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| The Korea Times ran an article about an incident in which U.S. military personnel shaved the heads of women caught in base after midnight, on Jan. 7, 1960. / Korea Times archive |
By Matt VanVolkenburg
The 1960s began in Korea with an explosion of anger against the U.S. On Jan. 2, 1960, two Korean women found after midnight in the billet of a tank battalion in Dongducheon had their heads shaved by two American sergeants, Ora Curnutte and Harry Saunders, who were following the orders of company commander Capt. John W. McEnery. According to the U.S., the victims admitted they were licensed prostitutes who had entered the Army camp illegally.
As The Korea Times put it, "Captain McEnery had promised three-day passes to his men who apprehended any prostitute or thieves in the unit area" due to "a high venereal disease rate in his unit."
The Associated Press quoted one of the women, who was the mother of a mixed-race child, as saying, "We cried and begged... but they kept on cutting our hair... I was terrified. I was ashamed myself. My English is poor but I repeatedly told them I would never come again... But they did not listen."
When the news broke on Jan. 6, the soldiers were bitterly criticized. A Korea Times editorial described the forced cutting of the women's hair as "a serious affront to human dignity," while others called the soldiers "barbarous, immoral, inhumane" and said their actions served as "evidence that some Americans consider Koreans as inferiors."
In a letter to the editor, Dakin K. Chung said Koreans saw the shaving of a woman's head as "unforgivable," going on to describe how centuries ago Koreans had "reached a very high degree of enlightened advancement in religion…while the European cave dwellers were gnawing raw bones."
Lawyer Tai-yung Lee said it was "odd for the Americans who consider themselves advanced and civilized to retaliate privately without legal sanction." The government felt the same. On Jan. 12 Vice Foreign Minister (and future president) Choi Kyu-hah met American Ambassador Walter P. McConaughy and formally demanded the soldiers be punished.
Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Yang You-chan also told the U.S. media the soldiers should be court martialed and called the head shaving a "shameful thing which only played into the hands of Communist propagandists who are making every effort to discredit the U.S. forces in the Far East."
Results were quickly forthcoming. The next day McConaughy and U.N. Commander Gen. Carter Magruder visited Choi to express regret, pledge to prevent further incidents, remove Captain McEnery from his command, and promise to discuss compensation for the women. For the National Assembly, this was not quite enough, however, and five days later it unanimously adopted a recommendation that the government step up efforts to conclude a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the U.S., which wouldn't be signed for six more years.
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| This Jan. 6, 1960 editorial cartoon shows Korean women having their hair forcibly shaved for being caught on a U.S. base late at night. / Korea Times archives |
Five years later, C.D.B. Bryan, who had been serving with the USFK in 1960 as an "Ivy League ROTC lieutenant," recreated the incident in his Harper Prize-winning first novel, "P.S. Wilkinson." His autobiographical protagonist, "Rutena Wirkenson" (as Koreans call him) hates being stuck in Korea, a "godforsaken place," and hates army life even more because he is plagued by incompetent and lecherous superiors.
Confronted with break-ins, Major Sturgess asks "Where else in the world do whores cut through barbed-wire fences to climb into the sack with the GIs?" and orders that the next woman to be caught have her head shaved. In his retelling of the event, however, Bryan has his hero bravely refuse to follow the order.
In April 1965, James Wade reviewed the book in The Korea Times, criticizing it for its "fake idealism," "stilted dialogue, wilted prose."
He also criticized the "incredible stagey scene" where Wilkinson "lectures the C.O. with insufferable primness on the immorality of his head-shaving order." As Wade put it, "His self-righteous hypocrisy…put this reader on the army's side for the ?rst time in memory, head-shaving and all."
Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr. He will lecture on "Missionaries, GIs, English teachers, and other Folk Devils: Sovereignty and Anti-Westernism in South Korea" for the RASKB on Jan. 29 in downtown Seoul. Visit raskb.com for more information.
