Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Sends Wreath to Vietnamese Embassy

Pyongyang, July 26 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, sent a wreath to the Vietnamese embassy here, expressing deep condolences over the demise of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Jo Yong Won, secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK, paid a condolatory visit to the Vietnamese embassy on Thursday and laid the wreath with a ribbon bearing the august name of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un before a photo of Nguyen Phu Trong.

Written on a ribbon of the wreath were letters reading "I mourn Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong".

He was accompanied by Choe Son Hui, foreign minister of the DPRK, and Kim Song Nam, director of the International Department of the WPK Central Committee. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche113.7.26.)

Korean War Witnesses Miracle of Century

In the world history of wars there is the Korean war (1950-1953) known as a showdown between rifles and A-bombs and a byword for miracle.

The three-year war was the most trying and severest ordeal for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as it broke out only five years after the Korean people got free from the Japanese military rule (1905-1945) and nearly two years after they founded the Korean People’s Army.

Having egged the ROK on to launch a sudden armed invasion of the DPRK early on June 25 (Sunday), 1950, across the front along the 38th parallel, the US claimed that breakfast would be had in Haeju, lunch in Pyongyang and dinner in Sinuiju and the DPRK would come to a dead end in 72 hours. There was no comparison between the warring sides in many aspects, such as population, territorial size, economic strength and armaments. 

There was no match for the Korean war in view of the scale and density of fire power weapons of the armed forces committed by the US and its 15 satellite states, barbarity of their warfare, and inhumanity of their massacre of local people.

However, the Korean people did not give in, but rose up heroically to defend their country.

Three days after the outbreak of the war, the Korean People’s Army completely liberated Seoul, the citadel of the enemy, and destroyed the main force of the ROK army. Four torpedo boats of the KPA navy attacked and sank USS Baltimore, a heavy cruiser nicknamed “moving island”, and damaged a light cruiser off Jumunjin in the East Sea of Korea, performing brilliant feats noteworthy in the world history of naval battles. The air corps of the KPA shot down and damaged scores of latest fighters and bombers including B-29, a strategic bomber much-hyped as “air fortress.”

KPA troops launched a general offensive to liberate Taejon, routing the US 24th Division or an “invincible division.” Commander Dean was captured by a KPA soldier while on his flight from the city.

The DPRK, a small country in the Orient that was little known in the world, plunged into an abyss the American empire which boasted about being the “strongest” in the world, and achieved a final win over the latter, which was a historic event that defied the logic.

The credit goes to the outstanding military ideas, brilliant strategies and tactics and Juche-oriented warfare of President Kim Il Sung, a military genius. The victory also owes much to the strong sense of patriotism and indomitable fighting spirit of the Korean people and service personnel, who fought at the risk of their lives to defend their own things and their own country rallying around their leader.

The then US President Truman said it is needed to call the Korean war a war rapidly concluded at the end of defeats, rather than a rapidly ended war. MacArthur, commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces in the Far East, confessed that never before had the US been brought down to earth with such a bump since its founding.

 

US “Mightiness”: The Myth Exploded in Korea

The US describes the Korean war (1950-1953) that ended in its defeat as a “victorious war” and a “forgotten victory.” Just as truth cannot be turned into falsehood, however, the US defeat etched in history cannot be reversed.

This is evidenced by the tragic end of US brass hats.

When it incited the ROK army to start a war against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the US declared that the DPRK would be conquered in 72 hours. But from the outset of the war, it suffered setbacks one after another and had to send a number of its brass hats to the Korean front. 

Even they couldn’t turn the tide of the war.

Dean, commander of the US 24th Division, the so-called “invincible division,” boasted a wealth of war experience as he fought in Europe during World War II and led his division against the Japanese forces to storm into Manila in the Philippines. 

The seemingly invincible commander failed to save his division from being destroyed on the Korean front, and he himself was captured by a soldier of the Korean People’s Army while on the run for his life in a private’s uniform.

The fate of the US 8th Army Commander Walker was more tragic.

He was killed together with many of his officers in an ambush and mine attack by KPA units on the second front formed behind the enemy lines.

As the war lasted, US brass hats were successively sacked.

The war situation in late 1950 turned more unfavourable to the US in the wake of the shattered “Christmas General Offensive”, which prompted a tumultuous blame game in the US. The White House tried frantically to shift the responsibility to the Pentagon, Republicans did to Democrats, and Truman pointed an accusing finger at MacArthur. 

As a result, the Korean war brought a shameful end to Commander of the UN Forces MacArthur, who had styled himself as a Napoleon in the East.

He was replaced by Ridgeway and Clark, both of whom failed to escape the fate of their predecessor. Van Fleet, newly appointed US 8th Army commander, was dismissed after being labeled as “incompetent”. US First Marine Corps Commander Smith was nicknamed a “grave commander” because he sent most of his men to the grave. 

As seen above, the US commanders, who had shot to fame emerging victorious around the world, could not but bite the dust on the Korean front.

The myth of the US “mightiness” changed into bitterness.

 “The Korean war was noteworthy as it left records in many aspects of the world history of wars,” a foreign military expert said. “First of all, it was the first war that ended in defeat on the part of the US which had maintained its position as a superpower in modern world history.

 “The DPRK’s armed forces created such an incredible reality before the world, an outcome so unbelievable that people might take it as accidental from the existing viewpoint on and criteria for warfare. As a military expert, however, I don’t believe any accident in war in any case. Something may happen in nature by accident but there is only inevitability in war where they clash in military power and mental strength.”

