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One of the donated photos shows a military police officer directing traffic along a major thoroughfare near Daejeon Station.

By Kim Eun-young and Hahm Hee-eun
Photos = Republic of Korea Army

The Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) unveiled a collection of rare photos of the Korean War that were taken by a U.S. soldier, on June 5, one day before Memorial Day.

The ROK Army unveiled 239 photos of Seoul, Suwon, Daejeon, Daegu, Incheon and Gongju that were taken during the Korean War (1950-1953) by Master Sgt. Thomas Benton Hutton (1910-1988) with a 35 mm camera in 1952. His grandson, Col. Brandon D. Newton, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Red Cloud and Area I at Camp Casey in Dongducheon, donated them to the ROK Army.

The photos show a range of sights and images of Korea of the time, such as the Daejeon Young-ryul Tower, the Dunsan district airfield, the Janganmun Gate and the Paldalmun Gate at Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon that were destroyed by bombings during the war.

Moreover, the clothes, weapons and training of ROK and U.S. soldiers, of Daejeon Station, street markets and scenes of laundry were also included.

An official from the ROK Army said, “These photos are highly valuable for local social studies because they vividly show Korea’s landscape, buildings and people in the early 1950s.”

More photographs can be accessed at the Republic of Korean Army homepage.

www.army.mil.kr

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The photo shows the landscape around Daejeon with the Young-ryul Tower in the early 1950s.

 

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Residents wash their clothes at a laundry site near the Geumhogang River on the northern side of Daegu Station.

 

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U.S. soldiers take a rest in front of the broken Geumgang River iron bridge near Gongju during the Korean War.