As everyone knows, during the period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, in the face of the fierce blows of our volunteer army, the South Korean army was often defeated and collapsed, but the strange thing is that although it has suffered defeats again and again, the ROK army has almost never surrendered its weapons to the volunteer army under the leadership of officers.
So, why didn't the Rok army on the scale of the establishment surrender? All this began with the 1949 South Korean Army Purge Movement and the 8th Wing Brigade Commander Kang Tae-musatsu and OmMu Won Etsubei (defecting to the North).
The highly unstable South Korean Garrison
The south Korean army was formerly the South Korean garrison organized by the U.S. military in South Korea in 1946, because it adheres to the tradition of the U.S. military, so it can be said that there is no refusal in the recruitment of personnel, as long as it can pass the normal physical examination, can skillfully recite an oath and pretend to make an oath. In this case, the Workers' Party of South Korea once issued the slogan "Go, go and join the garrison!" Such a call ordered all left-wing youth and members of underground organizations who were being pursued by the South Korean military police to be transferred to the garrison for long-term incubation.
This leftist tendency at the grass-roots level of the garrison, coupled with the fact that many officers occupying the middle and upper echelons of the garrison still carry the tradition of bullying and subjugation of the old Japanese army, led to the inevitable involvement of the garrison in a number of left-right conflict from the beginning of its establishment. In May 1946, the officers and men of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Regiment of the First Garrison Corps took to the streets to launch a "noisy pay" activity under the leadership of Lieutenant Li Bingwei and Lieutenant Li Xiangzhen, under the leadership of Lieutenant Li Bingwei and Lieutenant Li Xiangzhen, because of the problem of the commander's withholding of military salaries.
■ In 1945, Koreans wore old Japanese uniforms to welcome the Allied forces.
In October 1946, Lieutenant Colonel Jin Baiyi, the commander of the 3rd Regiment of the Garrison, was subjected to a collective protest by the officers and men of the 2nd Brigade of the Company Headquarters for embezzling the regiment's food expenses for his own wedding. In December 1946, during the graduation ceremony of the second phase of the Army Officer School, because the principal Lee Ji-pu repeatedly withheld food allowances, graduates Park Chung-hee and Park Hyung-hoon broke into the bedroom, shouting "Tell you to drink the blood of soldiers!" "While using a pickaxe, he was beaten fat.
With the emergence of the confrontation between the north and the south, many grass-roots officers and soldiers of the ROK army began to take the initiative to defect to the ideologically closer KPA or simply launched a rebellion. On May 7, 1948, the crews of the naval bases Nos. 301 and 517 sailed north. On July 12, 1948, Lieutenant Colonel Park Chin-kyung, the commander of the 11th Wing in Jeju Island, was assassinated two months after taking office by three members of the underground organization sent by Lieutenant Moon Sang-gil, the squadron leader, who was displeased with him, because of his right-wing stance.
The Great Purge of the South Korean Army
The rebellion reached its peak on October 19, 1948, and at midnight that day, a brigade of the 14th Wing, scheduled to be transferred to Jeju Island to carry out repressive operations, under the leadership of Commander Of Personnel Unit Ji Chang-so, Lieutenant Kim Ji-ek, and Squadron Leader Lieutenant Hwang Soon-seok, staged a rebellion in the Yeosu Suncheon area, killing 15 officers and moving to Ji gi-san to carry out guerrilla warfare. During the counterinsurgency operation, there were incidents of mischief between the 15th Andeung Wing and the 6th Wing of Daegu and the rebel forces.
■ Lieutenant Colonel Kim Jong-suk who was purged.
The Yeosu Suncheon Incident prompted the South Korean government to carry out a personnel purge of the garrison (which was now officially renamed the Army), commonly known as the "Purge of the Army" movement. To this end, Captain Jin Changlong specially received training in counterintelligence warfare under the guidance of American advisers and formed the notorious Army anti-espionage team headed by him. The organization consisted of 15 detachments, each stationed in 15 regiments of the Army, and by January 1949 had successfully purged 364 members of the underground organizations of the 4th, 6th, 14th and 15th Regiments.
Among the members of the underground organization who were purged, the highest ranks were Lieutenant Colonel Choi Nam-geun, commander of the 15th Wing, Lieutenant Colonel Kim Jong-suk, commander of the 2nd Wing, and Major Yoo Joon, the leader of the 1st Wing, among whom Choi Nan-geun was also a close friend of Lieutenant Colonel Bai Sun-yeol, who was then the head of the Army Intelligence Bureau. In the end, all suspects above the rank of lieutenant were sentenced to death, but one was exempted, park Chung-hee, the 14th Wing's operational staff officer, the future South Korean president who sold more than 200 members of the underground organization in exchange for his own life.
