BS: Frozen Chosin

Subject: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 07:26 PM

It has been 57 years this week since the battle of the Chosin Reservoir - during the dates of November 27 - December 11 - 1950
Honors
17 Medals of Honor
70 Navy Crosses
12 Distinguished Service Crosses
3,000 KIA
6,000 WIA
9,000 Purple Hearts

All this in only a 14 day period - it is considered the Most Decorated Battle in U.S. Military History.

The battle included

1st Marine Division
2 Battalions of 7th Division-Army
1,200 British Royal Marine Commandos

I know some people who made the Chosin Reservoir walk. They still don't believe what they did!

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 07:44 PM

Rapaire - This must have been Korea. Can you fill in some blanks?

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: artbrooks
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:37 PM

Late Nov.-early Dec. 1950. UN forces were chasing the North Koreans north when the Chinese suddenly entered the war and the chasers became the chasees. My father was on the other (west) side of the Korean peninsula with the First ROK (South Korean Army) Division when they experienced the same sudden turnaround.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: mg
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 12:17 AM

I found that I have a distant cousin, Daniel Emmett Cahalan (Not Callahan) who was a POW in Korea. It is unclear to me whether he died or was brougth back home somehow ..they said he was repatriated...I am not sure what that means. Anyway, ...a tragic war. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 01:01 AM

repatriated = restore a person to his native land (according to Oxford Dictionary)

I have seen the term used in relation to returning WW2 POWs.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Teribus
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:10 PM

The Royal Marine Commando involved was 41 Independent Commando formed at Bickleigh just outside Plymouth in 1950. When it was over and the troops were taken back to Pusan. There Lt. Col Drysdale Officer Commanding 41 Royal Marines Commando wrote in his report:

"This was the first time that the Marines of the two nations had fought side by side since the defence of the Peking Legations in 1900. Let it be said that the admiration of all ranks of 41 Commando for their brothers in arms was and is unbounded. They fought like tigers and their morale and esprit de corps is second to none."

For the action fought between 27 November and 11 December 1 Mar Div and the attached units were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. The wording of the citation is at Appendix I of Vol III of "US Marine Corps Operations in Korea". 41 Independent Commando was not listed in the original citation but subsequent representations by the US Marine Corps resulted in the Commando being included. The award was accepted on behalf of the Corps by our Captain General from the US Ambassador to UK in 1957.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:00 PM

MacArthur pushed the UN forces north from Inchon, determined to take No. Korea, reach the Yalu River (border with China), and end the Korean War. His forces moved quickly but with their border threatened, China threw perhaps a quarter million men into the fight (and NK had raised another 100,000). This surprised MacArthur, who may have had plans to invade China, and basically split the UN forces in two.

Many of the UN forces to the east did not know that the CCF (Communist Chinese Forces) had entered the war and so, when faced with an enemy that outnumbered them as much as 12 to 1, they took a heckuva licking.

So began the withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir. In November-December, with snow on the ground and temperatures far below freezing. The UN troops were, for the most part, unprepared for winter combat and many suffered frostbite and worse.

To make a long story short, about 3,000 UN troops finally made it to Hungnam, where they were evacuated by naval vessels. The port of Hungnam was destroyed by explosives to prevent its use by CCF.

That's sort of the gist of it. As an epic of endurance it ranks with Shackleton's trek.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:05 PM

By the way, if I seem less than enthusiastic about Douglas Mac Arthur it's because I am.

Dugout Doug MacArthur lies a-shakin' on the Rock
Safe from all the bombers and from any sudden shock
Dugout Doug is eating of the best food on Bataan
And his troops go starving on.

FDR gave him the Medal of Honor to get him off Corregidor so that he wouldn't be captured by the Japanese. A glory hound, he rarely went to the latrine without his press agents.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:41 PM

"That's sort of the gist of it. As an epic of endurance it ranks with Shackleton's trek."


            Rapaire - Maybe you could enlighten those of us less informed about the circumstances surrounding "Shackleton's Trek."

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:49 PM

Shackleton's most famous expedition was planned to be an attempt to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea south of the Atlantic, to the Ross Sea south of the Pacific, by way of the Pole. He set out from London on 1 August 1914, and reached the Weddell Sea on January 10, 1915, where the pack ice closed in on the Endurance. The ship was broken by the ice on 27 October 1915. The 28 crew members managed to flee to Elephant Island, bringing three small boats with them. Shackleton and five other men managed to reach the southern coast of South Georgia in one of the small boats. Shackleton managed to rescue all of the stranded crew from Elephant Island without loss in the Chilean's navy seagoing steam tug Yelcho, on August 30, 1916, in the middle of the Antarctic winter.

On this journey Shackelton took 69 dogs with him to use for sledding, they had 6 puppies while on the expedition. However, after the ship got caught in the ice the men had to shoot the puppies because they couldn't bring them with them. Later on they shot the rest of the dogs because they no longer needed them. They chopped up some and then fed it to the crew.