                                           

Three Years of War

  

As one of popular songs in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Three Years of War (2015) highlights the preciousness of the blood shed by the Korean people in the three-year Fatherland Liberation War (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953) by expounding its meaning in a profoundly lyric way.

The four-verse song written by the collective and composed by Sol Thae Song starts as follows:

The war dragged on for three years, swallowing everything into flames and agony.

The fight between the two-year-old DPRK and the aggressive US was beyond imagination. It was more than a clash of strength and firepower. It was rather a war of indiscriminate destruction and brutality, in which the US dropped 18 bombs per square kilometre of the DPRK. The US committed appalling atrocities, unprecedented in human history of wars, against the Korean people.

The song says: The catastrophic war covered the mountains with empty shells and cartridges, turning rivers into those of tears and blood, expelling birds and reducing flowers to ash. This passage speaks volumes about the sufferings, pains and agonies sustained by the Korean people during the war.

We couldn’t bury the bodies of fallen comrades-in-arms with flags to cover them torn by enemy bullets. This is about neither sorrow nor despair. It is more about an outcry of history from the bottom of the heart of former combatants, or alive war veterans, who dashed towards the enemy positions through a hail of bullets with no time even to look back their fallen fellows during the charge.

A passage goes: Dear things were lost but a precious thing was won—great victory of war. This reflects the feeling of the Korean people who would not take the memories of the war merely as those of the bygone years.

The thought-provoking line carries a great weight of the war that brings a dramatic change to the destiny of a country or a nation, and it also bears the ideological and artistic core of the song, for which it has become a song of sacred defence and great victory.

In a word, the song is a hymn to the war victory that sings of the truth that the righteous struggle of the people to defend the validity of their own cause and their own things rallied around their great leader will bring about a brilliant triumph.

During the war, the Korean people lost their beloved parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters, with their fellow villagers and comrades-in-arms falling back. They died too young and too sorrowfully.

But the Korean people braved it out sacrificing themselves to defend the dignity and honour of their country. It was a great victory.

They proved themselves through the three-year war.

While the world’s people were keeping their eyes on the newly independent DPRK, the Korean people dedicated their lives to defending the national dignity and honour and saved all the precious things from the claws of aggression.

The melody of the song commensurate with its profound lyric description is extremely impressive as it is finely combined with emotion evoking deep thought and powerful appeal.

The song ends with We will never forget the three years of war when everything precious was saved from trials.

Without any clarion call for a do-or-die battle and delight of destroying the enemy, the song is run through with lyricism of victory based on the people’s absolute confidence in their leader and passionate love for their country, and filled with their determination to carry forward the tradition and history of their great victory.

Yang Ryon Hui

Heroic Korean People's Army

Pyongyang, July 25 (KCNA) -- Under the leadership of President Kim Il Sung, an ever-victorious iron-willed commander and an outstanding military strategist, the heroic Korean People's Army defeated the military offensive of the U.S. imperialists, boasting of being the "strongest" in the world, and their followers and created the myth of victory in the Fatherland Liberation War. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche113.7.25.)

Law of War Victory- From Voice of Korea

http://vok.rep.kp/index.php/detail_com/scomde/iee240504014/39/en

  The politico-ideological superiority is the might of the Korean People's Army and the source of strength to defeat any imperialist aggressive forces lies in bringing it into full play.

  It is proved by the confrontation with the imperialist allied forces which has been lasting for centuries.

  It is a constant view of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un that the more desperately the enemy resort to the weapon-everything idea, the more firmly we should hold fast to the ideology-everything idea and that we can defeat any enemy as long as we are strong in ideology.

  Today, the KPA is opening the heyday of its development thanks to the outstanding military idea and extraordinary leadership of Kim Jong Un.

  Kim Jong Un put forward the direction and general line for army building to firmly keep and steadily enhance the absolute superiority of the revolutionary armed forces, opening a new stage of their development.

  Under his guidance the People's Army has been strengthened and developed into an elite revolutionary army strong in ideology and faith and is winning successive victories in the fierce confrontation with the hostile forces.

  On April 10, Juche 113(2024) Kim Jong Un visited Kim Jong Il Military and Political Academy and said it is an immutable law of war victory to neutralize the numerical and military and technical superiority of the enemy by means of superiority in ideology and war methods.

  And he urged the academy to make greater successes in education so as to fill the different levels of the entire army with competent and versatile commanding officers gifted with special qualities and spirit to overpower the enemy with ideological, mental, militant, moral and tactical superiority.

  The confrontation between the Korean army and the imperialist allied forces is, as ever, that between the weapon-everything idea and the ideology-everything idea.

  As they are led by Kim Jong Un, the revolutionary armed forces of Korea will emerge ever-victorious with the politico-ideological might.

Old Astronomical Chart, Part of Memory of the World

Hon Chon Jon Do, a complete illustration of the astronomical chart, showcases the astronomical development of Korea in the 18th century. It means a “general picture of the heaven.” 

At the time, Korean astronomers projected onto a piece of paper the stars they had observed at night, and illustrated astronomical phenomena, complete with explanations and astronomical constants. They are mostly about the astronomical findings Korea had recorded for thousands of years and partly about the Western development in astronomy till the first half of the 18th century.

Hon Chon Jon Do was put on the Memory of the World International Register by UNESCO in May last year.