This is an outstanding book! Having read it twice, I certainly recommend it.
Like others, I was attracted to the book because I knew nothing of the Army’s tragic disaster east of the Chosin Reservoir. I was aware of the Marines’ valiant, fighting escape west of it, but nothing of the Army’s catastrophe east of it.
Other reviewers have already expounded on the actual contents of the book, and I will not attempt to add to that here. While I absolutely recommend the book, I caution all potential readers that this volume is definitely not a casual, recreational read. Rather, it is often a plodding laborious read, but it’s never boring.
The author, the late Lt. Col. Appleman, spent seven years of his life assembling this magnificent volume. I’m most grateful that he did. In a sense, the book is a treasure in its own right because, to the best of my knowledge, so little has been written about events east of Chosin by others.
With that high praise in place, it should be noted that the author is often fond of lengthy, complex sentences. Reading through his rich descriptions of terrain, topography and unit locations while simultaneously paging through the book to reference the relevent maps and diagrams was often frustrating and time consuming. But it was worth it!
Personally, I found that keeping track of the myriad of people, their ranks, and their positions held was challenging. If this volume isn’t the definitive work on the disaster east of Chosin, I likely wouldn’t want to read the volume that is. There is enough detail in this volume to overwhelm a reader.
Working through this book (twice) was at once a chore and a fine privilege. It chronicles courage and sacrifice, hardship and endurance, arrogance and hubris. Its greatest achievement, in my mind, is that it lays bare hard and bitter lessons for current and future commanders - lessons that should be heeded.
In my mind, this volume, in the end, is a tribute the soldiers who perished in the Army’s catastrophe east of the Chosin Reservoir. Their remains lie there still, in the black hole of North Korea. As Lt. Col. Appleman pointed out in the preface to his book, for them there are no white crosses.
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