Battle at the 38th Parallel: Surviving the Peace Talks at Panmunjom [Paperback]

Joseph E Gonsalves (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2001

Battle at the 38th Parallel is a first-hand account of the war experiences of a U.S. Army rifle company--Company E, 17th Regiment, 7th Infantry Division--during the closing months of the war. Their story has been meticulously recreated through research conducted at the National Archives, extensive interviews and the personal recollections of the author.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An interesting, hard hitting and technically accurate work that brings to light the real hardships of soldiers in combat. -- LTG (Ret.) Carman Cavezza, Former Commandant, Infantry School, Fort Benning, GA

About the Author

Joseph E. Gonsalves arrived in Korea on April 28, 1952-his 22nd birthday-and spent 11 months fighting with the 17th Infantry Regiment. After the war, he worked in the aerospace industry for 37 years, mostly for the Boeing Company. He currently lives in Bluffton, SC.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Hellgate Press; 1st edition (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555715524
• ISBN-13: 978-1555715526
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,782,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Battle at the 38th Parallel: Surviving the Peace Talks at Pa, April 5, 2002

By 

kevin quinn (queenstown, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battle at the 38th Parallel: Surviving the Peace Talks at Panmunjom (Paperback)

I have read a lot of books about the Korean War. This is one of the best. I read it from cover to cover in one day. It's an extraordinary account of the experiences of an infantry company in Korea during the last year of the War. The book is exceptionally well written by a veteran of Easy Company, 17th US Infantry Regiment, one of the most colorful and significant units that fought in Korea.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My dad was right there as a wire-man......., November 20, 2003

By 

Brett Z (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battle at the 38th Parallel: Surviving the Peace Talks at Panmunjom (Paperback)

at the very time this blood-shed was happening. I sent him this book as a gift, and he called me immediately after receiving and reading it. Make no mistake, the description and accuracy of Gonsalve's accounts are dead-on accurate (no bad pun intended). My father, Bob, was a radio wireman attached to the unit directly behind the front lines and was responsible for running and maintaining the communication lines between the two. He said this book recounts the action so vividly and accurately that it sends shivers down his back.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The way it was -- and more, February 20, 2002

By 

J. Byron Sims (Salt Lake City, UT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battle at the 38th Parallel: Surviving the Peace Talks at Panmunjom (Paperback)

Joseph Gonsalves makes a distinct contribution to a Korean War genre that has multiplied during the conflict's 50th anniversary years (1950-53). This isn't a personal reminiscence or an exploration of personalities and strategies. Rather, Gonsalves uses his old outfit--Easy Company, 17th Regiment, 7th Division--to illustrate how it was to fight and survive, and sometimes die, in a backwater country that, while geographically significant, no one cared much about, save the North and South Koreans, the Chinese, and the United Nations forces sent there to oppose the Reds...
Gonsalves offers enough geopolitical background to put the conflict in context, but concentrates on telling of a rifle company's experiences during the last year of the stalemated fighting. It's a GIs' world of war, where the action in 1952-53 was a dug-in, frustrating, freezing, sweaty, muddy, bloody exchange of propaganda and lethal ordnance, with counterpoints of crushing boredom and mindless terror. For the American soldiers--18- to 21-year-olds made up the bulk of Easy's ranks--"the experience became a time that lived with them forever," writes Gonsalves.
Ex-GIs, whether or not they served in Korea, will find the book engrossing. It will serve others equally well: those who had sons, brothers, fathers, uncles and cousins in Korea. With textbook thoroughness, Gonsalves presents the makeup of a rifle company, its armament, combat assignments, and life on the line. Through the voices and letters of enlisted men and officers, the book reflects what they were thinking, how they were reacting, and echoes the ebb and flow of human spirit as peace talks droned on at Panmunjom only a few miles away from Easy's sandbagged bunkers...
This book is more about dogfaces than heroes ("grunts" is a Vietnam-era term). There were heroes, to be sure, and citations of their exploits are interspersed in the text. But the GIs of Easy were Everyman, and could be found in any regiment...
The back pages offer a chronology of the peace talks with concurrent front-line action and Easy's involvement. In July 1953, for instance, Easy was committed in a major battle over Pork Chop Hill, a month after the Communists had accepted a U.N. peace proposal! It's picky to say more maps would have helped; that's true of most books. But if you know of Pork Chop Hill, have read the book or seen the movie, there's a photo of it--a rare good one--on page 158...
In straightforward but gripping fashion, Gonsalves and the boys of Easy Company offer a book-full of reasons to remember a war we forget at our peril.