Photo: Battle of Chosin Reservoir, Korean War by Corporal Peter McDonald, USMC – Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
Veterans’ Tales by Vassar Bushmills
From our friend Mike Collins and his pals:
(Note: My wife’s uncle Phillip was one of those Marines. Her father was oder and served on a tin can in the Phillipine Sea but saw no real action. He always looked up to his baby brother as the real combat hero of the family.)
The 68th Anniversary of the Korean War “Chosin Few”…..The Tootsie Roll Marines
On November 26, 1950, 10,000 men of the First Marine Division, along with elements of two Army regimental combat teams, a detachment of British Royal Marine commandos and some South Korean policemen were completely surrounded by over ten divisions of Chinese troops in rugged mountains near the Chosin Reservoir. Chairman Mao himself had ordered the Marines annihilated, and Chinese General Song Shi-Lun gave it his best shot, throwing human waves of his 120,000 soldiers against the heavily outnumbered allied forces. A massive cold front blew in from Siberia, and with it, the coldest winter in recorded Korean history. For the encircled allies at the Chosin Reservoir, daytime temperatures averaged five degrees below zero, while nights plunged to minus 35 and lower.
Jeep batteries froze and split. C-rations ran dangerously low and the cans were frozen solid. Fuel could not be spared to thaw them. If truck engines stopped, their fuel lines froze. Automatic weapons wouldn’t cycle. Morphine syrettes had to be thawed in a medical corpsman’s mouth before they could be injected. Precious bottles of blood plasma were frozen and useless. Resupply could only come by air, and that was spotty and erratic because of the foul weather[…]
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