Han Seong-su (韓聖洙, August 18, 1920 – May 13, 1945) was an independence activist of Korea.
He was born in Yongcheon, North Pyongan Province. He is also known as Han Seong-su (韓成洙), and within the Korean Liberation Army he used the alias Lee Sang-il (李相一).
After graduating from Osan School, he studied in Japan. In 1944, when he was conscripted as a student soldier during the Pacific War, he escaped from his unit in China and joined the Korean Liberation Army. He then served as the person in charge of the South China region of the Korean Liberation Army's 3rd Unit, operating mainly in Shanghai under the command of the 3rd Unit commander, Kim Hak-kyu.
On March 13, 1945, he was arrested by the Japanese military police in Shanghai after being informed on. He is known to have been denounced by Son Chang-sik, a wealthy Korean resident of Shanghai. At the time, he was arrested together with seven people in total, including Hong Sun-myeong, Kim Yeong-jin, Heo Am, Park Yun-seok, and two others whose names are not known.
Han Seong-su was sentenced to death by a court-martial and, on May 13 of that year, was beheaded at Nanjing Prison in Nanjing.
In 1977, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Independence of the Order of National Foundation.
Biography
He was born on August 18, 1920, at No. 102, Nakcheong-dong, Gojin-myeon, Sinuiju, North Pyongan Province, the eldest son of Han Il-hyeon. His paternal grandfather, Han Jeong-gyu, was a wealthy man in the Sinuiju area, and the family was quite prosperous when he was young. After graduating from a common school in his hometown, he entered Osan School (五山學校), a prestigious national private school in Jeongju, North Pyongan Province, in March 1934.
Osan School and his family had a deep connection. His grandfather was a philanthropist who, during the drought of 1919, transported relief grain by train to the displaced people of the Jeongju area, where Osan School was located. Moreover, from 1920 to 1923 he donated large sums, which were enormous at the time, to the foundation of Osan School on several occasions, and he was an educational patron who also served as a board director of the school's foundation together with Lee Seung-hoon.
As is well known, Osan School was a national school that trained many patriotic youths and national leaders. The national education he received there became the spiritual foundation for his later escape from the Japanese army in China, his joining the independence movement, and his martyrdom in resistance against Japanese rule with his whole body.
After graduating from Osan School in 1939, he went to Japan in 1941 to study in the economics department of Senshu University (專修大學). While studying in Japan, he married Jeong Suk-jeo, the daughter of Jeong Bong-il, a wealthy man from Cheolsan County who later played a leading role in the Cheolsan County anti-trusteeship movement. His studies in Japan do not seem to have gone smoothly. While attending Senshu University, he was discovered reading books related to the independence movement and was suspended. It is known that his rebellious spirit was great from an early age. In early 1944, at the height of the Pacific War, he was conscripted into the Japanese army as a student soldier.
Since the annexation of the Korean Peninsula in 1910, Japan had pursued continuous expansionist policies. It occupied Manchuria in 1931, invaded the Chinese mainland in 1937, and in 1941 launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, provoking the Pacific War with the United States. During this period, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in China moved to Chongqing, following the Chinese Nationalist Government, where it established the Korean Liberation Army, proclaimed the Outline of National Reconstruction of the Republic of Korea, and announced its status and role as the central organ of the independence movement, as well as its plans for establishing a national state after liberation. Meanwhile, the Provisional Government and independence movement forces at home and abroad made various efforts to build a united front with the Allied powers, including the United States, in preparation for the final battle against Japan.
Meanwhile, as the front expanded with the Pacific War, Japan announced the Special Volunteer Ordinance for Korean Student Soldiers in 1943 and began driving Korean young students to the front lines. It was a measure that killed two birds with one stone: to make up for insufficient manpower and to eliminate the resistance of the national intelligentsia in the rear. Although it formally took the form of volunteering, in reality it was no different from forced mobilization. Han Seong-su, who was attending university, could be no exception.
Enlistment in the Japanese Army and Escape
On January 20, 1944, Han Seong-su and other student soldiers were forcibly enlisted in the 50th Unit in Pyongyang and received training. Most of the student soldiers enlisted there were from South and North Pyongan, and many were fellow townsmen or acquaintances through middle school or university classmates. Therefore, among them, discussion about escaping from the Japanese army after being deployed to either the South Seas Islands or the Chinese mainland front naturally developed.
