The Korean women, who make up half of the country’s population, performed really brilliant feats on the front and in the rear to defend their homeland and happy life during the grim Fatherland Liberation War.

Girls and even married women volunteered for military service and those in the rear worked hard to ensure wartime production in every workplace in place of their husbands, sons and brothers who went to fight on the front.

Many of them achieved extraordinary feats that put those of men in the shade to become heroines.

Thae Son Hui was one of them. She fought bravely as a women pilot and became a DPRK heroine.

She joined the Korean People’s Army before the war. On September 8 1951, she was assigned a combat mission from her seniors to make a surprise attack on Taehwa Island and destroy the enemy.

She left her air base at night and carried out a sudden bombing raid on the enemy headquarters and military installations while dodging the enemy antiaircraft fire with a daring low-altitude flight.

Later, she mounted another bombing mission on the island successively to completely destroy the enemy headquarters as well as lots of troops, military establishments and the airport.

The title of DPRK Hero was conferred on her on November 8 1951. She was then 23 years old.

Nurses, Ri Sun Im, Kuk Sin Bok and An Yong Ae, saved the lives of many wounded soldiers at the risk of their lives from the brutal enemy bombing on their divisional and field hospitals.

An Yong Ae was shot to death after rescuing a wounded soldier by blocking the machine-gun fire from an enemy warplane with her body, and Ri Sun Im transfused 1 700 grams of her blood into the wounded to save their lives.

Another nurse, Jo Sun Ok, saved the lives of many wounded soldiers in a fierce battle. When only several soldiers were left on a mountain to defend it, she voluntarily took up a position there and died a heroic death after destroying two enemy tanks by throwing herself with bundles of grenades.

Women in the rear also performed amazing feats in wartime production.

Ko Yong Suk, a weaver, wove 100 000 metres more cloth than her annual production quota in 1952 by inventing a new working method, and Sin Pho Hyang, a moulder at a machine shop, removed a time bomb, though injured, to protect the cupola furnace and carried out the hand grenade production plan without fail, overcoming all difficulties.

Kim Rak Hui increased grain production by ploughing the fields, which had long been believed to be done only by men in farming, and Ri Chan Hwa walked over 400 kilometres up to the north to move 117 heads of sheep to a safe place during the strategic temporary retreat during the war.

Many other local women displayed unrivalled heroism and self-sacrificing spirit both on the front and in the rear and they did not feel it extraordinary, but took it as a matter of course.

Because deeply engraved on their mind was the truth that if they lost the happy life they led as masters of the country, land and factories Premier Kim Il Sung had retaken, they would be subjected to the fate of colonial slaves again.