Patriot of Independence · Manchuria Theater · Grand Order of the Republic of Korea (Daehanmin-guk-jang) (1962)
| Life | 1889 ~ 1944 |
| Era | 근현대 |
| Clan | 해주 오씨 |
O Dong-jin (1889-1944), born in Uiju, North Pyongan Province, graduated from Ahn Chang-ho's Daeseong School in Pyongyang and founded the nationalist Ilsin School in his hometown to promote enlightenment education. After joining the March First Movement in 1919, he fled to Manchuria to escape arrest.
There he organized the Gwangbokdan (1920), which he reorganized into the Gwangbokgun Chongyeong (Liberation Army General Headquarters) as its commander, then served as transport and finance chief of the Daehan Tonguibu (1922) before becoming military affairs chief and commander-in-chief of the Jeongeuibu (Righteous Government, 1924-1925), leading armed raids into Korea. Japanese police records credit his forces with over a hundred raids on colonial government offices by 1927, earning O, alongside Kim Jwa-jin and Kim Dong-sam, renown as one of the "three great generals" of the Manchurian armed independence movement. He helped found the Koryo Revolutionary Party with Yang Gi-tak in 1926, but was betrayed by a former comrade and arrested in Changchun in December 1927; he died in prison in 1944 after seventeen years of harsh confinement.