Just finished watching The Battle of Chosin Reservoir on Netflix.
Mesmerizing is the first word that comes to mind.
Like most Vets, I suppose, I was vaguely aware of the battle, but really knew very little about it. I think its safe to say that nowdays, few people have even heard of it. People today are too self-absorbed and disdainful of history and the sacrifices of others to even give it a passing thought.
Pity, that. The show increased my knowledge of what happened there a hundred fold, and my respect for the men who fought there is endless.
Not just fighting the Chinese, but the unrelenting cold, the shortage of life-sustaining supplies and equipment, and the woefully inadequate resources available to treat the wounded.

Well worth watching.

It did, however, elevate my utter contempt for the panty-waisted simp rioters, cry babies, and predatory scumbags that infest our country today by a considerable margin.

GOD bless our Korean War vets. Harshest conditions our men and women have ever faced. Maybe any military ever.

I hate Truman

I met one about six years ago. He had been locked out of his house all night in freezing windchill conditions. His neighbors called at 0530 hours and tossed him a jacket over the fence. I called the ambulance for the old Marine in his 90's. He wanted to stay and talk with me, another vet,though Army, instead of going to the hospital. I got to joke with him saying, "If anyone could survive last night, it would be you." Helluva Man.

I just looked for this on Netflix and couldn't find it?

an old (as in age) friend of mine did the whole ride. he said when they landed at inchon they had summer uniforms on. their winter stuff got lost in transit. having lived a year in korea, i could not imagine. that place gets cold cold and the wind from up north is brutal.

Does anyone have a link to the movie in question?

My dad was part of the Marine force at Chosin. We were fortunate to attend the 50th anniversary reunion at Camp Pendleton in 2000. Those there were just average joes who rose to the occasion. My dad never liked the cold after his days in Korea. At minus 20 below zero, yes, that’s the coldest Americans have ever fought in. From burning everything to keep it from the Chinese to carrying out the dead, those Marines got the job done. As Chesty Puller said, “Retreat hell, we engaged the enemy in a different direction.”

My dad was there never would talk about it except he did say the cold was worse than the commies.

I met a former marine who was there. He said it was so cold they stacked up the dead Chinese bodies instead of trying to dig fix holes to build their fighting positions. That's pretty darn cold.

kwg

Two uncles were in the 7th Infantry Division, and both lived through it. According to the family, they were never the same after coming home.

This says it was on for a year and removed, but that can't be accurate, I just watched it..... https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/80991256

Apparently there are a couple versions but that the one I watched....

My father was there, He never talked about it until I came back from Iraq. Even then only vaguely, Before then I did not know he'd been wounded (Purple Heart) I did know about the Bronze Star with "V" device.

I just checked again right now, can't find it on a Netflix search.

My late cousin was there as a young marine barely out of high school. He told one story. They used to heat up water on a fire for the midday meal. An enemy soldier would take pot shots at them from a cave disrupting the meal. They could never grab a rifle and shoot as the guy would duck back in the cave. This happened for several days. Finally one marine had enough. He set up a rifle on sandbags aimed at the spot where as my cousin put it "Luke Gook" would be and when he fired on them the next day the marine reached over and pulled the trigger and took him out.

Cousin was wounded in leg had to have some work done which affected his veins causing him to wear support stockings the rest of his life.

Knew several. One was my original company 1st Sgt. wore his wool class A’s under his utilities while he was there. All he had other than a field jacket.

It might be on Amazon Prime.

There's a recent book out, published in 2018. "On Desperate Ground" by Hampton Sides. Very good read.

Edit: Can't get the link to Amazon to embed. Sorry about that.

Hampton Sides is a good author. I appreciate his work.

It is on Prime, just found it.

I remember three Korea vets well, a high school Social Studies teacher with a metal plate in his head from a battle injury, a supervisor at a tire factory where I worked as a maintenance man, and a landlord who had been a medical corpsman. All of them were great patriots, but they all had emotional issues. PTSD is not a recent thing- - - - -they just changed the names a few times. It wet from "Shell Shock" to "combat fatigue", to a few other names before the current buzzword became popular. All of them got much less care and concern than they needed by the cowards too lily-livered to put on a uniform and defend their freedom.

