A general whose colonial military career met failure at the war’s outbreak
At dawn on 28 June 1950, the Han River bridges were destroyed on his order.
Chae Byeong-deok was a general who moved from an officer career in the Imperial Japanese Army into the founding and expansion of the South Korean armed forces after liberation. When the Korean War began in June 1950, he was Army Chief of Staff and failed to organize adequate forward readiness and command, while bearing responsibility for the order that led to the premature destruction of the Han River bridges during the retreat from Seoul. Dismissed soon after the outbreak, he was sent to the southern front and killed in action at the Battle of Hadong in July.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1937Graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and commissioned as an artillery officer
- 1940–1945Instructor at the Japanese Army Ordnance School and manager of an army arsenal
- 1946Graduated from the Military English School and became commander of the 1st Regiment of the South Korean Constabulary
- 1948Chief of Staff of the National Defense Bureau and Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Ministry of National Defense
- 1949Second Chief of Staff of the Republic of Korea Army
- 1950.04–06.30Fourth Army Chief of Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces
- 1950.06.30–07.27Commander of the South Gyeongsang Province Defence Command; killed at the Battle of Hadong
Related historical events
The Han River Bridge Demolition and the Failure of Command
Chae Byeong-deok's historical reputation is inseparable from the demolition of the Han River pedestrian bridge just three days into the Korean War. Having assumed the post of fourth Army Chief of Staff and Commander-in-Chief in late April 1950, he lifted the nationwide emergency alert on 23 June, the very day before he reshuffled front-line commanders, sowing the command confusion of the war's first hours. At the cabinet meeting the afternoon of the invasion, he judged the attack "not a full-scale assault" but a stratagem aimed at particular figures, and the next day boasted that, given the order, he could seize Pyongyang within four days.
When the defence of Seoul collapsed, Chae ordered explosives placed on the Han River bridges to slow the DPRK advance. An agreement with the US military advisory group called for detonation only after all troops and equipment had crossed south, and Chief of Staff deputy Kim Baek-il's last-minute order to postpone the blast never reached the field. At 2:30 a.m. on 28 June the bridge was blown prematurely, killing an estimated 500–800 of the thousands of troops, police and refugees still on it, while some 44,000 ROK troops north of the river lost their line of retreat and dissolved. The railway bridges were only partially destroyed, and DPRK forces soon ferried even tanks across.
MacArthur demanded his dismissal from Syngman Rhee, and on 30 June Chae was relieved as Chief of Staff and demoted to command of the South Gyeongsang Defence Command with little more than a battalion. Colonel Choi Chang-sik, the chief engineer who executed the blast, was shot for misconduct on 21 September but acquitted posthumously at a 1964 retrial that identified Chae as the substantive responsible party. Because the demolition failed as a military measure and cost so many civilian lives, Chae Byeong-deok's name has long stood as shorthand for the command failures of the war's opening days.