North Korea News Podcast by NK News - The forgotten postal link between North and South Korea

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

For a brief period after Korea’s liberation, a cross-peninsula postage system shuttled letters across the 38th parallel, linking the Soviet-led north and U.S.-led south.  This week, postal expert Tony Bard and historian JiHoon Suk join the podcast to explore this forgotten link and the logistics, politics and human stories behind the letter exchanges. They also […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast, available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NKNews website at NKNews.org slash private-feed. Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jacko's wetsuit, and this episode is being recorded on Thursday, the 18th of September in the NK News Studio, here in downtown Seoul. And I'm joined today by two first-time guests. First of all, we've got Tony Bard, who is editor of the London Philatelist and a member of the Royal Philatelic Society London.

He collects North and South Korean Postal's History from 1945 with a focus on Korean War material and post-armistice commissions and holds several original North-South exchange letters. Meanwhile, Ji Hun Sok is a Korean historian completing his Ph.D. at Yonsei University, specializing in early modern Korean history. He provides historical context. and linguistic guidance in today's conversation and has located original film footage of something that we're going to be talking about,

which is the little-known inter-Korean postal exchange that ran between the period of liberation, 1945, and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. We're going to talk about how it worked, why it existed, where and when such exchanges took place, and also why it's never resumed since 1950. So, Tony, Gion, welcome on the NK News podcast. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. So I guess we'll start with a sort of a scene-setting question just to kind of get the topic out there and hopefully get the listeners hooked. So before the shooting started in June 1950, letters continued to cross the 38th parallel every week, families, courts, officers, even propaganda bureaus talking by mail with each other. If you had to convince a skeptical listener in one minute that this exchange was real and that it was important, that it mattered, what one item or scene would you choose? I'll have Tony. You start first. That's a very good question. My sort of knowledge of this period is from reading, apart from actually having a reasonable number of items that went through the exchange, is reading the reports of the censors in. in Seoul.

And basically their job was to try and ensure that pro-Soviet, pro-North Korean propaganda didn't filter through and also to prevent transactions of any real value. So no cross-border remittances of money, okay. And there were, you say there were censoring material coming from the north into the south to make sure that nothing praiseworthy of Kim Il-Song would come through. But essentially, I mean, and whether, I don't necessarily think that on every occasion they prevented the letters being delivered, but they would put people on a watch list. Right, okay. The difficulty is we have very little to go by on the items going the other way,

because despite the fact that the vast majority of mail that went through these exchanges was actually from the south to the north, whereas a material coming from the north is, it's not common, but it's not that rare. There are only four known examples of male going from the south to the north that appear to have survived. So I have a, if you ask the question, I mean, I have a postcard going to the north. And naturally there's not going to be anything written on the back that's going to be too either revealing or, you know, cause any censors to look at, but was censored by the South Korean authorities. And effectively, it's a fairly mundane.

Wait, censored by the South Korean authority before it was sent in to the North. Correct, yeah. And it's the only, it's the only example I've actually seen where that's been done. but I'm presuming that a significant number were examined. And it's a very mundane message, which is basically you make sure you get a job in Pyongyang so you can earn some money. Wow.

A relative to it? Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it just shows that sort of, even with the separation, there was a commonality between normal people. Well, of course, I mean, at that time, nobody thought this would last forever, right? Correct, correct.

All right, he is. Anyway, Gihon, how would you answer? to that question. How would you convince a skeptical listener that this mail exchange was real and that it was important? Well, first of all, you know, starting on in January 1926, when the Soviets and the U.S. started to have the talk. This is the U.S. Soviet Joint commissions in January 1946. They started working on five crucial issues, as they call it, be it including, you know, exchanges of people and, you know, like, I mean, communications. and all that sort of thing, but nothing, like almost nothing was coming out of that.

They couldn't reach into the agreement, but then the only thing they could actually, you know, reach an agreement was to exchange of letters. So this is probably the only thing in the larger context, I mean, historical context. The only thing that literally, that actually came out from the joint commission. Right. And it actually continued well into the 1950. I mean, I think the last exchange happened in three days before. Three days before the war began.

