Customer Reviews

The Forgotten War : America In Korea 1950-1953

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The Forgotten War: America in Korea is an exhaustive study of command level combat in Korea. While the title claims to cover the war for 1950 thru its conclusion in 1953, in reality only perhaps 25 pages cover the last two years of the war.
Blair states in his introduction that he was especially interested in command level decisions, and the influence of West Pointers in specific. There is very little detail of 'soldier's stories' or any popular or oral history. To some degree, this renders the book a bit sterile although the combat descriptions, especially quite early in the conflict during the retreat to the Pusan perimeter, are thrilling. Further, every time a new commander is introduced, Blair gives a short biographical sketch. I found these redundant and annoying later on in the book. Further, Blair is not shy about criticizing political decisions behind the policy decisions. In particular, his treatment of Truman, many of Truman's political appointees, and MacArthur is scathing. To be fair, while Blair shows eventual Eighth Army commander and MacArthur's replacement, General Ridgeway, as a true hero, to the author's credit he does not refrain from criticizing Ridgeway for dangerously obstructionist behavior during the eventual peace talks. True or not, a lot of this criticism would be more effective had some attempt been made to give a 'man in the trench' perspective. Blair gives a lot of detail of Medal of Honor recipients, but not much besides that.
The basic criticism of the book is that Korea was not a vital part of America's strategic design, and that the decision to intervene was done without thought to preparedness or ramifications. According the Blair, Truman resented, mistrusted and then gutted the military... and then sent them to Korea with little thought as to 'why.' Its an interesting thought, and reading the book I couldn't stop thinking of the parallels to the present. MacArthur is treated as just being publicity hungry, irresponsible and past his prime. It doesn't sound serious until you consider the number of corpses left behind. The book never touches the interesting question of was, given 20-20 hindsight, the war a success? The U.S. didn't win per se, but South Korea is certainly a success story. I suppose each person is left to himself to reach his own conclusion as to whether it was worth it. In any case, despite the massive size, and lack of 'personal' perspectives to the war, The Forgotten War is well worth the trouble. I don't think I ever fully understood the war until after I read this book.

This book on the Korean War is very complete and very detailed. The book gets down to the battalion level, getting into the battles, the cold, the terror, the heroism and the mistakes. It even touches on the treatment of the black soldiers within the American units. The only problem a reader might have is the amount of details. It is 1136 pages long, the first 976 pages cover the war, the last hundred or so covering sources and notes.
While there are few pictures, each one is powerful, no doubt carefully selected.

This book reflects a colossal effort at detailing virtually a day by day and unit by unit account of the Korean conflict. If you need to know what happened in Korea at a particular time or place or to a particular military unit or commander, this book will tell you. Although well written and organized, I personally was bothered by the author's emphasis on the command level personalities and actions. This book could more accurately be titled 'A History of West Point Graduates and Their Careers in Relation to the Korean Conflict'. Reading this book could leave the impression that there were no enlisted men, non-commissioned officers or field grade officers involved in the war. Excepting mention of Medal of Honor recipients during the conflict, there is very little use of personal accounts or activities of participants below the rank of colonel. The author's ritual of calculating average ages of commanders during every command change was at first irrelevant and then became irritating. I also would have appreciated inclusion of a little more contextural information along with the battle outlines. Despite an enormous amount of command and maneuver information, very little information is included on weapons systems, civilian populations, and the opponent forces and strategy in North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union.

On the minus side:
- The author seems overly concerned with the background of individual officers, especially whether they were West Point or ROTC, their ages, when they were commissioned, who their service "friends" were, etc. I started skimming these paragraphs about halfway through because most of them did not meaningfully contribute to understanding the subsequent events.
- The maps are not particularly enlightening and the way they are printed makes them extremely difficult to read. More "mini maps" illustrating particular operations or engagements would have been helpful.
- The author has a very annoying habit of massively over-using the phrase "Inasmuch as," often several times on a single page.
- Criticism of defecient commanders and praise of good officers both seem a bit heavy-handed at times. Apparently every officer in Korea was either a Genius Hero or an Incompetent Fool.
- Little detail or analysis of decisions or conditions on the North/Communist side.
- Scant detail of the air war.

On the plus side:
- Well researched. Plenty of evidence is presented to support the author's conclusions and analyses. Dude seems to have done enough homework to justify his opinions.
- Good background of the domestic and international political contexts from the UN/US/Allied side that affected how and why the war was fought.
- Comprehensive overview of the conflict. Probably not a bad place to start one's study of this important but nearly forgotten conflict.

