Non-political question about proposed sale of Korean M1s

Additionally to the statements about Lend-Lease, L-L ended in September of 1945.
The many tons of food and equipment transferred as L-L was not just loaned equipment. The L-L Act gave the President broad powers to do just about anything he wanted as far as transferring goods and equipment. For the use of harbor facilities, L-L equipment could be used as payment.
As to the L-L'd M1 Rifles, slightly over 58,000 rifles went to France, and on a smaller number, slightly over 8000 went to Canada.

Some info about the formation of the ROK Home Reserve Force circa 1968/1969 . ( Before my time )

Source : DA Pam 550-41 Aug 1969 ( Info Cut-off Nov 1 ,1968 ) Area Handbook for the Republic of Korea ( Prepared by The American University in DC ) page 447:

" Homeland Reserve Force "
" On April 1 , 1968 the 2,270,000 reservists and veterans were organized into regional units down to the village level. The objective was to arm the heretofore unarmed reservists for the purpose of defending cities , villages and the countryside from ... infiltrators and guerrillas from the North. A government decree legalized the arming of the reservists and it was planned that one million reservists will be armed with M-1 and carbine rifles ( sic ) by the end of the first year. Formal training will consist of no more than seven days days per year , supplemented by local drill and target practice. The law stipulates ... that members of the reserve ... should not participate in politics as a group. "
[ This next sentence was a real surprise , at least to me . I don't believe that it refers to true private ownership in the North American sense , at all . It's more like a fund drive for the community volunteer fire department . ]

"The ... " home guard " appears to be popular among the people , as shown through successful fund drives to purchase rifles and the volunteering of .... women... "

Political opposition , however , brings out the fear of rifles in .... untrained hands , lack of arms control , and possible increase in crime..... "

Might be interesting to crosscheck numbers and time periods with Garand and M1/M2 Carbine transfers from the US to the ROK.

Some follow-up information:

Looks like the US transfered over 880,900 M1 and M2 Carbines to South Korea during 1968 and 1969:

Foreign Military Assistance

Those numbers seem consistant with the Homeland Reserve Force plan as described in DA Pam 550-41 , Nov 1969. However , the Pam ( understandably ) makes no mention at all of what would become known as the Korean DMZ Conflict ( 1966-1969 ) , also referred to as The Second Korean War . I have heard the '68 and '69 period spoken of as " round two " but have never seen that term in writing. All things considered , this Wiki page isn't bad for an error-net source:

( Round three of the conflict took place in the late 1970's , but that is a story for another day. The Kim Dynasty has periodic delusions of adequacy. )

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean...ict_(1966-1969)

The DA Pam also ommits the full extent of ROK deployments to the RVN , which included two full Army Divisions , one Marine Corps Brigade , and a significant slice of other troops.

The JSA axe murders ( AKA tree trimming incident ) took place on 18 August 1976 . One American was killed outright and one died of wounds on the medivac chopper. The Allies responded with a massive show of force code-named Paul Bunyan and cut the tree .

Axe murder incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1Lt. Barrett was missing for 90 minutes . During that time , Allied guards " ... observed KPA guards at KPA#8 [ post ] exhibiting strange behavior...." involving passing an axe from individual to individual. 1Lt Barrett died enroute to Seoul .

North Korean Invasion Tunnels:

Demilitarized Zone


1974 Nov 15 : Shallow tunnel which extended 1,000 meters into South Korea. Details included " ...electric power... lighting , weapons storage ,and a narrow gauge railway with carts ".

1975 March 19 : Deep tunnel near Chorwon ( central invasion corrider during the 1950 invasion ) . 170 feet deep , 2,300 meters long , "... of which 1,000 meters extended into the ( Allied ] side of the truce zone ".

1978 Oct 17 : Deep tunnel , oriented on Freedom Bridge , 26 miles from Seoul ( the Western corridor during the 1950 invasion ). The tunnel was in the 2nd ROK Recon Company sector directly adjacent to the US 2nd ID battalion sector of the DMZ & also near the JSA . The tunnel was 2 meters high & 2 meters wide and extended hundreds of yards into South Korea. The tunnel is now a tourist destination.

Background Information
The Association of the US Army published an annual " Green Book " during the late 1970's and early 1980's . Situation summaries from each of the major Army commands : Europe , Korea , Forscom , Tradoc , etc , were included . The Korea summaries would be a good open source of further background information. The Infantry Center at Ft Benning published an open source (FOUO , IIRC ) opposing forces manual based upon the NKPA in the early 1980's, another good source .
In depth discussion of details from those open sources are a story for another day.

Suffice it to say that North Korea was clearly preparing for another conventional invasion. This time they planned to employ special Light Infantry Brigades to penetrate into and behind Allied defenses prior to a massive assault across the DMZ . The conventional attack would involve both Soviet-style massed arty and an armored & motorized force which included more tanks and other fighting vehicles than were used by all sides in the 1973 Mid-East War.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by togor

Has the current administration done ANYTHING to inhibit your access to firearms? Didn't think so. End of story.

Regarding the Korean rifles: interesting (i.e. less stupidly political) discussion on this subject on the CMP web site last week. Part of the snag may be that many of the arms that S. Korea received over time were DEFINITELY loaned, and some MAY have been purchased. This being the case, the thread at the CMP forum goes on to say that the S. Koreans may be running into difficulty proving that they actually paid for the arms they're trying to sell back into the US. If true I see nothing wrong with the state department saying "show us your receipt!" At least the Greeks and Danes (forget the useless French) made no bones about the fact that the rifles were loaned, and they were returned to the US Army for subsequent processing by the CMP. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that the Koreans--who wouldn't even have a country if it wasn't for the USA--could take the the position that the borrowed rifles were long since used up and scrapped out, but the purchased ones are still in pretty good shape, in case you'd like to buy one.

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I'm wondering, if the Koreans keep up on these rifles as far as collectability is concerned, they must therefore know how valuable many of the parts are-sight assemblies, oprods, gas cylinders, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't swapping them with knock off junk, from neighboring China, or their own mfg. parts. Think about it--their going to do to the importers/dealers, what the importers/dealers might try to do to us collectors?

Charlie

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