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Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950

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Breakout: The Chosin reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950 - Fromm InternationalIf you read only one book this year about men at war, let it be this oneYou will read of the men of the 1st Marine Division and their fight out of the trap set for them by 7 divisions of Chinese whose sole mission was the extermination of the Marines.You will read of the men of the 1st Marine Division and a small commando of British RoyalMarines fighting in incredibly difficult terrainand in flesh-killing cold, cold so deep and bitterthat weapons froze and exposed flesh turnedleper-white with frostbite.You will read how the Division fought, regiment by regiment, battalion by battalion, company by company, platoon by platoon and, finally, in smallgroups of 3 and 4 to repulse and win through attack after attack by a sea of tough, seasoned Chinese troops.You will read of individual acts of simple but great heroism and fidelity, for the men who fought in those frozen wastes remained faithful to one-another and their unit and their Corps.And throughout it all you will hear the voices of the men Russ interviewed and set down in their personal narratives, which he seamlessly wove together with his superb exposition. And always they speak simply of the extraordinary events in which they took part when they were young and slim and quick, events which remain fresh and immediate after almost 50 years. And they speak in the rhythms and accents of Americans from every region - from the barrios of Los Angeles to the privileged precincts of Westchester County.And, at the end, you will feel joy and pride as they stride out of the trap in step, marching and singing a paean of triumph, having destroyed 7 Chinese divisions and bringing out all their wounded and most of their dead. And you will weep for the dead. And you will weep for the survivors, not in pity but, perhaps, in envy for men who have lived out a personal fidelity to something larger than themselves, men who, in a paraphrase of Norman MacLean¹s words, went through, and not around the experience of combat. And you will thank Martin Russ for his craft and art in creating this superb book. - Reviewed by R.A. Clark -

Seldom does a reader get the opportunity to read a true account of modern battle that is so gripping, so detailed, and so unforgettable as is this story of the attempt by 12,000 American Marines to fight their way out of an encirclement by seven divisions of Chinese and Korean troops at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. Written by an ex-Marine who was himself a wounded veteran in Korea, its lines wring of the accuracy and poignancy only eyewitnesses could tell about the plight of the men caught in the snow, wind, and sub-zero cold to fight off the vastly superior number of Chinese and Koreans and escape from the trap that had been set for them. This is a riveting story well told.

The situation was bleak; it was mid-winter, and the Marines were cut off from supply lines and exposed to the extremes of weather, surrounded by seven divisions of better equipped and better situated Chinese and Korean troops who were most fanatical in their pursuit of them, ready to move in and annihilate the whole Marine force. The Marines, meanwhile, had little or no air support due to the terrible weather conditions, were relatively low on ammunition and other supplies, and the terrain was so formidable that they were quite effectively cut off and isolated and on their own. There could be little or no help from outside to save them.

Yet through all these obstacles and with the numbers so much against them, the Marines slowly but methodically fought their way out, hill by hill, bluff by bluff, regiment to regiment, battalion to battalion, company to company, whatever it took to inflict such terrible casualties on the Chinese and Koreans as they went, as they fought, from Division level all the way down to small groups of 3 or 4 men fighting with unvarnished tenacity to kick ............... out of the opposing force through sheer guts, grit, and courage.

This is a tale that will long be told in beer halls and at all Marine functions with pride and enthusiasm, for it is truly one of the finest moments for the Marines in modern combat, detailed here with such verve in the words and recollections of many who fought there. The reader feels like a member of the force as he reads through stirring accounts of men who just would not surrender, retreat, or desert their friends and buddies, who instead fought back with sustained vitality and surprising tenacity under the worst conditions imaginable. This was a fighting force that single-handedly destroyed seven opposing Divisions of enemy forces to walk out of the Chosin Reservoir under their own power, through the crucible of combat, and out the other side to a victory so memorable it will love forever wherever Marines gather. Read it and understand. Enjoy!

