Wednesday, August 15, 2007

8.15 The Independence Day of Korea

Yoon Bong-Gil (21 June 1908, Yesan, Korea - 19 December 1932 Kanazawa, Japan) was a member of the Korean resistance movement fighting the Japanese occupation of Korea. He was involved in an attempt to assassinate the Japanese Emperor.

On 29th April, 1932, he carried out a bombing attack using a bomb disguised as a package of food at a Japanese army celebration of Emperor Hirohito's birthday in Shanghai. The bombing killed Yoshinori Shirakawa, a general of the Japanese Imperial Army, and Kawabata Sadaji, a Government Chancellor of Japanese residents in Shanghai. It also seriously injured Ueta Kenkichi, Division 9 commander of the Japanese Imperial Army, Kuramatsu Murai, Japanese Consul-General in Shanghai, and Shigemitsu Mamoru, Japanese Envoy in Shanghai.

Yoon was arrested at the scene and convicted by Japanese military court in Shanghai on 25th May. He was transferred to Osaka prison on 18th November, and executed in Kanazawa on 18th December. He was buried in Nodayama graveyard.

In May 1946, his remains were excavated by Korean residents in Japan, transferred to Seoul and given funeral rites. He was then reburied in the Korean National Cemetery. In 1962, the government of South Korea's Second Republic praised his bombing attack, and posthumously bestowed the Republic of Korea Cordon (Grand Cordon) of the Order of Liberation Merit on him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoon_Bong-Gil

“I make this oath as a member of Korean Patriotic Association to kill the military leaders of the enemy who are invading China in order to redeem the independence and freedom of our country."

http://yunbonggil.or.kr/language/english.html