Conflict10 October 1938

Korean Volunteer Corps

With support from the Chinese Nationalist government, Kim Won-bong founded the Korean Volunteer Corps at Hankou, the first Korean armed unit in China proper.

Founded on 10 October 1938 under the Korean National Front Federation, it worked with Chinese forces gathering intelligence, interrogating prisoners and conducting propaganda aimed at Japanese troops.

Around 1941 many members moved to north China to fight the Japanese directly, forming the North China Detachment, which became the Korean Volunteer Army of the Korean Independence League in 1942. Kim Won-bong and the remaining members joined the Korean Liberation Army in 1942.

Show on the map

The map in 1938

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

States at the time: Republic of China · sponsor
Places: Hankou

People

Kim Won-bong1898 – 1958
commander · Leader of the Uiyeoldan, the National Revolutionary Party and the Korean Volunteer Corps; Deputy Commander of the Liberation Army

Before and after

Earlier: 1938 National Mobilization Law and Wartime Exploitation
Later: 1940 Discovery of the Hunminjeongeum Haerye

Themes that include this event

World War II and Korea1937 – 1945
Wartime mobilization and exploitation, independence armies, from the Cairo Declaration to liberation
Republican China and Imperial Japan1912 – 1949
The age when the Republic of China, born of the 1911 Revolution, passed through warlord division, the May Fourth Movement, the United Front and the Northern Expedition, fought Japan’s invasion and split in civil war — as Japan moved from Taishō democracy through the Manchurian Incident and military coups to the war in China and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and colonized Korea resisted through the March First Movement and armed struggle