It is said that Han Seong-su originally hoped to be deployed to the South Seas Islands rather than China after enlisting in the Japanese army. The reason was that, with his fluent English, he intended to escape to the American forces. Before he was forcibly enlisted, he had declared to his parents and wife that he would certainly escape, even if he died, rather than become a sacrifice to Japanese imperialism after enlisting.
However, to his disappointment, he was sent not to the South Seas Islands but to the Chinese front. He and the other student soldiers left Pyongyang by military train on February 13, 1944, twenty-three days after enlisting, crossed the Yalu River and Shanhai Pass, and on February 16 were assigned to a Japanese army unit near Xuzhou in Jiangsu Province, central China. This unit was a supply corps, a kind of transport unit. The student soldiers from South and North Pyongan who had come together on the military train were then dispersed and assigned to various companies at Xuzhou.
After being assigned to the Japanese army unit, Han Seong-su carried out the escape he had planned for some time. On March 26, 1944, after about a month of waiting for an opportunity following his assignment, he succeeded in a night escape at the risk of his life, on the third attempt, together with two others, Oh Geon and Lee Jong-mu. However, because the escape took place at night, the three separated after crossing the barbed wire fence. Afterwards, Han Seong-su went to the 3rd Unit of the Korean Liberation Army, while Oh Geon and Lee Jong-mu were held as prisoners for fourteen months at the Baoji Detention Camp in Shaanxi Province, China, and were released in May 1945 and enlisted in the 2nd Unit of the Korean Liberation Army in Xi'an.
Han Seong-su's escape from the Japanese army was the first escape of student soldiers in this region. After him, many Korean student soldiers followed and carried out escapes. At Xuzhou, Park Yeong-rok, Baek Jeong-gap, Yun Yeong-mu, Lee Yeong-gil, No Neung-seo, Kim Woo-jeon, Jang Jun-ha, and Yun Gyeong-bin escaped from the Japanese army, either alone or in small groups, and at the nearby Suxian, Seok Geun-yeong and Kim Yu-gil did so as well. Even just the supply corps at Xuzhou, where Han Seong-su had been assigned, saw 22 of its 50 student soldiers attempt escape, showing how large-scale these escapes were. More important and meaningful was that these escapes were truly desperate escapes at the risk of their lives. In general, escaping from the Japanese army and evading its pursuit was itself a life-threatening adventure, but reaching the Korean Liberation Army in the end was a perilous process requiring the overcoming of countless hardships.
Enlistment in the Korean Liberation Army and Anti-Japanese Activities
After escaping from the Japanese army and, through immense hardship, making contact with the Korean Liberation Army, they finally enlisted in the 3rd Unit of the Korean Liberation Army at Fuyang in Anhui Province. Fuyang in Anhui Province was an area surrounded by Japanese army trunk railways such as the Tianjin–Pukou Railway and the Beijing–Hankou Railway, as well as Japanese-occupied cities such as Xuzhou, Nanjing, Kaifeng, and Hankou. At the same time, Fuyang was on the frontline of the Second Sino-Japanese War and was an ideal area for the Korean Liberation Army to infiltrate Manchuria or the Korean Peninsula and carry out underground operations.
As is well known, the Korean Liberation Army was established on September 17, 1940, as the national army of the Provisional Government in Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Chinese Nationalist Government. The Provisional Government, established in Shanghai, China, in 1919 with the aspirations of the nationwide March 1st Movement, had from the beginning sought to organize a regular army and deploy it against Japan. However, due to the limitation of operating outside the country, it was unable to fulfill this aim for a long time. The Provisional Government came to possess its own regular national army only in 1940, after ending eight years of wartime displacement following the Yun Bong-gil Incident of 1932 and settling in Chongqing.
In September 1940, at Jialing Guest House in Chongqing, where many Western foreign correspondents had gathered, the Korean Liberation Army Headquarters was inaugurated in a grand ceremony attended by Chairman Kim Gu and other officials of the Provisional Government and the Chinese Nationalist Government. The event was largely made possible by funds donated by compatriots from the United States. After the proclamation of the founding of the Korean Liberation Army at the inauguration ceremony, the Korean Liberation Army began its full-scale activities as the national army of the Provisional Government.
At first the Korean Liberation Army consisted only of its headquarters, but after tremendous efforts it developed into a military organization organized into a headquarters and three units. In Chongqing there were the headquarters and the 1st Unit, and in Xi'an the 2nd Unit was stationed under unit commander Yi Beom-seok. The 3rd Unit was formed when General Kim Hak-kyu was dispatched to Fuyang in Anhui Province, then the frontline, and extensively recruited Korean youths. Among the Korean youths who gathered in the 3rd Unit were many excellent human resources, and afterwards these Korean youths became the backbone of the Korean Liberation Army.