■ Syngman Rhee received Lieutenant Jin Changlong, a great meritorious servant of the Su Army.
As the investigation progressed, Kim Chang-yong targeted the 8th Wing of the Han 6th Division on the Chuncheon Front on the 38th Parallel, where Kim Jong-suk, Choi Nam-geun, and Park Chung-hee all joined the underground organization while serving in this squadron. The 1st and 2nd brigade commanders of the squadron, Mu Wuyuan and Jiang Tae-mwu, also had close relations with Choi Nam-geun, and although Kim Chang-yong had wanted to arrest them quickly, Li Yingjun, chief of the general staff, refused Kim Chang-yong's request on the grounds that "unauthorized use of the commander of the front-line troops would shake the hearts of the army."
Table Wuyuan, Jiang Taiwu Yuebei Incident
The 29-year-old Biao Moo-won and the then 30-year-old Kang Tae-moo were ostensibly the commanders of the South Korean Army guarding the gates of the 38th Parallel, but their real identities were special agents of the People's Army, who had trained in the Namban class at the Gangdong Institute of Political Science in Pyongyang, and were ordered to infiltrate the south and mix into the Army Officer School. After learning of the information provided by the internal line of the Rok Army's General Staff, Oe-moo-won and Kang Tae-musa realized that their identities had been exposed, so they agreed to lead their troops to the north on May 4.
■ Biao Wuyuan's troops were warmly welcomed in Pyongyang.
In the early morning of May 4, 1949, Om Wuyuan first led 508 officers and men of the 1st Brigade out of the garrison in the name of night training, and crossed the 38th Line from 20 kilometers northwest of Chuncheon, where the People's Army that came to meet had been waiting for a long time, and occupied favorable terrain to surround the 1st Brigade. Major Wuyuan looked helpless and said to the officers and men, "Don't make senseless sacrifices!" "And tried to persuade them to surrender.
Lieutenant Kim Guan-sik, the 1st Squadron Leader, listened to the captain's orders and immediately obeyed, but at this time, The 2nd Squadron Leader, Lieutenant Choi Dong-seop, yelled, "We have all been deceived, don't listen to him!" Listening to the squadron commander's roar, the officers and men of the 2nd Squadron automatically moved closer to him and shot back at the KPA, and the 3rd And 4th Squadron followed suit. Since the KPA did not expect the other side to come out like this, after a melee, Lieutenant Cui successfully returned to the garrison with 291 officers and men who were heavily armed.
■ In his later years, Jiang Taiwu was a major general in the People's Army
In the early morning of the next day, Jiang Taiwu, the commander of the 2nd Brigade, also ran north with 600 officers and men of the 2nd Brigade, and he deceived his men that it was a secret operation to attack the KPA. As a result, the 2nd Brigade was also ambushed by the KPA after crossing the 38th Line, and after an hour of exchange of fire, the 5th Squadron was almost completely killed. Jiang Taiwu saw that the time was almost up, so he ordered the whole brigade to raise their hands and surrender. Most of the men of the 7 Squadron carried out the orders of the brigade commander, but the 136 officers and men of the 6th and 8th Squadrons still desperately broke through.
A windfall from the North Vietnam incident
Overall, the Rok army's losses in the Chuncheon defection incident were not large, and 427 of the approximately 1,100 officers and men of the two brigades successfully escaped, but it still triggered a new round of purge and personnel turmoil within the ROK army, and even the chief of the general staff, Lee Ying-joon, who was indirectly responsible, had to resign, but the optimistic American advisers still found something interesting in it.
Although the officers and men of the ROK army who were coerced into rebellion were surrounded by the KPA and ordered by the commander of the unit to lay down their weapons, under the control of several squadron commanders, they were able to fight back and break through the siege, showing a very strong subjective initiative and tenacious will to fight. After an inspection by the US advisers, it was found that these squadron leaders and squad leaders were all rich exiles in the north and had a deep hatred with the People's Army, and if they surrendered to the People's Army again, they would inevitably be unable to eat and walk, so they dared to take the risk.
■ Although the volunteer army captured more than 2,000 Korean troops in the Battle of Jincheng, none of them surrendered.
Inspired by this, the Americans then made suggestions to the Rokk army, recruiting a large number of northern refugees and giving priority to promoting middle- and lower-ranking officers from the north. Since a total of about 1.4 million people from all walks of life in the north came to South Korea after the restoration, there was no shortage of soldiers in this group.
Therefore, among the ROK troops who fought against the volunteers in the early stage of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, it was mainly these people who led the troops; although they did not fight well, they were extremely reactionary ideologically. Therefore, it fully developed its subjective initiative, preferring to disband the troops and flee south rather than obediently surrender their weapons and surrender, which was also the most important reason why the Korean army, which was basically unorganized, surrendered to the volunteer army.