Naval commander waited too long, investigators say

The commander of the South Korean Navy's operations during last weekend's deadly inter-Korean sea battle failed to give timely orders to mobilize the South's combat ships, military officials investigating the incident said Thursday.

Rear Admiral Jeong Byeong-chil, commander of the navy's second fleet, was in charge when North Korean boats violated the Northern Limit Line on Saturday morning.

"The North Korean patrol boats had already crossed the border Thursday and Friday, but those violations were to control North Korean and Chinese fishing boats," a senior military source said Thursday. "In contrast, the North Korean boats that violated the sea boundary and attacked a South Korean navy vessel Saturday had no need to monitor the fishing boats." The source said the commander should have seen the situation as abnormal and prepared for a possible attack.

"Two North Korean boats crossed the Northern Limit Line seven minutes apart, and that should also have been seen as an abnormal sign," the source added.

"If the commander had ordered his combat corvettes to proceed at high speed immediately after the border violation, the corvettes could have closed their distance to within firing range, according to the conclusion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," the source said.

The military source also said the North Korean boats are assumed to have fired rocket-propelled anti-tank grenade launcher, in addition to their 85-millimeter and 76-millimeter guns. The rocket-propelled grenades were also found by Japanese divers on an unidentified ship, believed to be a North Korean spy boat, that sank after an intense exchange of fire with the Japanese Coast Guard late last year.

During their investigation of the sea battle, the Joint Chiefs of Staff also discovered that the radar controlling the North's ground-to-sea missiles was only activated at 11 a.m., after the battle was over. The navy argued earlier that the two combat corvettes could not travel at high speed to reach the area of the incursion because the missiles' battle radar was on.

The navy said Thursday that it would wait until August to try to salvage the patrol boat that sank under tow after the battle. They cited bad weather conditions, including the approaching typhoon.

by Lee Chul-hee, Kim Min-seok