In celebration of the 72nd anniversary of the ¡®Hongkew Park Bombing', unreleased pictures and documents from the incident were revealed. The ¡®Hongkew Park Bombing¡¯ was an incident in which Yun Bong-kil, a Korean patriot during the period of Japanese colonial rule, threw a bomb in the park during the Japanese Emperor¡¯s birthday.
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A Japanese soldier inspects the military uniform of General Y. Shirakawa, who died from the bomb thrown by Yun Bong-gil. The uniform is torn in the chest and pants and still has traces of blood. The uniform is kept in Tokyo¡¯s Yasukuni Shrine.
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The documentary director and president of ¡®The Channel,¡¯ Kim Gwang-man, discovered the pictures from a Japanese parliamentary library and a newspaper company. The newly released pictures include a picture of a lunch-box shaped bomb he could not use, Japanese military officials on the dais before the bomb explosion and a picture of Yun¡¯s family printed in a Japanese newspaper.
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A picture of Yun Bong-gil and his family published in the Kanazawa Hokoku Shimbun. The first person from the left is his father Yun Hwang. His wife Bae Yong-soon is holding their second son Dam and the boy standing next to his wife is their eldest son Mo-sun. The other men are presumed to be Yun¡¯s brothers.
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Yun prepared two bombs, one in a water bottle and one in a lunch box, because people were allowed to carry only a water bottle and a lunch box into the park, where the special occasion was held.
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The picture shows the backs of leading Japanese figures including Vice Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura standing on the platform at Hongkew Park in Shanghai during the birthday of the Emperor of Japan. The picture was taken around the similar location from where Yun Bong-gil threw the bomb.
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First, Yun threw the bomb in the water bottle killing Shirakawa Yoshinori, then- Commander-of-Chief in Shanghai, and Kawabata Shadasugu, then-president of the Japanese community in Shanghai. However, before he could throw the other bomb he was arrested; he died in an army prison in Ganazawa, Japan that same year.
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The marks from the bomb are left clearly on the platform where the key Japanese figures were standing. There is a hole with the diameter of 40 cm between where General Y. Shirakawa and Vice Admiral Nomura were standing. The object on the left is assumed to be a part of the microphone used during the ceremony.
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The bomb in the picture seemed to have been wrapped in a cloth and shows how tense the situation must have been because the lid was so far off the lunch box. The pictures will be useful material, which vividly shows the situation during the time of the incident because they were not owned by even the Independence Memorial Hall and the Chungui Temple, a memorial hall built in honor of Yun in his hometown, Yesan, South Chungcheong Province.
(Yoo Seok-jae, karma@chosun.com )
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