Volta
Person1900 – 1972

Lee Beom-seok

Officer at the Battle of Cheongsan-ri, later chief of staff and Second Detachment commander of the Korean Liberation Army

An instructor at the Sinheung Military Academy, he commanded the officer-trainee unit of the Northern Route Military Administration and fought beside Kim Jwa-jin at Cheongsan-ri in 1920. When the Korean Liberation Army was founded in 1940 he became its chief of staff, and as commander of its Second Detachment prepared a homeland advance with the American OSS. After liberation he founded the Korean National Youth Association and served as the Republic of Korea's first prime minister and defence minister.

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3 related events

  1. 1
    1920Battle of Cheongsan-ricommander

    Kim Jwa-jin’s Northern Military Administration army, Hong Beom-do’s Korean Independence Army and others fought more than ten engagements over six days around Cheongsan-ri and defeated the Japanese, the greatest victory of the armed independence struggle.

  2. 2
    1940Founding of the Korean Liberation Armycommander

    Settled in Chongqing, the Provisional Government founded the Korean Liberation Army under Commander-in-Chief Ji Cheong-cheon; the Korean Volunteer Corps joined it in 1942.

  3. 3
    1945Planned Homeland Advance Operationcommander

    The Korean Liberation Army trained with the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) for an operation into Korea, but Japan surrendered before it could be carried out.

People who appear alongside

  • Kim Gu1876 – 1949

    Known as Baekbeom; founded the Korean Patriotic Organization and led the Liberation Army as Chairman of the Provisional Government

  • Ji Cheong-cheon1888 – 1957

    Commander of the Korean Independence Army in the joint Korea–China campaigns and Commander-in-Chief of the Liberation Army

  • Kim Jwa-jin1889 – 1930

    Commander of the Northern Military Administration who led the Battle of Cheongsan-ri and later the Sinminbu

  • Hong Beom-do1868 – 1943

    Commander of the Korean Independence Army who won at Bongo-dong and fought at Cheongsan-ri; died in Kazakhstan

  • Kim Won-bong1898 – 1958

    Leader of the Uiyeoldan, the National Revolutionary Party and the Korean Volunteer Corps; Deputy Commander of the Liberation Army

  • Kim Kyu-sik1881 – 1950

    Envoy of the New Korea Youth Party to the Paris Peace Conference, later Vice-Chairman of the Provisional Government

Themes this person appears in

  • 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