There is a superb book about the battle at Chosin Reservoir entitled "The Last Stand of Fox Company" by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. It tells the story of how one Marine rifle company held open a pass critical to the withdrawal of U.S. forces for 5 days while under constant attack by Chinese forces. It's an amazing story, told largely in the words of the men who survived the fight. Well worth the time to read.

7th division was outnumbered 11.5 to 1 exactly. Incredible....imagine what the chinks thought about American resolve after that lol

Mao was probably like....maybe this is a bad idea.

Read "For Country and Corps: The Life of General Oliver P. Smith" by Gail B. Shisler. MacArthur was warned not to begin a major offensive on the Korean Peninsula so late in the year. He was also warned of the build up of Chinese forces north of the Yalu River. General Smith saved a lot of Marine lives. Despite daily threats from MacArthur that he would be fired if he did not continue to advance beyond his supply lines and artillery support, Smith's prudence was instrumental in the successful retreat of his troops to be extracted at Hungnam.

Everybody was caught with their pants down in regards to the Chinese buildup...CIA, Mi6, you name it. How that could possibly happen is one of the great questions in the history of modern war but it’s not fair to blame it all on MacArthur. He followed bad intelligence and ultimately bad instincts in that regard.

Did I mention I hate Truman? There is no substitute for total victory. We should have let MacArthur finish the job while the army and marines were there to do it. We are still paying the price for pussy Truman’s cowardly appeasement of the communists

Great book! My dad is a Korean War vet with a purple heart. Nearly lost his leg from enemy artillery. The Navy surgeon wanted to amputate it, told dad he would never walk on it again. Dad refused to let him take his leg and after several surgeries and a lot of recovery he went on to become a master carpenter framing and building homes. The pure grit that generation of men had is almost unfathomable in today's world.

Id bet the us Calvary and 1st Marines can still get it done

a cousin was there. we were going hunting one time and i asked him about it. he just said it was cold and kind of grinned. my father was in the 7th. in ww2 and i heard
a lot of stories when he was with vet friends. (in our neighborhood, almost all the fathers were vets). he never had much to say about okinawa though.

I had an uncle there. Fresh out of high school.
His was a quad 50 gunner and fought in several major hill fights.
He told his dad that it was nothing short of legalized murder........
He came home very ill and really screwed up.
A raging case of PTST. He scared the hell out of the whole family.
I was warned by all the older family members to never ask him about it.

I read a bio on Jack O'Connor and there was chapter on their son, Jerry.
He fought there too. He came home in one piece but was never the same.
It’s a heart wrenching story.

I had an uncle who was a Navy Corpsman who was with the Marines at Chosin. It wasn't until very late in life that he even really even talked of being there. He spoke of how bitter cold it was, the intense fight, the rough situation the Marines were in, and how he had to ditch the Red Cross on his helmet and medic bag as the Chinese would target medics. While being a medic he wasn't supposed to carry a weapon and use it to he said "there was enemy everywhere and I had to do what I had to do to survive." He ended up with two Purple Hearts and one Bronze Star from the Chosin campaign.

My uncle spoke quite a bit about how cold it was. He said they couldn't have fires to keep warm, and it was like 20 below zero. Sleeping in small, slit trenches, covered with tarps, covered in snow. For several weeks. With very little supplies. How he would patch up a badly wounded solider who would then go back to the lines to fight because the solider was gonna likely die from his injuries anyway so the soldier would rather die fighting then die on a stretcher at the aid station. And the wind. The fog - so foggy, that air drop resupplies were not possible. And how many Air Force pilots, flying in the fog trying to drop supplies, would crash into the hillside. He then hugged my Dad in salute to the Air Force pilots as my Dad was a career Air Force pilot (although he wasn't there flying at Chosin). They were in those condition for several weeks, surrounded by "100,000 pissed off Chinese." He said the Chinese even had it worse the the Marines had it. He said, at times, that when you shot, there were so many Chinese, you couldn't help to not hit them.

He said they recovered as many of the US soldiers dead bodies they could from the battlefield and took them with them on their fight southward (as they were surrounded by those 100,000 Chinese) toward safety of the United States front line.

