80th Liberation Day Remembering foreign footprints on Korea’s road to liberation

By Kim Se-jeong

• Published Aug 12, 2025 3:00 PM KST
• Updated Aug 13, 2025 10:38 AM KST

Commemorating Korea’s liberation from Japan in 1945 would be incomplete without remembering the tens of thousands of independence fighters and activists who risked their lives for the country’s freedom.

According to the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, a total of 18,258 people have been officially recognized as independence fighters, among whom 76 are non-Korean nationals. The real number is likely much higher.

Although the efforts of those 76 foreigners is immeasurable, little is known about them, let alone details of their contributions.

Marking the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation, The Korea Times compiled stories of 11 non-Korean independence fighters and activists — each linked to a place that commemorates their contribution.

1. Severance Hospital — Horace Allen, Frank Schofield

Severance Hospital in Seoul is Korea’s first Western-style hospital, founded by American missionary Horace Allen (1858-1932) in 1885.

Originally called Gwanghyewon, the hospital was later called Jejoongwon before it finally became Severance Hospital.

At a time when Joseon-era medicine lagged behind other countries, Allen demonstrated that modern medicine could save lives.

A pivotal event in its founding was the 1884 Gapsin Coup, during which Min Young-ik, Empress Myeongseong’s brother, was gravely injured. Allen was summoned to treat him, and Min survived. This earned Allen the royal family’s trust and permission to open a Western medical clinic in the country, followed by a medical school one year later.

Allen’s influence extended beyond medicine. He helped steer Joseon’s diplomacy, persuading King Gojong to open a legation office in Washington, D.C., where Allen later served as a counselor. Though China soon pressured Joseon to shut the mission down, Allen’s efforts had a lasting impact.

Allen later served as a U.S. diplomat, eventually becoming U.S. ambassador to the Korean Empire in 1901. Believing that resisting Japanese expansion would benefit both Korea and the U.S., he tried to shift American policy — but failed, especially after Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War. He was dismissed in 1905 and returned to the U.S., where he died in 1932. In 1950, the Korean government awarded him the Independence Medal.

Frank Schofield (1889-1970), a Canadian missionary and veterinarian, came to Korea in 1916 to teach bacteriology and hygiene at Yonsei Medical School. Known locally as Seok Ho-pil, he is best remembered for his role in the 1919 March 1 Independence Movement.

In the days leading up to the protest, Schofield was asked by movement organizers to help. He was asked to translate the Korean Declaration of Independence into English and send it to the White House. He also photographed the demonstrations, and many of the surviving images of the March 1 Movement were taken by him. He shared both photos and articles with international media outlets in China and the U.S.

He also visited Seodaemun Prison to offer encouragement to the Korean independence fighters held there.

Forced to leave Korea, he returned to Canada in 1920. In 1958, he came back to Korea at the invitation of the Korean government to teach veterinary pathology at Seoul National University. In 1968, he received the Independence Medal from the Korean government. He died in Seoul in 1970 at the age of 81.

2. Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery — Homer Hulbert, Ernest Bethell

Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery in western Seoul, also known as Yanghwajin Foreign Cemetery and Hapjeong-dong International Cemetery, honors nearly 400 foreigners who lived and worked in Korea. Two stand out for their contributions to Korea’s liberation: Homer Hulbert (1863-1949) and Ernest Bethell (1872-1909).

Hulbert, an American missionary, arrived in Korea in 1886 to teach at a school for royalty and aristocrats. He formed a close bond with King Gojong. After Gojong was forced to sign the 1905 Japan-Korea Treaty, also known as Eulsa Treaty, which turned Korea into a Japanese protectorate and deprived the country of its diplomatic sovereignty, he asked Hulbert to deliver a letter of protest to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1907, Hulbert also went to the Hague Peace Conference to present another protest letter after Japan discovered his activities and expelled him from Korea.

Back in the U.S., Hulbert continued writing articles and giving speeches in support of Korean independence. In 1949, Korea’s first president Syngman Rhee invited him back to Korea, where he died one week after his arrival. He was buried at Yanghwajin Cemetery and posthumously awarded the Independence Medal in 1950.

Ernest Bethell was a British journalist who arrived in Korea in 1904 to cover the Russo-Japanese War for The Daily Chronicle of London. He lost his job after critically reporting on Japanese arson at a Korean royal facility.

Later that year, he co-founded The Korea Daily News with Korean partners, using the newspaper to voice opposition to Japanese rule.

Soon after, he translated and published an opinion piece by politician Yoon Chi-ho that was critical of a planned land reclamation project, reigniting anti-Japanese sentiment. Japan called off the plan following the publication of the article.

In January 1907, Bethell published a photographic copy of Emperor Gojong’s secret letter to a British newspaper denouncing the Eulsa Treaty of 1905.

