World War II: Konan / Hungnam POW camp.

This camp was located in present-day Hungnam (South Hamgyong Province).  Run by the Japanese, it housed approximately 350 British and Australian prisoners who were captured during the fall of Singapore. According to one web page, an American B-29 crew was interned there for 16 days.  The camp opened on September 14, 1943. The soldiers were repatriated (released) in mid-September 1945, approximately a month after Japan surrendered.

The above photo of the camp and other great shots can be found on this flickr page. Below is a picture of the camp location as it exists today (39°51’10.83″N, 127°35’29.08″E).

Just to the west of the camp was the Motomiya Chemical Plant where POWs worked to produce carbide.  This factory was destroyed in the Korean War and is now the Hungnam Thermal Power Plant and/or the 2.8 Vinalon Complex:

Korean War:
Pyoktong Camp 5

There is not much information on this camp  on the internet, but according to this site:

This lovely close-up is of a POW camp at Pyok Tong North Korea. The not so lovely part is that over 2000 UN prisoners are buried behind the camp.

Many UK prisoners from the Imjim battles ended up in that camp. Most of the Glosters were marched for 6 weeks to that place, then the officers and NCOs were separated from the men in case they influenced them.

A separate web page does not describe it so well:

According to a former POW, Dr. Sid Essensten, American POWs were dying at the rate more than a dozen per day in January and February of 1951 due to exposure, malnutrition, and dysentery. At that time, the camp was run by the North Koreans. Conditions improved slightly when the Chinese forces assumed control of the camp and milder weather arrived in April of 1951. Conditions improved significantly in July of 1951 once peace talks began with the UN.

Several authors have written about Camp Five, which was one of the most notorious POW camps in North Korea. Albert Biderman’s March to Calumny and Raymond Lech’s Broken Soldiers are two of the best documented accounts of Camp Five. Clay Blair’s The Forgotten War discusses the 24th Infantry Division in detail, to include the Battle at Anju.

Here are some alleged pictures taken in the camp.

According to the Korean War Project, the Kangdong Camp 8 is located at 39° 7’10.38″N, 126° 6’5.26″E and Pak’s Place was located at 39° 7’10.01″N, 125°53’46.43″E.  I cannot find much information on either of these camps—but I am not a historian.

If you are aware of the locations of other POW camps in North Korea from either WWII or the Korean War, please let me know.

UPDATE: Google just updated their satellite imagery over Kinshasa.  Now we can see where the statue is located:

ORIGINAL POST: The DPRK’s Mansudae Overseas Development Group has designed and built many buildings and statues across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.  I have been trying to map out these projects on Google Earth.

The most recent project appears to be the statue of Joseph Kasavubu in the DR Congo.  June 30th 2010 was the DRC’s 50th independence day and the statue of its first president was unveiled as part of the celebrations:

Here is a story in French about the unveiling of the new statue.

Using Google Translate, I pulled out the following blurbs:

(June 29, 2010) President Joseph Kabila unveiled Tuesday in Kimpwanza Square in the town of Kasavubu, to the cheers of the people, the monument to the first president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kasavubu.

…

It is a bronze monument of 5 tons, 5.45 meters high.

The story incorrectly notes that the statue was made in South Korea.

I have so far been unable to locate the square where this statue is located.  Help appreciated. A reader called “NKObserver” identifies the location here: 4° 20′ 17.19S 15° 18′ 18.38″E.

Additional information:

1. Here is a set of photos of the statue taken by a visitor.

2. Here is an interesting video clip of a Chinese protest of Kasavubu in 1961 featuring Zhou Enlai.

3. Here are previous posts on the Mansudae Overseas Development Group.  They do not reflect all the projects I have identified, but if you know of any others, please pass the information to me.

Google Earth has added some new GeoEye imagery for Sinuiju, Ryongchon, and Phihyon counties. The imagery dates are Oct 12, 2009 and April 14th, 2009.  So what is new in this area?

