BOOK REVIEW
Kodachrome Korea Korean War in Color by John Rich North Korea Caught in Time by Chris Springer
Reviewed by Michael Rank
World War II was a war that was photographed almost entirely in black and white
but by the time of the Vietnam War, color was increasingly dominant and now in
the 21st century wars are being snapped in the sharpest, most terrifying color
imaginable.
The Korean War began only five years after World War II ended, and it too was
documented overwhelmingly in black and white, by such outstanding photographers
as David Douglas Duncan of Life magazine and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Max
Desfor of the
Associated Press.
So it comes as quite a surprise to discover that at least one photographer was
taking superb color photographs of the Korean War, but for almost 60 years they
lay forgotten in a tin-lined tea chest in the photographer's home in Maine.
One day a couple of years ago, John Rich opened up the chest, and exclaimed,
"My God" when he rediscovered the perfectly preserved hoard of Kodachrome
transparencies of soldiers, civilians and devastated landscapes from the
1950-53 war that form a remarkable archive from a conflict that sometimes seems
to have been written out of the history books.
Rich, now aged 93, says he took part in every war of the 20th century, either
as a combatant or a correspondent, since World War I (he was born during that
war). He was a marine in WWII and after that found a job with the International
News Service in Tokyo, from where he was sent to Korea in the very first week
of the war.
He spent the entire war in Korea, longer than any other American journalist,
going back to Japan every couple of months. Rich was primarily a reporter
rather than a photographer, and took up color photography simply for his own
interest, while the professionals stuck to black and white as their companies
could not handle color.
Rich may think of himself as an amateur when it comes to photography but his
photos are of stunning quality both technically and artistically.
True, there are no combat photos in the book, but the pictures manage to
portray in vivid and deadly color the horrors of war and the resilience of the
Korean people, as well as the dogged heroism of many of those who fought.
The cover photo of a Korean boy standing waving on the remains of a
Russian-built North Korean Yak fighter plane is one such picture, with its
combination of destruction and hope, while a two-page spread showing South
Korean children in early 1951 shortly after US-led United Nations forces
recaptured Seoul is a grim reminder of how a desperately poor country was
ground down yet further by the conflict.
A particularly grisly photograph shows two dead Chinese "volunteers" lying in a
pool of blood after a skirmish near the city of Suwon which was probably the
furthest south the Chinese managed to penetrate before being beaten back by UN
forces.
Another picture shows North Korean prisoners, their hands behind their heads,
being interrogated by US military personnel in a field north of Seoul. "North
Korean soldiers frequently wore white civilian clothing," a caption notes,
"which would have dire repercussions when UN troops fired into crowds of
refugees infiltrated by the enemy."
Rich witnessed the battle of Chosin reservoir, one of the war's bloodiest
engagements, which ended in a retreat to the coast after the US marines found
themselves trapped and outnumbered by thousands of Chinese, although 1st Marine
commander Major General OP Smith is supposed to have said, "Retreat, hell!
We're just attacking in another direction!"
The day the US troops arrived at Chosin, Rich photographed a Korean farming
couple and their bullock cart in the freezing cold, with a group of marines
huddled in the background unaware of the shocking reverse they were about to
face.
Rich also snapped civilians attempting to maintain something like a normal life
despite the war, including a Korean boy in a market presiding over a hodgepodge
of mixed goods ranging from kitchenware to ageing photos of pre-war starlets,
as well a remarkably chic couple out for a walk in the park.
The US army in Korea was officially "dry", but a sign in front of Namdaemun
gate in central Seoul shows that off-duty US troops were no teetotallers.
"Danger," reads the sign. "Native liquor has killed 11 in this area. Will you
be next?"
Stars would sometimes come out to entertain the troops, and the book includes a
photograph of Betty Hutton performing scenes from Annie Get Your Gun and
enjoying an airplane ride after the show.
There are also photographs of General Douglas MacArthur clambering into a Jeep,
as well as of British troops of landing in Busan, including Argyll and
Sutherland Highlanders in their kilts. "The newly arrived Brits boarded a
train, and I rode with them to their base near the front lines, from where they
prepared to enter combat in the next couple of days," Rich recalls in the book.
