거울로 삼다삼다

To take it as a mirror.

The East Sea, The Yellow Sea, 1954 - 1958

The Korean People’s Army Navy had been the runt of the litter when it was stillborn into existence before the War. After all, with all of the dedication, skill, and knowledge being placed into the hands of the People’s Army and the People’s Army Air Force, the Navy was seen as a distant third force - perhaps useful in a vague, coastal defense setting, but not particularly wanted or useful in the prosecution of the war that would come. After all, there was simply no way that the small Korean economy could support a fleet able to rival that of the United States Navy, the predominant naval power in the world after the end of the Worldwide Anti-Fascist War.

The outcome of the war had changed the opinions of the military minds in the Democratic People’s Republic on this. Most of all, the fact that, after destroying the runtish KPAN, the US Navy had been able to freely bombard coastal towns and launch airstrikes wherever it pleased became a sore spot in the minds of Korean military planners, and one that they felt obligated to correct after the war.

The main problem was the armistice treaty that had ended the war. With specific provisions being made against the entrance of new weapons systems onto the peninsula, briefly-entertained dreams of a large navy were crushed in their cradle. The new head of the Navy, Rear Admiral Tu Lying-Su (a not-particularly naval-minded man, but a very expansionary-minded man), would not be so easily deterred. While it was not possible to immediately embark on a large expansion plan, Tu Lying-Su knew that more furtive measures could be taken.

As the treaty had stipulated one-for-one replacement for the existent forces on the peninsula, Tu Lying-Su effectively made the argument both to Kim Il-Sung and later to Soviet attaches that replacement of the navy was only a matter of ship numbers, rather than quality or type - up to a point, of course. There had been vague discussions of a large ship purchase but, in the end, these were reduced to a relatively modest plan:

• 40 Project 123K Motor Torpedo Boats

• 8 MT-2-class Minesweepers

• 10 Project-50 class escort ships

These last ships would become the pride, joy, and main focus of the Korean People’s Army Navy in its first post-war years. In a rather brilliant move, Tu Lying-Su arranged for six of these ships, otherwise known as the Riga-class frigate, to be supplied by Soviet yards, while the last four would be supplied in kit form for final construction at the Wonsan shipyard, as part of the Economic Plan for the National Reconstruction. These ships, which began construction in 1955 in a Wonsan that was still under heavy reconstruction, were launched in the Spring of 1957 to a huge amount of fanfare. All four ships - the Paektu, Chilbosan, Namsan, and Kuwolsan were finished alongside each other. The Kuwolsan became the flagship of the Eastern fleet, and the Paektu of the Western. They were nicknamed the “mountain-ships”, both in reference to their perceived power and their naming after prominent mountains in the north.

In another move of brilliant subterfuge, Tu Lying-Su addressed the shortage of trained personnel through arranging secret personnel transfers to the Soviet Far Eastern fleet in Vladivostok. Particular interest was expressed in training submarine and destroyer crews, and by 1957 four submarines in the Far Eastern Fleet were mostly staffed by Koreans, with staff officers attached to seven more. The Soviet destroyer Vozmucheny soon acquired the nickname чужеземец chuzhezemets “foreigner” in reference to its entirely-Korean crew, save for the staff officers.

With these measures in place, by the end of 1958 the Navy had become a rather powerful force politically as one of the stronger, direct links between the Democratic People’s Republic and the Soviet Union. Tu Lying-Su had become a practical Soviet Korean by this time, having learned the language fluently.

To be continued…