The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat [Paperback]

Bob Drury (Author), Tom Clavin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 2009

November 1950, the Korean Peninsula: After General MacArthur ignores Mao’s warnings and pushes his UN forces deep into North Korea, his 10,000 First Division Marines find themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by 100,000 Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir. Their only chance for survival is to fight their way south through the Toktong Pass, a narrow gorge that will need to be held open at all costs. The mission is handed to Captain William Barber and the 234 Marines of Fox Company, a courageous but undermanned unit of the First Marines. Barber and his men climb seven miles of frozen terrain to a rocky promontory overlooking the pass, where they will endure four days and five nights of nearly continuous Chinese attempts to take Fox Hill. Amid the relentless violence, three-quarters of Fox’s Marines are killed, wounded, or captured. Just when it looks like they will be overrun, Lt. Colonel Raymond Davis, a fearless Marine officer who is fighting south from Chosin, volunteers to lead a daring mission that will seek to cut a hole in the Chinese lines and relieve the men of Fox. This is a fast-paced and gripping account of heroism in the face of impossible odds.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The authors of the bestselling Halsey's Typhoon do a fine job recounting one brutal, small-unit action during the Korean War's darkest moment. In November 1950, as General MacArthur's troops were advancing deep into North Korea, China warned that it would intervene if armies approached its border. U.S. troops were scattered through mountainous terrain at the onset of a freezing winter. Using extensive interviews with survivors, the authors tell the story of one 234-man company ordered to secure a rocky promontory overlooking the legendary Chosin Reservoir. Abundant and detailed maps enable readers to track the vicious week-long battle almost minute by minute as the men fought off repeated assaults by overwhelming Chinese forces until another marine unit arrived to rescue the few survivors. The authors draw no great lessons from Fox Company's ordeal, but deliver a precise, technically accurate account of the fighting. Although aimed at military buffs, the closeup views of individual marines tested to their limits will engage any reader curious to learn how brave men fought a conventional 20th-century war. 100,000 announced first printing; 12-city author tour.(Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The authors of Halsey’s Typhoon (2007) are back with an equally fine book on an episode in the Chosin Reservoir campaign of the Korean War. Sent to hold a hill on the marines’ line of retreat, Fox Company of the Seventh Regiment’s Second Battalion wound up besieged by an entire Chinese division. Three-quarters of the company became casualties before a rescue column fought its way through to them, and three Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded for the action. Drury and Clavin have researched thoroughly, especially the memories of Fox Company survivors, and have written with their customary vividness. They remind us that the predicament of handfuls of Americans fending off foreign hordes isn’t just a Hollywood spectacle. It has been a grisly reality, in this case with both sides enduring bone-chilling cold, untreated wounds, and starvation. A must for the Korean War shelves, invaluable beyond all historical period value for its coverage of infantry combat at its worst. --Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First Trade Paper Edition edition (November 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802144519
• ISBN-13: 978-0802144515
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,387 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > History > Military > Korean War

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Will You Look At Those Magnificent Bastards", November 19, 2008

By 

Tom Tracy (Northern GA, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Wow! What a book, what a story, what incredible heroism, undaunted courage and grim will against all odds. This book tells the story of 246 U.S. Marines and Naval Corpsmen (medics) who fought and died for seven days on a God-forsaken frozen and icy hilltop in North Korea in November & December, 1950. Outnumbered literally 10-1 by the unforeseen involvement of several divisions of the Chinese Army, these brave men fought in inhuman conditions and, in the words of the authors, "dispatched more than three-quarters of the enemy [they] had faced".

The authors do a very admirable job detailing not only the week-long battle on Fox Hill, but also the events leading up to that fateful week, the involvement of other units in the area, and the return of the survivors to the base camp at Hagaru-ri. The action is fast-paced and amazingly detailed. But included with the military history is a wonderful portrayal of the personal stories of many of these men - their lives before the war, as well as afterwards. These personal stories serve to make the men of Fox Company very real and very human to the reader, increasing the sense of awe and admiration for the "uncommon valor" that these "common men" displayed. As another reviewer stated, I, too, was left completely humbled by this story and these men. We as a nation should never, EVER forget the sacrifices that these men, and so many others like them, have made in our history.

More than a military history of an incredible battle, this is the story of a brotherhood & compassion shared by men thrust into the most difficult and challenging of times. I highly recommend it.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting and Enlightening - 4.5 Stars, October 25, 2008

By 

Burgmicester (Pittsburgh) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin have brought their skills to the telling of a very tiny slice of time during the Korean War which in itself is a very small timeframe in the many wars that our country has fought. By digging into the details from first hand interviews with the participants and into other writings, the authors have put together a very readable account of five days in the lives of 234 U.S. Marines that most likely seemed like one hundred years. The authors bring to the reader the circumstance of this situation in which these soldiers were thrust - "hold that hill". How many times were soldiers placed into a similar situation? But this "hill" is documented and now the reader can feel what it was like to be in the middle of North Korea in 20 degrees below zero weather, with the "fog of war" ever present as this small group of Marines protected thousands of other U.S. soldiers from the Chinese invasion that was attempting to cut off the U.S. soldiers from their supply lines, thereby isolating them from the 38th Parallel.