After enlisting in the Korean Liberation Army, Han Seong-su entered the Korean Liberation Army Training Class (韓國光復軍訓練班, Hangwangban) to educate and train members of the Korean Liberation Army. The 3rd Unit had until then secured underground bases in enemy-occupied areas such as Xuzhou, Guide, Anqing, and Kaifeng through underground operations, and on that basis carried out recruitment activities. Through this underground network, Korean youths in enemy-occupied areas were won over and recruited, and from 1944 onward the recruited Korean youths began to gather at Fuyang. Around this time, soldiers who escaped from the Japanese army also began to appear.
The Hangwangban was established to provide education and training for the Korean youths recruited in this way and for the student soldiers who had escaped from the Japanese army as their numbers increased. In other words, it was a temporary training school established and operated by the 3rd Unit of the Korean Liberation Army, which was active around Fuyang in Anhui Province. The 3rd Unit commander Kim Hak-kyu negotiated with the Chinese army and established the Hangwangban at the 10th Branch of the Central Military Academy of China in Linquan near Fuyang. The recruited Korean youths and the student soldiers who had escaped from the Japanese army were admitted there for education and training. Among them were Han Seong-su, Jang Jun-ha, Kim Jun-yeop, Yun Gyeong-bin, and Kim Woo-jeon.
The training consisted mainly of military training and spiritual education. The military training was mainly drill, and the spiritual education, led by unit commander Kim Hak-kyu and others, covered the history of the Korean independence movement, the history of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and its Outline of National Reconstruction, aiming to inspire national consciousness. It is said that during this period Han Seong-su received respect and affection from his fellow trainees for his personal character. Fellow fighter Kim Woo-jeon's following recollection shows well what Han Seong-su was like at that time.
A tall, sturdy figure close to 180 cm, always warm toward his comrades, a reserved, gentle, and kindhearted nature, a character that earned respect from comrades by taking the lead and setting an example, a passionate appearance when singing Italian masterpieces with his beautiful, full voice, the lofty character and philosopher-like impression when he was lost in thought, an uncompromising, thoroughly resolute attitude in debates on issues, yet a comradeship full of style and romance helliphellip (Kim Woo-jeon, "A Tribute to the Patriotic Martyr Comrade Han Seong-su")
Finally, on October 22, 1944, a total of 48 trainees, including 33 from the student soldier background and 11 civilians, graduated as the first class of the Hangwangban. All trainees received commissions as second lieutenants of the Chinese army upon graduation. After graduating from the Hangwangban, 36 graduates, including Jang Jun-ha, went to Chongqing, while 12 graduates, including Han Seong-su, chose to remain locally for frontline service. Those who went to Chongqing served in the guard unit of the Provisional Government and in the headquarters of the Korean Liberation Army, and some were selected to the 2nd Unit of the Korean Liberation Army in Xi'an, where they received special training for joint operations with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and were deployed in operations to advance into the homeland.
Meanwhile, Han Seong-su and the other eleven who remained became the core personnel of the 3rd Unit, carried out activities behind enemy lines and recruitment operations, and recruited and trained many Korean youths. Recruitment operations were a very important task of supplying new blood to the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army. According to a report of the Military Affairs Department of the Provisional Government at the end of March 1945, the recruitment operations of the 3rd Unit were revealed to have been extremely successful. In this way, student soldiers including Han Seong-su were deployed appropriately in the Chinese front, both in the rear and at the front, immediately before liberation, delivering a final blow to Japan and bringing a glorious close to the Korean Liberation Army just before August 15.
Underground Operations Behind Enemy Lines in the Shanghai Area
Meanwhile, in late November 1944, a little over a month after graduating from the Hangwangban, Han Seong-su was appointed by Kim Hak-kyu, commander of the 3rd Unit, as the person in charge of operations in the South China region, including Shanghai. In fact, it is well known that Han Seong-su volunteered to be dispatched to Shanghai. Only eight months after escaping from the Japanese army, he was going back into the enemy's den. His mission was recruitment of Korean youths and the collection of funds in Shanghai, behind enemy lines. Together with Han Seong-su, three Korean Liberation Army members, including Hong Sun-myeong and Kim Yeong-jin, were dispatched to Shanghai with heavy responsibilities.
