Soviet Submarines at Port Arthur during Korean War

[<A499March@aol.com>]

    In the course of our (Donald C. McElfresh & myself) research concerning 
an intensive & long 29 hour attack on a submarine sonar contact in the Yellow 
Sea on July 28, 1951, we have come to concentrate (as we wrote on 3-18-00) on 
the Soviet Naval Base at Port Arthur, China and the submarines (at least 3 
classes) that were based there during the Korean War.
    At one point we had made some progress using a paid researcher in St. 
Petersburg, Russia. We made contact with her (Elena Tsvetkova) through the 
Russian-Baltic Information Center in San Rafael, CA. This kind lady had been 
researching this subject for us at the Central Naval Archives in Gatchina, 
just outside St. Petersburg and forwarding to us the results of her efforts.
    In March of 1997 we were amazed to learn that a Soviet technical adviser 
had selected 275 Chinese sailors for submarine training. These individuals 
were sent to the Soviet Naval Base at Lushun (Port Arthur) in April of 1951 
to begin training. Of these 275 only 166 managed to graduate and one went on 
to become the Commander of the Chinese Navy. In the years following, the 
Soviets turned over several of their submarines that had been stationed at 
Port Arthur to the growing Chinese Navy.
    We learned of this from the Chinese Military Digest on the Internet and 
documents  that were mailed to us and that we paid to have translated.
    Then Poland was invited into NATO and the Russian government, as one 
method of retaliation, declared that research for foreign nationals was now 
forbidden. This closed the door for us at the Central Naval Archives in 
Gatchina.
    It is our hope that one or more subscribers to KOREAN-WAR-L might have 
information on how the Soviets used these submarines at Port Arthur during 
the Korean War!
    Naval Intelligence has denied (our FOIA's) access to certain documents 
that we hoped would shed more light on this subject. The ONI Historian even 
called me to say that even though we might win our case by going to court (he 
pointed out how expensive it could be) we could still be denied access to the 
documents in question.
    We both would eagerly pursue any suggestions on public documents or 
classified documents (by FOIA's) that might contain information on this 
subject.
    We both would be most grateful for any assistance on this subject.

                                Allison E. March a499march@aol.com
                                                Donald C. McElfresh  
a0019874@airmail.net