On Aviation Day 2017
Shinn Yong-wook, right, Korean National Airline CEO and pilot, with pilot Kim Jin-young and an unidentified American pilot on the airfield in Yeouido, in this photo taken in the 1950s. / Courtesy of Choi Yearn-hong
By Yearn Hong Choi
Korea observes Aviation Day on October 30. Why? How? Some may question why and how Aviation Day was set on October 30 on the Korean calendar. The Ministry of Transportation made the decision to set up the day for the advancement of the Korean aviation industry and technology for commercial flight and space science exploration. The ministry chose October 30, the first day a flight took place from Seoul to Busan in 1948 after the first government was established after liberation. It was the Korean National Airline’s first flight in the First Republic.
Today, everybody recognizes KAL, Korean Air Lines, one of the top airlines in the world. But only a few may remember KNA ― the Korean National Airline. The KNA was the first Korean airline in the country’s history. It was a small airline company basically flying between Seoul and Busan. Captain Shinn Yong-wook was a first-class pilot who had completed his Oguri Aviation School training program in Japan and studied further at the Japan Doah Aviation College in Tokyo in the 1920s and then flew over the sea between Japan and Korea in his own airplane, Salmoosongin. He was a sensational pilot. His first flight over the skies of Seoul was hailed by all Korean people, after taking off from the Yongsan runway in 1925. In the same year, he founded an aviation school and trained pilots in Korea. In 1931, he started the Chosun Airline Company, his own airline to transport passengers, airmail and packages from Seoul to major cities all over the Korean Peninsula. Once he helped fishing boats find a school of sardines massively migrating in the East Sea. He also used his small airplane and a helicopter to spread pesticides and fertilizer on rice paddies for his hometown farmers. He was a popular pilot elected twice for the Kochang district National Assembly seat.
He headed one of the main construction crews to build major airports in the nation and runways, aircraft hangars and safety facilities. At that time, Korea was undivided, even though it was under Japanese rule. The runways were not nearly as long as we see today. They were green flat meadows.
He was born of the landed gentry class in Kochang, North Jolla province, in 1901. He graduated from Wheemoon High School and then went to an aviation school in Japan. He met Ahn Chang-nam at Wheemoon High School. Since the Wright Brothers flew for the first time for a few minutes in history in 1903 on a North Carolina beach, flying was the dream for many boys. Ahn and Shinn were two who dreamed of flying. Ahn was one year older than Shinn. He went to the Oguri Aviation School in Tokyo before him. They trained together. Ahn earned his second-class pilot license and returned to Korea. Shinn completed his first-class pilot training and studied airplanes more scientifically at the Doah Aviation College. He returned to Korea piloting his own small wooden airplane. He became a sensational young pilot when he flew over the sea between Japan and Korea in 1925. As the son of an affluent family, he could purchase a small airplane and flew it to his home country.
His ambition to operate his aviation school and airline company must have been approved by the Japanese colonial government. During the 1930s, Japan controlled Manchuria and established its puppet regime there after it had invaded mainland China. I am sure he and his company were commandeered by the Japanese in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Under these circumstances, Shinn was not given the choice to be free from Japan’s war campaign. Here, some may be critical about pro-Japanese collaboration under Tokyo’s rule.
On this Aviation Day, I will not review Captain Shinn and his life with KNA in detail. His life under the Japanese colonial ruler could be tainted with close collaboration between the two. However, I can understand his dream to fly, compromising his good conscience and his acts of collaboration. Life under Japanese rule could not be easy for him or for any Koreans. In order to earn a living, some willingly cooperated with the colonial rulers and surely did this against their good conscience. Captain Shinn wanted to sustain his life as a pilot and continued to keep the same dream he had as a teenage boy until his death by suicide at 59 following bankruptcy in 1961. General Park Chung-hee, as a coup leader, ordered him to pay back the government loan he had received. He chose suicide by drowning himself in the Han River while looking at his airplane on the Yoido runway. He built the runway when he started his life as a pilot in the 1920s. I feel sympathy for him and want to pardon him.
I want to place him next to the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, and Howard Hughes in aviation history.
More than seventy years have passed since liberation. Debating and killing continuously pro-Japanese collaborators is a waste of our precious time. Life is not as simple as some may think.
Let us look back upon our remarkable aviation history from the KNA to KAL and Asiana. The first part of that history has been a stepping stone to the second stage of history and further progress. Let us see the future under a bright blue sky.
Dr. Choi is a Washington-based poet and writer.