Let me start out by saying that I have nothing but the highest respect for the United States Marine Corps. Not only for what they accomplished during the retreat from Chosin in particular, but for all the Corps has accomplished during its long and honorable history.

However, if one were to take Russ's book at face value, the Marines did it all alone with no help whatsoever. This is just not the case, as any real military historian of the capaign will attest. His anti-Army rhetoric detracts from the main story he is trying to tell, that of the Marine exploits during the retreat. Had he stuck to just the story of the Corps, the whole book would be somewhat more credible. As it is, his comments about the conduct of the army troops at the reservoir and in other areas show an appalling lack of research. His list of sources, ironically, lists books that directly contradict the anti-Army stories he likes to tell. I can only assume that Russ needed the list to try to impress his readers that he did some form of research. Let's face it, the definitive work on the Campaign is THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR CAMPAIGN, Vol. 3 of U.S. Marine Operations in Korea. Even here, Russ distorts what positive information that was presented on Army operations. He sure used all the positive information on the Marines, however.

The one glaring example of the many distortions on the Army relates to Company D, 10th Combat Engineers (Third Infantry Division) which was the largest single Army unit in the battle for East Hill. It comprised a total of 77 GI's and 90 ROK troops. Russ states that a Marine Major came upon Company D's encampment and found only one guard outside the tents, a Private Franklin Kestner. FACT. Franklin states that the whole Company was outside preparing for a work detail. Russ further states that the Marine Major was disgusted as the Engineers had not a single radio nor even one machine gun. FACT. Every account (MARINE OPERATIONS IN KOREA, CHOSIN, COMBAT SUPPORT IN KOREA and others) show that Company D had four 50 and five 30 caliber machine guns. As stated by Lt. Rosen and Private Kestner the unit had its full compliment of radios. Russ states that during the battle GI's broke and were fleeing for their lives down the slopes. FACT. The only trops that seemed to disapear were the ROK troops. The Engineer troops fell back 250 yards and held fast under the inspired command of both Captain Kulbes and Lt. Rosen. In the morning, there were some 400 dead enemy troops in front of the Engineer position. Captain Kulbes and Lt. Rosen were awarded Silver Stars for their leadership and COmpany D was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation from the Department of the Navy for their part in the action on East Hill. What is so ironic is that Kulbes, Rosen, and Kestner were all available for interviews should Russ really have wanted to be objective. But then they were Army. Even the books Russ lists as references refute his commentary on Company D. Again, obviously he did little or no reserach on any information presented on the Army units. His distortion of the facts is an insult to the ten brave infantrymen of Company D who gave their lives that night.

There is no need to comment on Russ's unjustified and ill-informed accusations on the conduct of Task Force Faith and General Walker and the 8th Army. Suffice it to say that Russ and his myhopic view of the mission of the 10th Corps shows again his lack of objectivity and research. it is the considered opinion of most military experts that had not the Chinese 80th Division been diverted to attack the Army's 31st RCT, the Marines might not have been able to hold Hagaru-ri. This could have doomed the 1st Marine Division.

In conclusion, Russ tells a nice folksy story about the Marine retreat. He did not, however, have to spend useless time vilifying the Army. I was very proud to have served in Combat during the Korea Conflict as a member of the Army. We fought just as hard and bled just as freely and died just as bravely as any Marine.

