3-18-18 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Ethiopian army radioman in 1961, armed with a M1 Garand. This was two years before the first large import, so this particular M1 was almost certainly ex-Kagnew battalion

The Ethiopian Kagnew Battalions were three successive battalions drawn from the 1st Division Imperial Bodyguard sent by Emperor Haile Selassie I between June 1951 and April 1954 as part of the United Nations forces in the Korean War. Even after the armistice, a token Ethiopian force remained in the country until 1965.

Altogether, 3,158 Ethiopians served in Kagnew Battalions during the war. The Kagnews served with great distinction, principally alongside the 7th Infantry Division, and by all accounts (including the enemy's) acquitted themselves well in battle, suffering 121 dead and 536 wounded during the course of the conflict. At the conclusion of the war the Ethiopians were the only contingent that had no prisoners to collect from the North Koreans since no Kagnew soldier ever surrendered.

They had the additional distinctions of having never been bested in battle during the war. The Kagnew Battalion engaged in combat 238 times and won every encounter, as both aggressors and defenders. Another distinction was that they never left their dead behind, and it was noticed that there never seemed to be dead bodies of Kagnew soldiers on the battlefield. This earned them the respect of their American colleagues, while fostering the belief among their opponents, who had often never even seen black people before, that they were superhuman.

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