The mystery of the Rajin liberation

President Kim Il Sung said:

"Korea's liberation was the great result of the struggle of the forces of our people and the KPRA themselves in the favourable circumstances created by the Soviet forces' destruction of the Japanese Kwantung Army."

On August 9, Juche 34(1945), the President issued an order to the units of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army to launch a general offensive for national liberation. On the same day, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan in accordance with the agreement with its allies and engaged in a battle with the Japanese army.

It was the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Union that was responsible for the Rajin landing operation at that time. They expected the Rajin landing battle to be a very difficult battle. Because Rajin was a military fortress built by the Japanese imperialists with much effort because of the importance of its strategic position.

The enemy warships were always in the harbor, and there was an anti-aircraft artillery on the edge of the city. But the Rajin landing battle was unexpectedly smooth, and the Soviet Pacific fleet wondered.

But the key to this mystery was given soon. Rajin had already been liberated by the Rajin People's Armed Forces before the Soviet troops landed. In fact, the Japanese troops stationed in Rajin, when the Soviet forces bombed the city and fired warships, were making desperate efforts to defend it, regarding it as an armed conflict like the Janggobong case.

At that time a small unit of the Rajin People's Armed Forces invaded the city at night, fired at the fortress headquarters, the gendarmerie and the police station, and set fire to the army warehouse. Meanwhile, the main contingent of the People's Armed Forces, which had been standing by, invaded the city and swept the enemy in and out.

Here is the memoir of a Soviet officer who participated in the battle to liberate Rajin. "As we approached the city we could hear the crackle of machine-guns and the roar of artillery fire.

Korean peasants who had rushed to the outskirts of the city waved their hands, shouting ‘Hurrah!' They told us Kim Il Sung's guerrilla army had been fighting against the Japanese army for two days. The small plazas and narrow streets were crowded with the enemy's military trucks and loaded carts.

We realized that the Korean guerrillas had cut off the retreat of the Japanese soldiers, so that they could not escape from the city. Pinned down by the guerrillas and us, the Japanese samurais threw down their arms and began to surrender. We saw about 100 armed men rushing towards us from the outskirts of the city. We're soldiers of Kim Il Sung's guerrilla army, said their commander to the colonel of the tank unit."

The plan of the Rajin Liberation Operation of the Rajin People's Armed Forces was that President Kim Il Sung, who advanced to the homeland in June Juche 34(1945), climbed Mt. Sahyang and set it up in person. According to the plan, the Rajin People's Armed Forces set up in the early days, they conducted joint operations in the rear of the enemy in collusion with the offensive operations of the units of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army advancing from the ground and the sea for the liberation of Rajin, raiding and destroying the enemy forces deployed in the vicinity of Rajin Fort District, destroying the defensive positions in the outer shell, and expanding the outpost, and thus contributing to the liberation of the area.

The operation plan included a plan to launch a mass armed uprising in response to the advance of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army. Learning about this, the President said: In conducting joint operations with units of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army advancing from the ground and sea, the Rajin People's Armed Forces should not wait for the friendly troops to advance into the city, but they should launch a vigorous campaign to infiltrate and annihilate the important targets of the enemy, including the fortress headquarters, barracks, munitions depot, sub-commissions, gendarmerie corps, police corps and other units at a moment.

It might be feasible that the People's Armed Forces, who know the situation and the enemy's situation more than anyone else, are taking charge of the major offensive targets in groups of three and five, and stealthily infiltrating the enemy at the same time as the friendly forces march outside when enemies are engrossed into the defence to prevent the People's Armed Forces advancing from the sea and the ground, the enemy will be paralyzed in the command system in a moment and be thrown into confusion and defence.

This will be a prelude to the "attack from both exterior and interior" which can destroy the enemy at a single blow as it is a tactic of "cooperation in the external response and an inferior conjunction" which leads to the occupation of the city and raids to the enemy in and out.

According to the instructions of the President, the small units of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army and the Rajin People's Armed Forces liberated Rajin by their own efforts on August 12. Resistance organizations and armed units in the homeland, like the Rajin People's Armed Forces, suppressed and crushed the Japanese imperialists' aggression forces and colonial ruling apparatuses in various parts of the country and liberated the country in accordance with the plan for the final offensive of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army.

Like this, the liberation of our country was achieved through the mobilization of all the people's resistance forces including the Korean People's Revolutionary Army and all sections of the people, who shook it colonial rule to its very foundation by striking a powerful military blow to the Japanese imperialists for 15 years.