Hong An was a student in Seoul when North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950. Toward the end of the war he joined the South Korean army. He was interviewed for COLD WAR in February 1997.

On the North Korean invasion:

I remember vividly, even today, the day the war broke out. It was Sunday morning. We heard this kind of remote, roaring noise from the North. ... And of course the government told us that there was some invasion by the North Koreans. They didn't say it was a full, all-out invasion, and the government constantly announced that the South Korean army was repelling the invading North Korean forces and even [advancing] into North Korean territory. We were very, very happy and confident that our armed forces would do that. ...

The night of 27th, I remember at midnight the government announced that the people should remain calm and the government is doing all it could do, and [to] stay in [our] home and do nothing, [don't] panic. The next morning, it was Sunday, a very bright Sunday, the 28th. We woke up and we looked outside the wall or fence of the house and there we saw strange soldiers with different types of, you know, helmets, and tanks also. I never saw any South Korean forces ever having tanks. There were the big tanks on the streets and soldiers with the submachine guns with a round magazine, which the South Korean army didn't have. And I thought, "What is it, who are they?" Then we saw North Korean flags for the first time in our lives and suddenly it dawned on us, "Oh my God, here are North Koreans and where's our government, where's our armed forces?" We felt we were betrayed, we were lied to.

On U.S. and U.N. intervention:

We realized that the South Korean army really collapsed and there was nobody to protect us. And at that time we had nearly a religious conviction, a faith, that the United States would come to rescue us. After all, it was the United Nations which supervised the independence of South Korea, which created South Korea, and it was the United States which backed us all the way, and we were told and we had this belief that the America, this country, will come to [the] rescue. ... Come to think of it today, it may have been too much of a faith, knowing the world situation, but we had this conviction.

Then we heard the North Koreans announcing that the People's Army was fighting gallantly against the Americans, so we knew that the Americans [were] already in the battle. Then we saw ... these [U.S.] jet planes ... over our sky and we knew that we were OK, we'll be saved after all. And when we realized that there was a participation by the United States armed forces [together] with the United Nations forces, we thought ... the North Koreans would turn around and leave. But that was a premature understanding.

On the North Korean occupation:

In the beginning, we were curious as to who they were and how they [would] react to us and so forth, and we timidly, cautiously went onto the street and talked with them. And the soldiers were very kind; after all, they spoke our own language. ... Obviously the trained soldiers were very well-disciplined and wouldn't do anything harmful to the civilians.

However, some later days came the North Korean administrators, the government people -- and their attitude was totally different. We began to fear the occupation, and two things that happened thereafter [enhanced this fear]. One was the shortage of food. We quickly ran out of food, because there was no supply, and we found that the North Korean administrators wouldn't care for feeding us, so we had to hunt and get food ourselves. The other thing was that North Koreans started to hunt or capture South Korean able-bodied men to put into what they called the "volunteer forces." ...

I can tell you that it was women, the mothers and sisters, who saved the totally immobilized men from disaster, from hunger, and from being picked up by the North Korean recruiters. ... The food ran out and it was usually my mother and my elder sister who'd get certain silk dresses that they had, or something valuable, and bring them to the farms -- walking like 10 miles, 20 miles in hot summer days, risking the air strikes and so forth -- [to get] some grain, some rice, some barley and so forth and feed us.

And in the meantime, the men were totally immobilized. They couldn't go out -- my father included, who was not particularly young at that time -- but we were totally immobilized. Soon after the occupation, we were told to come to school, where there would be Russian movies played. So some would venture out to the theaters and schools, then after movies or school meetings, [the North Koreans would] say, "Well, [you] have to fight for the country's liberation against the U.S. imperialists" and so forth. Many [people] really without choice had to "volunteer" -- with quotation marks on both sides.

I knew that I wouldn't do it from the beginning. My family tradition had the full conviction that there was nothing trustworthy [in] the communist propaganda. ... I stayed home all the while. Then as the war progressed to the August and September, the search began [to] intensify: Almost every morning or in dusk, before sunrise, the communist teams and cadres, local police, would encircle our areas and block all the exits and they [would] search house by house and pick up any able-bodied [men] from 15 to 40 [or] 45. And [they were] made quickly a "volunteer." We heard that they were sent to a school or some training center and trained for a couple of days how to shoot rifles and sent to the front line. ...

My mother was so determined ... to protect me from this happening [that she] would not sleep at night, because usually it was after midnight or early in the morning that the search team would come to the area. And my mother made some kind of a small hole under the floor of my house, a small hole. I almost was forced to get into it. I hated that because it was damp and cockroaches were running in my face and across [it] and [it was] smelly on some hot days, but she forced me to stay there for a couple of hours until the search team would leave and she felt safe. This went on for two months or three months, I think. ... That was how I survived. ...

One day -- I think several days before U.N. forces reached Seoul -- there was a very intensive search and my mother, coming back from outside, said, "Today the search team is so big, so thorough, I cannot keep you over here. Get out of [here]. I don't want to see you being picked up by them; get out." So I got out of the house. At that time, for such an eventuality, I had a kind of red band, [with] which I faked like [I was] a communist cadre. And I had the old red leather bag that [was] like a communist would carry. And I put my red armband on my arm and took up the leather case, which had nothing in there, and I left the house. And sure enough, at the corner ... a young man told me -- perhaps he was from the countryside somewhere, a farmer probably, communist sympathizer -- [he] told me, "Er, comrade, where are you going?" And I shouted at him, "Comrade, don't you ever let anybody past this place? Do you understand?" He said, "Yes sir." I turned round and I ran and I found the streetcar still running at that time and hopped onto a streetcar. It was empty, there was only operator and myself and I rode it all day, back and forth, back and forth, and operator didn't know who I was [or] what I was doing.

