09-151.pdf

After the 1954 incident and consistently until 1962, North Korea
returned military personnel who had inadvertently crossed the MDL
within a week to ten days. In some cases, a receipt for the returnee was
not requested, but in most cases the UNC tendered a simple receipt
and/or a letter that admitted armistice violations. The UNC also returned
military personnel from the North routinely for simple receipts, without
demanding an admission of violations. On August 17, 1955, a US
Air Force T-6 aircraft had by mistake crossed the MDL in an exercise
flight and was shot down by North Korea. Captain Charles W. Brown
was killed but Second Lieutenant Guy Hartwell Bumpas survived. At
the 65th MAC meeting called by the UNC/MAC held on August 21,
the South protested against the North’s “barbaric act.” In reply, the
North asserted that the airplane had intruded to spy, as witnessed by
Bumpas, and that the shooting-down was a justified act. The North announced
that it would return both men and the aircraft wreckage
without asking for a receipt and an admission of violating the Armistice
Agreement, but in 1958 they stopped returning wreckages.
The two men and the aircraft were returned on August 23, 1955. 48
Previously, on February 5, 1955, US Army RB-45 reconnaissance
aircraft had been attacked by North Korean MIG fighters in the sky
over international waters in the West Sea outside Chinnamp’o in the
first attack on such planes, but the incident ended safely. Among the
six Mobile Inspection Teams that at the request of both sides were
48_ Downs, op. cit., pp. 110-111, 303: fn. 50; Hapch’am chôngbo ponbu, op. cit.,
1999, p. 45; Kukpang chôngbo ponbu, op. cit., 1993, pp. 41, 48: Kunsa chôngjôn
wiwônhoe p’yôllam: che 3 chip (Kukpang chôngbo ponbu: kunjôngwi, n. p., 1997),
p. 247; Lee, op. cit., 2001(a), p. 121: op. cit., 2004, p. 121. The first quotation has
original quotation marks.
56 Peace-keeping in the Korean Peninsula