Return to *North Korean Studies*


Battle of Pochonbo


Pyongyang, June 5 (KCNA) -- Pochonbo is a local city situated on the bank of the Amnok River, border of northern Korea. Pochonbo was a strategic vantage where a Japanese imperialist police substation and other administrative establishments were set up and border guard and plunder of natural resources intensified during the period of the Japanese colonial rule.

There was a Pochonbo battle on June 4, 1937, 60 years ago recorded in the history of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle. On this day working people and school youth and children are visiting here. The Japanese aggressors occupied Korea militarily and strengthened their fascist suppression of the Korean people in the middle of the 1930s, while viciously scheming to stamp out everything national of Korea, saying "Korea and Japan are one community" and "the Japanese and the Korean are of the same ancestry."

It was at this time that the President Kim Il Sung convened a meeting of military and political cadres of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army in March Juche 26 (1937) and set forth the policy of advancing a large unit of the KPRA into the homeland to bring a dawn of national liberation to the people. He, considering an attack on Pochonbo to be the key to advance into the homeland, gave an attack order to the main unit of the KPRA at 10 p.m. on June 4.

Guerrillas attacked the Japanese imperialist police substation, set fire to the sub-county office, forest conservation office and other enemy's ruling establishments and pasted up "proclamations" and posters in all streets all at once. People turned out to the streets and enthusiastically welcomed the President, the sun of the nation, with cheers. He made a historic speech "let's fight for the liberation of the country" before the cheering masses, instilling a hope of national liberation into the hearts of the nation and calling upon all the people to rise up as one in the sacred war for national liberation.

The Pochonbo battle convinced the Korean people that however harsh and persistent the Japanese imperialists' suppression and moves to obliterate the Korean nation might be the Korean people were still alive and would not be their slaves. It also gave them a hope that the KPRA led by the President would surely win victory in fight against any strong enemy and achieve the liberation of the country.

After the battle the main unit of the KPRA wiped out the pursuing enemies in the areas of Mt. Kouyushui and Jiansanfeng. The spirit of Pochonbo still remains in the hearts of the Korean people. The Korean people, marking the 63rd anniversary of the significant victory of the battle in Pochonbo, are hardening their will and faith to bravely overcome the difficulties caused by the imperialists and build a powerful nation.


TopList Return to *North Korean Studies*