The Korean people achieved a miraculous victory in the Fatherland Liberation War (1950-1953) against the US-led imperialist allied forces. This triumph is unthinkable apart from the extraordinary art of command of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung (1912-1994).

With extraordinary strategies and tactics he took the initiative in the war and brought about a radical turn in the tide of the war.

Until then, it was an accepted convention in the world history of war that, once they sustained a surprise attack, almost all countries, however enormous their military capabilities were, had to step back to set the frontline in order and gather strength before they switched over to a counteroffensive.

However, Kim Il Sung made sure that an immediate counteroffensive was launched to foil the enemy’s sudden invasion at a stroke. Thus, such a miracle was created that Seoul, the capital of the ROK, was liberated on June 28, 1950, three days after the outbreak of the war.

When the enemy attempted to besiege and crush the Korean People’s Army by taking advantage of their numerical and technological supremacy, he set forth an operational policy on making a temporary strategic retreat so as to set things right in time, while employing an array of astute strategies and tactics such as opening a second front by regular army units, striking the enemy from the rear ceaselessly and launching a new counteroffensive, which enabled the KPA to open a favourable phase in the war.

In addition, with an insight into the landform of the country with many mountains, he put forth a variety of tactics including proactive positional defence warfare based on tunnels, and sniper team, aircraft-hunting team and tank-hunting team movements, which did much to foil the enemy’s massive offensives and drain their forces in a steady manner.

His unique strategies and bold and extraordinary commandership eventually forced the enemy into kneeling down before the Korean people, despite their superior numerical forces and military equipment.

Francisco da Costa Gomes, the then chief of staff of the Portuguese forces in Macau during the Korean war who became the president of Portugal later, once said: The operations plans of the United States were brought to completion through several rounds of discussion by scores of generals including chiefs of staff and military experts of the Western countries which took the side of the United States. But General Kim Il Sung foiled them virtually single-handedly. While witnessing this with my own eyes, I came to realize that he was an inborn military strategist and a great commander the world had ever seen.

Han Su Yong