people hurt, but just because a person was hurt doesn’t mean that he was involved in it. Many were simply bystanders.
Anjong-Ni is not an unusual village.
Its single unpaved, pot-holed street is lined with vegetable stores, a hotel — which the manager says soon will boast a miniature golf course and a swimming pool—tailor and shoe shops which hawk the outlandish fashions of the young and souvenir stores which offer everything from peace beads to intricately etched Korean brassware.
The 12 bars which dot “the alley” are by GI bar standards in Korea, plush, but they are like GI gin mills anywhere. Camp Humphreys is Anjong-Ni’s major industry. It is the reason the village was built and the people and the village could not exist without it.
Its future is now shrouded in a cloud which has put the economy of other towns, other people, in jeopardy: racial discrimination.
Duffy’s, where Friday night’s riot began, is a major source of the discrimination, blacks say.
“We have no place here to relax. The bartenders don’t like to serve us, the girls don’t like to sit with us,” they say.
These are the same complaints that other GIs in Japan, the Philippines, in other areas of Asia, have. They are difficult to prove.
In Friday night’s riot, 14 Americans and Koreans were injured and were treated at U.S. military medical facilities. One Korean, a slim man nicknamed “Johnny,” the manager of Duffy’s, was evacuated to the 121st Evac. Hospital in Seoul for treatment of three stab wounds in the abdomen.
In town, people were saying Johnny was dead and a secret funeral had been held for him Monday.
Monday afternoon, Johnny was returned from Seoul and he was driven from the base to his home in a Pacific Stars and Stripes station wagon, one of the few U.S. forces vehicles allowed into the village that day. As we moved through the concertina wire at the gate, people in a crowd glared at us. The crowd had gathered a few moments earlier when base officials decided to allow Korean women through the gate to visit their boy friends.
Then someone recognized Johnny and word that he was not dead spread quickly down the street. In seconds, the hostility vanished and people ran alongside the car, shouting welcome home and smiling for the first time in four days.
As we took him home, Johnny told us about his club and about what happened.
“I was in the club about 9 p.m. and a bunch of black soldiers came in and told everybody to get out. I ran next door to call the police. We’ve had a lot of trouble here before and I knew, there was going to be trouble again.”
“When I got back to the club, I couldn’t get inside because the black soldiers had pushed everybody out. I could hear them tearing up the place. When they left, I followed them to the street. There were a lot of people around and suddenly someone stabbed me. I don’t know who did it. There were too many people around.”
“I don’t know why they did it. Somebody said it was because there was fight between a black soldier and a white soldier at my club early in the evening. That’s not true. There wasn’t any fight before 9 p.m.
We asked point-blank if there was racial discrimination in Duffy’s.
Johnny lowered his head and answered very quietly, “no.”
“Is the service you give whites any different than that you give blacks?”
He ignored the question and waved out the window at a woman who was running beside the car, waving at him.
The manager of another bar gave at least one piece of concrete evidence of discrimination.
“A lot of it has to do with credit. Many of the bars use chit books. When a soldier doesn’t have any money he can use the chits and pay on pay day. We had a bar owners meeting and some of us argued that the chit books are no good. They only cause problems.”
He said other bar owners will extend credit to white soldiers, but not to blacks. He said his bar does not extend credit, to anyone.
Some people in town — and some on base — say that gangsters have been brought into town to keep the blacks out. They say the gangsters are being paid two million won ($5,400) for the job.
“All I know,” an MP said, “is that since Friday a lot of girls have been leaving and a lot of men have been coming in.”
“Those are rumors,” McWhorter said. “We’ve heard that’s being done and are investigating, but so far we haven’t confirmed it.”
The riot at Anjong-Ni Friday night has served one purpose: It has brought the black soldiers and white soldiers a little closer together.
Monday, when GIs were allowed to go back into the village with an MP escort to pick up their belongings, blacks were not allowed to go.
“No sweat, man,” white GIs said time and again, “I’ll get your stuff for you.”
Anjong-Ni’s bars now are faced with a choice: Either clean up their town and end discrimination or go broke.
“The village will stay off limits indefinitely,” McWhorter said. “It will be off limits until each man who goes out the gate receives the same treatment as the next man.” [Popular Gusts]
I highly recommend reading the whole Popular Gusts article which begins with Part 1 at this link and Part 2 at this link. The comments section above Part 2 is especially informative since servicemembers who were in Korea during this time frame provided further context of what happened. What appears to have happened is that a group of black servicemembers decided to riot in protest of the segregation of the clubs and general discrimination against them in the Anjeong-ri ville. During the riot one of the popular club managers named “Johnny” was stabbed and evacuated to the 121 Hospital on Yongsan Garrison. It is interesting that Johnny and other Koreans that were injured were treated at the military hospital at the time because such a thing would not happen today.
