Thread: Korea: Reluctant Dragons and Red Conspiracies

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

Hitesh,

The decision to move two army groups had have been made before Kim started the war. That is the point here.

Here are details about the two army groups.

During the beginning of the Liberation war of china, the two army groups belonged to the Fourth field army of china were special troops in PLA,because they were fully consisted of koreans living in china. After 1949, Kim asked Mao to give the two army group to the north Korea, and Mao met the request of Kim. From then the commander of the two army groups is Kim not Mao.

So the key point is whether the two army groups should be consider the troops of the North korea or china. I think maybe we have different ideas about this.

If the two army groups are the troops of the north korea, obviousely you have drawn a wrong conclusion from a wrong premise.

By the way, after the korea war, officers of the two army groups were cleanout by Kim on order to cut down the influence from china.

The two Army Groups in question are the 13th and the 3rd. Both Army Groups returned to China after the war. And you're confusing Field Armies to Army Groups. A Field Army belongs to a Army Group, not vice versa.

Originally Posted by astralis

an interesting personal addendum on the topic,

a while back i forwarded this to my younger cousin, who's now attending GWU's elliott school of int'l affairs for his MA. he duly forwarded the article to shambaugh, whom is one of his professors.

he then got back this response.

"No, I haven't read this before--but I tend not to read such things."

ah, academics... a PLA-watching academic, no less...

I hate to say this, but Shambaugh is not what I consider a very model of PLA watcher.

my take with the first half of the doc.

While he correctly identified that there is an new found interest about the Korean war, especially among Asian-Americans, but the writer never identified who they are as the third wave of history is just as diverse as next guy, at the same time the ID Max Hasting. Consider how close Kim and Mao operated during WWII, of course Mao was informed about the Kim's intention and put forward a plan.

Here are some points I like to ask.

*. Taiwan, while the 3rd field army was planning and fishing boats were conscripted during late 1949 and 1950s, they give everything up for Kim?

*. The two divisions (actually three divisions) were indeed returned back to DPRK as most of them were refuges that escaped to China from the Japanese and they did not saw major combat during the famed Manchurian campaign. The China born Koreans were intergraded with in the PLA, during their return, they returned as civilians and not armed.

*. If we review PLA’s equipment during the first two battle of the Korea war, they were armed with captured US weapon such as M1 not Soviet arms, I think there are enough US Korea Vets out there to testify that. On the other hand, DPRK troops were all Soviet equipped. This fact does not fit well with one of the writer’s points.

*. Timing, he wrote “In early 1950, the Chinese leader ordered more than twelve hundred aircraft from the Soviet Union.” What year is “early 1950"? if China did have a planning period of 10 months, should those fighter arrives in 1949? This does not fit well with "Red Wings over the Yalu", an award winning book on the Korean air war

*. He wrote, “China had four million soldiers available”, not sure what the definition “available” is. 3nd field army was moving into Tibet, part of the 2nd field army is finishing the last of the KMT in Burma, 1st and half of 2nd field army were planning for Taiwan. That only leaves part the fourth field army for Korea and indeed most of the PVA combat units that saw action in the first two battles were members of the fourth field army.

*. He wrote, “Mao ordered China's central reserve, the best equipped PLA troops” Wrong, the best equipped and more experienced PLA was the fourth field army from the North, there is no argument about it. However, the fourth field army HQ (AKA PVA HQ) was staffed by 15th Army, 2nd Field Army’s staff officers, who gained Mao’s trust by the successful completion of the Hainan campaign in Southern China. At this point, the writer Rod Paschall has lost much creditiable with me with the screw up of simple facts.


I don’t know… there might be a conspiracies, I am not argue either for or against, but the first half other article is a disappointment.

Col,

During Huaihai Campaign, aka battle of Huaihai, Deng moved two field armies with 600,000 combat and two million support troops to Xuzhou in a period of 3 months.

Beijing-Tainijing Campiagn, 900,000 troops.

Shenyang campaign, 400,000 troops
Hainan campaign, 250,000 troops

I am not saying they did not have warming/plannings, but moving three armies down from Shenyang and Tainjing in three months during peacetime is within their reach.

IMHO,

Command, Control, and the PLA's Offensive Campaigns in Korea 1950 - 1951 in Chinese warfighting --The PLA experiesne since 1949 edited by Mark A. Ryan, Davi M Finkelstein and Micael McDevitt, folks from CNA and US army war college is a better read then Paschall paper, because they actually spell out military deployment plans and personalities involved.

According to those folks, It was Zhou Enlai who called from for a planning for Korea On July 7, 1950, not Mao in a national security meeting of Chinese communist party, Central Military Commission. It was Zhou who created the Northeast Border Defense Army (NBDA) an ad hac (warzone) HQ in charge of the war planning with four infantry armies (38th, 39th, 40th, and 42nd) three artillery divisions (1st, 2nd, and 8th), one AAA regiment, one engineering regt, and three transportation regiment - a total of 250,000 -- were to be put under this new command. end quote page 91



The directive also indicated that Deng Hua, along with 15th Army political commissar Lai Chuanzhu, Cheif of staff of the 13th Army Xie Fang and director of the Political Department Du ping were to form a front command in Andong (dandong) only a few miles away from Sinuiju and the capital of Pyongan Province in Western North Korea. While the NBDA command would setup its HQ in Shenyang, the directive specified that all the combat units were to gather between andong and Kaiyuang. Finally, the CMC order required all the commanding officers to report to their new posts immediately and the troops to assemble at their designated sites within 25 days. -- end quote page 92.

speaking of conspiracies, consider this, currently all three of PLA's Mech Infantry Group Armies (38, 39, and 42) were members of the fourth field army and part of the PVA's first wave. 42nd was officially mechanized two weeks ago according to PLAdaily.