Pyongyang, March 23 (KCNA) -- It was 60 odd years ago that President Kim Il Sung triumphantly returned to Pyongyang after liberating Korea from the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule of 40 odd years.

All the Korean people warmly welcomed him as liberator of the country and sun of the nation, shouting "Long live General Kim Il Sung".

The Korean people had made every possible effort for the independence of the country. They waged a campaign to pay back national debts and some of them launched the volunteers' struggle against the Japanese imperialists.

But, nobody, except Kim Il Sung, achieved the liberation of the country.

In April Juche 21 (1932) he founded the Korean People's Revolutionary Army and declared a war with the Japanese imperialists. Since then he had gained fame as a legendary hero in the battles with the one million-strong Japanese Kwantung Army.

In those days he droved the Japanese army into a tight corner with his protean tactics, encouraged the KPRA members, singing militant and appealing songs composed by himself and stood in the van of charges to break through the enemy siege.

The anti-Japanese armed struggle, commanded by him, ended in victory on August 15, 1945 when the Japanese imperialists surrendered at discretion by KPRA's powerful attacks and people's armed resistance.

The great victory in the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle was that of the immortal Juche idea, the unique Songun (military-first) idea created by Kim Il Sung.

On October 14 that year a mass rally took place at Moranbong public playground (now Kim Il Sung Stadium) in welcome of his triumphant return.

Pyongyang Minbo, a newspaper at that time, wrote about the rally:

"Pyongyang has a 4 000-year-long history and a large population of 400 000. Has it ever had such a large meeting as this and such an important meeting? …

What gave historic significance to this meeting and turned it into a storm of emotion, was that General Kim Il Sung, a great patriot of Korea and a hero whom Pyongyang produced, was present in person there, and extended joyful and warm greetings and words of encouragement to the people. … as soon as General Kim Il Sung appeared on the platform, the hero who the Korean people hold in high respect and have been looking forward to seeing, a storm of enthusiastic cheers arose, and most of the participants were deeply moved to silent tear."

Recalling that day, Kim Il Sung wrote in his reminiscences "With the Century":

"If anyone asked me about the happiest moment in my life, I would reply that it was that moment. It was happiness emanating from the pride that I had fought for the people as a son of the people, from the feeling that the people loved and trusted me and from the fact that I was in the embrace of the people."