Anna Wallace Suhr
Encyclopedia
Anna Wallis Suh the woman generally associated with the nickname Seoul City Sue, was a Methodist missionary, educator, and North Korean propaganda
radio announcer to United States forces during the Korean War
.
Anna was born in Arkansas
, the sixth of six children. After her mother and father died in 1910 and 1914, she relocated to Oklahoma
to join a sister's family while she completed high school. She spent her early adult years as an office clerk and Sunday school teacher. Subsequently, she studied at the Southeastern State Teachers College
, in Durant
, and the Scarritt College for Christian Workers
in Nashville, Tennessee
, graduating in 1930 with a B.A.
in ministry. She spent the next eight years working as a member of the American Southern Methodist Episcopal Mission in Korea
. As Japanese colonial authorities continued to restrict the activities of foreign missions, Anna joined the staff of Shanghai American School
(SAS) in 1938. There she met and married fellow staff member Suh Kyoon Chul, thus losing her US citizenship. Late in World War II
she was interned by the Japanese for two years with other ethnic Europeans at a camp in suburban Shanghai. After release, she resumed work at SAS for a year, before returning to Korea with her husband in 1946.
The Suhs settled in Seoul
, where Anna taught at the US Legation school until being fired in 1949 due to suspicion of her husband for left wing political activities. They remained or were trapped in Seoul during the Northern army's invasion of South Korea
in June 1950. Anna began announcing a short English language program for North Korean "Radio Seoul" starting on or about July 18, continuing until shortly after the Inchon landing on September 15, when the Suhs were evacuated north as a part of the general withdrawal of North Korean forces. Subsequently, she continued broadcasts on Radio Pyongyang. The Suhs participated in the political indoctrination
of US POWs at a camp near Pyongyang
in February, 1951.
Charles Robert Jenkins
reported that, some time after the war, Anna Suh was put in charge of English language publications for the Korean Central News Agency
. He also wrote that he saw her in a photo for a 1962 propaganda pamphlet, and met her briefly in 1965 at a department store in Pyongyang. Jenkins stated that he was told in 1972 that Suh had been shot as a South Korean double agent in 1969.
She was born Anna Wallis to Albert B. and M. Jane Wallis in 1900 in Lawrence County, Arkansas. She was the youngest of six children.
Anna's parents died when she was young; her mother died some time between the 1900 and 1910 Census, and her father in October, 1914. Subsequently, she relocated to Oklahoma
with a sister. Anna attended the Southeastern State Teachers College
, in Durant, Oklahoma, before transferring to the Scarritt College for Christian Workers
, an institution dedicated to the training of Methodist missionaries, in Nashville, Tennessee. Ann graduated with a B.A.
in 1930.
by the Southern Methodist
Conference. There, she initially taught at a Methodist school. By the early 1930s, the Japanese colonial administration
had largely banned foreigners from Christian proselytizing, and most Christian missions focused on education, medicine, and care for the indigent. She may have returned to the US in 1935 to visit a sister. In late 1936, she was appointed to serve at the Seoul Social Evangelistic Center, and in February 1937, visited Scarritt College during a missionary furlough.
In a move that may have reflected increasingly harsh Japanese measures against foreign missionaries in the late 30s, Anna relocated to China
to join the staff of the Shanghai American School
(SAS) in 1938. There she met Suh Kyoon Chul, who was hired to teach Korean and assist in school administration. She was dropped from the rolls of the missionary service and lost her United States citizenship after they married. She developed an interest in Korean politics, eventually taking up her husband's leftist views. The cosmopolitan Shanghai International Settlement
and French Concession
were likely a more accepting environment for the Suhs than homogeneous 1940s Korea would later prove to be, as suggested by the number of other Caucasian women on staff married to Asian men. In 1939, she visited San Francisco in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a US passport for her husband.
Civilian Relocation Center, a short distance away in the northern suburbs. This internment camp, one of several in and around Shanghai, occupied a three story dormitory on the grounds of Great China University (now East China Normal University
), most of which was damaged or destroyed during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai
.
Whether as a part of the remaining school staff or on her own, Anna also entered the Chapei center at this time, while her husband may have remained free as a colonial subject of Japan. During the internment, the SAS staff and parents took advantage of the school's books that had followed them to organize classes for the children. Supplies with which to maintain the internees grew short towards the end of the war, and a number of women married to citizens of Axis powers or neutral countries were released in late 1944. It is possible that Anna was among these.
With Anna's formal release from detention at the end of World War II, she joined the staff of the reconstituted SAS for the 1945-46 school year.