In October, l950, in one of the greatest blunders in military history, MacArthur ordered the l6,000 men of the lst Marine Division into north Korea near its border with China. MacArthur made matters worse by separating the Marines into 4 units approximately 10 miles from each other. Martin Russ in "Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950" tells how MacArthur's misjudgment almost resulted in the entire lst Marine division being annihilated. (Final count of Marine casualties: 2,400 dead, 3,500 wounded, 200 missing, 6,200 nonbattle casualties, mostly frostbite.) (Full disclosure: I'm an ex-Marine.) In November l950 the Marines met the Chinese communist forces in battle for the first time. A pamphlet told the Chinese troops what to do: "Kill these Marines as you would snakes in your home." (30,000 Chinese died in the campaign.) "Breakout" tells the amazing story of how the Marines fought their way from north Korea to the sea against daunting odds. Sixty thousand Chinese had surrounded the Marines. The cold -- 20 to 30 degrees below zero -- was causing frostbite and weapons to freeze up. The terrain was icy and mountainous. There was little food and little time to rest at night, since the Chinese attacked at night. Unless totally disabled, the wounded could not be evacuated to the rear since there was no rear and they were needed on the firing line. But through it all morale and optimism remained high.

The stories of unbelievable courage and perserverance are moving and uplifting. For instance Lt. John Yancey was ordered to hold a crucial hill which controlled a roadway between two large Marine units. Yancey's 176 men, outnumbered over 20 to 1, held off wave after wave of assaults. Yancey was wounded twice in the head, 120 of his men were killed or wounded, but they held, and this defense is generally recognized as keeping the 8,500 Marines up the road from being wiped out. Once down to 6 men in his immediate vicinity, Yancey yelled "Stand fast and die like Marines." (Years later Yancey received a bill from the Marines for $146.70 for throwing away a nonworking carbine during a firefight.)

In another incident a captain, a company commander, was brought into the medical tent. Upon seeing a doctor the captain said: "Let's go, doc, patch me up pronto, will ya? I gotta get back to the company." When the doctor looked down he saw one of the captain's legs flopped over at a 90 degree angle, with white phosphorous inexorably burning itself into the captain's leg. The captain kept saying, "Can't you hurry it up, doc? I gotta get back to the company." Past exposure to every kind of human trauma did not keep tears from forming in the doctor's eyes.

Fourteen Marines were awarded the Medal of Honor. Sgt. Robert Kennemore lost both legs when he put his knees on a hand grenade to save those around him. (Years later Kennemore had to be institutionalized in a VA hospital after he was hit with a pipe and robbed after cashing his disability check in his wheelchair.) Private Hector Caffereta, the platoon screwup, suddenly became the rock of the platoon. His fighting fury was probably responsible for saving 2 platoons. At one point while Caffereta was throwing back live Chinese hand grenades, a Marine beside him was blinded by a grenade explosion but stayed on the line handing Caffereta rifle clips. At Hagaru-ri, using 5 bulldozers and working 24 hours a day, the Marines built a landing strip while under enemy fire. The ground was frozen l8 inches deep and steel teeth had to be welded onto the bulldozer blades. Ground broken off by the steel blades froze onto the scoops and had to be jackhammered off. When the Air Force began to evacuate the wounded, they suggested evacuating all the Marines by plane. The Marines refused since an airlift evacuation would have meant sacrificing their rear guard. Instead, 500 Marine volunteers flew in help in a situation many considered hopeless.

One of the most incredible feats was how the Marines spanned a 29 foot opening over a chasm where a bridge had been dynamited. Steel treadways weighing 2500 pounds were dropped in by parachute, something that had never been tried before. Read the book to find out how this was accomplished. With dead and wounded strapped all over every vehicle, the Marines successfully fought their way to the sea. While this book could have used more and better maps to help the reader, the story told by the author through the participants' own words completely engages the reader's attention. Out of the horror of being trapped and isolated in one of the coldest places on earth, comes this tale of individual and group courage that ranks with any in American history.

As the son of a Korean War navy corpsman and a person born thirteen years after the conflict, the picture of my country's military exploits was painted in the afterglow colors of WWII and the mixed colors of Vietnam. Thanks to Breakout, I know now the extent of the bravery and resilience of our Marines as well as the extent to which the Chinese were involved in Korea. With many answers provided about the nature of the fighting and the major characters involved in the breakout, I have new questions about the Korean War, not the least of which is: Why didn't the US confront the Chinese government after their armies marched south from Manchuria? Regardless, the author has given us an unforgettable story about "The Forgotten War". As long as this kind of writing can be brought to light, the conflict in Korea will not go unnoticed or forgottenby this generation and future ones.