Korea Times article from 1971
However, rumors spread that Johnny had died which caused anger with the Koreans in the Anjeong-ri ville. The Koreans started to hunt down servicemembers in the ville which caused many to go in hiding and wait evacuation, some by helicopter to escape the vigilantes. Despite the vigilantism there was no such incident as a black GI ever being hanged. It seems like this was just a rumor that spread just like the one saying Johnny had died. Fortunately no one did die from this riot in Anjeong-ri, but it shows that Camp Humphreys and Anjeong-ri have had historically a love-hate relationship at times. Some recent example are the Braveheart style battles that occurred in 2005 over the Camp Humphreys expansion and the nasty fight over off limits club bans in 2006.
Seek psychiatric help, Camp Humphreys commander!” is the message on this sign protesting Col. Michael J. Taliento Jr. and his policies concerning access to some off-base establishments in 2006. T.D. Flack / S&SProtesters combat riot police outside of Camp Humphreys in 2005.
Back in 1971 the protests did spread to other bases in Korea such as in the TDC ville outside of Camp Casey which saw only two people injured. However as the above Korea Times article shows three black GIs attacked and stabbed a white GI to death in Busan. It is incidents like this that show how far the Army has come since 1971 and hopefully we never seen anything like this ever happen again.
Note:You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link:
A U.S. soldier wears a military uniform with a patch of his unit during a ceremony at Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, just north of Seoul, on June 3, 2015, to mark the formation of a landmark South Korean-U.S. combined division. The division will consist of a brigade from the South Korean Army and the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, with each entity to carry out normal duties in its assigned area during peacetime. (Yonhap)
A South Korean soldier wears a military uniform with a patch of his unit during a ceremony at Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, just north of Seoul, on June 3, 2015, to mark the formation of a landmark South Korean-U.S. combined division. The division will consist of a brigade from the South Korean Army and the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, with each entity to carry out normal duties in its assigned area during peacetime. (Yonhap)
Gen. Kim Hyun-jip (R), the commander of the South Korean Army’s 3rd field battle forces, shakes hands with Maj. Gen. Theodore Martin, the commander of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, during a ceremony at Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, just north of Seoul, on June 3, 2015, to mark the formation of a landmark South Korean-U.S. combined division. The division will consist of a brigade from the South Korean Army and the U.S. 2nd Infantry, with each entity to carry out normal duties in its assigned area during peacetime. (Yonhap)
It is pretty amazing that the level of construction of the Camp Humphreys expansion is the largest US military construction project since the construction of the Panama Canal:
The new Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital under construction at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, on April 24, 2015. Armando R. Limon/Stars and Stripes
Dump trucks are rolling, and more than 10,000 workers are hammering and pouring concrete for 630 new buildings at this sprawling Army post in the South Korean port city of Pyeongtaek.
This is the peak construction year for the $10.7 billion project, which will see Camp Humphreys triple in size to accommodate tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians moving south as the U.S. vacates much of Yongsan Garrison in Seoul and two dozen other facilities used since the Korean War.
“It is, essentially, building a compound the size of (downtown) Washington, D.C.,” Maj. Gen. James T. Walton, U.S. Forces Korea’s director for Transformation and Restationing, said recently.
Construction will continue at a reduced rate next year, when the bulk of U.S. forces are due to move south. By the end of 2017, most of the moves will be complete, he said.
Construction began in November 2006 on the largest U.S. military project since the Panama Canal. The base will house 36,000, including servicemembers, dependents, civilian employees, contractors and Korean augmentees to the U.S. Army (KATUSAs), Walton said. [Stars & Stripes]
I bet the person that organized this exercise is now regretting it:
Osan Air Base halted operations at its laboratory biological defense program this week after 22 people were possibly exposed to live anthrax spores, U.S. military officials said Friday.
A statement issued by U.S. Forces Korea and the 51st Fighter Wing said that a review would be conducted while operations are stopped, but it did not say who would be conducting the review nor what exactly they would be reviewing.
The live anthrax spores had been mailed from Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to Osan as well as to labs in nine states. It appears that irradiation procedures failed to kill the live spores, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Thursday. The military has said the anthrax spores were to be used for training purposes.
