SEOUL — For decades, Tak Kyung Hyun and 17 other Korean pilots who flew kamikaze missions for the Japanese in World War II have been widely viewed as traitors at home.
A half-century after his death, Tak's Korean hometown is looking to change that legacy with the first memorial in South Korea to a kamikaze. But as the unveiling approaches, opposition is growing from conservative residents who still harbor strong resentment against Japan's brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
The 4.6-meter-high stone memorial, now covered with a tarp, was scheduled to be unveiled in the southeastern city of Sacheon on Saturday, the eve of Tak's death 63 years ago. He died when his explosives-laden plane is believed to have crashed in the water short of a U.S. warship that was his target.