[37] FECOM, ATIS, _North Korean Forces_, _op. cit._, 35–42.
Three Soviet officers, a colonel and two lieutenant colonels, reportedly acted as advisers to a faculty composed of NKPA majors. The five departments of the Academy were devoted to infantry, artillery, engineering, signaling, and quartermasters’ duties.
A second military academy at Pyongyang specialized in subjects which Communists termed “cultural.” So much importance was attached to political indoctrination that graduates of this school were commissioned as senior lieutenants and given unusual authority in their units. Although a 2-year Russian language course was offered, most of the candidates took the standard 9-month term.
Branches of the Pyongyang military academy were established as officer candidate schools in Hamhung, Chinnampo, Chorwon, Mesanjin, Kaechon and Kanggye. Applicants were required to have an acceptable political background and a 6-year minimum of schooling, though the last was sometimes waived.
A command and staff school at Pyongyang offered advanced tactical and administrative courses at the battalion and regimental level to selected officers. At the other extreme, NCO schools were located at Sadong, Sinuiju, Sinchon and Nanam. Tactical instruction was given at the platoon and squad level with emphasis on weapons courses. NCO training was accelerated in preparation for hostilities, and 4,000 veterans of CCF service in Manchuria completed 2-month courses at the Sadong school alone in the spring of 1950.
Technical training in aircraft, artillery, tank and engineering specialties was offered in schools for junior officers as well as enlisted men. But it appears that most of the officers above the company level received their instruction in Soviet schools.[38]
Conscription, according to POW accounts, was introduced as early as 1948. In the rural districts each _myon_ (a political subdivision smaller than a county but comprising several villages) was given its quota of recruits to be furnished between the ages of 18 and 35. The village chiefs then assembled all the men in this age group and made their decisions on an arbitrary basis. Selectees had little or no hope of appeal, but were assured that provision would be made for their families during the 3-year term of service.[39]