He also spoke of how hard it was to see his fellow Marines bodies, frozen solid in grotesque positions, bouncing along behind the trucks, having been lashed with ropes together in long lines behind the trucks in the convoy as the wounded were inside the trucks. He said as the roads were bomb cratered, that they would use the Chinese bodies as fill material for the craters and simply drove over them as they couldn't dig in the frozen ground to get and dirt to fill in the craters, all the while, fighting off ambushes much of their route out while doing what they could to survive.

My Uncle, being from Idaho, when he got out of the service, moved to Las Vegas as he said he couldn't tolerate the cold anymore after being at Chosin and lived in Vegas the rest of his life. He became a school teacher. He died in 2007 and is buried at the National Cemetary near Henderson, Nevada.

Oddly, he told me about his experience about a year or so before he died. When I was growing up, I had no idea what he had went through. I never even knew he was in the military. I just thought he was a quiet, rather short, thin, school teacher.

His name was Bruce Kenney. RIP Uncle Bruce.

One of my uncles specifically requested to be cremated upon his passing, so that he would never be cold again. Those men suffered, many of them for the rest of their lives.

My Dad was a Korean War Vet. He was Army. Not at Chosin. It's amazing so many managed to live battling the enemy and the unrelenting cold. God bless them all.

Thanks for the tip. I couldn't get it on netflix but got it on Amazon Prime. I watched the first have with by boys (7 & 10) tonight, and we'll finish it tomorrow. I didn't learn about Chosin until I was in the Marine Corps, and I don't think that's acceptable. So I want them to be aware, especially with all the BS going on in this country....just who the overpaid athletes are disrespecting.

I was in the Corps in the late 60 s /early 70 s. Most all of the senior NCO s were Korea Vets, and Chosin Vets as well. Our Battalion Sargent Major in Vietnam , Orville Jones, was Chesty Puller's driver. Another excellent read, "Chosin, Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War" by Eric Hammel.

Semper Fi

Back in my nautical years (USN), got snatched up on Guam in Dec and sent to Osan, Korea for two months. It does get cold there. Pretty much worked the line wearing everything I brought along.

Had an uncle that served there during the conflict. His only mentions where when the old Sunday newsreels played between noon and 1:00 o'clock.

One of my battalion chiefs called someone out about combat saying he was a 19 year old Marine buck sergeant that had a machine gun crew. He mentioned fighting hand to hand. He was a pleasant and very easy going guy.
My father one time only spoke of the cold. He was estranged since I was 14 but apparently he was in hand to hand fighting, caught a bayo to the upper back and got a purple heart. I guess my brother is named after his best army buddy that was KIA.

Had a cousin that was a grunt at Chosin. Lost all the toes on his right foot to frostbite. Epic battle and they had to be tough to survive it.

Interesting post on this thread. Never heard of Chosin nor many Korean War stories. Seems everyone has wanted to discuss the World Wars. Never enter a war to tie!!!!

Korean War vets are the most unappreciated IMO. The same goes for Vietnam vets. They did their job and they did it well. The biggest problem was from the unqualified leaders in the Pentagon and the White House.

I've heard it said that Gen. MacArthur was the greatest actor to ever wear a uniform. He was a prima donna glory hungry loser who cost many lives during WWII unnecessarily. He just had to "return" to the Philippines in order to glorify himself at the expense of so many American lives.

Have you ever noticed that two of the greatest generals, Gen. George C. Patton and Gen. Chesty Puller were never appreciated in the upper levels yet they were the finest fighting generals ever? It's called job security and I see it every day where I work. The golden boys take all the credit and the "grunts" do all the work and take all the risks.

One of my Father's best friends was a MGySgt during Korea. His feet were badly frostbitten during the retreat back south in November/December 1951, but stayed through 33 years of service, retiring in 1970. He believed that the advance northward from Wonsan wasn't well thought out, as the mountainous terrain limited the number of roads that were able to handle vehicle traffic in the volume necessary to support an assault of the size of X Corps. He joined us on a couple of deer hunts in Maine shortly after he retired, I've never known anyone who could, just by looking at a topo map, identify bottlenecks to place stands in country that he'd never seen before.

I've heard that while MacArthur was a prima donna, he was also the person that got the Garand approved for regular issue while he was the Army COS and that gave American soldiers and Marines a tangible advantage when they were engaged in combat with armies equipped with bolt action rifles. I've also read that MacArthur's forces suffered fewer casualties post-Bataan, than were suffered during the Battle of the Bulge.

