The Korean War is certainly America’s “forgotten war”. The dramatic Second World War before it and the controversial Vietnam War after overshadow it but the Korean War is worthy of rememberance and the men who served in Korea are worthy of rememberance, gratitude and respect. There are great battles from the Korean War that have been or gotten with the war itself. One such battle is the epic fighter between American and Chinese troops at Chosin Reservoir in North Korea.
The United States had ignored warning signs of Communist North Korea’s aggression against its free neighbor to the south. When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 is was a surprise. The United States and its allies acted quickly however. The United Nations approved military action in defense of South Korea. (The Soviet Union, supportive of North Korea, was absent from the United Nations vote due to a protest against the UN’s recognition of Chiangmai Kai-Shek’s Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan instead of Mao Zedong’s Communist government in mainland China.) When UN troops pored into Korea to back up the South Koreans, the North Koreans were driven back to the Yalu River, near the Chinese border.
The tide turned however, when China sent an enormous army across the border in support of North Korea. The Americans and their allies found themselves in a trap. One unit of American troops, commanded by Edward Almond, was trapped in the Chosin Reservoir area with thousands of Chinese troops between them and the port of Hungnam, where they could evacuate to the south. To make matters worse, it was winter. The temperatures were freezing and frostbite was common. However, the Americans were determined to break out of Chosin and reach Hungnam. The Chinese threw division after division against the Americans during a course of seventeen long, cold days. At last, with a road opened by an American relief force, the breakout was accomplished. The Americans reached Hungnam and evacuated North Korea. In the course of the battle, they had inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese and braving the cold, had earned the nickname, the “Frozen Chosin”.
Although the battle of the Chosin Reservoir was tactically a Chinese victory, it was an important and decisive strategic victory for the Americans. The battle of the Chosin Reservoir was, like the Korean War itself, a test of America’s resolve and determination against Communism. In a truly freezing “cold battle” in the Cold War, the Americans had proved that they could take the cold. The dramatic breakout from Chosin to Hungnam is a perfect David-and-Goliath story. The outnumbered Americans, surrounded in the freezing cold, proved that the Chinese were not as strong and invincible as they appeared and this ultimately foreshadowed the collapse of the seemingly invincible spread of Communism.