Pyongyang–Sinuiju highway under construction
It can be most easily seen between the Sinuiju Train Station and Rakwon-dong.

Villages along the highway are being spruced up in anticipation of car traffic:

The highway construction can be seen as far south as half-way between Ryongchon and Yomju.  I suspect that it is intended to continue south to Anju where it will meet up with the Pyongyang-Hyangsan highway.

Market construction in Sinuiju and Phihyon County
I blogged about the new Sinuiju market here. Below is imagery of the new Phihyon County Market (피현군):

Ponghwa Chemical Factory (Refinery)
It was partially visible before, but now we can see the whole thing. It is one of two refineries in the DPRK.  The other is in Rason (satellite image here).

Reconstructed Ryonchon City (룡천시)
I have previously blogged about this here.

On the left is an image taken after the infamous 2004 Ryongchon explosion.  On the right is the city as it appears reconstructed in 2009.

Ryongchon offers another interesting secret.  In the past, the high street ran through the center of the city (North-South):

Today, however, traffic is routed around the western side of Ryongchon rather than through the center of town.  The road in the center of town has been converted into a public square of sorts (as can be seen in the images above), and the wide avenues that run the North-South distance of the city now come to an awkward end in the fields…

Bottom photos: North and south sides of town and their vanishing high streets

Also, in 2005 the North Korean government was building either a highway or canal on the western side of Ryongchon, but this effort seems completely abandoned today:

According to the Choson Ilbo:

Seoul-based news channel YTN reported on Wednesday that a 34 m-long vessel equipped with 30- and 57-mm cannons was caught in a satellite photograph off the North’s Daedong River, near Nampo in South Pyongan Province.

An improved version of a hovercraft built to assist Pyongyang’s special forces in carrying out a possible invasion of South Korea, the ship is twice the length of the North’s earlier military hovercrafts.

In addition to some 130 wartime hovercrafts of about 17 to 20 m in length which the North Korean military has anchored off both the east and west coasts, a whopping 37 m-long air-cushion vehicle was also seen docked at Wonsan port in the East Sea.

Supported by a cushion of air, hovercrafts can move over land, ice and water, as well as mudflats and swamps.

Read the full story here:
N.Korea’s New Hovercraft Battleship Seen for First Time
Choson Ilbo
8/5/2010

I stumbled on a set of photos taken by a Myanmar military delegation which visited the DPRK to shop for military accessories.  The visit was from Nov 21-28, 2008, but there are no KCNA stories which report on the visit.  I am not sure how the pictures made it out of Myanmar, but I am sure somebody got into trouble (UPDATE: See Tad in the comments).  They have been in the public domain for some time I gather, but I had never seen them until recently.

I received the photo set in PDF format with Burmese captions.  The image resolution was not great.  You can see the original PDF here. I had the photo captions translated and matched up with a publication of the group’s membership and itinerary and I even took the time to locate some (though not all) of the group’s destinations on Google Earth. You can see the photos and translated captions here (PDF). It is a large file, so give it a minute to download.  Apologies for any grammatical mistakes in this document.  There are some small typos which I could not be bothered to fix.  I relied on friends (and friends of friends) for all the translation work, but I believe it is all reasonably accurate.

Surprisingly, many of the stops on the delegation’s visit were typical tourist locations: Myohyangsan, West Sea Barrage, Tower of the Juche Idea, Arch of Triumph, Puhung and Yangwang Metro Stops.  But below I identify some of the more unique shopping destinations.

1. The Myanmar military delegation stayed in a “special hotel” for dignitaries behind Kamsusan Palace.  Previous guests have included the former King of Cambodia.  Below are frontal and satellite images:

2. The delegation visited a facility called the “Model of Command Post”  (Command Control System and National Air Defense Command System – PLUTO – 4S).  Judging by the satellite imagery, this is a new facility.