. Her employment was terminated after her husband was investigated for left wing activities. Shortly thereafter, North Korea
invaded the South in June, 1950.
The Korean People's Army
occupied Seoul three days after the start of hostilities. The speed of the advance caught the majority of residents by surprise and unprepared to evacuate, in part due to ROK radio propaganda rather at odds with the actual situation. Anna and her husband remained as well, perhaps because he was unwilling to abandon a school for indigent boys that he administered. During a July 10 meeting in Seoul that included 48 to 60 members of the ROK National Assembly, the couple pledged their loyalty to the North Korean regime.
Under Dr. Lee Soo, an English instructor from Seoul University, Anna began announcing for North Korean "Radio Seoul" from the Korean Broadcasting System's HLKA studios, with daily programs from 9:30 to 10:15 pm local time, first heard as early as July 18. The Suhs had been relocated to a temporary home near the station. Suh's defenders gave the dull tone of her broadcasts as proof that she was being forced to make them.
Her initial scripts suggested that American soldiers return to their corner ice cream stands, criticized the USAF bombing campaign, and reported names recovered from the dog tags of dead American soldiers to a background of soft music. The G.I.s gave her various nicknames, including Rice Ball or Rice Bowl Maggie, Rice Ball Kate, and Seoul City Sue. The latter name stuck, likely derived from "Sioux City Sue", the title of a song initially made popular by Zeke Manners
from 1946. Through the rest of the summer of 1950, her reports would announce the names of recently captured US airmen, marines, and soldiers, threaten new units arriving in country, welcome warships by name as they arrived on station, or taunt African American soldiers regarding their limited civil rights at home. Her monotone on-air delivery and the lack of popular music programming evidently left Ann's broadcasts less enjoyable for her intended audience than German and Japanese English language radio shows during World War II.
Radio Seoul went off the air at the start of a "Sue" program during an August 13 air strike on communications and transportation facilities in the city, as a B-26
bomber dropped 200 lbs fragmentation bombs adjacent to the transmitter. The station came back on the air a week or two later. The Suhs were evacuated north by truck after the Inchon landings, a few days before US forces entered the city. Mr. & Mrs. Suh joined the staff of Radio Pyongyang, where she continued English-language broadcasts to UN forces. They were temporarily reassigned to indoctrinate UN POWs at Camp 12 near Pyongyang in Feb, '51, after which the POWs were directed to continue indoctrinating each other, with Korean supervision.
made several claims about Suh in his book The Reluctant Communist that have not been independently verified. He reported that, some time after the war, she was put in charge of English language publications for the Korean Central News Agency
. He wrote that he saw her in a photo for a 1962 propaganda pamphlet called "I Am A Lucky Boy", dining with Larry Allen Abshier
, a US Army deserter and defector. Jenkins reported meeting her briefly in 1965 at the "foreigners only" section of the No. 2 Department Store in Pyongyang
. Jenkins also stated that he was told in 1972 that Suh had been shot as a South Korean double agent in 1969.
, which would likely have precluded his obtaining a passport.
Arbitrary application of Japanese and US law may have dogged Anna over the following years. When the Japanese interned most ethnic Europeans within the Empire during World War II, it is not clear whether she was forced into the Chapei Relocation Center, or entered it willingly, since she was not a foreign national. Later, during the US military occupation of southern Korea, an attempt was made to restore her US citizenship, an effort which fell through for unknown reasons. It is possible that she became a national of South Korea
as the wife of Mr. Suh. The Korean nationality that became reestablished between the end of World War II and the formal independence of the ROK in 1948 didn't distinguish between spouses. Although US forces sought her out after retaking Seoul in September, 1950, officials recognized that it was unlikely that Mrs. Suh could be charged with treason by the US.
In multiple episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H a North Korean announcer calling herself "Seoul City Sue" is heard on the radio (rebroadcast over the camp's PA). In "Bombed" she tells the GIs that their wives and girlfriends are being unfaithful and they would have more prosperous careers as civilians. In "38 Across" she accuses Hawkeye Pierce of war crimes for performing an experimental technique to save successfully the life of a North Korean POW
.
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
radio announcer to United States forces during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
.
Anna was born in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, the sixth of six children. After her mother and father died in 1910 and 1914, she relocated to Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
to join a sister's family while she completed high school. She spent her early adult years as an office clerk and Sunday school teacher. Subsequently, she studied at the Southeastern State Teachers College
Southeastern Oklahoma State University
Southeastern Oklahoma State University, often referred to as Southeastern and abbreviated as SE, or SOSU, is a public university located in Durant, Oklahoma, with an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 4,229 as of 2009.-History:...
