16. Braunauer Zeitgeschichte-Tage "Peacemakers Manual"
Egon Ranshofen-Wertheimer, 1894 Braunau - 1957 New York
Braunau am Inn, Kultur im Gugg, 28.- 30. September 2007

U.N. Party Fired On From North Korea

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None Hurt in Border Attack, Though 75 Shots Puncture Air-Group on Inspection
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By RICHARD J. H. JOHNSTON
Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES
SEOUL, Korea, Thursday, June 16 - An inspection party of the United Nations Commission to Korea was fired upon by North Koreans yesterday ten miles north of Chunchon, capital of Kangwon Province, and fifty miles northeast of here.
Egon Ranshofen Wertheimer, principal secretary of the United Nations Commission, said today he and three members of the commission and an interpreter were pinned down for fifteen minutes when they came under automatic rifle fire from North Korean defense positions near the border. Mr. Wertheimer said none of the United Nations group was injured.

The party had gone to the border area to inspect South Korean military installations and a refugee camp.
Leaving their jeeps, which carried United Nations flags, Mr. Wertheimer, A. B. Jamieson, Australian representative; Anup Singh, Indian representative, and Harold Riddle, an assistant secretary, walked northward toward the border line of the Thirty-eight Parallel under the protection of South Korean Army troops and local police.
Within about 800 yards of the line separating Soviet-controlled North Korea from South Korea, the party was forced to take cover behind rocks and trees as men of the northern forces opened fire.

Mr. Wertheimer said he estimated seventy-five or eighty shots were fired at them. The whole United Nations party numbered forty persons, including Provincial Governor Yang Sung Bong and Col. Sim On Bong, commander of Korean Army units in the Chunchon area.
Colonel Sim was reported to have ordered an United Nations guard not to return the fire. When the shooting died down, the group withdrew. Two truckloads of South Korean troops were rushed to the area to repel any possible attack across the Thirty-eighth Parallel.
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SEOUL, Thursday, June 16 (UP)-Some members of the United Nations party expressed the opinion that the notoriously trigger-happy North Koreans were firing warning shots at the relatively large crowd, rather than deliberately aiming at United Nations officials. Observers said an observation post in the north had signaled that the group on the south side of the border would be shelled with mortars if it did not withdraw.