On September 14, 1996, 26 North Korean special forces infiltrated South Korea and were surrounded by 40,000 South Korean military and police for nearly three months. So what happened at that time?
At first, South Korea was unaware of it. It was not until later that a mistake by North Korea led to the secret infiltration behavior becoming a game of cat and mouse, which was more like a wilderness survival for North Korean special forces.
During the Cold War, the two camps of socialism, which were dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union, did not have a large-scale hot war and conflict, but mutual spy infiltration was very active. It is reflected in the Korean Peninsula, which is mutual infiltration between North Korea and South Korea. Since these two countries themselves are divided by one country, they each want to unify each other.
So after the collapse of in 1991, the confrontation between North Korea and South Korea was still tense. In order to obtain the secrets of South Korea's latest military facilities in Gangneung City, Gangwon Province, North Korea sent an infiltration team of 26 soldiers to enter South Korea to obtain intelligence.
However, this kind of military infiltration operation is different from general spy infiltration. Spy generally has a legitimate identity as a cover, but the form of hostility between the two sides is very serious, with almost no normal exchanges, and it is difficult for ordinary spies to penetrate. Therefore, North Korea decided to send special forces to adopt a method of stealth infiltrating and quick battle.
If you want to hide, the best way to use submarine to navigate underwater. The Gangwon-do in South Korea and the Gangwon-do in North Korea belong to the same region. It was later divided into two and is located on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. So you can use a submarine to go south along the coastline and reach Jiangling City after crossing the dividing line for about 150 kilometers.
So North Korea formulated a combat plan that a shark-class submarine carried special forces into the destination, put down the special forces to complete the mission, and then took back the special forces from the sea to return to North Korea to complete the mission. However, the plan could not keep up with the changes. North Korea sent a total of 26 soldiers in this operation, and eventually had to return to North Korea on land, which also became the most important part of this infiltration incident.
In the 1990s, North Korea infiltrated 26 special forces troops from South Korea through the submarine . Why did they choose to return on land and encounter rounding up after obtaining intelligence?
For this infiltration of South Korea, the shark-class submarine adopted by North Korea was not a shark-class nuclear submarine from the former Soviet Union, but a conventionally powered small submarine. It was transformed by North Korea on the basis of the Yugoslav Mara-class submarine.
can also be called the mountain-level submarine according to the transliteration. Although this boat has a displacement of only 275 tons and a range of only 1,500 kilometers, it is equipped with a special watertight compartment, which can directly deploy frogman underwater to combat. Therefore, the main executives of this operation were five special forces frogmen who needed to get ashore. The remaining 21 were Colonel Kim Dong-won, the director of the Navy Department of the Reconnaissance Bureau, and the submarine staff. Among the five special frogmen who dived ashore, two were the political directors responsible for leading the operation team, and the other three were the ultimate special forces soldiers who really carried out the mission. Although the North Korean soldiers have firm political beliefs, from the arrangements, they still seemed to be worried about defection.
00 on September 14, 1996, the submarine left the North Korean military port at around 5:00 on September 14, 1996. After about 15 hours of underwater diving, it arrived at the sea area about 400 meters away from the coast of Gangneung City, South Korea. A team of 5 people sneaked into the shore with breathing equipment as planned. He also headed towards his destination to complete the mission of shooting military facilities and obtaining military secrets, while the submarine left the coast and headed for the high seas to standby.
Then the 5-person special operations team successfully completed the mission and obtained a large number of military secrets. Here, everything went smoothly. However, when the submarine returned to the shore on September 17, it encountered a stranding due to unfamiliarity with the submarine terrain along the coast of South Korea.
Although all the personnel tried their best to move the submarine and the submarine was damaged due to the grounding, the submarine's commander Zhong Yongjiu ordered the submarine to be abandoned and returned to North Korea from land, and attempted to burn the submarine in a fire, but the fire of the submarine was extinguished after everyone left. And the whereabouts of everyone and the submarine were discovered by passing Korean drivers and quickly reported them to the police.
received the alarm and acted quickly and dispatched a total of 40,000 troops and police to block the radius of 50 kilometers. At first, only stranded submarines were found, which cost a huge price for the roundup of personnel.
In 1996, 26 special forces soldiers who infiltrated South Korea were forced to go ashore due to submarine stranding. They faced the rounding of 40,000 South Korean military and police. Did they finally escape?
In order to capture these 26 special forces soldiers who infiltrated North Korea, South Korea not only mobilized military police military dog , but even mobilized the surrounding people to participate in the encirclement. Since at first, there were no specific people, South Korea could only judge about 20 people based on the size of the submarine and the weapons left on the submarine.
Although the judgment is accurate, the North Korean special forces are brave and not afraid of death in combat, have extremely high military literacy and are divided into two groups to alternately cover and break through. A fierce fire exchange occurred with the South Korean military and police who were pursuing and intercepting them. From the roundup of North Korean military and police on September 18 to the end of September, a total of 22 of the 26 infiltration personnel died, of which 13 were killed in the fire exchange, and 11 were suicides mainly for soldiers who had previously operated submarines.
Among the remaining four people, one of the submarine helmsman named Li Guangsu fainted due to dehydration. After being rescued, he followed the Korean speculation that there were only 20 people. However, after the death toll exceeded 20 during the subsequent roundup, Li Guangsu revealed the fact that there were a total of 26 people when South Korea promised to ensure the safety of life.
During the entire arrest process, South Korea conducted real-time follow-up reports, making it an international event with a great influence at that time. Although South Korea had the advantage during the roundup, it paid the price of 16 deaths and 27 injuries, most of which were caused by the remaining three people on the run.
These three people are the three people who are mainly performing the mission. They carried military secrets all the way north. The reason why they have never been arrested is that in addition to their extraordinary wild survivability and their abnormal speed of progress, from October until November 5, the South Korean military and police have been setting up the encirclement according to normal thinking. Unexpectedly, they have broken through to a place 20 kilometers away from the military dividing line of North Korea and South Korea, and more than 100 kilometers away from Gangling .
Finally, two of the people who were accidentally discovered were also alternate covers. One person attracted firepower and one person shot and killed them. Three exchanges of fire killed 14 South Korean military and police, forcing South Korea to finally mobilize heavy artillery and bomb . Finally, the detailed operation process was discovered from the combat notes of the two. In such a tense environment, the operation content could be recorded in an orderly manner, which shows the military literacy of the North Korean special forces.
The last special forces soldier was never discovered by the Koreans and eventually returned to North Korea with confidential intelligence. Although North Korea obtained the intelligence, due to South Korea's hype, North Korea lost international public opinion.