The documentary I saw on Netflix years ago mentioned that when the Marines made it to the port for exfiltration, they turned around and held the hills for days against the Chinese. This enabled thousands of Korean civilians to escape. The documentary, made in the 90s, said that these civiians now had almost a hundred thousand descendants. Most of these would not be if it werent for the valor of the Marines, fighting still instead of escaping, so people they did not know could escape death.

What Men are these.

Lest We Forget.

My father was there,wouldn't talk about it. What I know is from relatives.
He kept it together raised family and ran a business, but struggled with PTSD every day of his remaining life.
Found solace in alcohol, died way to young.

I recently read “On Desperate Ground”. Hampton Sides does a great job of telling the story. He obviously researched the story extensively to come up with this book. I could not put it down.

My dad was in Korea and like the others have mentioned here, he has never talked about it much. I was with him in my lawyers office one day doing some estate work and my lawyer asked my dad if he fought in Korea. My dad answered that he had. Then my lawyer asked him for a war story. I suddenly became “all ears” because I knew I was about to hear something good. Daddy responded that he and 2 other guys had been firing a cannon for several days, basically non-stop, and one of them came up with the idea to do a “screaming Mimi”. It’s when a shell primer is somehow stuck on the tip of a projectile and when it’s fired, makes a horrific howling sound for miles across the sky. They did it and got a huge kick out of it. A few minutes after they had done it, a Jeep pulls up with an officer in it and the officer ask the trio “Who did it?” Before any of them could respond the officer said that the shell had landed several miles short of the target in friendly territory. My dad never heard if any friendlies were hurt as a result of their fun, but I could tell it had bothered him for a long time.

My dads 88 now. Not much left of him physically but he’s still a helluva man. I’m gonna miss him when he’s gone.

Mackey

You should pick up a book or two and get some real information. You are very ignorant in regards to MacArthur...and you sound like a fool

A good friend, recently deceased (his memorial scheduled for Aug 1, canceled/moved to remote) was almost there. A couple days before the "advance to the rear" (which it was) was ordered, he froze his feet and was evacuated. Lost several toes each foot, one remaining an open or recurring sore until he died.

He told me once that he always wondered if one more rifle would have made a difference. His unit (Marine - I don't know the size) was assigned a holding action at a choke point, but the bastards came over the ridges too. When there were only 5 of them left, it was "every man for himself" to get back to their own. Three of them made it. He said those 5 racked up a helluva score on their own retreat, much less while they held the position.

My dad was a Korean war vet. 101st Division regular army. He fought the Chinese in another place. Big tough soldiers. He recalled seeing a Chinese pick up a little Korean under each arm and run like a son of a gun before he shot him.

I'll never forget the look on his face when Nixon reviewed the Red Guard. Utterly speechless until he turned to me and said "I fought those son of a bitches"

Quad .50 cal A-A, performed very well in
anti-personnel application in three wars.

Its said the winter boots used by the US in
Korea proved disadvantageous due to water
resistance, thus retaining and accumulating
perspiration which would then freeze.

US troops in the Ardennes 1944, found that
having spare dry socks significantly helped
reduce foot problems due to excess moisture
in a place where the Temps. did drop to as
low as the Eastern Front... US soldiers
would dry their socks by keeping them
inside their helmets.

Some Quad .50s were used in one instance
where A large number of Fallschirmjäger made
a crazy assault and the scene was decribed
as horrific.

The 50 has saved many lives in many wars, and the vets who fought these wars should never feel any shame for what they had to do. Their stories need to be told.

And they did it with a 10 pound rifle.

Viking, If you are talking about the M-1 Check again mine weighed 12#, I wasn't at Chosin, but I carried it for a few hundred miles and know what mine weighed, you for got what a couple of bandoliers of ammo weighed, rifle and ammo standard issue almost 20# .Rio7

Yep, I was. Just a guesstimate. Some sources say 9.5-11.5 ponds.

https://time.com/5724009/douglas-ma...us-generals-hes-also-the-most-overrated/



April of 1951, he was relieved of his command by President Truman. “I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was,” Truman later said. “I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the president.”

