![]() is pictured with the Medal of Honor. He will tell you he was no hero he was just saving his backside when he killed over 100 enemy soldiers in the battle for “Fox Hill” during the early months of the Korean War. The attacking Chinese Army suffered almost 50,000 battle and non-combat casualties during the same period.įrom stopping the final summer offensive against Pusan to saving X Corps from total destruction, the Marines in Korea played a pivotal role in this, the first, and bloodiest, Cold War “police action.”Īs we spend the holidays with our families, please take a moment and give thanks to these brave young men who spent their Christmas season 65 years ago slogging along a frozen road in bitter cold, fighting an elusive and determined foe that gave no quarter.Pfc. Almost a third of the division had been lost in less than a month’s fighting. The brutal cold claimed another 7,300 men as non-combat casualties. The 1st Marine Division, 30,000 strong at the start of the Chosin campaign, lost almost 4,400 men killed and wounded during the engagements with the Chinese. Finally, on the evening of December 11, 1950, the last of the division reached the port of Hungnam, where a 193-ship task force evacuated all of X Corps over the following fourteen days. Over the next two weeks, the 1st Marine Division was forced to fight its way back to the coast while under near-constant attack from the pursuing Chinese. Fox and Charlie Companies of the 7th Marines played a pivotal role in holding open the road south so two full regiments could escape the Chinese onslaught. Some units, despite being surrounded, held out against daunting odds, sustained by air resupply drops and air strikes while they faced wave after wave of Chinese attacks. The Marines fought with unrivaled tenacity. UN units were cut-off, surrounded and some wiped out. As a result, the ten divisions could only count on 67,000 combat effectives when the offensive started.ĭespite the logistical problems the Chinese faced, their offensive against General Almond’s X Corps caught the Americans and UN troops by complete surprise. They were not only suffering from exposure, but units were on the brink of starvation. ![]() The Chinese Army also couldn’t supply and sustain its troops on the south side of the Yalu. The Chinese had been poorly equipped, having not even been issued winter clothing despite the fact that the temperatures had dropped to freezing levels. On November 27, 1950, The 30,000 strong, reinforced 1st Marine Division was hit by the Chinese 9th Army and its ten division. The 1st Marine Division commander, General Oliver Smith, believed the Chinese Army had intervened in force in North Korea, and was loathe to cut loose and drive for the Yalu with all possible haste as his Army corps commander, General Almond, kept demanding. In November, as the weather deteriorated, the Marines advanced slowly toward the Chosin Reservoir, establishing a series of supply dumps and securing airfields as they went. From there, the division drove north for the Yalu. The 1st Marine Division was pulled out of the line and sent to execute another seaborne invasion, this time at Wonsan on the east coast of Korea. Men of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade examine knocked out North Korean T-34 tanks during the 2nd Battle of the Naktong River, September 4, 1950.
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