Memorial Hall for the U.S. Airmen Killed In Action During World War II (Namhae-eup)

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Memorial Hall for the U.S .Airmen Killed In Action During World War II - Koreans still honors ‘Lucky Lady II’ crew.

Tears filled the eyes of Kim Duk-hyung when he describes the events of August 8, 1945, just eight days before the end of World War II.

Kim, then a 31-year-old rice farmer living on this picturesque island of Namhae, 200 miles south of Seoul, was shaken from his sleep that morning around 2 AM by what he described as “the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life.”

“It was like a bomb explosion," he recalled. “When I went outside, there was a huge column of smoke rising from the side of the mountain."

He and a group of neighbors hurriedly climbed for three hours up to the peak of the highest mountain on Namhae Island to investigate, finding smoke and flames billowing out of a crashed U.S. Army Air Corps B-24 Liberator bomber, ironically nicknamed “Lucky Lady II." The plane, which carried a crew of 11, had been crippled by Japanese ground fire while on a bombing mission.

“As we watched from a distance, Japanese soldiers gathered up all the items from the plane they considered useful, and left the bodies of the dead airmen, " Kim said. “When I saw the bodies lying on the ground, it reminded me of my brother, who was killed in a plane crash over Burma and whose body was never recovered. I didn't want the same thing to happen to those 11 men."

Kim returned to his village, gathered items needed to bury the victims, and, as he describes it, “gave them a decent burial so their souls would rest in peace.“

When Japanese authorities discovered that the bodies had been buried, Kim was interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned.

“I never knew there were so many ways to torture a human being," he recalled. “My body still bears the scars."

Several days later, after the American liberators arrived at Namhae and freed the island from the Japanese occupation forces, Kim returned the dog tags of the dead airmen to U.S. authorities and helped them make arrangements for the repatriation of the bodies.

But, that wasn't the end of the “Lucky Lady II“ affair. The now drug store owner Kim, whose family has lived on Namhae for 15 generations, held memorial services annually - those services became permanent in 1948 - since that day to honor the memories of the crewmen whom he said: “gave their lives so our people could live in freedom." He viewed the death of the 11 Americans as a sacrifice for his and fellow Koreans' freedom.

In 1956, with the approval of the South Korean government, Kim organized the War Memorial Activities Association and erected - with money from his own pocket - an 11½ foot tall granite monument at the site of the crash. Kim officiated at a services honoring the memory of the dead crewmen - who he called “heroes“ - in a small memorial hall near the foot of Mount Mangwun. In 1978 he opened a memorial hall in downtown Namhae.

Kim is gone, but his son continues to participate in the annual memorial service held at the "Memorial Hall for the U.S. Airmen Killed In Action During World War II" located in downtown Namhae.