한국군 훈련 상황

SECRET UNITED STATES MILITARY ADVISORY GROUP TO THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA OFFICE OF THE CHIEF APO 404 AIRMAIL % Postmaster San Francisco, California 19 August 1949 Major General Charles L Bolte Director of Plans and Operations Department of the Army General Staff Washington 25, D C Dear Charlie: This is letter number two to you personally on Korean and KMAG affairs to supplement our weekly G-3 Operations reports. Although those reports are mimeographed, they are made expressly for you; but, we send them also to CINCFE and to the Ambassador here. Please let us know if we should continue these letters which I try to get out at least monthly. KMAG AFFAIRS a. We are reaching the saturation point now on dependents. Officers must now await their turn on priority lists for quarters as they become available. b. Officers in the field in the provinces, in general, seem to prefer it. We supply them by plane once a week and by train where possible. They have, in general, good quarters, reefers to keep perishables and adequate indigenous help. c. Training of the Korean Army is our reason for being here, and I am keeping that uppermost in the heads of the Advisors. However, housekeeping and administrative matters tend to chisel heavily into the picture. d. Morale of Officers, men and dependents continues to be excellent. Everything is being done to make them comfortable and reasonably content. KMAG personnel mainly lives in a small compound surrounded by a double wire fence guarded by a Korean M P Company, which in turn, is supervised by our small group of M Ps. Even at that, we continue to average one jeep theft weekly, in spite of all precautions, such as collecting and guarding behind wire all vehicles at night, removal of distributor rotors and certain wiring expedients. However, with the help of Korean M Ps, road blocks are occasionally set up and, as a result, usually several stolen jeeps are picked up. It is not a heavy crime in Korea to steal from the 'rich' Americans, and we know they are constantly plotting. It is not infrequent to have a report that a house has been cleaned out. If you want to dump on an Officer, don't send him here; try Okinawa, Alaska, Guam. Many Officers and DACs who went to Japan last year want to return here, now. o. RELATIONSHIP WITH AMIK Continues excellent with fewer and fewer cases of friction. JAS has recently released two Officers and twenty-eight men from their communications set up. We are absorbing some in vacancies and releasing the others. JAS is delivering services to KMAG 100% better than a month ago. They are trying hard. The system is working okay. f. RELATIONSHIP WITH KOREANS This is improving daily as counterparts are getting closer together. With Minister (of National Defense) and Staff, it could not be better. They accept 90% of our advice and back it up. Jap-trained Officers are much better than Chinese-trained ones, although there are exceptions. Jap-trained Officers tend to revert to Jap methods unless closely watched. Chinese-trained (?) Officers tend to want more rank and face over and above the inflated rank which they once had. Again, I want to point out that the sincerity and honesty of the Advisors in their advice and work is getting results. The Koreans are smart and, even now, cannot figure out why we work so hard for (as they see it) no selfish purpose; they think we should be after money, promotion, loot or something and since we are not getting any of the above, they appear puzzled. They cannot figure out that we are doing a job as ordered. They do not realize that we are training a group of people to shoot for America and to take the losses in Korean blood before American blood is shed. AUGUST 15 - CRITICAL DAY As is usual on these "critical" days, nothing happened. The Army parade was a knock-out. They looked like veterans -- equipment, uniforms, vehicles all spotless. If they can only fight as well as they parade, we are "in". Next critical day is September 19, election day as proclaimed by the north. They usually have one day per month which can be called "tense". TRAINING THE KOREAN ARMY a. Progress has slowed down the last two months due to expansion to 100,000 and the consequent addition of new regiments, new headquarters, transfer of key leaders, movement of units, losses of one to two battalions per regiment for cadres of new units. We are trying to firm up and stop at 100,000, as there are not enough weapons for more. b. A complete range season is being majored right now, concurrent with small unit tactics. Badges for shooting are being manufactured, Advisors are handling most preliminaries themselves, records are being kept. By the end of September, we expect to have an army which shoots almost as well as the U S Army. We plan on battalion and higher exercises this Fall. We are minimizing parade ground work and, concurrently with basic training, small unit exercises are held; these are mainly squad and platoon exercises such as patrolling, attack and defense and particularly security measures. c. Within the last fifteen months, we have sent 20,000 men through schools. This includes all types of schools, such as OTS, Signal, Quartermaster, Ordnance, Engineer, Weapons, G-2 and Intelligence, et cetera. One top Advisor is coordinating all schools. This month we are starting two new and important ones -- a Staff School and an Infantry School. For several months, they will be heavily souped up with Americans as instructors and full use will be made of the four recent Korean graduates of Fort Benning. d. We have had translated, printed and distributed to units, a four foot stack of American training manuals. This work continues.