Korean forced laborers remember Nagasaki attack focus 08/10/2010

Korean forced laborers remember Nagasaki attack

focus 08/10/2010 TOKYO — Kim Jong-ki was an 18-year-old forced laborer digging tunnels for a Japanese arms manufacturer in Nagasaki 65 years ago, on the day a US aircraft dropped an atom bomb on the city. Like the other estimated 1,000 Koreans toiling below ground, Kim worked from dawn to dusk in the port city where Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was churning out warships, torpedoes and other wartime hardware. “We were given only poor meals but no payment,” Kim, now 83 and living in his home country, told AFP by telephone. “Every day we saw American warplanes flying from right to left for aerial bombardments of the city.” This year marks the 65th anniversary of the US raid which made Japan the only nation that has ever been attacked with atomic bombs — first on Aug. 6, 1945 in Hiroshima, and three days later in Nagasaki. But for Kim, this year also brings another important anniversary — 100 years since imperial Japan annexed the Korean peninsula..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100810com6.html

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