3. Judging from the pictures, the delegation seems to have visited the Pipagot Naval Base near Nampo. The South Koreans allege this base was involved in the sinking of the Cheonan.  We are not given this location in the pictures but we do know that the group was near Nampo at the time and that the pictures and satellite imagery of Pipagot are consistent.

4. I believe that the pictures also confirm the Myanmar delegation visited the Onchon Air Force Base.  Again this is because we know the group was near Nampo, the photos and the satellite imagery of the area are consistent, and in the fourth photo below, the Burmese language caption acknowledges the existence of Onchon’s underground aircraft hangar.

5. And finally, the photos claim that the delegation visited a number of facilities in a place called “Tackwon”:  A Women’s military unit, AA ammunition factory, anti-tank-laser-beam-guided-missile factory, radar factory, and Igla factory.  This location is is actually Taegwan (Daegwan, 대관) in North Pyongan Province (40°13’10.48″N, 125°13’27.32″E).  Of all the facilities mentioned in the itinerary, the only one from which we have ground-level photographs is the “Women’s Artillery Unit” and the  “Radar Factory”.

As of 12/8/2010 the imagery for this location is in high resolution on Google Earth and we can now pinpoint these locations.  The “Women’s Artillery Unit” is located at 40.218949°, 125.231670° and the “Radar Factory” is located at 40.228778°, 125.237964°.  They are pictured on the left- and right-hand sides of the following image:

According to the Daily NK:

North Korea has earned more than $160 million in the last ten years thanks to the construction of sculptures and other edifices in countries across Africa.

A Daily NK source in China revealed on the 18th, “Since 2000, North Korea has been earning colossal quantities of dollars through contracts for the Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies under the Mansudae Art Institute to construct sculptures.”

Mansudae Art Institute is an organization primarily dedicated to the idolization of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il through public works, one whose construction of edifices such as the Juche Tower and Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang has added to the status of the country.

It has also been building revolutionary monuments in African countries such as Ethiopia since the 1970s in order to maintain cordial relations with socialist states, but in the early 2000s started doing work in African countries to earn foreign currency as well.

According to the source, North Korea has earned $66.03 million from Namibia alone thanks to the construction of the Presidential Palace ($49 million); the Cemetery of National Heroes ($5.23 million); a military museum ($1.8 million); and Independence Hall ($10 million).

It has also earned almost $55 million from Angola via the António Agostinho Neto culture center ($40 million); Cabinda Park ($13 million); and the Peace Monument ($1.5 million).

Additionally, the North has constructed a basketball stadium ($14.4 million) and an athlete academic center ($4.8 million) in the Congo, earning almost $20 million dollars in total.

Thanks to the Monument to the African Renaissance in Senegal, the North has made another $12 million dollars.

There are around 19.8㎢ set aside for a vacation spot for the president of Equatorial Guinea, which is supposed to earn Mansudae around $800,000, not to mention a government office building ($1.5 million), Luba Stadium ($6.74 million) and conference halls ($3.5 million).

The source also reported, “The money earned from these construction projects is managed by the No. 39 Department. Some of these dollars are used for domestic governance, while the rest go to secret accounts in Switzerland or Macau to become Kim Jong Il’s secret funds.”

Here are the images from the story including a table of financial data (which I would take with a grain of salt):

Additional Information:

1. I blogged here about the Derg Monument in Ethiopia.

2. I have located some of the Mansudae Overseas projects mentioned in this story (as well as numerous other places not menioned in this story: Egypt and Syria, Zimbabwe, DR Congo). However, here are GeoEye satellite images of some of the Namibia and Angola projects mentioned above courtesy of Google Earth:  

Namibia National Heroes Acre (22°39’46.02″S,  17° 4’41.06″E):

Namibia State House (22°35’28.83″S,  17° 6’2.76″E)

Cultural Center of António Agostinho Neto (Mausoleum) (8°49’24.73″S,  13°13’8.52″E)

Biological Conservation, May 2010
Lina Tang, Guofan Shao,Zhengji Piao, Limin Dai, Michael A. Jenkins, Shaoxian Wang, Gang Wue, Jianguo Wuf, Jingzhu Zhao

Download the PDF here.

