[20] Ibid.
CHAPTER II
Red Aggression in Korea
Units of North Korean Army—NKPA Command and Leadership—The NKPA Infantry Division—NKPA Air and Armor—NKPA Officer Procurement and Conscription—The NKPA Order of Battle
It was an army of veterans that broke the world’s peace in Korea. There were thousands of veterans of the Chinese civil war and Manchurian guerrilla operations. There were even a few scarred warriors who had served with the Soviet forces in such World War II operations as the defense of Stalingrad.
Practically all the commissioned and noncommissioned officers were battle-hardened, and a majority of the rank and file had seen action. The origins of this army were deeply rooted in Asiatic soil. During World War II an endless stream of Koreans escaped from Japanese bondage and found a refuge in Soviet or Chinese territory. Some of them took to banditry, others were absorbed into the Soviet or Red Chinese armed forces. These refugees dreamed of a united and independent homeland; and at Yenan, China, the Chinese Communists encouraged this movement as early as 1939 by supplying arms to a force known as the Korean Volunteer Army. During the first month alone the KVA attracted 3,000 recruits, and at the end of the war an advance column marched back to Korea under a leader named Kim Mu Chong.[21]
[21] FECOM, ATIS, History of the North Korean Army, op. cit., 17–28.
Although the heads of the KVA had been thoroughly impregnated with Communist doctrine at Yenan, they were coldly received by General Chistyakov and the Russian occupation forces. It was a Soviet puppet state that the Kremlin wished to see established in Korea, not a Red-tinted independent Korean government. Communist right-thinking did not save Kim Mu Chong and his KVA troops from the humiliation of being stopped at the frontier in September 1945 and disarmed.
The Russian commander piously justified his decision on grounds of upholding international law. But he offered to return the confiscated arms if the Korean Reds would retrace their steps and join the CCF fight against the Nationalists. He promised that after the struggle had been won, the KVA would be welcomed back to Korea.[22]
[22] Ibid.