Lucid and well written, Breakout deals with the fate of X Corps in November-December 1950, focussing on how its central element, the 12,000 men of the 1st Marine Division, battled its way out of the Chinese envelopment at the Chosin Reservoir in sub-zero temperatures.

With combat insight gained the hard way and his attention to the tactical imperatives as well as the human costs of battle-author and former Marine, Martin Russ, interviewed more than 200 veterans of the Chosin fight--Breakout is a hands-down winner.

Breakout is also a study of personal sacrifice and heroism against overwhelming odds. Much is made of how the Chosin Marines lived up to their Corps' motto, Semper Fidelis (always faithful), by bringing their wounded and dead and most of their equipment with them in spite of a fanatical enemy, impossible terrain, and unimaginable weather conditions.

"'I learned that only leadership will save you in such conditions,' observed one company commander. 'It's easy to say that a man has to change his socks; but getting him to do so when the temperature is twenty-five below is another matter. Boot laces become iced over, and it's a struggle just to get the boot off your foot.'"

Many individual Marines in Russ's account of the Chosin ordeal stand out for their combat spirit, raw courage and leadership under fire. One, 1st Lieutenant Chew-En Lee, ran a machine gun platoon in Baker Company, 7th Marines. Tough and unyielding even by Marine Corps standards, Lt. Lee spoke fluent Chinese, yet shied away from interrogating prisoners for fear of being reassigned to intelligence duty in the rear, away from his own unit, which was always in the thick of the fiercest fighting.

One issue Russ meets head on is the generally sorry performance of U.S. Army units attached to X Corps during the Chosin Reservoir campaign. It is widely held that in addition to superb leadership, the more rigorous basic training received by the Marines, along with their esprit de corps, gave them the tenacity to prevail where the poorly led, inadequately trained, and insufficiently motivated Army troops were at times unable to function.

After completing their terrible ordeal, with the Chinese hordes beaten back and fading into the distant hills, the battered Marines marched into the port city, Hungnam. As the 1st Division sailed from the harbor on December 15, 1950, one of the most memorable chapters in Marine Corps history came to a close.

The Marines had maintained unit cohesion and combat effectiveness in the face of suicidal human-wave attacks, continuous snipping and mortar fire, and obstacles that included a downed bridge over an impassible chasm. They carried on despite cold so bitter it froze their hands and feet, retarded the performance of their ordinance, and made mush of the oil in their vehicles. Their courage, honor and commitment to their Corps and to each other prevented what could easily have become a total rout.

Small wonder Marines bristle when the Chosin Reservoir actions are characterized as a "retreat." As the legendary, Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller famously put it when told the regiment he commanded, the 1st Marines, was entirely surrounded: "They've got us just where we want them. We can shoot in every direction now."

A combat Marine's account of the Chosin Reservoir fight, Breakout is as exhaustive as it is exhausting. Yet, it would have been helpful if the author had included topographic maps showing the movements of the various units at different times during the battle--though this may be a petty criticism, since this is not a military textbook. What the lay reader can and does gain from this book is an appreciation of the sacrifices made by those who survived and those who paid the ultimate price. In this, Breakout serves much the same purpose as Tom Brokaw's phenomenally popular, The Greatest Generation. "I did a good thing. It was worth remembering," said one veteran of the Frozen Chosin. So might it be.

Breakout attempts to retell the story of the Chosen Reservoir campain, which has been told many times in the past. Martin Russ is a veteran of the USMC who served later in the Korean War, and he carries with him all of the prejudices and sentiments that go along with that. You expect him to think the Marine Corps is the best fighting force in the world, but the animosity is stronger than that, in some way.