These three mainly operated radio communications in Shanghai while avoiding the strict surveillance and vigilance of the Japanese army. They secretly carried out recruitment operations targeting young Korean soldiers in the Japanese army in Shanghai. The recruitment activities of the Korean Liberation Army generally proceeded in three stages. The first stage was for operatives to infiltrate enemy-occupied areas and establish operational bases. The second stage was to win over Korean youths residing in the area based on those bases, and the third stage was to lead the recruited people to Korean Liberation Army territory.
However, the operations behind enemy lines in Shanghai assigned to Han Seong-su were by no means easy. This was because, after the Yun Bong-gil Incident of April 1932, Japan had completely changed the Korean community in Shanghai, the birthplace of the Provisional Government and the stronghold of the independence movement, into one with a pro-Japanese character. Japan, as if to retaliate for the death of Japanese military and government officials caused by the Yun Bong-gil Incident, systematically erased the anti-Japanese sentiment that Shanghai had possessed.
Pro-Japanese Koreans in Shanghai, mobilized for Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Imperialization of Subjects Movement, established mutual surveillance systems resembling nets, such as neighborhood associations (町內會), neighborhood groups (隣組), and the baojia system (保甲制), under the direction of the local Japanese army special service agency, military police, the Japanese consulate general, and the branch office of the Japanese Governor-General of Korea, and strictly guarded against the infiltration of foreigners such as independence activists. Furthermore, through broadcasts they escalated propaganda offensives against the Provisional Government in Chongqing. For this reason, from the beginning Han Seong-su's operations behind enemy lines in Shanghai faced many dangers.
Nevertheless, his efforts were not without results. In Shanghai, Han Seong-su succeeded in winning over more than ten Korean youths, including Park Yun-seok and Heo Am. In addition, he secured an operational base in Park Yun-seok's house and carried out operations while staying there. About three months after the start of recruitment operations in Shanghai, Han Seong-su began fundraising activities. The first target was Son Chang-sik (孫昌植, Japanese-style name Son Tanaka Masanori), a wealthy Korean in Shanghai, whom he had been instructed to approach by unit commander Kim Hak-kyu. Son Chang-sik was called the "overlord of the Shanghai business world," and it was no easy task, without considerable courage, to visit his office, which was frequented by prominent figures from both domestic and foreign circles. Han Seong-su visited Son Chang-sik's office under the alias Lee Sang-il, handed over a memo written by unit commander Kim Hak-kyu, and requested that funds be provided.
However, the request for funds for the independence movement for the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army was not accepted. Son Chang-sik, who under Japanese army protection supplied military goods, built a kingdom of precision machinery that was the best in East Asia, and was a major pro-Japanese figure who actively encouraged young Korean men to enlist in the Japanese army, was hardly likely to grant the patriotic request of Han Seong-su, a soldier who had escaped from the Japanese army. Rather, the meeting resulted in Han Seong-su being arrested by the Japanese military police.
In fact, Son Chang-sik had long been known as an inventor and businessman, and around 1932 he had been arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of providing funds to nationalist groups. Therefore, although it cannot be said that he had no national consciousness at all, after the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 he transformed into an active pro-Japanese figure. Son Chang-sik served as a council member and chairman of pro-Japanese organizations in Shanghai, such as the Korean Residents Association of Shanghai (上海居留朝鮮人會) and the Gyerim Association (鷄林會), and donated large sums of national defense contributions to the Japanese army several times. The Korean Residents Association and the Gyerim Association, in which Son Chang-sik was mainly involved, cooperated with local Japanese agencies and the Japanese Residents' Corporation to actively assist the Japanese army through collecting comfort goods for Japanese soldiers, Shinto shrine visits, holding ceremonies celebrating the implementation of conscription in Korea, and organizing volunteer corps and national defense women's associations.
In particular, as chairman of the Conscription Implementation Commemoration Committee, Son Chang-sik held large-scale events in Shanghai from 1944 onward to give thanks for and commemorate the implementation of conscription in Korea. Perhaps because of these pro-Japanese activities, after Japan's defeat on August 15, he was arrested by the Chinese authorities and brought before the Shanghai War Crimes Military Tribunal, with the charge of treason for actively siding with Japan and engaging in pro-Japanese activities. Therefore, judging from various circumstances, it is highly likely that Son Chang-sik was directly or indirectly involved in the circumstances of Han Seong-su's arrest. According to one account, a fellow Korean named Kim Sa-hae, who was also from the same hometown as Son Chang-sik, was responsible for informing on Han Seong-su.
