The "Miscellaneous Group"

     In late 1950, the US 8th Army became aware of the fact that there were small anti-communist guerrilla groups operating independently of either the ROK (Republic of Korea) or the US 8th Army and Far East Command in Korea.  These were mostly groups of North Korean deserters and defectors, who banded together into loose guerrilla units and operated in various parts of the country.  The 8th Army decided to organize them into more structured formations and, of course, pay them salaries, which would attract them to join up with the newly formed units.  The section within the 8th Army that was tasked with this, for lack of a better name, was simply called the "Miscellaneous Group."  Thus, the UNPFK program was born.
     Once things got rolling, the name of "Miscellaneous Group" was changed to a more formal sounding 8086th Army Unit.  This was changed to 8240th Army Unit with a title of Combined Command Reconnaissance Activities (Korea).  However, everyone simply called it by its rather innocuous sounding name, the 8240th Army Unit.
     Initially, as mentioned in the earlier blog, cadre members were made up of volunteers from the Army Airborne Rangers and the 187th Airborne RCT, both of which had been seeing action in Korea.  There were also members of the British 22nd SAS (Special Air Service), three of them were killed in action.  Once the first batch of newly graduated Special Forces volunteers arrived, from that point on the 8240th cadre was mostly Special Forces.  Some were assigned to the Airborne Ranger Training Center in Camp Drake, Japan.  That unit was called 8231st Army Unit and it trained additional personnel that could be assigned to the 8240th Army Unit in Korea.
     The Korean volunteers were almost all North Koreans, recruited from the ranks of POWs and defectors.  There were some South Koreans, but most South Koreans of military age were already serving in the ROK military.  As the war progressed, by 1951-52, with Chinese entry into the war in late 1950,  Chinese defectors were recruited as well.  There were also Chinese nationals, residents of Korea who were loyal to the Nationalists, and some of them volunteered.  The Chinese contingent, naturally, was not as large as the Korean, but surprisingly, it had enough members to conduct missions.  Ostensibly, the missions were carried out only within the northern half of the Korean peninsula.  But, why recruit Chinese if you are not going to infiltrate guerrillas into Manchuria?  Some very special missions were carried out in which very small guerrilla units were parachuted into Manchuria.  These were more of intelligence gathering units than fighting units.
     Along with Chinese volunteers, there were women volunteers for the guerrilla units.  As already mentioned in the earlier blogs, most female volunteers were recruited for the KLO program which was run by the CIA and which was a pure intelligence gathering operation, no combat involved.  However, there were women who preferred to join the more physically demanding guerrilla units.  The initial recruits were defectors from the North Korean palchisan units, but soon other women began to volunteer. The female guerrilla units were not large, they were in fact mostly two or three person teams and their main job was to gather intelligence rather than fighting.  They were to operate like the LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols) operated in Vietnam.  Unlike the KLO where the agents were supposed to mix-in with the population, the female guerrillas were to stay away from the population and operated surreptitiously.  Of course, they were all trained in combat and were essentially combat troops, female LRRPs.
     Surprisingly, at least among Korean volunteers, including the defectors and former POWs, there were practically no incidences of anyone attempting to sabotage or betray their missions.  Considering that vetting these recruits was extremely difficult (after all, how are you going to run a background check on someone from North Korea?), it is amazing that most were so loyal.  But then again, they were anti communists!
     It was a bit different with the Chinese.  When PRC learned of the UNPFK recruiting of Chinese, they planted defectors in the south.  Some of these "defectors" were recruited by the program and they tried to sabotage missions.  The best known incident was when a Chinese guerrilla pulled a grenade and threw it into the plane as he jumped out.  The explosion not only caused damage to the plane but killed one and wounded several UNPFK guerrillas.  The action also resulted in the wounding of the American assigned to that mission as well.   The Chinese double agent didn't fare so well, the explosion broke the static line cable so his parachute never opened.  The wounded American, who was also the jumpmaster and had been standing right by the open door, saw the grenade thrower plummet downward.  He said that the Chinese agent spiraled down into the ground like a perfectly thrown football!  It is a testament to the durability of the C-47 aircraft that despite damage to the fuselage, it was able to limp back south and land safely!
     With the declassification of the 8240th Army Unit's activities in Korea, many incredible stories emerged.  A Hollywood script writer could not come up with some of the fantastic acts of bravery carried out by the members of the UNPFK.  In one incredible incident, two female guerrillas were parachuted into a place just north of Wonson, North Korea.  They conducted their surreptitious surveillance and sent the information back by radio.  Then, as instructed, they buried the heavy radio and made their way to an extraction point near the beach.  However, they ran into a North Korean patrol and had to fight their way to the beach.  In the process, the two women managed to kill or wound almost all of the North Korean soldiers.  The two had completely neutralized the enemy by either killing or wounding all of the eighteen man patrol!  They were each armed only with M-1 Carbines, grenades, and .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolvers.  It was decided that the .45 caliber automatics were too big and heavy for them!  When they were ex-filtrated by a boat to a waiting US warship, they were completely out of ammunition for carbines and revolvers and had used all of their grenades. 
     When they filed their report and said that they had eliminated an enemy patrol, their bosses did not believe them, but gave them a pat on the back and filed the report away anyway.  A few days later a North Korean Army message was intercepted which claimed that an 18 man patrol north of Wonson suffered heavy casualties but managed to destroy a much larger company size (about 120 men) enemy force that had parachuted into the area.  The heroic wounded survivors of this firefight were all awarded medals for having destroyed the invading imperialist enemy!
     The two young women (they were 18 and 20!) were considered the two best shots in their UNPFK marksmanship class. I believe they received medals as well!  There are many stories like this one once the whole operation was declassified.  In another incident, a 12 man team that had parachuted into North Korea with a mission of sabotaging railway and highway traffic not only accomplished their primary mission, but in a firefight that followed fought off a battalion size enemy unit inflicting heavy casualties before ex-filtrating, without a single casualty to the team!
     All participants of the UNPFK program deserve to feel extremely proud of their accomplishment.  Theirs was a unit that was always outnumbered, always in enemy territory.  Yet, they inflicted heavy casualties to the enemy and damaged much of the infrastructure of the north that could not be carried out by our bombers.  The American members of this program never received due credit for their bravery and accomplishments.  They were not even awarded the Combat Infantry Badge that all army infantrymen in Korea received.  The CIB (Combat Infantry Badge) is Army's equivalent of Marines' Combat Action Ribbon.  It was only recently approved by Pentagon to be awarded retroactively to the veterans of the 8240th Army Unit.
     I well remember a seasoned veteran in my old unit who finally earned his CIB after a tour in Vietnam.  He had been with the 8240th in Korea and had seen much action and wounded as well.  He had also been in Laos in 1960 and saw action but did not receive a CIB because we weren't supposed to be in Laos in a combat role!  Army regulations can be difficult to fathom!
     The 8240th Army Unit was the beginning of modern US Army Special Forces.  Army seemed to be quite fond of the "Army Unit" tag for special units.  Ironically, I believe it immediately identifies the unit as being "special" so why bother?  A few years later the 8231st Army Unit from Camp Drake, Japan moved to Okinawa and combined with other Special Forces detachments from Hawaii and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, became the 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa's Camp Sukiran in 1957.