Office of the Historian

795.00/10–3150

Memorandum by Mr. William McAfee of the Office of Chinese Affairs to the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs (Clubb)

secret
[Washington,] October 31, 1950.

Subject: Telecon for October 31

I have not as yet seen the Telecon1 for today, but I did see Mr. Howe’s summary of pertinent facts extracted from it which included the following information: The Third ROK Army captured 18 CCF prisoners and preliminary interrogation indicated that they are part of the 370th Regiment of the 124th CCF Division.* The strength of the Unit is unknown but the Telecon apparently included an estimate that its strength might be 2500 men. This Division, which was part of the Nationalist Army until April 1949, crossed the Yalu on October 16. The prisoners taken reported that they had had no food for three days.

Further interrogation of a prisoner captured last week revealed his belief that approximtaely 5,000 CCF troops had been selected from 3 divisions at Antung for duty in North Korea. According to the information obtained from these prisoners these troops were not integrated with North Korean units.

  1. Reference is to the text of the teletype conference between officers of G-2 in Washington and G-2 (CINCFE) in Tokyo; not printed.↩
  2. 42 Army. [Footnote in the source text.]↩