Three days before. Yeah, we'll come to that. But so, yeah, that's, and yeah. And, of course, there was a huge backlog in both Seoul and Pyongyang. By this point, by the time they started, it had been more than six months that there'd be no exchange going across. Interesting. Yeah. That U.S. Javier Joint Commission, by the way, took place very close to here in one of the buildings in the Doxagong Palace, really, just around.

the corner. So we know that the exchange started in early 1946 and it began just a couple of days before the Korean War broke out. So how regular was it? Oh it stopped. Yes. How regular? Well initially it was every it was going to be I think the original plan was monthly. That then changed to every two weeks and ultimately was weekly. There was a big gap in the middle of of 46 because of a cholera. Big gap in the middle of 46 because of a cholera outbreak.

On what side of the parallel? On the north side of. Yeah. And that lasted up until, I think, October of 46. So another backlog. And in general, it was carried out pretty straightforwardly. The first exchange took place at Kaysong railway station.

So it was done by train? These are not truckloads of mail. No, it was. The train. Always the train. And always a performance in terms of getting clearance from the Soviets to cross the 38th parallel and delays and occasional gunfire and problems which is all sort of covered in various letters between Hodge and Stikoff.

Who is the Soviet. Yeah. The Soviet commanders. But it still tended to go ahead pretty reasonably. But the second and subsequent exchanges were moved to Yohsixtanges were moved to Yohi. because the other station another station because and further in the north yeah it was further into the north because of the North Koreans didn't think that it was good for North Koreans to see the flesh pots of South Korea compared to what they had at home like

Kaysong railroad station was a I don't know was the Vegas of the 38th parallel at that time for our listeners who may not be aware at that time Kaysong was a city on the southern side that changed hands during the war and it was it so when was the change made from Kessong Station

to Yosha? The second exchange Well at that time there was not yet a government of North Korea so it might have been the Soviets who made that decision undoubtedly

undoubtedly yeah okay so initially monthly then fortnightly or every two weeks and then weekly yeah it became very relaxed actually as a in the actual workings

bar normal things like trains getting derailed or bad weather or cholera the sort of things that had nothing to do with the political side of things on a related note i guess i remember reading i think it was it might have been in a an issue of the national geographic magazine in nineteen forty six or forty seven and it was the journalist was following a uh a convoy of american trucks going from soul to somewhere on the Aung Jin Peninsula It might have been Hegeu No, no, I'm sorry, not Hegeu, but it was somewhere on the

Ongjin Peninsula, but to get there, they had to drive the trucks north of the third parallel into a Soviet-controlled territory because of the way that it's cut off by water, so it effectively was an island. So they had to drive into the north and then drive into the south, and every time they had to send a note to the Soviets before it,

on this day, at this time, there'll be 46 trucks, those trucks will be driven by these men, those trucks will be carrying these things. and if one of those things was wrong then the whole convoy would be stopped and there'd be a whole inspection why is this truck not here or why is the driver changed

or something like that I mentioned that because you said that there was quite a performative or performance a lot of the equivalent happened with every single train

it was down to how many guards are going to be on it how many soldiers or from the American side Americans weren't that bothered as far as what the Russians were doing, to be honest. But they were much more focused on getting the mail out.

But they had to sort of follow procedure, which was a Soviet standard procedure. And there could always be something which they would find to complain about, indubitably. But in general, it worked really well. And, of course, the other thing that's relevant from the postal history point of view, if you like, is that both countries issued their own stamps just after the first exchange again. So before the first exchange, they're using Japanese stamps?

So all that mail was backed up. I mean, Seoul had 800 sacks of mail. Oh, of course, because people were sending that they were posting these letters. There was no prohibition on actually posting the things. They just weren't going to where they were. So using Japanese stamps, and then after that first exchange,

the first two exchange, These were all Japanese-ranked male. Okay. And then the Soviets issued some stamps in the north, the Americans in the south. Exactly. And that's when we see. Interesting. And you get lots of, I mean, I've never actually seen it.

