A New Book on Korean War

choi

Eliot A Cohen, War Without Pity, War Without End; One can always measure the moral tide of any conflict by following the streams of refugees. Wall Street Journal, Aug 3, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 25800687655328.html
(book review on Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War; The unending conflict in Korea. Norton, 2013)

Quote:

"Ironies abound: Stalin favored China's entry into the war in part to make sure that the Chinese wouldn't establish working relations with the US. * * * Chinese leadership had its doubts about entering the conflict and will learn of the internal purges that culminated in Mao's brilliant general, Peng Dehuai, ending his days a broken, disgraced man cleaning sewers, beaten repeatedly by the Red Guards and dying of untreated pneumonia in an unheated building.

"Famously, US forces played a major part in transforming the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir in the winter of 1950—following a ferocious Chinese onslaught—into a battle that badly damaged the Chinese forces and kept them from driving the Americans and their allies off the peninsula altogether. * * * [nonetheless] Washington's near loss of nerve when the Chinese wave broke across American lines in November and December of 1950

"American units thrown into the fight in the summer of 1950 were poorly trained and equipped, soft from occupation duty in Japan. The first unit thrown into the fight, Task Force Smith, crumpled when confronted by better-equipped and better-trained North Korean forces. An American major general was captured; large units were wiped out.

Note:
(a) I am clueless about how Sheila Miyoshi Jager got her name. Her husband is Jiyul Kim. Both teach in Oberlin College at Ohio.

The surname Jager can be Dutch or German: "Dutch: occupational name for a hunter, Middle Dutch jagher. German: variant of Jaeger ‘hunter’."
(b) Cyril Falls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Falls
(1888-1971; a military historian noted for his work on the First World War; born in Dublin  [Republic of Ireland declared independence in 1916, which UK recognized in 1922] and died in England)
(c) For "Cheju-do rebellion," see Jeju Uprising
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_Uprising
(Apr 3, 1948-May 1949)

(d) "And they [American allies] paid the price. Roughly 6% of all British troops were killed or wounded, many in a major battle on the Imjin River in April 1951 that blunted a critical Chinese attack."

Imjin River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imjin_river
(Battle of the Imjin River [Apr 22-25, 1951])
(e) Douglas MacArthur was "a superannuated generalissimo"

superannuated (adj; Medieval Latin superannuatus, past participle of superannuari to be too old, from Latin super- + annus year)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superannuated
(f) "These failures were redeemed by the superlative field leadership of Matthew Ridgway, one of the true heroes of the postwar Army, who in a matter of weeks turned around the 8th Army. And there were others, such as Marine Gen OP Smith, who conducted the retreat from Chosin Reservoir, leaving no man—the dead included—behind and wiping out Chinese infantry divisions as his Marines cut a path to the sea and safety."
(i) Matthew Ridgway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Ridgway
(1895-1993; section 4 Korean War)
(ii) Oliver P Smith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_P._Smith
(1893-1977)
(iii) Battle of Chosin Reservoir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chosin_Reservoir
(section 3.5 Evacuation at Hungnam)