Korean People's Army - OOB & Combat History

["Joseph S. Bermudez Jr." <joseph_bermudez@compuserve.com>]

Well here goes. I will now begin to post, at irregular intervals, some of
the OOB and combat histories of the Korean People's Army (KPA) during the
Korean War. These posts are based upon years of research for a book which
I'm writing entitled,

        Korean People's Army: A Combat History

My purposes in sharing it with the members of the list are fourfold:

1) To share the information with others and thereby provide an added
dimension to their understanding of the Korean War.
2) To encourage further discussion on the KPA specifically and the Korean
War in general.
3) To force myself to compile the disparate pieces of information that I've
collected over the years. Thus, pushing my book project closer to completion
- it will, however, still take several years to complete.
4) To solicit the comments, corrections, criticisms and insights from the
members of the list. It has never ceased to amaze me that the more I know
concerning the KPA, the more I realize I know very little. Likewise I've
been equally astonished by the quality of research and range of information
that others have performed and collected about which I know little.
Hopefully these posts will provide a forum for all of us to share.

A few organizational comments concerning the posts.

I hope that this will become a living project in which I will post a section
concerning a KPA unit, or class of units, and then as I acquire additional
information I will re-post an updated section. To this end each section will
contain a revision date so we all can keep track. It is important to note
that there is a plethora of information on certain units and a complete
dearth of information others. This means that some sections will be long and
some very short

One of the more frustrating aspects of posting to a listserv is that I won't
be able to include graphics (e.g., maps, organizational charts, etc.).
Hopefully after a while I'll produce .pdf files with all the graphics. I
will then, hopefully, post these on a web site for everyone to download.

My general outline of material to be posted is as follows,

- A list of abbreviations that I will be using.
- Guerrilla and unconventional warfare units (extracted and slightly updated
from my book "North Korean Special Forces: Second Edition."
- GHQ and Ministry of Interior Engineer Units.
- Summary histories of Corps
- Summary histories of Divisions
- Summary histories of Independent Brigades
- Direct transcriptions of declassified U.S. intelligence documents
concerning KPA units.

Finally, all this is subject to change since my free time is severely
constrained.

Respectfully,
Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.


"Know the enemy and know yourself: in a hundred battles you will never be in
peril." - Sun Tzu