[At] sunset, I came back and the house was empty and my younger brother was almost crying, and I said, "Where is everybody?" He said, "Brother you are back!" [I said], "Where is everybody?" He said, "Mother, father, everybody went out looking for you, to the collection centers (the schoolyards where many youngsters were collected) and they were looking for you to say goodbye and give you some money to survive." And I said, "I'm here." And then one by one my mother came back and father came back and they were jubilant.

On the arrival of U.N. forces in Seoul in September 1950:

Over the radio ... we heard U.N. forces landed in Inchon on September 15, 1950, about three months after the North Korean occupation of Seoul. And we thought at last, the liberation is imminent. We thought it would be a day or two, because the distance between Seoul and Inchon was only 90 miles. It took some 15 days for them to reach Seoul. Each day was so long, like many thousands of years. ...

When the U.N. forces reached Seoul, I think that was September 25th, it took three days for them to really liberate the entire city. My house was located on a hillside and there was a cross-fire between the U.N. forces on the south and the retreating North Korean People's Army on the northern side. It lasted about two days and we were right in the middle of it. I could see from my house many houses being bombed, and the [explosions] and the smoke, you know, coming out. And I heard the shrill of the mortar shells flying over. I could even see certain black dots, you know, flying over. And finally my father told us that it would be better if our family split up: [that way] at least somebody [would] have to survive this war, the last battle.

I took my grandmother and started to walk out of the house and we were heading to the north, to the house of my aunt, who lived in the northern part of Seoul. I don't know where my mother and father went even today, but anyway we split, and on the way to my aunt's home we saw on the streets block by block, already no regular army was visible, but there were guerrillas, supposedly what they called partisans dressed in different ways, with caps on, with rifles, hunting rifles, some with swords, and their eyes were so, so vicious, I almost squirmed. ...

The fight was so intense and it was almost certain that if we remained home, then our house would be bombed or shelled and we all perish. And my father probably in total desperation [had] thought that we should split, because that would possibly keep some of the family members alive. But then, at the end of the occupation, we found that nobody from our direct family suffered any casualty.

On U.S. troops:

American forces were, to us, saviors. They came to rescue us, risking their lives, and we were totally appreciative of them. And when I [joined] the army, I had many contacts with the American units, the patrol leaders, and we walked together, side by side, and so forth. The regular army soldiers and the officers were very well-disciplined and kind and cheerful, as usually many Americans are. However, I also found that some of the American officers, who were attached to the [South Korean] army units as advisers, as they came to know more about the Koreans and the Korean side and our operation, I think many grew disdainful of the Koreans and they didn't have too much respect for Koreans and many [were] arrogant. But then, I think we invited some of their disdain, because we were disorganized, inexperienced, [and lacked] tradition as armed forces. But still, as some of the Americans have became more familiar with us, certainly [there] was a certain disrespect. As a very idealistic young man, I resented [it]. At the same time, I also have to add that in general the Americans were very good, very helpful. And as a whole, we really appreciated their coming to fight for us.

On the armistice ending the war:

As I remember, armistice was signed at 10 o'clock, July 27, 1953, and in the front line we were told that there will be 12 hours of gap between actual signing and the implementation of the truce. As time approached, that was of night in the front line, 10 o'clock, a kind of eerie silence fell throughout the front line. ... Then finally the time came and we timidly came out of our bunkers to see if it was OK to come out after all, and we finally found that it was OK to come out. On the other side of the hill there were all kind of explosions and the jubilation and so forth on the enemy side. At that time, it struck me that war ended after all and I survived this. I had a sense of relief that I survived this war.

Then quickly, this sense of relief was overtaken by ... how can I say, anger or frustration. It's more like frustration. What the armistice meant was that the country now lay in utter ruins, under ash, a land still divided. Perhaps even though we did not start the war, but perhaps a unification may have been worthwhile of all the sacrifices we had, if country was unified. No, it was the same as the war started or before war started, with all the destruction and agony and pains and deaths and blood. It was totally, totally unacceptable to us and my soldiers included, they all fell silent, not knowing really what it's all about. ... We wondered, at least I wondered ... where is the might of the West? We believed in the military and other power, strength of the West. We relied on it and they came to rescue us, but war ended without any conclusion. And we wondered what can we really believe now. Is it lack of the will on the part of the West? Or is Korea being considered as something troublesome that they wanted to forget about? Or what was it?

On the war's legacy in Korea:

The country, which was poor to begin with, was left by the war a totally devastated, poverty-stricken country. In Seoul I could see, without any obstruction, [for] miles and miles. Buildings and houses were destroyed. ... There was a flood of refugees everywhere, and many orphans we could see on the streets, begging for a little food and so forth. We felt numb. We felt totally incapable of coping with the situation. There was a sense of total despair and dejection. I think for a while we lost our hopes in any way. [But then] again there a great deal of assistance, economic and other assistance, came from the West -- particularly from the United States -- which I think kept our population from starvation.

[But] there was no confidence left in ourselves. ... Korea, which was unified as a single country since the 7th century, never had this kind of war. There were skirmishes and so forth, but never a total war like this. And brother fighting against a brother has a strange impact, because your brother -- how could you do it to me? And this feeling is mutual: [The] distrust and animosity and hatred is so greater than the war between two different countries. And this war tore apart the fabric of the Korean community, or society, or people as a whole, and the distrust which lingers even today is so profound. And in that sense, the North Korean invasion of South Korea cannot be forgiven, even in the name of unification, and this really has left the painful legacy. Today, North Korea has 24 million, South Korea has some 44 million population, and still we know that 10 million of those population in North Korea and South Korea are misplaced, and their families are torn apart.