While very long and very detailed, Blair proves himself by not leaving anything out. What is most impressive about this book is how Blair seamlessly transitions from discussions within the National Command Authority to battalion and brigade-level combat. It took me a few months to get through this one, but it was well worth the time. Superbly written for the lay historian.

Clay Blair's examination of the Korean War is a masterful piece of political and military history. It documents America's early disgrace, valiant ressurection and eventual stalemate on the Korean peninsula. Despite the books rather imposing size, it reads incredibly well, and is a real page turner. Blair provides meaningful insight into the political and military events which shaped America's involvement in Korea, and how those events helped shape future American foriegn policy towards Eastern Asian nations. You will follow the 8th Army's trek from its shameful early intervention, to its race to the Yalu then back and forth across the 38th parallel. You will marvel at the Marine Corps' unbending will to fight with honor and courage, despite overwhelming odds. And you will learn how General Matthew Ridgway turned around the broken spirit of the 8th Army and molded into one the most formidable fighting forces in U.S. history. If you enjoy history and you want to learn about America's involvement in Korea, then Clay Blair's book is a must read.

The Forgotten War is a comprehensive account of the Korean War from the American standpoint. The author draws upon a vast collection of individual American Army unit histories, interviews with participants, correspondence and many other sources. It appears that every battle action that occurred during the war from company level on up is described at some point in this work. Despite the large amount of material presented, the narrative is mostly vigorous and engaging and rarely flags. A most noteworthy feature of the text is that the authors assesses in detail the merits of particular commanders (battalian on up), their training and professional histories, their strengths and weaknesses and their political connections. It is revealing that a few generals drank heavily, and that almost all commanders operated for days on end with no sleep. Little wonder that mistakes were often made. Truman and MacArthur are both subjected to critical scrutiny, but the real villain is MacArthur's chief of staff Ned Almond, who also commanded an army group (a most irregular arrangement), and whose incompetence cost thousands of American and Korean lives. There also are frank descriptions of American Army units that 'bugged out' in battle, fleeing from the enemy. Although the book is quite long, it is immensely readable. It is so authoritative and comprehensive that it belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in current events or military history. As a bonus, there are numerous period photographs giving faces to the personalities described in the text. At the end is an excellent description of sources, and annotations exhibiting a very high degree of scholarship. I strongly recommend this book.

Korea was a tragedy. What makes it such a great tragedy is that so many men died and suffered due to the incompetence and egos of men like Douglas McArthur who was rarely if ever under fire or understood the big picture what he was throwing men into. Yet it was a real success of sorts as the Koreans did want us --unlike Vietnam -- and we did succeed in keeping half of Korea as a free democratic (such as it is) country. Unlike Vietnam, we bothered to listen to those we were there to help and our objectives were highly compatible, definable and achievable. Precisely because they wanted to be free and not because of force of arms they were free. The will to be free was the real weapon, the force of arms was the means or one means to get there. This book gives a highly factual accurate riveting account of what was at stake in the world, for Korea, for us, for Japan, etc. and shows how important the actions of individuals - omissions (e.g., McArthur's weak G-2) and commissions (Matt Ridgway's real leadership of the men after McArthur's dismissal) can be to the outcome in history. The landing at Inchon was probably the luckiest landing in history and it made McArthur look good, but it was not the key to what eventually happened. Read on. You will be amazed how poor our intelligence was, how poorly equipped in the way of weaponry and clothing our men were. How nieve many of our commanders and McArthur was about the greatly limited ability to use tanks and heavy artillary (Korea is a rugged tough, mountainess country, not the rolling hills of WWII European mainland. Korea was perfect for ambushing and massacring larger forces. If you want the inspiring and heart wrenching truth of Korea told in a highly readable book, then this one is for you and all lovers of those who attempt to write accurate history (i.e., complete, factual renderings of the key parties, feelings, actions, and philosophies involved).

I first read this book in 1988 and was amazed by the detail and level of research. This book pulls no punches on the incompetence of the US Army's leadership and the Truman Administration's pre-war behaviour that led to the initial disasters. Blair also gives Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson his fair share of criticism. Johnson was ill-suited for the position (think of Rumsfeld, but not nearly as capable) which ultimately cost American lives. A must read.

Blair adequately argues that the historically citizen-soldier Army utilized a policy of commander-rotation (in other words, professional soldier "ticket punching") cost the US Army an opportunity to add to its glorious history. Furthermore, Blair examines how a historically professional USMC was able to add to its exemplary history by utilizing mostly reservists (combat veterans of WWII). I highly recommend this book if you have any preconceived notions about the Korean War. It will wake you up and show you the same policies that cost us Korea eventually cost us Vietnam: Professional soldier "ticket punching."