But again, when you look at the censor reports, they mention propaganda cachets on the northern male. Just for the listeners who are not familiar with philatel, what's a cache? The cachet is like it's a sort of postmark, but it doesn't have a date on it. It'll have a slogan. or just wording, yeah.

Okay, so this might be, those who are old enough to remember real letters, this might be an envelope could have a thing, obviously it's got the postmark above the stamp and there's somewhere else on the envelope, there might be a commemorative stamp saying, you know, 10 years since liberation or just things like that.

We commemorate the birthday of the great leader or something like that. Absolutely. It's a non-postal stamp that's been put on a piece of mail. That's a cachet. Okay, okay, yeah. All right, Ji-Hun, now, later on we've got contemporary press and official translations,

note these weekly exchanges, these Thursday exchanges, and they count well over 150 runs by May 1950. Tell us a bit more about the Korean sources, what they say about the frequency and about the mail. It's really, I mean, I don't really need to add much because, again, like, most Korean historians don't really mention much of it at all, even though it was like I said was one of the only like probably the only thing that was actually the only positive result only positive result and actual outcome that came out out of the whole thing the raiment and even even after like both like both sides you know had like you know had organized their own governments and everything it still continued on a regular basis that was the only thing that was actually agreed upon but people don't really mention that much about it at all

And in fact, an average Korean people wouldn't even know that there was such a thing, like, you know, all the way up to like three days before, yes, three days before the war began. But, yeah. Basically, unless somebody had a relative living on the other side of the third parallel, given the lack of newspaper articles

or public advertising about it, people just wouldn't be aware. Yeah, and I also, it's also quite interesting to point out that I did come across with, I mean, it's not exactly something, something that I would consider as the public opinion, because it's obviously coming from a government source, but there's this publication that I can, what was the name of it? I think it was Korea Pictorial, which was published. It's an English language. It's an English language publication

published by the, you know, like information. I think it was called the Korea International Publicity League or something like that. Yes. And in the 1950 edition, they do talk about this kind of like mail exchange thing. But they always insist on the fact that, so they send so much more, like the South is actually sending a lot more, like 100, I mean, 10 times more than, I mean, from the very beginning of the exchanges, then, you know, what comes out of it is way less, you know, so they were basically saying that, of course, you know, there are, like, I mean, those currents, see what's going on. Like, we, we send out all these things, you know, like uncensored and all that, which is not true. But, you know, but then, you know, we are

freedom-loving people, but then the other side, you know, they don't do it. You know, that sort of thing. So they just, yeah, use this thing as a propaganda. But even after 1950, of course, they don't, I mean, they occasionally pointed that out up to the 50s. But, yeah, after the 50s, I don't think the whole, you know, like no one really started to talk about it anymore. Yeah, let me ask Tony about that.

So talk a bit about that asymmetry, and you've already hinted at how your own collection of items reflects that asymmetry. I mean, I think there's, the numbers were obviously, noted and I think it's it's I think they began to become a suspicion in the north about anyone who was communicating with the south certainly more so after the formation of the DPRK which is in the September 1948 correct and I think that even receiving mail from a relative in the South could actually put you in trouble and it's also in going back to the

publicity that the whole exchange got you would get in the Dongga Ilbo for example they would regularly publish the number of letters and postcards and registered letters that were exchanged on a particular date just as a what a public information

yeah essentially and when the next one would be North I've seen nothing I've seen no reference because obviously the Americans would go through all of the North Korean newspapers and pick out anything that was deemed worthy of dissemination within the states or the U.S. Army government.

But nothing about the mail exchange. Curious to hear the rest? Become an NK News subscriber today for access to the full episode. Head to NKNews.org slash join for more information. If you're already a subscriber to NK News, you can listen to full episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NKNews website at NKNews.org slash private dash feed.