Photographs of Korea: October 1945 to January 1946.

January 9, 2010 8:45 AM

Photographs of Korea: October 1945 to January 1946.

"Flickr member dok1 was a US Army photographer who served during and after WWII who photographed life in Korea following the end of the war. His set ‘Korea’ documented so many things from a very momentous time: country folk, soldiers & sailors, scenery, refugees, politicians, laborers and so much more." — The Flickr Blog.

posted by chunking express (8 comments total)

Very keen set! From one of his assignments:

During World War II the Japanese, occupiers of Korea since 1910, banned baseball because it was an American sport.

We were assigned to cover the first game since the end of the war. A Korean team played against the 101st Signal Battalion.

Our team had 2 movie and 2 still photographers. I'm holding the Eyemo. Two photographers for the Korea Times are also in the picture.

The Korean Amateur Association team won, 4-3, before a crowd of 10,000 soldiers and civilians.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:02 AM on January 9, 2010

The division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea stems from the 1945 Allied victory in World War II, ending Japan's 35-year colonial rule of Korea. In a proposal opposed by nearly all Koreans, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to temporarily occupy the country as a trusteeship with the zone of control demarcated along the 38th Parallel. The purpose of this trusteeship was to establish a Korean provisional government which would become "free and independent in due course."[1] Though elections were scheduled, the two superpowers backed different leaders and two states were effectively established, each of which claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula.
wikipedia
posted by Postroad at 9:08 AM on January 9, 2010

Fantastic find
posted by KokuRyu at 9:26 AM on January 9, 2010

It's amazing how rural Korea looked. These kind of remind me of photos from the Big Picture of Afghanistan or Iraq today, albeit less bloody.

My dad was born around that time in Korea. He always made it sound like a pretty wild (and rough) time, with gangs of kids roaming around, beating each other up and blowing up found explosives left behind by the war. They were also so hungry they'd catch and cook bugs. (Korea was among the poorest countries in the world at that time.) There aren't any shots of that, but it definitely has that same kind of vibe.

Thanks for the find!
posted by ignignokt at 9:36 AM on January 9, 2010

These are fabulous - and fascinating. Thanks for posting!
posted by leslies at 6:36 PM on January 9, 2010

Wonderful photos. A lot of them really do have that "far away, another time and place, magical feeling" to them.

Thanks for post chunking express.
posted by -t at 9:45 PM on January 9, 2010

"During World War II the Japanese, occupiers of Korea since 1910, banned baseball because it was an American sport."

Huh. And here I thought it was the Japanese occupiers who made baseball popular among Koreans.

Great post.
posted by bardic at 11:47 PM on January 9, 2010

My grandfather has a book of photos he took while serving active duty (which he wasn't supposed to do) in the Korean War. It's strange to see what looks there to be a peaceful landscape, littered with bodies and soldiers.
posted by Malice at 10:04 AM on January 10, 2010