84 COMMUNISTS KILLED

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26917, 18 December 1952, Page 9

84 COMMUNISTS KILLED

Korean Prison Riot Story Told (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) PUSAN, December 16. The commander of the Pongam Island prison camp (LieutenantColonel George Miller) said today that 4000 Communists hypnotised themselves into staging a riot which ended only when United Nations guards fired point-blank to save their own lives. Colonel Miller said he ordered his 300 American and South Korean guards to fire to prevent the prisoners from breaking free, and wiping out the United Nations detachment. The uprising, which occurred on Sunday afternoon, cost the lives of 84 prisoners, and, injured 118 others. Four guards were injured. Colonel Miller said the Communists made no attempt to avoid bullets. Some tried to fight hand to hand with the guards. The Communists stood four ranks deep with their arms linked. After the first volley the wounded were held upright and kept on singing. When guards tried to remove the dead and wounded after the battle, the prisoners lay on the ground with locked arms. The Americans had to force them apart. The terrain gave the prisoners such an advantage that bullets became necessary. The slope where the prisoners had their compounds rose upwards at a 30-degree angle, and was terraced to allow the construction of barracks and other installations. The prisoners were 15 feet above the guards, with their backs against a barracks wall. To send troops after them “would have been suicide.” “I think that the 30 per cent, of diehard Communists in there would have forced the others to die just to have us lose face.” Colonel Miller said. “If I had sent troops after them on the narrow paths I would have lost every man.” Colonel’s Prediction He predicted that in six months the prisoners would be as .truculent as ever. It had been the same ever since the men were removed from Koje Island, where a riot last spring cost the lives of some 90 Communists. He had had several warnings that the uprising was coming, said Colonel Miller. Another 4500-man enclosure on the other side of the island was prepared to join in. When the outbreak’ started he ordered the singing to cease. The frenzy increased, and men started throwing rocks about the size of fists. He ordered the guards to fire shotguns, then open fire with carbines and rifles upwards into the mass of prisoners from a range of less than 30 yards. Meanwhile, in another compound,, massed prisoners were moving with locked arms in an attempt to crash out of the gate. A light machine-gun in a nearby tower had t o open fire before the situation was restored. Colonel Miller repeated: “I would hke S e t my hands on the leaders.” The United Nations Prison Command reported today that a vicious fight broke out yesterday among Communist prisoners as the Allies launched a new search for the fanatical Communist leaders of Sunday’s riots. Colonel Miller says this fight occurred in one of the two compounds which did not participate in the mass violence. The Communists turned their spite on two internees who did not want to join the break for freedom. One internee had both eyes gouged out and lost the hearing in one ear.