Threat Tuesday – Loss of USS Baltimore – NOT!

In this undated photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed in Tokyo by the Korea News Service on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, second left, rides a boat when he visited Unit 158 of the navy of the North Korean People’s Army. (AP Photo)

The NorK Kid continues his toy travels inspection tours of various military units. Not unusual, but thanks to North Korea Leadership Watch we get a few more details. Here Kim Jong Un is visiting Combined Unit 597. Later in the same day he visited Unit 158 of the Korean People’s Army Navy. A very famous units, as KCNA tells us, because it sank CA-68 USS Baltimore.

According to KCNA:

The history of the development of the unit is recorded with feats which strikingly demonstrated the might of the KPA Navy by sinking or destroying a lot of enemy warships including the battle results unprecedented in the world history of naval battles KPA navymen achieved by sinking the U.S. imperialist heavy cruiser “Baltimore” with just four torpedo boats in the naval battle in Jumunjin during the Fatherland Liberation War.

The NorKs apparently even have a display in a museum in Pyongyang which claims the same.

Poor “Engrish” aside (a nearly 70-word sentence), the above is a great example of NorK delusional propaganda. The battle referenced is better known as the Battle of Chumonchin Chan which took place on 2 July 1950. As the Naval Historical Center tells it:

In the early hours of July 2, as the allied fleets converged on Korea, U.S. cruiser Juneau, British cruiser Jamaica, and British frigate Black Swan discovered 4 torpedo boats and 2 motor gunboats of the North Korean navy that had just finished escorting ten craft loaded with ammunition south along the coast in the Sea of Japan. The outgunned North Korean torpedo boats turned and gamely pressed home a torpedo attack, but before they could launch their weapons, the Anglo-American flotilla ended the threat; only one torpedo boat survived U.S.-British naval gunfire to flee the scene. After this one-sided battle and for the remainder of the war, North Korean naval leaders decided against contesting control of the sea with the UN navies. The surviving units of the North Korean navy eventually took refuge in Chinese and Soviet ports.

So let me get this straight; USS Baltimore was not involved and three NorK torpedo boats were sunk. Yet the fourth boat is heralded as the victor in that same Pyongyang museum.

All this makes one wonder just what stories the young NorKster is being told and what he really believes. Is this really just propaganda for the masses? Does Kim Jong Un believe it? Is he inclined to act based on interpretations of history like this? Has he already done so? All the more interesting in light of reports that Kim Jong Un masterminded the sinking of 26 March 2011 sinking of the ROK Navy ship PCC-772 Choenan.