Kim Jeom-gon

Kim Jeom-gon (Korean: 김점곤; April 15, 1923 – September 28, 2014) was a South Korean soldier and educator.

Life

Kim was born on April 15, 1923, in Yangnim-ri, Hyocheon-myeon, Gwangju County, South Jeolla Province, during the Japanese colonial period.¹ He attended Taegu Normal School but dropped out and went to Japan to study, graduating from the First Higher School of Waseda and then enrolling in the Faculty of Letters at Waseda University. He returned to his hometown and was then conscripted as a student soldier into the Japanese army. As a candidate officer, he received a year and a half of special training in Beijing, and he served as a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army's North China Area Army in the area around Tangshan in Hebei Province and in Tianjin and other parts of North China.²

He was liberated in China in 1945 and then returned to Korea. In 1946 he entered the Faculty of Law and Literature at Seoul National University, attending for two weeks before enrolling in the first class of the Korean National Defense Constabulary Military Academy (the Korea Military Academy) and being commissioned. While serving as commander of the guard company (first lieutenant) of the 8th Regiment in Chuncheon, he had Park Chung Hee, who had been commissioned in the second class of the Military Academy, as a platoon leader under his command. Because of this connection, he took part in efforts to save Park's life during the purge of the military in 1949.³ In 1948 he served as an aide to the director of the Military Advisory Group's Office, and then as operations chief of the provisional headquarters established to suppress the Yeosu–Suncheon Rebellion. After the suppression, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 5th Brigade. In February 1950, he served as commander of the new recruit training battalion of the 5th Division, which had been upgraded from a brigade to a division, in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province.

On May 15, 1950, he was appointed deputy commander of the 12th Regiment of the 1st Division. On June 25, he took office as deputy chief of the Intelligence Bureau at Army Headquarters, but when the war broke out, on June 26 he was reassigned to the 12th Regiment of the 1st Division and changed to the post of regimental commander, fighting from Paju and Munsan onward. As commander of the 12th Regiment of the 1st Division, he fought in a series of battles, including the and other defensive battles along the Nakdong River line, the and other advances of the Republic of Korea forces, and the withdrawal battles after the Chinese Communist Forces entered the war. During the in 1951, he was wounded in combat near Gupabal, was treated at an army hospital in Busan, and at the end of 1951 returned to serve as chief of staff of the , assisting . In 1952, he was appointed commander of the 9th Division with the rank of brigadier general, and he subsequently served as director of the Army Personnel Bureau and commander of the 6th Division. After the , in 1954 he became chief of staff of the 1st Army Command. In 1955 he was promoted to major general. In 1956 he became commandant of the , and in 1957 he served as director of the Army Intelligence Staff Department and chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1961 he was appointed senior Korean representative to the Military Armistice Commission and assistant minister of national defense, and in 1962 he retired from military service at the rank of major general.