Remember When Truman, Fired Mc Arther, everyone but a very few were pissed at Truman, If you ever get a chance read Truman's book Plain Speaking, very good read. Rio7

viking, Mine was 12# on the money on our Company Postal Scales, I am sure others were a little lighter or heavier, I never noticed the weight as much as the bulk, of the M-1, Mine was a damn good rifle, very accurate, I shot a score of 200 out of 200 on pop ups 25 to 350 meters with mine, loved that rifle. Rio7

Very aware of the battle after serving on the USS Chosin (CG-65) for three years. Used to have some of the survivors tour the ship. I need to check out this film on Netflix, thanks for bring it forward.

Those who portray all Chinese as skinny little guys who can't fight should talk to some GIs who fought them in Korea.

I also recall hearing of an officer in Korea who told his men they would be fighting a "a bunch of Chinese laundry men". Many of the Chinese troops were hardened veterans of a couple of decades of their civil war.

Underestimating your enemy gets people killed.

Paul

Don't think you'll find it on Netflix (I couldn't). But it is on Amazon Prime.

My uncle told me about slaughtering the hell out of the Chinese and they'd keep coming, climbing over bodies.

I can still remember the names of all the Korean vets in my old company

1st Sgt. Williams ( Chosin Vet)

Sgt. Mgr. Gorham. He reminded us we has a MOH winner from the old unit, Whitt Moreland. He witnessed Moreland’s feat in action. One of the most honest men I ever knew.

Gysgt. Moody ( also later made Sgt. Major). My first plt. sgt.

Gunner Stamnitz. This man was a magician with a machine gun!!! I learned a LOT from this man!! He had the stories about seeing the elephant too!!! He was an exceptional mentor and and was always willing to listen to you and give you good counsel in return.

They are all gone now.

Had a WWII teacher with a plate in his skull. He taught history and really knew his stuff. Once in a while he seemed to hang up just a bit and would reach up and touch the side of his head and get going again.

My cousin got to spend that winter in Korea. Only time he ever wrote me was when he got his "Dear John" letter.

I just watched it on Amazon Prime. Educational, but I have to ask where were the Bunny Boots/Mickey Mouse Boots for those guys instead of those shoe pacs? They were so crippled up from the cold weather that they couldn’t have been very effective. They did mention that the supply lines were pretty poor, but warm boots on our guys sure would have been welcome. The Chinese were even supplied with less.

I visited with an older fellow (now gone) here in town. He was at Chosin in the Army. He was proud of his service and a bit resentful that it is generally portrayed as solely a Marine event.

Had the privilege of meeting and hearing speak General Raymond Davis who as a Lt. Col during the Chosin Reservoir campaign and as he states, His men earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor!


A fine man.

Mike

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chosin_Reservoir_order_of_battle

But such general population ignorance is
nothing new, for we also have folks wrongly
believing that the 300 Spartans and Roman
Legions achieved their noted great victories
all on their own, which is quite far from the
actual truth.

[should be noted that in ancient times that
the likes of Romans and Nordic Norseman
were land troops that could embark vessels
to conduct amphibious assault landings
when required.]

When Julius Caesar went to Brittania, his
men "fought them on the beaches" in some
cases knee or near waist deep in water...
they were able to thrust and slash their way
to shore and properly form up the legions
for battle.

I had a cousin (mom's mom's mom's brother's boy---figure that one out for me) who we were close to when I grew up. I called him Uncle Bill, and he was one hell of a guy. I am pretty sure he was at Chosin that winter...I remember hearing it mentioned, but it was in the following spring when he did this:






Silver Star citation

Model70Man, I strongly suggest if you want to learn why your statement is highly inaccurate, pick up a copy of American Caesar, by William Manchester, Little, Brown & Co. Publs., ©1978. You'll learn why it was necessary to return to the Philippines. MacArthur had his faults but being a "loser" was not one of them.

L.W.

I have a pretty good book on the Chosin Reservoir campaign ,
title
Breakout the Chosin Reservoir campaign Korea 1950 by Martin Russ

It's pretty good read don't know how totally accurate it is seems the Marines had a pretty low opinion of most of the army forces that were there

Bunny boots were a product of the extreme cold of the Korean War. They were only just then being introduced and not generally available until later in the war.

First cousin, twice removed.