Evening star., 1950-10-12
Korean War Booty
Mostly Soviet-Made,
Powerful Equipment
BY the Associated Press

TOKYO, Oct. 12.-Intelligence
officers said yesterday that the
North Korean army. cut to pieces
in South Korea, had a greater
firepower in terms of automatic
weapons than any armed unit Of
any nation in World War II.
The full extent of the disaster
which overlook the Reds three
weeks ago is only beginning to
appear as American officers count
the mountains of captured guns,
ammunition and vehicles.
In that disaster the Reds lost
all their heavy equipment which
had been moved south in an at
tempt to drive the United Ma
tions forces into the sea. Nearly
all this war booty was Russian
made.
'They had enough firepower for
s force three times their size by
World War II Standards" one in
telligence officer said.
10000 Reds Involved.
Before the U. N. landings at
Inchon 13 Communist divisions
more than 10000 men-were
Jammed against the Allied peri
meter around Pusan, in south
eastern Korea.
Then on September Is Ameri-
can troops landed far behind the
Communist line, attacked and
took Inchon, and drove inland
toward Seoul, ancient capital of
Korea.
The following is only a partial
list of equipment which has fallen
into American hands. 1t repre-
sents only those weapons collected
and counted by American officers
attached to the United States 9th
Army.
It does not include equipment
seized by the South Koreans, "be-
cause for the most part they took
with them everything they cap
tured." the intelligence officer said.
Neither does it include military
booty seized by the 10th Corps
north of Parallel 38.
This is the partial list:
82-mm. mortars. 211; 122-mm.
mortars, 81; .50-caliber anti-tank
guns, 235; 112-mm. artillery
lpieces, /: 122-mm. howitzers, Is:
l52-mm. howitzers, /; 76-mm.
howitzers. IS; unclassified artil-
lery pieces, 224; heavy carriage
mounted machine guns, 853;
heavy machine guns, rs; light
machine guns. 220: submachine
guns, 221; unclassified automatic
weapons. 226; anti-aircraft bat
teries, 8; tanks and self propelled
guns, 1853; vehicles of all types,
$40; railway equipment. 26 supply
cars and 4 locomotives: ammuni-
tion of all types. 10 carloads.
Nearly all this equipment was
Russian made. intelligence officers
said There was no evidence that
any came from the Chinese Com
munists.
There were some American guns
and vehicles in the stockpiles. In
telligence officers said the dates
indicated they were captured by
the North Koreans during the
early weeks of the war, when
outmanned American and South
Korean troops were falling back.
Newest Antitank Weapons.
Some of the equipment left
behind by the North Koreans was
so newly arrived that it was still
packed in grease. Anti-tank weap-
onS particularly fell into this cate
CORY. The numbers of these guns
indicated an increasing need for
defense against the bigger Amer
lean tanks which appeared later
in the war.
Although there had been many
reports that the biggest Russian
tank-the Josef Stain III, largest
known in the world-had been
seen in Korea, none was found,
the intelligence officers said.
They did discover "a very few"
57-mm. anti-tank guns of 1943
model. These weapons, presum-
ably capable of stopping the most
powerful armed tanks in existence,
made their appearance very late
in World War II.
Rifles were uniformly of Soviet
manufacture, the American Off
GERS said. No Japanese-made rifles,
taken by the Russians when jap
anese armies surrendered in Man
churia and in North Korea in
1945, were found.