On September 18, 1996, North Korea’s covert espionage wing, the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), launched a bold but ill-fated intelligence mission that ended in a dramatic manhunt across South Korea.
The RGB dispatched a Sang-O (Shark) class mini-submarine, staffed by 26 operatives, on a high-stakes mission to gather intelligence off the South Korean coast.
The mission, however, turned into a disastrous event when a taxi driver spotted an abandoned North Korean submarine off Gangneung’s coast and saw a group of men by the highway. His tip led to a massive manhunt involving 40,000 South Korean troops, including the elite airborne rangers.
The story begins on the morning of September 14, 1996. Under the command of Captain Chong Yong-ku, the 34-meter-long North Korean submarine slipped out of its base in Toejo Dong.
Normally operated by a crew of 15, this mission included additional personnel: three elite operatives from the Reconnaissance General Bureau and Col. Kim Dong-won, a high-ranking officer overseeing maritime intelligence operations.
The submarine’s mission was straightforward but risky: conduct reconnaissance on South Korean military bases near Gangneung, a strategic area approximately 90 miles south of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
Before departing, every crew member pledged not to return without completing their mission.
On September 15, the submarine quietly positioned itself a few hundred meters off Gangneung’s coast. Around 9 p.m., the elite operatives, equipped with scuba gear, swam ashore with the help of two divers who then returned to the submarine.
While the operatives pursued their reconnaissance mission inland, the submarine continued along the coastline, capturing photographs of South Korean military installations.
The operatives achieved their objective, successfully gathering valuable intelligence, including photographs of a South Korean airbase and its surroundings. However, when the submarine returned the next evening to extract the operatives, it failed to do so due to unforeseen complications.
A second attempt to recover the spies on the night of September 17 proved disastrous. The submarine ran aground on a rocky reef just 20 meters off An-in Beach. With its propeller tangled in seaweed, the vessel was immobilized.
After frantic efforts to free the submarine failed, Captain Chong decided to abandon the ship. Near midnight, the crew set the vessel’s interior ablaze before making their escape.
How A Taxi Driver’s Suspicion Sparked A Major Alert
On the night of September 18, 1996, Lee Jin-kyu, a taxi driver in Gangneung City, Gangwon Province, South Korea, was finishing a late shift. As he drove near the shores of Aninjin-ri in Gangdong-myeon, he noticed a group of men with short hair sitting along the roadside.
After dropping off a passenger, Lee revisited the area but found the men had vanished. He parked his taxi and walked to the coast, where he saw an unfamiliar vessel floating on the water, which did not resemble a fishing boat.
Approximately 25 minutes after Lee reported his sighting to the local police at around 2:00 a.m., an ROK (Republic of Korea) Army sentry from the 68th Division, patrolling the same area, also noticed something suspicious and alerted his superiors.
They had discovered an abandoned Sang-O class submarine. Despite reports from two separate sources, it took nearly three hours for senior military officials to arrive, inspect the submarine, and confirm that it was indeed an enemy vessel. Around 5:00 a.m., a Jindogae I alert, the highest level of national security alert, was issued.
The alert transformed the normally peaceful city of Gangneung into a tense, high-alert zone, marking the start of a 49-day-long counter-infiltration operation.
South Korea Unleashes All-Out Manhunt
On the morning of September 19, 1996, the South Korean military boarded the abandoned North Korean Sang-O class submarine at 7 a.m., marking the beginning of an intense manhunt.
Over 40,000 troops from the Eighth Corps and the Thirty-Sixth Infantry Division were swiftly mobilized, supported by helicopters and police tracking dogs. The Republic of Korea Navy established a blockade, anticipating the possibility of additional submarines being involved in the incursion.
The search for the missing crew intensified that afternoon when a local farmer reported a suspicious individual in his fields. By 4:30 p.m., South Korean soldiers had apprehended Lee Kwang-soo, the 31-year-old helmsman of the submarine.
Lee initially claimed that the submarine had drifted into South Korean waters due to an engine failure during a training mission, conveniently omitting any mention of the Special Forces operatives onboard.
The situation took a grim turn when, just 30 minutes later, South Korean troops discovered the bodies of ten men on a nearby mountain. The victims, clad in white civilian t-shirts and tennis shoes, were arranged in a row and had all been shot in the head at close range.
Among the deceased were Captain Chong Yong-ku and several submarine crew members. Colonel Kim Dong-won, a key figure in the mission, was found dead a short distance away. The discovery prompted the South Korean government to impose a curfew along the entire coast.
As the interrogation of Lee Kwang-soo progressed, Lee admitted that the submarine was on an espionage mission and revealed a disturbing order given to the crew: to commit suicide to avoid capture.