One of the most striking photos is of the notorious UN camp that housed up to
170,000 North Korean and Chinese prisoners on Geoje island. It shows propaganda
banners praising Kim Il-sung after a prisoners' uprising that culminated in the
kidnapping of US General Francis Dodd, while another surprising picture is of
Americans and a North Korean soldier mingling in a market in Gaeseong, site of
the truce talks.
At the peace talks Rich became friendly with a communist Chinese correspondent,
Chu Chi-ping, through whom he was able to send letters to American prisoners
held by the North Koreans. But covering the talks was "boring, boring, boring"
and nothing leaked out of how negotiations were progressing. However, the book
does include a memorable aerial view of the temporary wooden huts at
Panmunjeom, many of them thatched, and it is shocking to recall that this
remains the world's tensest frontier.
That these photographs have survived in such fine condition is something of a
miracle, with their bright colors and remarkable sharpness, and Rich and his
publishers are to be congratulated on producing such a handsome book which is
also a valuable historical archive.
North Korea Caught in Time is a more muted affair, consisting mainly of
war and post-war photographs taken by [North] Korean Central News Agency
photographers which were sent to archives in Hungary, which was a communist
bloc ally of Pyongyang.
In an introductory essay on the war and its aftermath, Balas Szalontai of
Mongolia International University notes how when North Korea's leaders "made
their fateful decision to attack the South, they were not sufficiently prepared
for the possibility that the United States might retaliate by bombing the
North's cities."
He quotes a Hungarian diplomat as saying that after the war it was not possible
to start rebuilding as Hungary had done in 1945 "because there are no
buildings, or machines, or anything left."
The photographs, in black and white, are as grim as one might expect from a
particularly brutal communist regime at war and recovering from war.
But although the pictures were intended as anti-American propaganda, they can
be extremely moving. A photo entitled "Civil servant Kim Ch'ang-guk weeps
bitter tears over the coffins of her slain mother and family" is as shocking as
the title suggests, while another of the bodies of three young children lying
among the rubble after an air raid likewise transcends politics in its sheer
horror.
No collection of totalitarian photographs would be complete without a pair of
now-you-see him, now-you-don't airbrushed pictures, and this book is no
exception.
It features two photos of Kim Il-sung signing the armistice agreement: in one
Kim Tu-bong, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's
Assembly, can be seen sitting next to the Great Leader, while in the other he
is nowhere to be seen, as a few years later he became a non-person after taking
issue with his boss's Stalinist economic policy and cult of personality.
Kim Tu-bong's fall was especially precipitous because at one time he seems to
have been almost co-equal in rank to Kim Il-sung: surprisingly, in a photo of a
May Day parade in 1956 portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Tu-bong are carried
side by side. A caption suggests that "Perhaps this display was a sop to the
Soviet delegates who were in town for the Third Party Congress. For at this
time, the Kremlin was pressuring the regime to curtail Kim Il-sung's cult of
personality and form a collective leadership."
Another photograph shows American prisoners of war who were forced to march
down Stalin Street in Pyongyang to demonstrate against US air attacks, while a
few, more spontaneous, pictures were taken by unidentified Hungarian visitors
and show rare market and street scenes.
Both these books are unique historical documents, and while Rich's photographs
are more eye-catching, North Korea Caught in Time is a valuable
contribution to the study of communist propaganda while also highlighting the
horror and tragedy of war.
Korean War in Color: A Correspondent's Retrospective on a Forgotten War by
John Rich. Seoul Selection (May 10, 2010). ISBN-10: 8991913644. Price US$85,
248 pages.
North Korea Caught in Time: Images of War and Reconstruction by Chris
Springer. Garnet Publishing (June 30, 2010). ISBN-10: 1859642144. Price US$50,
176 pages.
Michael Rank is a London-based journalist specializing in Korean and
Chinese affairs. A graduate in Chinese from Cambridge University, he was a
Reuters correspondent in Beijing 1980-1984. He visited North Korea in September
2010.
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He spent the entire war in Korea, longer than any other American journalist,
going back to Japan every couple of months. Rich was primarily a reporter
rather than a photographer, and took up color photography simply for his own
interest, while the professionals stuck to black and white as their companies
could not handle color.
Rich also snapped civilians attempting to maintain something like a normal life
despite the war, including a Korean boy in a market presiding over a hodgepodge
of mixed goods ranging from kitchenware to ageing photos of pre-war starlets,
as well a remarkably chic couple out for a walk in the park.
