| Yoon Bong-Gil | |
|---|---|
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 윤봉길 |
| Hanja | 尹奉吉 |
| Revised Romanization | Yun Bong-gil |
| McCune–Reischauer | Yun Ponggil |
Yoon Bong-Gil (21 June 1908, Yesan, Korea – 19 December 1932, Kanazawa, Japan) was a Korean independence activist and assassin[1][2] who worked against Japan during Japan's rule over Korea (1910–1945).
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On 29 April 1932, he carried out a bombing attack using a bomb disguised as a canteen at a Japanese army celebration of Emperor Hirohito's birthday in Hongkou Park, Shanghai. The bombing killed Yoshinori Shirakawa, a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, and Kawabata Sadaji (河端貞次), a Government Chancellor of Japanese residents in Shanghai. It also seriously injured Kenkichi Ueda, Division 9 commander of the Japanese Imperial Army, Kuramatsu Murai (村井倉松), Japanese Consul-General in Shanghai, and Shigemitsu Mamoru, Japanese Envoy in Shanghai.
Yoon was arrested at the scene and convicted by the Japanese military court in Shanghai on 25 May. He was transferred to Osaka prison on 18 November, and executed in Kanazawa on 18 December. He was buried in Nodayama graveyard.
Chiang Kai-shek quoted "A young Korean patriot has accomplished something tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers could not do."[3]
In May, 1946, his remains were excavated by Korean residents in Japan, transferred to Seoul and given funeral rites. He was then reburied in the Korean National Cemetery. In 1962, the government of South Korea's Second Republic praised his bombing attack, and posthumously bestowed the Republic of Korea Cordon (Grand Cordon) of the Order of Liberation Merit on him.