, in Durant
Durant
- People :* Adrian Durant , sprint athlete from the U.S. Virgin Islands* Albert Durant , Belgian water polo player* Ariel Durant , co-author of The Story of Civilization with husband Will Durant...
, and the Scarritt College for Christian Workers
Scarritt College for Christian Workers
Scarritt College for Christian Workers was a college that trained missionaries, teachers and other people dedicated to sharing Christianity. It was associated with the United Methodist Church....
in Nashville, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, graduating in 1930 with a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in ministry. She spent the next eight years working as a member of the American Southern Methodist Episcopal Mission in Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
. As Japanese colonial authorities continued to restrict the activities of foreign missions, Anna joined the staff of Shanghai American School
Shanghai American School
Shanghai American School is an international K-12 school located in Shanghai, China. Originally established in 1912, it accepts expatriate students from all countries around the world, and fosters them with an American educational environment.-Present:...
(SAS) in 1938. There she met and married fellow staff member Suh Kyoon Chul, thus losing her US citizenship. Late in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
she was interned by the Japanese for two years with other ethnic Europeans at a camp in suburban Shanghai. After release, she resumed work at SAS for a year, before returning to Korea with her husband in 1946.
The Suhs settled in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, where Anna taught at the US Legation school until being fired in 1949 due to suspicion of her husband for left wing political activities. They remained or were trapped in Seoul during the Northern army's invasion of South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
in June 1950. Anna began announcing a short English language program for North Korean "Radio Seoul" starting on or about July 18, continuing until shortly after the Inchon landing on September 15, when the Suhs were evacuated north as a part of the general withdrawal of North Korean forces. Subsequently, she continued broadcasts on Radio Pyongyang. The Suhs participated in the political indoctrination
Indoctrination
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology . It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned...
of US POWs at a camp near Pyongyang
Pyongyang
Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...
in February, 1951.
Charles Robert Jenkins
Charles Robert Jenkins
Charles Robert Jenkins is a former United States Army soldier who lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004 after deserting his unit and crossing the Korean Demilitarized Zone.-Military service and desertion:...
reported that, some time after the war, Anna Suh was put in charge of English language publications for the Korean Central News Agency
Korean Central News Agency
The Korean Central News Agency is the state news agency of North Korea and has existed since December 5, 1946. KCNA is headquartered in the capital city of Pyongyang...
. He also wrote that he saw her in a photo for a 1962 propaganda pamphlet, and met her briefly in 1965 at a department store in Pyongyang. Jenkins stated that he was told in 1972 that Suh had been shot as a South Korean double agent in 1969.
Early life
Anna's parents died when she was young; her mother died some time between the 1900 and 1910 Census, and her father in October, 1914. Subsequently, she relocated to Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
with a sister. Anna attended the Southeastern State Teachers College
Southeastern Oklahoma State University
Southeastern Oklahoma State University, often referred to as Southeastern and abbreviated as SE, or SOSU, is a public university located in Durant, Oklahoma, with an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 4,229 as of 2009.-History:...
, in Durant, Oklahoma, before transferring to the Scarritt College for Christian Workers
Scarritt College for Christian Workers
Scarritt College for Christian Workers was a college that trained missionaries, teachers and other people dedicated to sharing Christianity. It was associated with the United Methodist Church....
, an institution dedicated to the training of Methodist missionaries, in Nashville, Tennessee. Ann graduated with a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1930.
Korean mission and China
That same year, she was selected for a mission to KoreaKorea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
by the Southern Methodist
Methodist Episcopal Church, South
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or Methodist Episcopal Church South, was the so-called "Southern Methodist Church" resulting from the split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church which had been brewing over several years until it came out into the open at a conference...
Conference. There, she initially taught at a Methodist school. By the early 1930s, the Japanese colonial administration
Korea under Japanese rule
Korea was under Japanese rule as part of Japan's 35-year imperialist expansion . Japanese rule ended in 1945 shortly after the Japanese defeat in World War II....
had largely banned foreigners from Christian proselytizing, and most Christian missions focused on education, medicine, and care for the indigent. She may have returned to the US in 1935 to visit a sister. In late 1936, she was appointed to serve at the Seoul Social Evangelistic Center, and in February 1937, visited Scarritt College during a missionary furlough.
In a move that may have reflected increasingly harsh Japanese measures against foreign missionaries in the late 30s, Anna relocated to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
to join the staff of the Shanghai American School
Shanghai American School
Shanghai American School is an international K-12 school located in Shanghai, China. Originally established in 1912, it accepts expatriate students from all countries around the world, and fosters them with an American educational environment.-Present:...