It's important to understand what this book is and isn't. It isn't a history of the campaign in any real way. There are no footnotes, and the bibliography is two pages long and consists of only published sources, plus interviews. The maps are mostly useless, and don't convey much of what happened in the campaign. This isn't really a history book, it's an oral history book.

This means that the bulk of what you read is narratives by the participants, what they saw and did in particular situations. Much of the book consists of paragraphs that start with a person's name, followed by a colon, then a passage in quotation marks. There's little attempt to place the remarks in context or critically examine them and compare them, anything that would make this a more analytical history. Instead, you hear the various narrators, almost all of them Marines, tell you what the battle was like.

There's also almost no attention paid to either the Korean participants in the campaign, and what space is devoted to the civilians in the area is almost all in terms of what the Marines thought of them. There's virtually nothing on the Communist Chinese Forces either, I guess since Russ (and anyone else) can't get into the Communist Chinese archives. As a result there's pretty much nothing new here, and you have to wonder why the author wrote the book.

The reviewers who complain about the attitude of the author with regards to the army are generally correct. I found the information on Task Force Faith getting its Presidential Unit Citation rather easily on the internet. Since the Citation was awarded in 2000, and the book was published in 2002, it's hard to imagine that they couldn't have put in a postscript, if not in the hardback then in the paperback edition issued a year later. Instead, the author includes a passage where a Marine tells you that Lt.Col. Faith (commander of Task Force Faith) didn't deserve his posthumous Medal of Honor.

The anti-army attitude is pretty much the whole tenor of the book, and there are a few aspects of it which are particularly annoying. For one thing, the author works hard to tell you which members of the army were cowards in a number of instances, but is suitably coy when telling you of the few Marine cowards. Later, he suggests that Lt.Col. Faith was racist because he shot a pair of Korean soldiers, who were attached to his force, for cowardice. He makes almost no mention of the Marine's repetitive usage of the term "gook" though, and repeats an incident where the Marines kill some Korean civilians without comment. When the army lets the Marines down, it's inexcusable. When Marine Corsairs hit Task Force Faith with napalm by accident, nothing similar is said.

I do think this book has some value, if only because it reflects the attitudes of the Marines at Chosen Reservoir. The only problem with this is that it's been done before, repeatedly, and the author has made no effort to update his material.

It's unfortunate that Korean War veterans are finally getting due recognition for their unheralded sacrifices in a cold, desolate corner of the world half a century ago by way of a drummed-up scandal. They deserve better than No Gun Ri as an epitaph. Martin Russ provides it.

The Chosin Reservoir campaign was born in overwhelming disaster and redeemed only by the selfless courage of U.S. Marines, Army and Navy aviators. Yes, this is going to be a controversial book because Russ is especially harsh in his assessment of the Army's performance on the east bank of the Chosin Reservoir. In large part, the GIs were let down horribly by their commanding officers, particularly Gen. Almond, whose complacency nearly got every man of them killed.

But Russ does show us those GI survivors who weren't willing to go down without one hell of a fight. That's the most we can ever ask of any soldier. Many doggies kept the faith at Chosin and upheld the best traditions of their branch of the service.

Chosin, for the U.S. Marine Corps, may have been its finest moment since Iwo Jima. From the first, terrifying night assaults at Yudam-ni to the end of the campaign, these men got the job done in weather and combat conditions that deserve to be described as "hellish." They were well-led, for the most part, and not about to let the overwhelming odds stop them.

"Saving Private Ryan" was a moving tribute to the good fight against fascism in Europe. The Korean Conflict deserves its own cinematic treatment, one that accurately reflects the doubtful nature of the U.S. commitment to South Korea and to its own troops. If nothing else, it wouldn't hurt for the children and the grandchildren of the men who fought at the Chosin Reservoir to see the suffering their grandfathers endured for them.

