Death in Compound 7

Things had been more or less quiet in Korea's prison camps ever since Brigadier General Haydon L. Boatner subdued the Communist rioters on infamous Koje Island last spring (TIME, May 26 et seq.). Then came the big dispersal. Off to the mainland went 48,000 anti-Communist Koreans, to be detained in six camps there. The Communist North Koreans were left on Koje and two neighboring islands. All 20,000 Chinese prisoners were shipped to the mountainous island of Cheju. There last week, trouble flared.

On Cheju, some 14,000 Chinese who have rejected Communism are penned up at one end of the island, 5,800 loyal Reds (and constant troublemakers) at the other. Boatner, elevated to major general and command of all U.N. prisoners in Korea for his good work on Koje, had a way of handling troublemakers. But he was posted to the U.S. more than a month ago.

Behind him he left the doctrine that the way to treat Communists is to tread carefully the narrow line between too much severity and too much laxity. In cases of defiance, nonfatal weapons such as tear gas, concussion grenades, rifle butts and shotguns (firing small shot) were to be preferred to bullets. Prisoners should be allowed to celebrate Red holidays if they were orderly and obeyed the rules.

Last week the Cheju Reds wanted to celebrate the third anniversary of the Chinese "People's Republic." By an unfortunate coincidence, the camp commander was ill with heart trouble, and a new man, an infantry colonel named Richard D. Boerem, had replaced him. By a further unlucky coincidence, a new battalion of U.S. troops, fresh from combat, had replaced the old outfit of well-drilled guards. For some reason, Colonel Boerem refused to allow the prisoners to celebrate the big day in any manner.

On the day, prisoners raised illegal flags. The inmates of Compound 7, who had been building stone barracks, stoned a contingent of U.S. guards sent to bring down the flags. While guards tried to force their way in to restore order, the barrage of stones increased. A U.S. officer, whose wife and child had been killed by the Communists in China, raised his pistol and shot one Chinese. The other Americans regarded his shot as a signal and began firing. Once inside the compound, they were set upon by prisoners wielding clubs, sharpened poles and barbed-wired flails, but these attackers were shot down before they could close.

Fifteen minutes after the battle started, it was over. Fifty-six Chinese were dead or dying, 100 others wounded. Two Americans were wounded. Already, Haydon L. Boatner was being sadly missed in Korea.

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