(SAS) in 1938. There she met Suh Kyoon Chul, who was hired to teach Korean and assist in school administration. She was dropped from the rolls of the missionary service and lost her United States citizenship after they married. She developed an interest in Korean politics, eventually taking up her husband's leftist views. The cosmopolitan Shanghai International Settlement
Shanghai International Settlement
The Shanghai International Settlement began originally as a purely British settlement. It was one of the original five treaty ports which were established under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking at the end of the first opium war in the year 1842...
and French Concession
Shanghai French Concession
The Shanghai French Concession was a foreign concession in Shanghai, China from 1849 until 1946, and it was progressively expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The concession came to an end in practice in 1943 when the Vichy French government signed it over to the pro-Japanese puppet...
were likely a more accepting environment for the Suhs than homogeneous 1940s Korea would later prove to be, as suggested by the number of other Caucasian women on staff married to Asian men. In 1939, she visited San Francisco in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a US passport for her husband.
Sino-Japanese War
Americans in Shanghai began to depart that same year, slowly as tensions rose in the environs of the city, then en masse shortly before the US and Japan officially went to war. SAS remained open until February 1943, when the remaining foreign staff were forced into the ChapeiZhabei District
Zhabei District of Shanghai has a land area of 29.26 km² and a resident population of 810,211 as of 2003. It is one of the downtown districts of Shanghai though the commercial potential has been continuously undervalued...
Civilian Relocation Center, a short distance away in the northern suburbs. This internment camp, one of several in and around Shanghai, occupied a three story dormitory on the grounds of Great China University (now East China Normal University
East China Normal University
East China Normal University , was founded in October 1951 in western Shanghai, on the campus of Great China University. It is the first Normal University founded after the establishment of the People's Republic of China.-History:...
), most of which was damaged or destroyed during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai
Battle of Shanghai
The Battle of Shanghai, known in Chinese as Battle of Songhu, was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and the Imperial Japanese Army of the Empire of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War...
.
Whether as a part of the remaining school staff or on her own, Anna also entered the Chapei center at this time, while her husband may have remained free as a colonial subject of Japan. During the internment, the SAS staff and parents took advantage of the school's books that had followed them to organize classes for the children. Supplies with which to maintain the internees grew short towards the end of the war, and a number of women married to citizens of Axis powers or neutral countries were released in late 1944. It is possible that Anna was among these.
With Anna's formal release from detention at the end of World War II, she joined the staff of the reconstituted SAS for the 1945-46 school year.
Korean War
Unable to continue earning a sufficient living in post-war Shanghai, she and her husband returned to liberated Korea, where she tutored children at the US Diplomatic Mission School in SeoulSeoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
. Her employment was terminated after her husband was investigated for left wing activities. Shortly thereafter, North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
invaded the South in June, 1950.
The Korean People's Army
Korean People's Army
The Korean People's Army , also known as the Inmin Gun, are the military forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Kim Jong-il is the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and Chairman of the National Defence Commission...
occupied Seoul three days after the start of hostilities. The speed of the advance caught the majority of residents by surprise and unprepared to evacuate, in part due to ROK radio propaganda rather at odds with the actual situation. Anna and her husband remained as well, perhaps because he was unwilling to abandon a school for indigent boys that he administered. During a July 10 meeting in Seoul that included 48 to 60 members of the ROK National Assembly, the couple pledged their loyalty to the North Korean regime.
Under Dr. Lee Soo, an English instructor from Seoul University, Anna began announcing for North Korean "Radio Seoul" from the Korean Broadcasting System's HLKA studios, with daily programs from 9:30 to 10:15 pm local time, first heard as early as July 18. The Suhs had been relocated to a temporary home near the station. Suh's defenders gave the dull tone of her broadcasts as proof that she was being forced to make them.
Her initial scripts suggested that American soldiers return to their corner ice cream stands, criticized the USAF bombing campaign, and reported names recovered from the dog tags of dead American soldiers to a background of soft music. The G.I.s gave her various nicknames, including Rice Ball or Rice Bowl Maggie, Rice Ball Kate, and Seoul City Sue. The latter name stuck, likely derived from "Sioux City Sue", the title of a song initially made popular by Zeke Manners
Zeke Manners
Leo "Zeke" Manners was an American country musician.-Biography:Manners was born in San Francisco but raised in Los Angeles, where he attended Fairfax High School and learned to play fiddle, banjo, and piano. He played in a traveling revue for a time before joining several Western swing groups...
from 1946. Through the rest of the summer of 1950, her reports would announce the names of recently captured US airmen, marines, and soldiers, threaten new units arriving in country, welcome warships by name as they arrived on station, or taunt African American soldiers regarding their limited civil rights at home. Her monotone on-air delivery and the lack of popular music programming evidently left Ann's broadcasts less enjoyable for her intended audience than German and Japanese English language radio shows during World War II.