Until Mr. Spielberg decides to film the saga of the Chosin Reservoir, Martin Russ' marvelous account stands as an elegy to a generation that American history has, at times, seemed to forget. To all the men who served at Chosin -- to those who lived and those who died -- no matter what branch of the service, thank you for what you did. And thank you, Mr. Russ, for calling the attention of younger Americans like myself to this outstanding saga of heroism.

I've read "Breakout" (having an interest in this campaign), and the book essentially is a platform for the author's opinion, disguised as history, which actually is not uncommon. My main gripe with the book deals with the warped portrayal of the army units involved, which is shaped by two things: 1) attitude/bias of the author, and 2) sources (or lack thereof).

Author Martin Russ's outlook understandably stems, at least in part, from his own service in the Marines. But Breakout is a case of an author writing to an idea. This is evident by periodic fragmentary glimpses into the ordeal of the US Army on the east side of the reservoir, and of their eventual doom. This kind of cherry-picking has absolutely no credibility in any work of this sort, and coupled with evident shoddy "research" should relegate a book to adventure novel status. Russ also has no footnotes, and insinuates that research was involved due to a modest bibliography, the books of which actually rebut all of his silly accusations. He mentions various interviews, all unnamed.

Russ never mentioned the 1/11th Marines' loss of eight 155 howitzers when they gave way to panic and abandoned them; if this had been an army unit you'd better believe it would have been in the book.

One of the things which apparently hasn't fazed Russ is the very real revelation by Chinese records (before his book was published) that the unit in question (RCT 31) was not up against one Chinese infantry division of unknown strength, but two full strength divisions which totals almost 20,000 enemy troops - troops who were en route to finish off the Marine garrison. These troops were usually harshly received by the army and the divisions were rendered combat-ineffective. Russ states that he is forced to agree in part with an army historian that the army's plight enabled the Marines to survive, but sneers that this was so only in the form of a "sacrificial lamb", which is an incredibly vicious, underhanded little remark which insinuates that the soldiers' import lay only in their status as some sort of speed bump. But the number of Chinese involved is a crucial element to the story and has actually helped bring about a favorable change in many marines' attitudes. That's not good enough for Martin Russ, though.

US Marine forward air controller Captain Ed Stamford is presented as being the only pillar of strength in this mob of men to which he was attached, and is described as being the one Marine in the campaign who forgives them for their incompetence (Stamford currently is listed as a member of the Army Chapter of the Chosin Few, by the way). As Russ only quotes a few of Stamford's statements which originally appeared in two works, I submit that he was never interviewed by Russ. He also cites a flawed work on Chosin in his bibliography that relied on a phony interview which Stamford himself angrily condemns. This is one source of the curious negative portrayal in "Breakout" and is partly why legions of casual readers on the subject think the US Army behaved in a less than honorable manner. But Russ misses the whole point: Stamford was actually there...

One has to ask himself what he would have done or could have done, after fighting to the last bullet in -20F weather, dealing hard blows against a numerically superior enemy, many times in close quarters combat, until all hope was gone. Not a few heroes died there, many of them with empty weapons defending the wounded who had been brought out, despite the contemptible accusation to the contrary in "Breakout".

As Lt. Colonel Jack Nolan USMC (ret) stated at the Chosin Few army chapter reunion, "Had you not done your job I would not be here today."