“The purpose of the training being conducted was undertaken in Korea with the expectation that the materials sent from the United States would be inert and harmless, to be used for identification and detection capabilities,” a statement issued by U.S. Forces Korea and the 51st Fighter Wing said.
It was the first time the training at Osan’s Joint United States Forces Korea Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition Program (JUPITR) had been conducted. According to the military’s statement, the training was meant to improve the U.S. and South Korea’s ability to protect their troops and the South Korean population “by testing currently fielded equipment and new systems that could better identify toxins and pathogens in the environment.” [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but maybe it would be better to certify that these systems work in the US and not bring in something like anthrax even if it was dead spores. That is because if it leaked to the media the anti-US groups would twist the facts to bash the US. Remember these are the people that nearly toppled newly elected President Lee Myung-bak by spreading US beef lies back in 2008. Now due to the irradiation failure they don’t even have to twist the facts to push their anti-US agenda the US military did for them.
The Chief of Staff of the Army is blaming a machine failure for the mailing of live anthrax spores to Osan AB:
The Army followed all appropriate procedures, but irradiation might have failed to kill live anthrax spores mailed to labs across the United States and a base in South Korea, Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Thursday.
Odierno said an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is focused on why the gamma radiation used by the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah did not neutralize the spores before they were mailed. He said the Army is not aware of any other cases where irradiation did not work.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that Dugway mailed the spores to be used in training at labs in nine U.S. states as well as Osan Air Base, but there was no threat to the public. Anthrax is a potent biological weapon that is often deadly when inhaled; it was used in mail attacks after 9/11 that killed five people, wounded others and ratcheted up public anxiety over terrorism. [Stars & Stripes]
If you are wondering why anthrax is being mailed to Korea here is the reason:
U.S. Forces Korea said the sample it received was meant to be used in a training lab as part of its Joint Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition program, which is designed to increase biological weapons readiness on the peninsula.
I would love to see the risk assessment form done on this training exercise that some how involved real anthrax:
Twenty-two personnel at a U.S. Air Force Base in South Korea have been given emergency medical treatment after being exposed to a possible live sample of anthrax, the U.S. military said in a statement on Thursday.
The anthrax was destroyed on Wednesday when a sample initially expected to be inactive and destined for a training exercise was suspected of being live, according to a statement by the U.S. Air Force 51st Fighter Wing in the South Korean city of Osan, 35 kms (21 miles) south of Seoul.
None of the personnel in contact with the sample showed signs of exposure, the statement said, but were given “appropriate medical precautionary measures to include examinations, antibiotics and in some instances, vaccinations”. [Reuters]
Condolences to the family of this deceased airman:
A wooden frame encapsulated Kevin Bittinger’s military life — an American flag folded in a triangle, medals, and Air Force pins held his accomplishments, showcasing his dedication to serving his country.
The boxy frame was shown to his mother, Cindy Bittinger, on Monday. She nodded in approval and attempted to hold back tears for her son.
Kevin Bittinger, formerly of Wapakoneta, died at Osan Air Base while serving in South Korea as a member of the U.S. Air Force. Though the circumstances surrounding his death remained under investigation, his family was trying to come to terms with their loss. He was 24 years old.
Bittinger’s remains were brought back to Wapakoneta on Monday from South Korea. Family, friends and strangers gathered and participated in a processional, led by the Ohio Patriot Guard.
“It was awesome to see so many people honor Kevin. But it’s heartbreaking, too. You know, I think every one of these guys deserve that and it’s just … Kevin would have thought that was so neat. It’s awesome to see the support of our county,” Cindy Bittinger said.
Tori Wynn, a friend and a tech sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, also escorted Kevin Bittinger’s remains home to Wapakoneta from South Korea. Wynn is stationed in Japan.
Wynn said of the support shown, “It was amazing.”
At the time of his death a senior airman, Kevin Bittinger joined the Air Force right after he graduated Wapakoneta High School in 2009. He had been on active duty for nearly six years.
After his death, the U.S. Air Force issued a news release about the incident.
Kevin “Bittinger, a Pavements and Construction Equipment Journeyman, was assigned to the 51st Civil Engineer Squadron and arrived at Osan in May 2014,” according to the statement.
“The loss of Kevin is a devastating blow to the team,” said Lt. Col. Jack Wheeldon, 51st CES commander in the statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time. From RED HORSE to Prime BEEF, Kevin has done so much for the Air Force and he will be truly missed.”
The U.S. Air Force declined further comment. [Stars & Stripes]
