North Korean propaganda about the US crimes during the Korean War

Archive.org has a copy of the 1981 book 'History of the Just Fatherland Liberation War of the Korean People' (the text can be read here). The foreward gives some idea of how North Koreans might feel about the US.

The U.S. imperialists who are out for world conquest launched an armed invasion of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on June 25, 1950. It was their dream to make the Korean people their slaves and turn Korea into their colony to set up a military base for conducting a war against the Soviet Union and the Chinese People's Republic.

The war of aggression unleashed by the U.S. imperialists was a severe test to the Korean people and the people's democratic system. The Korean people, however, stood up to safeguard the country's freedom and independence in their just Fatherland Liberation War. [...]

During the war, the U.S. imperialists reduced our towns and villages to ashes and employed every kind of criminal inhuman method such as never seen before in the annals of human history in their attempt to subdue the Korean people. However, contrary to their expectation, the Korean people were tempered more and the people's democratic system was strengthened further in the flames of the severe war. [...]

Lastly, the war clearly revealed the savagery of the U.S. imperialists, beasts in human skins and the man-eaters of the 3th century.

Pages 124-130 give some background on war crimes supposedly committed by US forces. These war crimes, particularly the killings in Sincheon, did occur - but it wasn't Americans who committed them (Hwang Sok-yong's novel The Guest dramatizes this massacre).

U.S. Atrocities. People's Heroic Struggle in Enemy-occupied Areas

As the Korean People's Army withdrew temporarily the enemy occupied many areas in the northern part.

The U.S. imperialist aggressors committed brutal atrocities unparalleled in the annals of humanity.

V. I. Lenin wrote: "The U.S. billionaires, the modern slave-owners, have opened a specially tragic page in the sanguinary history of sanguinary imperialism." (Lenin, Collected Works, Russ. ed„ Vol. 28, p. 44)

The inhuman atrocities of the U.S. imperialists made the Korean people realize how correct these words of Lenin were and how diabolical and cold-blooded the U.S. imperialists were.

To materialize their dirty aggressive end, the U.S. imperialists, first of all, set up a reactionary rule in the areas under their occupation as in the southern part. The people's democratic system was thrown out and the achievements of democratic upbuilding by our people were obliterated. They restored the Japanese imperialist ruling apparatus. Police stations were set up everywhere. Then the pro-Japanese, pro-American elements and national traitors were made governors, county or sub-county heads. The enemy counted on these characters as their prop.

Besides, they declared in effect that all the democratic reforms carried out by the people's power were null and void and attempted to hand over the land and enterprises to U.S. capitalists, former Korean landlords and compradors.

Under a U.S. wand, the pro-Japanese and pro-American elements, former landlords, comprador capitalists, and renegades organized all sorts of reactionary and terrorist organizations such as "Security Corps," "Communist Annihilation Corps," "Chiandai" (peace preservation corps), "North-west Youth Association," "Taihan Youth Corps," etc. These unsavory organizations were set up by the U.S. invaders to suppress and massacre the people and destroy and plunder their properties. Numerous patriots including the members of the Workers' Party of Korea and innocent people were brutally butchered by the enemy. Men and women, young and old, were wantonly killed.

The bestial atrocities of the U.S. aggressive troops against our people were systematically organized by their commanders.

It was not uncommon to find the captured U.S. soldiers and mercenary soldiers of the "U.N. Command" with hand-books or "manifestoes" issued by the U.S. Army headquarters calling upon them to be merciless to the Koreans, not to have the slightest sympathy and pity even for a child.

The U.S. 8th Army Commander issued a call to the "U.N. Command" soldiers which reads in part:

"...The war is raging. Therefore, if you want to save your life, you should kill as many Asians as possible. Be it an infant or the aged, you should not let your hands tremble. Kill them; it is the way to relieve yourselves from destruction and fulfill your responsibility as the U.N. Command soldiers."

Such was the credo of the U.S. aggressors.

As a result, wherever the blood-stained hands of the U.S. imperialist aggressors and their hirelings reached, the soil of our beautiful land was drenched with the blood of the Party
members and people. The number of innocent people they killed reached hundreds of thousands. According to a preliminary investigation in the Province of Hwanghai alone some 120,000 were murdered by them.

In Shinchun County of Hwanghai Province alone, over 35,000 inhabitants were slaughtered, including more than 16,000 women, during the period between October 17 and December 7, 1950 when the enemy were occupying this region. In Woonbong-ri, Onchun Sub-County, Shinchun County they slaughtered over 600 innocent people or 68 per cent of the total inhabitants. Among the murdered were 10 infants under the age of 5, some 150 boys and girls aged 6 to 15 years and more than 80 old men and women aged over 50 years. All this mass-slaughter in the Shinchun area was done under the personal instruction of a U.S. army officer, Harrison.

For instance, on October 18, some 30 soldiers under Harrison murdered cold-bloodedly more than 900 innocent people in Shinchun. An eye-witness of the murder case described the scene in the following manner:

"The beasts stripped the people naked, bound them together by fours or fives, drove them into a pit at the point of the bayonet, and set fire after pouring gasoline over them. The air was filled with the shrieks of the women and children and an offensive smell of burning human flesh. Yet the whole thing was highly amusing to American soldiers. They clapped their hands gleefully watching the people burning. They shot those who crawled out of the pit and eventually closed the pit, burying alive those who were still breathing. When earth blocked the opening completely the devilish U.S. officer Harrison left the scene, whistling a jolly tune."[...]

Another kind of the U.S. bestial act was the outrage committed against the women. The brutes violated women everywhere and mercilessly killed them if they resisted. Even old women aged 65 or little girls aged 12 were assaulted. [...]

These are part of the numerous inhuman atrocities committeed by the U.S. army. The Korean people will never forget the brutal atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. imperialists and will curse them forever. 

A jolly tune, indeed. The atrocities the book describes are illustrated in posters at the Sincheon massacre museum (here, though they're pretty horrific images). On the same topic, here's how KCNA reported the recent USFK air rifle incident in Itaewon:

GIs Go on Shooting Spree against S. Korean Civilians
Pyongyang, March 5 (KCNA) -- Service members of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces present in south Korea went on shooting spree against passers-by in Seoul, according to south Korean CBS.

On Saturday night three GI criminals fired their air rifles at random in front of a hotel in Rithaewon-dong, Ryongsan District of Seoul.

When police reached the scene, informed of the incident, they drove their car over them before hurriedly taking to flight.

They drove their car in Seoul at breakneck speed, bumping against several vehicles and two citizens.

When the GI criminals were called to appear at a police station, they were so brazen-faced as to insist that they should "stay at ease," a gesture of refusing to be questioned. This behavior is touching off towering anger among south Koreans.

The evermore frequent GI crimes in south Korea are a product of the pro-U.S. policy of the south Korean authorities who consider sycophancy and subservience as a means for their existence.

Nice to see KCNA using CBS as a source.