일제 말기 청년훈련소 확충과 김포지역 운영 실태

초록

From immediately after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Imperial Japan initiated the forced mobilization of Koreans for military purposes. As the Asia-Pacific War intensified, Imperial Japan’s Military Volunteer System and Imperial Japan’s Conscription System were promulgated and enforced. In order to carry out the coercive mobilization of Korean youth, the colonial authorities relied not only on legal and administrative measures but also on policies of imperialization and the expansion of Japanese-language instruction. However, such ideological and linguistic transformations could not be achieved within a short period of time. To compensate for these structural limitations, Imperial Japan increasingly relied on the Youth Training Center, which had already been established and was performing quasi-military functions. Formally, the Youth Training Center operated as a substitute for secondary education; substantively, it functioned as an institutional mechanism designed to underpin Imperial Japan’s Military Volunteer System. In Gimpo, imperialization policies, Japanese-language education, and military training were likewise enforced under Imperial Japan’s colonial rule. The Youth Training Center was a representative facility in this regard and is particularly significant for its close connection to the forced military mobilization of Koreans. Following the establishment of Youth Training Centers in 1940, training programs targeting local youth were systematically implemented in Gimpo. A total of three Youth Training Centers have been identified in the area—Gimpo, Yangchon, and Wolgot—among which documentary records related to the Yangchon and Wolgot centers are preserved in the National Archives of Korea. In 1942, based on the assessment that the Youth Training Centers alone were insufficient to sustain large-scale military mobilization, the Ordinance on Special Training for Korean Youth was promulgated, leading to the expansion of the Youth Cultivation Institute as an additional mechanism of coercive mobilization. In Gimpo, a representative example was the Special Youth Cultivation Institute established at Gochon National School. This institute functioned as a preparatory facility that implemented conscription-related “training” for young men subject to Imperial Japan’s Conscription System, thereby reinforcing the colonial apparatus of forced military mobilization.

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