Mr Martin Russ has presented a largely anecdotal aaccount of the Chosin Reservoir battles, with the added bonus of disparaging the US Army troops involved, many of whom are now resting in shallow graves in northeast Korea. His little book is controversial, and for good eason. Much of what Russ alleges is not wholly accurate, to put it politely. His main tactic in distorting the image of army units involved is to accentuate the negative and completely ignore the positive. This is not readily apparent to the reader unless he is well versed with what happened in X Corps in 1950. I will admit that I am in general agreement with Russ in regards the miscalculation on the part of the army command, and the unpreparedness of the US Army in 1950 has been told elsewhere. Admittedly one understands that this book is intended to lionize the marines. But this can be done without the vicious pseudo-historical licentiousness which characterizes the book. There is a preoccupation that many marines and some marine writers have with heaping opprobrium on th US Army and in almost instances that I've observed involves hearsay and little else. Upon reading this book one will begin to perceive, after a while, an incredibly spiteful undertone as the unsubstatiated remarks begin to pile up, which makes me question his agenda. Mr Russ lists several books in his bibliography, and some refute much of what he says. Interestingly, he has not footnotes. One example involves 'D' Company, 10th Engineer Comabat Battalion, who were pressed into the defense of Hagaru, on a critical terrain feature of East Hill. Russ describes how pitifully armed they were, and later mentions that when the Chinese attacked, they "fled for their lives down the icy slopes, in terror" Actually D Company was well armed and this was already documented. The fact is that the Chinese overran Korean construction troops on D Co's flank, snuck up on the Americans and took part of their position. The engineers fell back but then put up a stout defense, inflicting very heavy casualties. This had already been recounted in personal memoirs and through exhaustive research by the late historian Roy Appleman, in 'Escaping the Trap',a detailed book about X Corps, which is also listed in Russ's own bibliography! As for the ill-fated army task force on the east side of the reservoir, Russ spares no vitriol and portrays the troops as hapless minions, the one exception being (predictably) Captain Ed Stamford, USMC, their tac-air controller. Russ explains that Capt. Stamford was the only marine in the Chosin campaign who excuses the doggies for their woeful ineptitiude, as he has lived with them and understands their shortcomings. But historian Appleman in his research for his second work 'East of Chosin' came across Stamford and the two became friends; Stamford and his wife stayed at Appleman's home when he was interviewed. Ed Stamford, in those many interviews comes across as frank and eloquent in his opinions. He stated that most of the army officers and many of the NCO's were apparently very well trained and good leaders. The only negatves mentioned were that the weakness lay in the loss, through prior transfer, of senior NCO's. The other lay in the training of the individual soldiers. I suspect that Russ's portrayal stems from an "as told to" article from Nov 1951 in which Stamford purportedly relates to a marine writer what he experienced. In discussions with Appleman, Stamford said he was incensed by the article and did not want it used as a source for anything about him. He said that it was inacurrate and he did not like its tone or rhetoric. It had not been cleared with him before publication. This article has been regurgitated in at least one other Chosin work (by Hammel), and no one is the wiser. The treatment accorded the army task force by Russ is a disconnected series of rhetorical little vignettes. Russ twists and shapes their plight to fit his high-handed interpretation.. Lt. Colonel Don Faith, who was well respected and an outstanding leader, is portrayed as mediocre and on the verge of losing his mind. Russ even insinuates that Col. Faith was unworthy of his posthumous Medal of Honor, an assertion I find shameful. There were many, many Americans there who died in performance of their duty. At least eight Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded for bravery and command competence for a ferocious 80-hour battle in sub-zero weather against what we now know were two Chinese divisions. A second army colonel was later posthumouly awarded the Medal of Honor for actions at Koto-ri and also on the march to the coast. Also the USMC recently was moved to award retroactively the Navy Presidential Unit Citation to the task force, once their story became fully known. The book also makess mention of the marines' alleged collective "disgust and outrage" over the army's conduct, and that the Navy issued a memo to their personnel not to engage in any unfavorable discussion of the army's behavior to the press. The reader is left to his own imagination on this point. In reality this bulletin was issued in response to the defamatory statements of one Navy chaplain, Lt Commander Otto Sporer, to Fortnight and Time magazines. The X Corps Inspector General immediately began an investigation in April of 1951 of the 31st Infantry and found the charges against it to be at odds with the facts. Sporrer was subsequently court martialed. Russ also presents purely anecdotal accounts of inept troops from the 3rd Infantry Division firing at each other and at the marines. You heard it here first. Too bad we'll never understand exactly how he heard it. To sum it all up, Martin Russ's book wouldn't be so bad without the gratuitious assertions and character assassination. s