South honors six lost in 2nd Battle of Yeonpyeong as North's saber-rattling carves out nuclear path

South Korea paid tribute on Monday to the six sailors killed in a deadly 2002 naval battle with North Korea, marking the 24th anniversary of the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong at a moment when Pyongyang is rapidly expanding its navy and vowing to arm it with nuclear weapons.

The commemoration at the Navy's 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, came days after the North commissioned its largest warship to date and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared that his push for a nuclear-armed fleet was on track. The buildup has drawn fresh attention to the waters of the Yellow Sea, where the 2002 clash was fought.

Seoul's defense minister, Ahn Gyu-back, read the names of the fallen aloud, beginning with the boat's commander, Lt. Cdr. Yoon Young-ha.

"On behalf of all our service members, I bow my head to honor the six heroes who gave their lives to defend our nation's seas," Ahn said.

The minister cast the battle as a victory that came at a steep price.

"Behind that victory were the noble sacrifices of six heroes who gave everything for their country, and building a strong military the people can trust is the mission of all of us alive today," he said.

Seo Young-seok, who heads the bereaved families' association and lost his son, P.O.1 Seo Hu-won, in the fight, spoke for the families.

"Our six warriors who fell at the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong, and the comrades who fought beside them, stood firm against the enemy's provocation with the honor and pride of the South Korean Navy. They were true soldiers whose resolve overcame fear," he said.

About 300 people attended, among them bereaved relatives, veterans of the battle, sailors and civilian military employees. They included Lee Hee-wan, an officer on the patrol boat that day who lost a leg in the fighting and later served as vice minister of patriots and veterans affairs, and Navy Lt. j.g. Jo Si-eun, daughter of the late C.P.O. Jo Cheon-hyeong.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Kim Kyung-ryul and Brig. Gen. Jason Rosenstrauch, the deputy commanding general for support of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Division, also attended. Several opposition People Power Party (PPP) lawmakers were there, including Reps. Kim Gi-hyeon, Han Ki-ho, Yu Eui-dong, Yu Yong-weon and Kang Sun-young, as were former lawmaker Yoo Seong-min and the ruling Democratic Party's (DP) Boo Seung-chan. Wreaths were sent in the names of President Lee Jae Myung, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, Ahn, Veterans Minister Kwon Oh-eul and the leaders of the DP, PPP and Reform Party. 

The Navy has called the event a "victory" ceremony since 2022, part of a wider reappraisal of a battle whose dead drew little public attention at the time, and it has renamed the memorial at the fleet base a victory monument.

The Second Battle of Yeonpyeong erupted on the morning of June 29, 2002, when a North Korean patrol boat crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto sea border in the Yellow Sea, near Yeonpyeong Island and opened fire on South Korea's Chamsuri-357 patrol boat.

The attack killed Yoon and four crew members: C.P.O.s Han Sang-guk and Jo Cheon-hyeong and P.O.1s Hwang Do-hyeon and Seo Hu-won. The boat's medic, Park Dong-hyeok, was gravely wounded and died on Sept. 20, 83 days after the battle. The South's Navy estimated that about 30 North Korean sailors were killed or wounded, and the North's boat limped away half-wrecked.

The Navy later named six 450-ton guided-missile patrol boats after the men who died on the Chamsuri-357, and on the battle's 10th anniversary in June 2012, all six sailed together for the first time in a joint exercise.

The anniversary comes as North Korea presses ahead with a naval expansion that has unsettled South Korean defense officials. Pyongyang has accelerated destroyer construction over the past year in a drive to field a more capable fleet.

On June 23, the North's leader presided over the commissioning of the Choe Hyon — a 5,000-ton vessel, the country's largest warship — at the port of Nampo on the western coast. The nuclear arming of his navy was "following its planned course unerringly," according to North's Rodong Sinmun. 

Kim Jong-un has long called the navy the weakest of the North's armed services, and at the commissioning, he said that was changing.

"In terms of military hardware, the Navy was the weakest of all the services of our armed forces," he said at the Choe Hyon's commissioning. "But, things have changed obviously now. The combat capability of our Navy will grow to be admirable beyond imagination." 

He again pressed for new infrastructure to match the bigger fleet.

"We should give a spur to the building of large and multifunctional naval bases and push ahead with the work of building modern port cities that can serve as centers of naval operations command and culture," he said, according to the North's Korean Central News Agency. 

The destroyer had been expected to join the North's East Sea fleet, but it was assigned to the western fleet instead, a move analysts interpreted as positioning for a possible clash over the disputed Yellow Sea boundary. State media said the ship would defend the North's "West Sea" and deter war, which some experts see as a sign that Pyongyang is preparing for provocations along the NLL.

Kim Jong-un has long refused to recognize the NLL. At a session of the Supreme People's Assembly in January 2024, he rejected the line as illegitimate.

"Since our nation's southern border is clearly defined, we cannot accept any other boundaries, including the Northern Limit Line, as lawful," he said. He paired that with a warning about any incursion. "If the Republic of Korea encroaches on our territory, airspace, or territorial waters by even 0.001 millimeter, it will be regarded as an act of war provocation," referring to South Korea by its official name.

BY SHIM SEOK-YONG [[email protected]]