The writing is not elegant and the story doesn't have the flair of some authors, but the descriptions are clear and the wording is easily understood. The story just pulls on you from the beginning and you constantly want to get back to it and see how bad the situation is getting. I don't want to use the use the word entertaining as that would take away from what these men had to go through, but book was riveting and enlightening.

I read this book with a sense of dread and a sense of pride, that anyone would have the courage and fortitude to carry out these orders under these conditions for our liberty and freedom. With every page, more and more heroic behavior is manifested and with no further thought by the individual soldier than it was his duty - duty to his fellow comrades along the line.

The authors give depth to the characters as they fill in their background at various times. This allows the reader to form that bond with the characters. And there are a lot of characters. However, the authors are very successful at helping the reader to keep them straight while keeping the story flowing.

This book reads as fast as fiction, with the exception that referencing the maps is absolutely necessary. The one thing that might have made it easier to follow was to have the topographic map overlaid onto the detail map of the actual soldier positions. But this can be overcome by looking at both maps that are provided. It is a small nit in the scope of this work.

I feel that it was a privilege for me to be allowed to read about this battle and these Marines' lives.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking, October 23, 2008

By 

Hrafnkell Haraldsson (Indiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I read this book in two days. I would have managed it in one had I not started so late in the day, thanks to being near the end of the mail carrier's route. In a word, it is breathtaking, as compelling an account of small unit action as I've ever read. As an account of a heroic stand it ranks right up there with Charles B. MacDonald's "Company Commander" or Harold G. Moore's "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young." The soldiers who fought on Fox Hill are brought to life in the narrative and you find yourself identifying with them, rooting for them, hoping they will make it.

The book is, however, not without deficiencies, albeit, most of them minor. One error is the famous M1 Garand being referred to as the "Garland" M1, a rather more festive but inaccurate name. Hopefully this and other minor errors of omission and comission will be corrected in the published version of the book. My uncorrected proof did not have any of the 16 pages of black and white photos, but it did have the 15 maps and these vary in quality. The second map, "Chosen Reservoir Campaign" is identical to the third map, "Toktong Pass and Fox Hill", the only difference being that the third map is cropped. This third map, which is supposed to illustrate the movements of Fox Company, does not do justice to the narrative. The authors mention as the company's objective, Toktong-san, a mountain, but this mountain appears nowhere on the map and I had to read a ways into the book to find out where the mountain was in relation to Fox Hill (north, south, east, or west). We are told that this area is a bottleneck but the map gives no clue as to the terrain (we know only that it is mountainous). Ironically, the authors comment on the inferior maps provided to the marines; perhaps they took this to heart and wished to make us feel like we are there. Another small gripe while I'm at it: We are also told that Toktong-san is "a southeastern spur of the ancient Taebaek mountain range", which makes you wonder just which mountain ranges the authors would consider not ancient. I'm probably not alone is not knowing of any new mountain ranges.

The maps do improve; for example, the next map, "Fox Company's Defensive Perimeter" is actually pretty nice in that it shows us where individual marines mentioned in the narrative were, but it stubbornly refuses to give us a hint as to the terrain. In a general history, maps can be deficient in this way, but military history has higher standards. Armchair generals want to see what the terrain looked like. After all, how can you follow the decision-making of the men on the ground if you can't see the basis for their decisions? In a campaign in which terrain played so vital a part, you'd think the authors would want to at least give us a peek. "Fox Company's Re-Formed Perimeter" map finally gives us some contours but since the first perimeter map lacked these, you cannot easily flip back and forth to see exactly where the changes took place, and why. On the larger scale maps, some unit symbols would have been nice, showing the relationship to each other of the opposing forces.

But enough about the maps. All things considered, The Last Stand of Fox Company is a superior book. The story of those brave marines is compellingly related and if you do not feel the sting of tears as the story concludes, I'll be surprised. Highly recommended if you have any interest at all in the Korean War. If this book lacks anything at all it is the viewpoint of the Chinese command, which was one of the interesting facets of Moore's book, but that, too, is a minor complaint.

One final note: I'll never look at those smug, arrogant doctors on MASH the same way again, treating every officer as a war criminal. Hawkeye and BJ are not fit to hold Captain Barber's jockstrap.