Abstract:
Forest degradation in protected areas has been monitored around the world with remote sensing data, but degradation processes undetectable by widely used satellite sensors have been largely overlooked. Increased human pressures and socioeconomic development make forest protection more challenging, particularly for forest ecosystems that lie across national borders because of the differences in national socioeconomic policies and conditions within them. Here with Landsat data, Google Earth images, and field observations, we show that, in two adjacent biosphere reserves across the border of China and North Korea, over one half of primary forest landscapes have been deteriorated by exploitive uses, including seed harvesting and systematic logging. The combined effects of detectable and hidden degradation processes have further damaged forest ecosystems in the core areas in the two biosphere reserves, threatening sustainable biodiversity conservation in the region. It is urgent to develop cross-border collaborative conservation strategies that can help combat both detectable and hidden degradation processes at a regional scale.

…and it is stunningly clear. 

We can finally see the galss starting to go up on the Ryugyong Hotel:

Click image for larger version

I also blogged a few weeks ago about new housing construction near the Potongang Gate (see here).  Well this project is nearing completion (at least from the outside).

Click image for larger version

We can also see the new Pyongyang Folk Village taking shape (39° 3’40.12″N, 125°49’28.42″E).  Here is an overview of the facility:

Here are the replicas of Pyongyang landmarks under construction:

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, there seem to be replicas of different burial mounds, the West Sea Barrage, Monument to Party Founding, Ryugyong Hotel, Mangyongdae Children’s Palace, and much more.  There even appears to be a miniture Korean Penninsula that visitors can walk around.

Last week, NK Leadership Watch wrote about the funeral of Kim Jung-rin.  Using a video of the funeral I was able to map out the procession and solve a mystery I have wondered about for some time: Where does the DPRK hold state funerals?

First, below is a map of the likely funeral procession.  It starts in Potonggang District and travels to the Patriotic Martyr’s Cemetery in the north of the city.   It is probably safe to assume that most state funerals these days follow the same route.  I only offer one caveat, however, it is possible state funeral processions drive past Kamsusan Memorial Palace rather than taking the most direct route:

Click image for larger version.

Below is an image of the building where the funeral was held.  I am told by a North Korean defector that it is called Sojang Hall (서장구락부). It is managed by the State Funeral Committee.  Its coordinates are  39° 2’13.73″N, 125°44’14.74″E.

Click image for larger version

I did some  quick research with the indispensable Stalin Search Engine and put together a list of officials who have received state funerals since 1996 (all Central Committee members):  Kim Jung Rin, Hong Song Nam, Pak Song Chol, Yon Hyong Muk, Ri Tu Ik, Ri Jong Ok, Kim Pyong Sik, Jon Mun Sop, Kim Kwang Jin, Choe Kwang.

There is apparently another kind of prestigious funeral in the DPRK called a “People’s Funeral,” however, I can only find one individual who received one: Ri In Mo.  Indeed it appears that the “People’s Funeral” was created specifically to honor him.  Read more in KCNA here, here, and here.

UPDATE:  The Reconnaissance Bureau was recently reorganized.  Joeseph Bermudez has all the information on the reorganization.  Check it out here.

ORIGINAL POST: Kim Jong-il recently visited the Reconnaissance General Bureau (formerly Reconnaissance Bureau) which is assigned the military cover designation of 586 and is frequently known as 586th Army Unit.  The bueau was recently accused of ordering the assassination of Hwang Jang-yop (A claim the DPRK denies).  NK Leadership Watch has full video  of the visit, but here are some photos:

Today a  reader contacted me claiming to have located this facility on Google Earth.  I believe this person is correct. Here is the satellite image:

Click on the image for a larger version.  The coordinates are:  39° 6’28.45″N, 125°43’53.86″E.  You can see it in Wikimapia here.

The Korea Herald has more.

My congratulations to the reader for finding this one.