From:
Daniel Ford <danford@alumni.unh.edu> Save Address - Block Sender
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danford@alumni.unh.edu
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Subject:
[Warbirds] frozen Chosin in the freezin' season (Korea 1950)
Date:
Wed, 12 Jul 2000 05:14:33 -0700
News from "Nothing New About Death"
http://danford.net
I was a college freshman, drilling every Thursday afternoon on Memorial
Field, when the feathers hit the fan at the Chosin Reservoir. So I've
always had an abiding interest and a twinge of guilt about those weeks when
a marine division and associated army troops made the most desperate
fighting retreat in the history of U.S. arms. ("Retreat, hell! We're
attacking in a different direction.") But I never expected to have a book
about the Chosin campaign affect me the way this one did.
Martin Russ was a marine rifleman in a later year of the Korean War, and
his combat journal "The Last Parallel" is a magnificent portrayal of the
stalemate at the 38th parallel. Now he's gone back to celebrate the marines
who fought at "frozen Chosin in the freezin' season" of 1950. The result is
the finest piece of military history I've ever read. Many times my eyes
teared up at the bravery, tenacity, and humanity of those men. (I
particularly liked the guy who had to be marched onto the troopship between
two SPs, having been released from the brig to fight in Korea, and whose
life eventually ended in a shootout with the police. But meanwhile he
fought at Chosin, and he was magnificent.)
The campaign began on Thanksgiving Day, when the Chinese appeared in force
at Chosin, and ended about two weeks later when the marines walked into
Hungnam, where ships were waiting to evacuate them. The distance was 78
miles. In that narrow space, 10,000 marines fought their way through an
estimated 120,000 Chinese soldiers, losing about half their number to
capture, death, wounds, and frostbite. Temperatures were routinely below
zero, even without accounting for wind chill. Men were bayoneted or beaten
to death in their sleeping bags, because the zippers had frozen and rifles
wouldn't fire. More than once, a squad of Chinese and a squad of marines
passed each other without admitting the others' presence, too beaten to
fight. Other times, the Chinese swamped marine positions in what became
known as "human wave" attacks.
It was a magnificent moment in marine history, and this is a stunning book.
Here's a link to the hardcover edition at Amazon Books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0880642319/annals
take care - Dan
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