Women Warriors Revisited

     Recently the US Army announced that women will be allowed to undergo Ranger training if they qualify for the rigorous physical training requirements.  The US Army has allowed women to receive airborne (parachute) training for quite sometime now, as long as the Marines have allowed women in the Corps.  However, women in the US Army Airborne units and the US Marines do not serve in combat capacity.  No women are assigned to rifle companies and most certainly none serve in Recon units, Hollywood movies and TV action dramas notwithstanding!  So, it appears that although women may receive Ranger training, they will not be serving in Ranger Battalions, at least not in combat roles.  Women are not yet allowed in the Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, the Marine Force Recon or MARSOC.  They can be assigned to these units to serve in administrative units, but not in operational units.
     Russians have allowed women to serve in combat (out of necessity, due to shortage of men during WWII), and other countries, most notably, Israel, has always allowed women in combat roles.  However, in most cases, women served in separate units, not integrated with men when it came to combat.  The only exception were always the women snipers, who served along side male snipers.  As previously noted, Russia produced some exceptional women snipers.  Israel, since about 2000 has integrated some women into their elite commando unit that operates in very small groups.  So far there have not been any problems and those Israeli women that wish to serve in elite units such as their Parachute Brigade or the special commando unit may do so, if they qualify.
     Last year, in a blog entitled "The 'Miscellaneous Group',"  I described the special operations program during the Korean War.  It was run by the US 8th Army and the HQs FE Command, although there were British and Australian participants as trainers.  The unit that trained the so-called United Nations Partisan Forces in Korea, or UNPFK were the early Army Special Forces members and they trained Korean volunteers to fight as guerrillas in North Korea. This unit was called the 8240th Army Unit with a much longer, cumbersome title of Combined Command Reconnaissance Activities (Korea).  Most of the time the UNPFK units infiltrated into North Korea by parachute, sometimes by boat, and rarely overland. Among these Korean volunteers, there were many women.  Women were mostly used as agents to infiltrate into North Korea to gather intelligence and they worked under a program that was euphemistically called Korean Liaison Office or KLO.  However, there were also those that trained and fought as guerrillas.  I gave a very brief account of one such mission that bears repeating.
     Two women, ages 18 and 20, were parachuted into North Korea just outside of Wonsan to gather intelligence and blow up a train depot.  They accomplished their mission and took photos for proof with cameras that each carried.  As they were getting ready to ex-filtrate, they were surrounded by an 18 man North Korean patrol.  The women, as it happened, were the two best shots in their unit, especially the younger 18 year old!  She was the best shot of all, including the men of the unit! They were each armed with an M-1 Carbine and 45 rounds of ammunition, 38 caliber revolver (the trainers felt that the 45 caliber automatic was too big for them) with just 12 rounds of ammunition, and two hand grenades.  With this meager armament, the two wiped out the entire 18 man patrol!  Then, the 18 year old, to make sure there was a record of what they did, took photos of the North Koreans that they killed!  They managed to reach the coast and the rendezvous point where they stayed hidden until a submarine picked them up that night.
     Their American bosses were absolutely thrilled by what the two had accomplished.  However, since all of the missions were highly classified, none of this was made public until the 1990s!  Although their heroics could not be made public, still, the story circulated around the UNPFK units and among everyone involved in that secret war.  North Korea, on the other hand, released a news bulletin that a "large" group of saboteurs had attempted to blow up a train depot but were all hunted down and killed by the heroic members of the People's Army!  However, the 8240th Army Unit and the UNPFK knew otherwise!  They had photographic proof of what the two young women accomplished.  Very quickly they made up leaflets and dropped them in the area where the train depot used to be and informed the North Korean population that there was no "large" group of saboteurs, just two women, and they were alive and well, while 18 North Korean soldiers were dead!  It was a propaganda coup!
     Today, the Republic of Korea maintains that tradition of having women warriors carrying out dangerous missions.  They have a special unit of women who are highly trained for special operations.  Who knows, perhaps some of these exceptional young women are granddaughters of those brave women who fought as guerrillas during the Korean War!