I'd use Franklin, but his last voyage was a bloody, frozen disaster.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Skivee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:03 PM

From my memory: Shackleton was in command of an Antartic research expedition. His ship was locked in sea ice. He kept his crew's morale up through a number of ploys over many months while they waited for the ice to break.
Eventually he decided to take a few men in a small boat and go for help at a whaling station in one of the small Islands of the deep south Atlantic.
After an incredibly arduous voyage of hundreds of miles, using only a sextant for navigation, the party landed on the island. They found that they had landed on the opposite side of the island. I don't recall exactly why they didn't set sail around...I think their boat was getting beat up to the point of uselesness. So he and his men treked across land...Mountains, glaciers, snow and ice. A distance of more that 30 miles till they got to the whaling station. The whalers organized a rescue expedition and Shackleton returned with them. His crew was recovered without a single fatality.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Skivee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:04 PM

I like Rapaire's version better than mine

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Janie
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:33 PM

"So began the withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir. In November-December, with snow on the ground and temperatures far below freezing. The UN troops were, for the most part, unprepared for winter combat and many suffered frostbite and worse."

Temperatures were as low as -40 degree's F.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:53 PM

Not at all pleasant in either case!

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: mg
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:39 AM

Here is my song for them..tune is Dainty Davy mostly.

Those we left there in the cold we remember we remember
Have no fears of growing old
Oh do we remember

Those who fell in prison yards
Savage weather savage guards

Those who died face down in mud
Asian soil Yankee blood

Heartbreak ridge and Pork Chop Hill
If we don't honor them who will

Those whose names we can't forget
Comrade spirits with us yet

Those who died when far too young
It is for them this song is sung
Oh do we remember

--

If you are ever in DC do check out the Korean war memorial. Go in the dead of night in the mist and the rain. You will be there....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:34 AM

Thanks, mg, I've been there.

Both places.

The DMZ is still haunted and damned dangerous. At the time I was, for excellent reasons, carrying a .38 snubnosed revolver. I would have preferred not to have been there at all; one one trip I helped with WIAs and a KIA who were shot up in an ambush.

In fact, Woodstock was that year and I would much rather have been there than in Korea.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: artbrooks
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:09 AM

Yeah - I was there at about the same time as Rap. I spent most of the first eight months I was there on a "guard post" in the middle of the DMZ. We slept much of the day and stayed up all night, getting shot at by the North Korean guard post across the way and throwing hand grenades at (mostly imaginary) infiltrators below the hill. As the artillery guy, I then got to go out the next morning and blow up the ones that didn't go off (about a third - the new ones were all going to Vietnam).

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: CET
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:51 PM

Rapaire, Macarthur certainly enjoyed the prestige of being a general, but I don't think that made him either a bad general or a coward. I don't understand your reference to FDR giving him the Medal of Honour to get him off Corregidor. The idea that the President promised him the Medal of Honour in order to make him leave just doesn't make sense. I would want to see unimpeachable historical evidence for that before I believed it. It wouldn't surprise me that FDR ordered him off the island, which would make perfect sense. It would have done no good to the war effort for him to go into a Japanese prison camp.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 12:05 AM

I have not studied this, and can't come to an informed opinion. But I would think it would be a terrible calamity to have a four star general captured at Corregidor.

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: rangeroger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 01:47 AM

Read "Retreat? Hell!" can't remember author. Also,any of W.E.B.Griffith's "Corps"novels.
My father was Captain of LSMR 400 at the time and after participating in the Inchon invasion, went around the tip and ended up loading evacuating Marines in Hungnam. He watched the demolition of the entire city and says it wasn't a pretty sight.
I've seen black and white footage of it can't in any compare with reality.
Those Marines were true American heroes.

rr

Subject: RE: BS: Frozen Chosin
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 09:10 AM

My opinion of Mac Arthur (under whom my father served) have been formed over years of reading about Bataan, Corregidor, the Philipines, Korea, and other things about him.

You might try William Manchester's book "American Caesar."

The destruction of MacArthur's air forces on the ground after nine hours warning and direct orders to bomb Formosa was the greatest blunder the history of war and his loss of the Philippines was the greatest defeat of the U.S. Army. It is remarkable how MacArthur escaped any reprimand, kept his command and got his fourth star on December 17th and a Congressional Medal of Honor for "gallantry and intrepidity" at Bataan where he spent part of only one day, 10 January 1942, on inspection. He was awarded the medal after he had already fled and deserted his troops. His ultimate reward was orders to leave the Philippines with his family while his soldiers were subjected to the deadly brutality of the Bataan Death March."

As I mentioned earlier, my father fought under MacArthur in both New Guinea and the Philipines. I grew up with his books on Tarawa, the Bataan Death March, Guadalcanal, and others -- but I never got to talk with him about the War since I was 5 when he died. And my vision of MacArthur slowly changed to a negative one as I read.

When the preening Douglas MacArthur kept Roosevelt waiting during the President's trip to Pearl Harbor, FDR mildly asked the senior military advisers, "Where's Douglas?" MacArthur then arrived seated in a very long, open touring car with sirens screaming and a motorcycle phalanx. "Hello, Doug," Roosevelt said. "What are you doing with that leather jacket on? It's darn hot today."