55 years after sending a hit squad on a deadly raid in Seoul, North Korea has found new ways to threaten South Korea
- In January 1968, North Korean commandos slipped across the border into South Korea.
- They were headed to Seoul on a secret and daring mission to kill South Korea's president.
A half-century later, Pyongyang is finding new ways to threaten South Korea's leaders.
Just before midnight on January 17, 1968, 31 North Korean special forces soldiers cut through a wire fence along the demilitarized zone and infiltrated South Korea without detection.
The commandos, part of a specially trained force called Unit 124, had one objective: kill South Korean President Park Chung-hee.
Their plan was to covertly make their way to the presidential residence, a 62-acre compound known as the Blue House in Seoul's Jongno district.
Once there, they would bypass the outer checkpoints and then conduct an all-out assault on the main building. A little more than 300 yards from their target, however, everything fell apart.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula were approaching a boiling point by January 1968. While the US and South Korean militaries were increasingly focused on the Vietnam War, North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung seemed dead-set on reminding the world that the Korean War had not officially ended.
Violent incidents along the DMZ increased from 42 in 1966 to 360 in 1967 — including at least 100 firefights that killed 63 US and South Korean servicemen and wounded 190 more. (That year, the US military classified Korea as a hostile fire zone, making US troops there eligible for combat medals.)
Infiltrations into South Korea, both across the DMZ and by sea, by North Korean agents and commandos were also increasing. Their primary objective seemed to be setting up guerrilla camps in South Korea's remote highlands.
The infiltrations were largely unsuccessful. Up to 15,000 South Korean police and military personnel were involved in detecting and hunting down the infiltration teams.
By fall 1967, South Korean security forces reported killing 130 infiltrators and capturing 43 more, taking more than 130 casualties of their own in the process.
Around that time, the commandos of Unit 124 — elite troops who had been handpicked by the North Korean military's top brass — were finishing their training in North Korea.
They were trained in infiltration, navigation, hand-to-hand combat, and guerrilla warfare. Their preparations were grueling and dangerous.
They were sent on runs for dozens of miles while carrying as much as 60 pounds of gear in freezing temperatures at high altitudes. Some candidates lost toes or whole feet to frostbite. One member of the unit has said they were trained to dig into graves and hide among the bodies for concealment and that their training was so intense they sometimes shot and stabbed each other.
in the lead-up to the mission, members of Unit 124 practiced assaulting a full-size mock-up of the Blue Palace.