Radio Seoul went off the air at the start of a "Sue" program during an August 13 air strike on communications and transportation facilities in the city, as a B-26
A-26 Invader
The Douglas A-26 Invader was a United States twin-engined light attack bomber built by the Douglas Aircraft Co. during World War II that also saw service during several of the Cold War's major conflicts...
bomber dropped 200 lbs fragmentation bombs adjacent to the transmitter. The station came back on the air a week or two later. The Suhs were evacuated north by truck after the Inchon landings, a few days before US forces entered the city. Mr. & Mrs. Suh joined the staff of Radio Pyongyang, where she continued English-language broadcasts to UN forces. They were temporarily reassigned to indoctrinate UN POWs at Camp 12 near Pyongyang in Feb, '51, after which the POWs were directed to continue indoctrinating each other, with Korean supervision.
Later life
Fellow defector Charles Robert JenkinsCharles Robert Jenkins
Charles Robert Jenkins is a former United States Army soldier who lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004 after deserting his unit and crossing the Korean Demilitarized Zone.-Military service and desertion:...
made several claims about Suh in his book The Reluctant Communist that have not been independently verified. He reported that, some time after the war, she was put in charge of English language publications for the Korean Central News Agency
Korean Central News Agency
The Korean Central News Agency is the state news agency of North Korea and has existed since December 5, 1946. KCNA is headquartered in the capital city of Pyongyang...
. He wrote that he saw her in a photo for a 1962 propaganda pamphlet called "I Am A Lucky Boy", dining with Larry Allen Abshier
Larry Allen Abshier
Private Larry Allen Abshier of the U.S. Army was one of six American soldiers to defect to North Korea after the Korean War.-Defecting:...
, a US Army deserter and defector. Jenkins reported meeting her briefly in 1965 at the "foreigners only" section of the No. 2 Department Store in Pyongyang
Pyongyang
Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...
. Jenkins also stated that he was told in 1972 that Suh had been shot as a South Korean double agent in 1969.
Nationality
Based on US law through the 1930s, citizenship for a married woman was almost exclusively based on that of her husband, particularly if they lived in his native land. Therefore, Anna Wallis probably lost her US citizenship when she married Mr. Suh in China. Mr. Suh, as well as all other native residents of Korea and Taiwan, were nationals of the Empire of Japan, which recognized itself as a multi-ethnic state. Anna may not have recognized her situation until the 1939 visit to San Francisco to secure a US passport for her husband. In addition to her status as a Japanese national, the US had almost completely frozen Asian immigration with the Immigration Act of 1924Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
, which would likely have precluded his obtaining a passport.
Arbitrary application of Japanese and US law may have dogged Anna over the following years. When the Japanese interned most ethnic Europeans within the Empire during World War II, it is not clear whether she was forced into the Chapei Relocation Center, or entered it willingly, since she was not a foreign national. Later, during the US military occupation of southern Korea, an attempt was made to restore her US citizenship, an effort which fell through for unknown reasons. It is possible that she became a national of South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
as the wife of Mr. Suh. The Korean nationality that became reestablished between the end of World War II and the formal independence of the ROK in 1948 didn't distinguish between spouses. Although US forces sought her out after retaking Seoul in September, 1950, officials recognized that it was unlikely that Mrs. Suh could be charged with treason by the US.
In popular culture
During the Korean War, USAF pilots improvised a spoof of the Zeke Manner's hit "Sioux City Sue" using the most popular nickname for Ms. Suh.In multiple episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H a North Korean announcer calling herself "Seoul City Sue" is heard on the radio (rebroadcast over the camp's PA). In "Bombed" she tells the GIs that their wives and girlfriends are being unfaithful and they would have more prosperous careers as civilians. In "38 Across" she accuses Hawkeye Pierce of war crimes for performing an experimental technique to save successfully the life of a North Korean POW
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
.
External links
- Time Magazine, August 21, 1950 Vol. LVI No. 8
- Korean War Discussion List email archives
- United States Army In The Korean War: South To The Naktong, North To The Yalu a publication of the United States Army Center of Military History
- Army News Service
- "Eyewitness: A North Korean Remembers"