U.S. intelligence had several reports in 1949 and early 1950 about the Chinese communist forces transferring ethnic Korean troops to the North Korean army. They reportedly were made available with the communist victory in China. The numbers in the reports ran as high as 49,000, indicating that they could have comprised half of the KPA in June 1950. Q: What is the current view of whether or not the PLA transferred ethnic Koreans to the KPA in 1949 and the first half of 1950, and if so, what were the numbers? This would seem to have been an issue which interrogators in POW camps for North Koreans might have been able to get a handle on, and which subsequent scholars would have been interested in. Any definitive word on it? |