Antitank Battalion.—about 190 officers and men in three 45-mm. antitank companies and an antitank rifle company.
Engineer Battalion.—T/O of 250 officers and men carrying M1944 rifles and equipped with picks, shovels, axes, saws and mine detectors.
Training Battalion.—About 500 officers and men charged with the responsibility of training NCO’s for the division.
Reconnaissance Company.—an estimated strength of 4 officers and 90 enlisted men equipped with 80 submachineguns, 20 Tokarev pistols, 4 telescopes and 5 pairs of binoculars.
Rear Services.—a medical battalion, a transport company, a veterinary unit and a supply section. Of the 200 personnel in the medical battalion, about 60 were women, according to POW testimony. The transport company, with some 70 men, was composed of 50 2½-ton trucks, 6 or 7 motorcycles and 10 horse-drawn wagons.[32]
[32] Ibid.
The NKPA infantry division, in short, was a faithful copy of the World War II Soviet model. But it must be remembered that the foregoing T/O and T/E statistics represented the ideal more often than the reality. Owing to the speeding up of preparations in anticipation of an easy victory, many NKPA units lacked their full quotas of men and equipment at the outset of the invasion.
NKPA Air and Armor
POW interrogations revealed that NKPA military aviation evolved from the North Korean Aviation Society, founded in 1945 at the Sinuiju Airfield by Colonel Lee Hwal, a Korean who had served in the Japanese air force. The organization consisted at first of about 70 students and 17 pilots who were veterans of Japanese air operations. Equipment included a few aircraft of Japanese manufacture and several gliders.[33]
[33] FECOM, ATIS, North Korean Air Force (InterRpt, Sup No. 100), 2–15.