Marines recount NKs deadly shelling of Yeonpyeong

In their first official accounts of North Korea's deadly attack on Yeonpyeong last month, South Korean marines stationed on the western frontline island recounted Tuesday their shock and frustration as they tried desperately to fight back despite a barrage of incoming shells.

The gripping accounts, released by the Marine Corps, cover the gamut of events that took place on Nov. 23 when North Korea fired about 170 shells toward the small fishing community inhabited by some 1,400 civilians and guarded by at least 1,000 marines.

The attack prompted South Korean forces to fire back at North Korean artillery bases, but with no clear success in damaging them. Two South Korean marines and as many civilians died in the shelling that represented one of the most violent armed attacks by North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.

"At 14:35, a dark and heinous parabola was drawn against the clear early-winter skies," Han Hoon-seok, a first sergeant, wrote in his two-page recollection. "In an instant, the peaceful and beautiful Yeonpyeong Island began to turn into a hellish inferno."

A roar loud enough to "splinter the air" struck him and his fellow soldiers who had nearly completed their live-fire exercises on the island, Han said.

"Gray smoke billowed toward the skies everywhere I looked," he said, calling the attack a surprise one that would have claimed his life had he not left his building moments earlier.

Sgt. Jeong Byeong-moon, one of the 12 marines who recollected the shelling, said that he went "deaf" as soon as he heard a massive boom following a long shriek in the air.

"Nothing could be heard," he said, adding he also saw his senior officer bleeding in the face and shouting something he could hardly understand.

Having run away from a fire that nearly grabbed him from behind, Jeong later scrambled behind an artillery gun to fire back "as many shells as I could to kill these North Korean troops."

"First, I saw one or two shells falling. Then immediately, a shower of dozens of shells blanketed the town," said Cpl. Park Tae-min, who scurried back to his base from the port he was about to sail out of to spend his leave. "In an instant, buildings were lifted and flown around, and fires erupted all over."

Lee Jae-seon, a staff sergeant and medic, recalled a scene from his emergency room following the bombardment as a "real war zone as gruesome as ones seen in dramas, movies or news."

"The room instantly turned into a sea of blood," he said. Blood poured onto the floor when he pulled the boot off one soldier, he said, while another marine came in with his lips torn by shrapnel.

Capt. Ha Seung-won, a chaplain, recalled his frustrating last moment with an unidentified marine who later died.

"I prayed, holding his blood-stained hands, but his breath did not return," he said. "There was nothing I could do but pray."

Mun Gwang-wook, a 20-year-old private, and Sgt. Seo Jeong-woo, 22, were both killed by shrapnel. Following a nationally televised funeral on Nov. 27, they were buried at a national cemetery after being promoted posthumously.

"I realized how powerless I was in front of this marine who looked at me and smiled even as blood kept running out of him despite styptic treatment," the chaplain wrote.

Another medic, Pvt. Kang Byeong-wook, said he trembled with such shock and fear that he was unable to inject a needle into a patient.

"One marine had his intestine organs revealed through a wound in the chest," he said. "While we were treating the patients, a second round of shelling began. It was really frightening. Everyone ducked ... I wanted to live. But I also had to save the patients."

Kang also remembered his brief encounter with Mun, who he said was starting to drift away from life as he lost his consciousness and his body turned pale blue.

A total of 15 marines were wounded in the clash along the Yellow Sea border, a long-running flashpoint between the Koreas. Three deadly naval skirmishes have erupted along the disputed boundary since 1999, while a South Korean warship sank near the border in March of this year in an attack for which Seoul holds Pyongyang accountable.

Sergeant first class Ahn Joon-oh said he was tasked with safely evacuating residents out of Yeonpyeong when the shelling began.

"The residents and children were in panic," he said, describing a naval ship that carried 170 civilians out of Yeonpyeong on Nov. 24 as something that "resembled Noah's Ark."

Kang, the medic, said that on the day the shelling began, a mother and her child had come for treatment in his office. Ahn, the sergeant, recalled his frustration when he tried unsuccessfully to call a fellow officer and check on the safety of children at a local primary school.

North Korea later claimed South Korea set up a "human shield" to protect the forces on Yeonpyeong, reluctantly expressing regret over the two civilians deaths from its shelling. The North also argues that it fired back after South Korean shells fell in its side.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has condemned the shelling as an "inhumane crime" that might have even hurt the children on the island. He has replaced his defense minister and pledged strong retaliation against the North.

On Tuesday, the top South Korean army general and veteran intelligence officer resigned, in part over a scandal involving his real estate property. The resignation of Gen. Hwang Eui-don paved the way for what observers believe will be a massive reshuffle aimed at bolstering South Korea's combat readiness against North Korea.

North Korea, in an editorial carried in its main newspaper, renewed its accusation that South Korea and the United States conspired to "deliberately" provoke the communist regime on Nov. 23.

"The only thing left for them now is to conduct an armed provocation that transcends the Yeonpyeong shelling and triggers another war on the peninsula," said the Rodong Sinmun, carried by the offic