Martyrdom
On March 13, 1945, immediately after he visited the wealthy Korean Son Chang-sik in Shanghai at great risk to raise funds, Han Seong-su was arrested by the Japanese military police stationed in Shanghai together with his comrades Hong Sun-myeong, Kim Yeong-jin, Park Yun-seok, Heo Am, and others. They were subjected to brutal torture by the Japanese military police. In particular, because of his past as a soldier who had escaped from the Japanese army, Han Seong-su was subjected to even more cruel torture. However, he never revealed secrets related to the Korean Liberation Army.
Afterwards, Han Seong-su was brought before the Japanese Army 7330th Unit Provisional Court-Martial. At the closed court-martial session, he appeared carried on another's back due to severe torture and waged a famous courtroom struggle that is still discussed as a model for the Korean Liberation Army. According to the recollection of Kim Yeong-jin, who had been arrested together with Han Seong-su by the Japanese military police, Han Seong-su strongly refused to use the Japanese language in court, so the trial could only resume after a Japanese interpreter was summoned. When the presiding judge asked, "You studied at a university in Japan as a student soldier, why do you not use the national language?", he answered, "I am Korean. You call Japanese your national language, but it is not mine; it is the language of the enemy. My national language is only Korean."
Moreover, when the presiding judge asked, "How do you view the Greater East Asian War? You must believe that the Great Empire of Japan will win this war," Han Seong-su calmly replied, "Japan will certainly be defeated in this war. Through the joint operations of the Allied powers, including the United States, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union, it will be utterly defeated in the Pacific theater, the Indian-Burmese front, and the Chinese front, and before long it will suffer unconditional total defeat. By then, you will regret not having granted Korea its independence, and you invaders will suffer the same hardships that the Korean independence fighters endured countless times in their struggle for independence," and sternly rebuked them.
In response, the Japanese army court-martial sentenced Han Seong-su to death. His so-called crimes were what was called "desertion to the enemy and leaking military secrets" for being the person in charge of operations for the Korean Liberation Army and for having escaped from the Japanese army and joined and been active in the Korean Liberation Army, along with violation of the Peace Preservation Law. The remaining comrades, Hong Sun-myeong, Kim Yeong-jin, and others, were sentenced to terms of more than three and up to five years. Afterwards, they were transferred to the Japanese Army Prison in Nanjing. Han Seong-su was beheaded (斬首刑) on May 13, 1945, after being transferred there. At the time, the death sentences of the Japanese army were customarily by firing squad, but Han Seong-su, who had escaped from the Japanese army as a person in charge of Korean Liberation Army operations and who had strongly resisted Japanese rule even in the court-martial, was subjected to illegal beheading. The remaining comrades were transported back to Korea in late June and, after serving prison terms at Seodaemun Prison, were released upon liberation.
Meanwhile, upon hearing of Han Seong-su's execution, unit commander Kim Hak-kyu had Jeon I-ho, who was active at the 3rd Unit headquarters, infiltrate Shanghai to investigate the circumstances of Han Seong-su's arrest and also ordered the punishment of the informant. However, just as Jeon I-ho was about to leave Fuyang for Shanghai to obtain information from the Nanjing area, the liberation of August 15 arrived.
Han Seong-su's remains were repatriated to the Yutenji Temple in Tokyo, Japan, where they were left unattended, and were finally returned to his homeland on November 20, 1971, twenty-six years after his martyrdom. This was made possible by the dedicated efforts of Jeong Gi-yeong and others, who were fellow former student soldiers and who had been carrying out a campaign to bring back the remains of Koreans who had died in the Pacific War. Han Seong-su's remains were buried in the Cheongnyong-dong Park Cemetery in Busan and then interred at the Daejeon National Cemetery, thereby fulfilling his wish to rest in a free homeland. The martyrdom and national spirit of Han Seong-su, who heroically sacrificed his life at the young and flourishing age of 25, remain to this day as a model for the history of the Korean independence movement.
The government posthumously awarded him the Order of Independence of the Order of National Foundation in 1977 in honor of his merits.
Han Seong-su's surviving family includes a daughter-in-law and two grandsons who live in the United States. His widow, Jeong Suk-jeo (aged 84), died in 2015. In 1985 she ended her life in Korea and emigrated to the United States with her son and his wife. However, when her son died first in the United States in 1990, she returned to her homeland.
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