In 1908, he covered the assassination of pro-Japanese U.S. diplomat Durham White Stevens, which enraged Japan. As a result, the Japanese government had the British consulate-general, which had jurisdiction, convict Bethell on charges of embezzlement and disturbing public order. He served three weeks in a British prison in Beijing.

After returning to Korea, he was placed under surveillance and died in 1909 at the age of 37. He is buried at Yanghwajin. In 1950, he was posthumously awarded the National Order of Merit for National Foundation.

3. Dilkusha — Albert Taylor

Dilkusha, a red brick house in western Seoul, was once home to Albert Taylor (1875-1948), a British businessman who exposed Japanese atrocities in Korea to the outside world.

Taylor moved to Korea with his father, who ran a mining business in the northern part of the peninsula in 1896, and continued the business after his father’s death in 1908. In 1923, he built Dilkusha — meaning “heart’s delight” in Hindi — for his American wife, Mary. The couple lived there until 1942, the year they were expelled to the U.S.

Taylor reported on the March 1 Movement and the Jeamni Massacre, in which Japanese forces shot 20 to 30 Korean Christians inside a church and burned nearby homes, for magazines and newspapers outside Korea. His story of the massacre was published in The New York Times on April 24, 1919, helping spread awareness of colonial abuses globally.

In 1942, he and his wife were expelled by Japanese authorities. Taylor died in the U.S. in 1948. In September of that year, Mary returned to Korea with his remains. Taylor is not included on the government independence fighters list.

4. Seodaemun Prison — George L. Shaw

Seodaemun Prison was notorious during Japanese rule for holding Korean independence fighters — but it also held foreigners like George L. Shaw (1880-1943).

Born in China to an Irish father and Japanese mother, Shaw ran a trading company in Dandong, China, and offered space in his office to the Korean provisional government. He also allowed them to use his ship to transport weapons, documents and people. In his diary “Baekbeomilji,” Kim Koo, a renowned Korean independence fighter, recounted escaping to Shanghai aboard Shaw’s ship.

In 1920, Shaw was held at Seodaemun Prison after being indicted on insurrection charges, but released after four months. He continued aiding the Korean cause until he left Dandong in 1938. He died in 1943, and in 1963 he was posthumously awarded the Independence Medal.

5. Youngnak Borinwon — Soda Kaichi

An orphanage in Yongsan District in Seoul is linked to one of the few Japanese nationals honored for supporting Korea, Soda Kaichi (1867-1962).

After a Korean stranger rescued him from the streets of Taiwan in 1899, Soda moved to Korea in 1905. He became a Christian and worked at the YMCA before becoming the director of an orphanage later known as Borinwon, where he cared for more than 1,100 Korean children.

Both Koreans and Japanese were suspicious of his activities — Koreans feared he might send the orphans to Japan, while Japanese officials accused him of aiding anti-Japanese resistance.

After Korea’s liberation, he left Korea, returning only in 1961. He spent his final year at Borinwon and died in 1962. The Korean government recognized his contributions and awarded him the Order of Cultural Merit.

6. Park Yeol Memorial Hall — Kaneko Fumiko

Park Yeol (1902-71) was a Korean anarchist and independence fighter in Japan and Kaneko Fumiko (1903-26) was his partner.

Kaneko had a difficult childhood. Born to a samurai father and a peasant mother, she was not registered as a family member because the couple were not formally married. As a child, she was sent to Korea to live with relatives. Since she was not formally recognized on a family register, she had no formal access to education. Regardless, she attended classes informally and excelled academically. She was abused and forced to work as a servant before she was sent back to Japan, and these experiences, along with her witnessing of how Koreans were treated in their own homeland, pushed her toward nihilism and anarchism.

Kaneko met Park in Tokyo in 1921 and the two formed a romantic and political partnership. They founded anarchist groups and supported Koreans in the fight for independence.

After the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Japan experienced mass unrest, leading to the massacre of thousands of ethnic Koreans. Park and Kaneko were arrested and sentenced to death for treason, though their sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment. On July 23, 1926, Kaneko died by suicide in prison. In 2018, she was posthumously awarded the Patriotic Medal.

7. The Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Jeju — Patrick Dawson, August Sweeney, Thomas Ryan

Three Irish priests — Patrick Dawson (1905-89), August Sweeney (1909-80) and Thomas Ryan (1907-71) — were serving at Catholic churches in Jeju during the Japanese colonial period.

Between 1939 and 1941, the three inspired their parishioners with the belief that Japan would surrender in its war with China and that Korea would become independent. All were arrested in 1942 and sentenced to two years in prison. There are no further records of what happened afterward.

In 1999, the Korean government awarded Dawson the Patriotic Medal and honored Sweeney and Ryan with the National Medal, recognizing their resistance and expressing gratitude for their contributions to Korea’s liberation.