List of Brown Atoll “Honorable Suicides” & Free Korean Press
List of Brown Atoll “Honorable Suicides”
Of the 290 “honorable suicides” (gyokusai) who died in battle on Brown Atoll (Enewetak Atoll) in the Marshall Islands, 55 were Japanese and the remaining 235 were Koreans forcibly mobilized from Korea. At the time the list of names was organized according to ethnicity. The Japanese list included information such as affiliation, ID number, place of death, and address for the notification of death. They were given the status of a civilian worker for the military. In contrast, the status of Koreans was that of a construction worker and no ID number or address was noted for notification of death. Korean workers faced discrimination not only in the workplace but also after death.
Free Korean Press
This is a weekly newsletter that was issued by Korean internees in a US POW camp in Hawaii who had been mobilized by the Japanese military and later captured by US forces. In the appendix to the seventh issue, the names of the approximately 2,600 Koreans in the camp are listed in Korean and organized by hometown. Six of the names are identical to those listed in the Japanese military’s list of “honorable suicides” at Brown Atoll. Apparently they survived and became prisoners.