The executed crewmen, deemed weak and likely to be captured, were believed to have been punished for their failure to escape back to North Korea.
The lone captured crew member also revealed to investigators that the mission was not unique; a year earlier, around September 15, 1995, infiltrators had carried out a similar operation near Gangneung, collecting intelligence on nearby military installations.
Lee also disclosed that the submarine had carried a total of 26 men, including Special Forces personnel. This revelation meant that 14 infiltrators remained unaccounted for.
The following morning, starting at 10 a.m., South Korean troops engaged in the first of three firefights with the remaining North Korean crew members in the mountainous terrain of Gangdong-myeon. By the end of the day, seven infiltrators were killed, with two soldiers injured in the clashes.
The pursuit continued throughout September, with four more infiltrators killed by the month’s end. However, one infiltrator killed a South Korean police officer on September 29 as he was leaving work in Gangbori.
Despite the intense efforts of South Korean forces, the three elite Reconnaissance Bureau operatives remained at large. On September 20, President Kim Young-sam issued a stern warning that South Korea might resort to retaliation if further provocations occurred.
Pyongyang responded with claims that its submarine had experienced engine trouble and inadvertently drifted south, forcing its crew into enemy territory. The North Korean regime also threatened retaliation for the crew’s deaths.
The situation escalated further when South Korean consular officer Choe Deok-geun was assassinated in Vladivostok on October 1. The poisoning of Choe, using a toxin identical to that found on the captured North Korean submarine, was widely believed to be an act of revenge for the fallen crew.
The Final Chapter
Meanwhile, the manhunt for the remaining North Korean operatives stretched over 49 days, with the agents attempting to evade capture by crossing the heavily fortified DMZ.
On October 9, police discovered the bodies of three civilians near Tongdang-ri. The victims, who had been collecting mushrooms, were killed with spent 5.56-millimeter casings from M16 rifles found nearby.
Two weeks later, an off-duty Korean soldier was strangled to death by North Korean operators. However, the chase reached its climax on November 4 when a civilian driver spotted two suspicious men crossing a highway near Inje, just twelve miles from the border.
South Korean troops, alerted by the tip-off, engaged the agents in a fierce firefight on Hyangro Peak the following morning. Armed with M16 rifles and over a dozen hand grenades, the North Korean operatives fought back aggressively and killed three ROK soldiers before being gunned down.
A diary recovered from their bodies revealed their brutal journey, including their involvement in the killings of civilians and their extensive trek across nearly 80 miles of South Korean territory.
Overall, the extensive search effort, which incurred over 200 billion won (approximately $187 million) in economic damage, claimed the lives of four civilians, eight soldiers, a policeman, and a reservist.
On the other hand, only two of the original 26 submarine crew members survived. Li Chul-jin, the third special forces soldier, was thought to have escaped to North Korea.
However, a North Korean documentary commemorating the Gangneung incident 20 years later lists 25 dead crewmembers, including Li Chul-jin, suggesting North Korea also considers him dead.
His grave was featured in a documentary, and his name was inscribed on a monument. Pyongyang awarded all deceased crew members official honors and interred them in the national cemetery after South Korea returned their ashes in December 1996.
Another North Korean Submarine Disaster
On December 29, North Korea issued an unusual apology for the submarine incident. Despite this, their behavior remained unchanged. Just around 18 months later, another North Korean submarine encountered a similar disaster near Sokcho, South Korea.
On June 22, 1998, a North Korean Yugo-class submarine got trapped in a fishing net about 11 miles east of Sokcho and 21 miles south of the DMZ. The crew’s attempts to free the vessel failed, and the submarine was eventually spotted by South Korean fishermen who alerted the Navy.
A corvette was quickly dispatched to intercept the North Koreans. The corvette then started towing the submarine back to the navy base at Donghae with its crew still onboard. Unfortunately, the submarine sank before it could reach the port.
It remains unclear whether it sank due to damage or was intentionally scuttled. North Korea later described the incident as a “training accident.”
By June 25, South Korea recovered the submarine from a depth of about 30 meters, finding nine North Korean bodies inside. Four of the crew had been shot in the head. Lt. Gen. Chung Young-jin of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested that after the executions, the remaining crew members committed suicide.
Inside the submarine, South Korean drinks and military equipment, including rifles, machine guns, and hand grenades, were found. The presence of these items indicated that the submarine had likely completed an espionage mission before its capture.
The submarine’s logbook revealed multiple incursions into South Korean waters. The recovered bodies were later interred in the Cemetery for North Korean and Chinese Soldiers.
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