Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950
by Martin Russ

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Book Reviews of Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950

Book Review: Remembering the "Chosin Few"
Summary: 5 Stars

Breakout deals with the fate of 12,000 members of the 1st Marine Division who battled their way out of a trap sprung by some 60,000 Red Chinese at the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea, November 27, 1950. Outnumbered but never outfought, the "Chosin Few," as they're known, waged a three-week fighting withdrawal over 80 miles of narrow mountain roads in temperatures as low as 30-below zero. In so doing, they sustained horrific casualties to enemy action (700 dead, nearly 200 missing 3,500 wounded) and the unspeakable cold (6,200 non-battle casualties, mostly to frostbite). Enemy casualties are estimated at 25,000 KIA and 12,500 WIA between mid-October and mid-December.

Well written and thoroughly researched--author and Korean War veteran Martin Russ interviewed more than 200 veterans of the Chosin fight--Breakout is also a study of personal sacrifice and heroism against overwhelming odds. Russ describes how the Chosin Marines lived up to their Corps' motto, Semper Fidelis (always faithful), bringing their wounded and dead and most of their equipment with them in spite of a fanatical enemy, impossible terrain, and unimaginable weather conditions.

Observed company commander, Captain Robert Barrow: "I learned that only leadership will save you in such conditions. It's easy to say that a man has to change his socks; but getting him to do so when the temperature is twenty-five below is another matter. Boot laces become iced over, and it's a struggle just to get the boot off your foot."

Many individual Marines in Russ's account of the Chosin Reservoir campaign stand out for their combat spirit and raw courage under fire. One, PVT Hector Cafferata, Fox Company, 7th Marines, was far from being a parade-deck Marine; yet when his company came under intense attack, he and other members of his squad showed their mettle.

"'Every time [Cafferata] fired he exposed the upper half of his body,' Russ quotes a witness as saying: 'I saw this guy perform miracles...catching live grenades and tossing them back...One of them landed on the lip of the hole and Hector had to lean way back to scoop it up and sidearm it--but he wasn't fast enough and lost part of his hand in the explosion. He began spitting and cursing, then reloaded his rifle and fired off another clip. After he ran out we saw him swing the rifle like a baseball bat and knock a live grenade out of the park, thwock!'"

Russ adds, "The official Marine history states that the failure of the Chinese to penetrate the Marine line at that point was largely due to the efforts of Hector Cafferata and [two other members of his squad], and that the three of them are credited with annihilating two enemy platoons." Cafferata received the Congressional Medal of Honor for this action.

One controversial issue Russ meets head on is the generally sorry performance of U.S. Army units that participated in the Chosin Reservoir campaign. It is widely held that in addition to superb leadership, the more rigorous basic training received by the Marines, along with their esprit de corps, gave them the tenacity to continue their mission, where the poorly led, inadequately trained, and insufficiently motivated Army troops were at times unable to function. In fact, as they withdrew, the Marines recovered vehicles and weapons abandoned by overwhelmed Army units desperate to escape the bloody gauntlet.

Russ recounts a classic Army-Marine confrontation. Informed that an Army unit assigned to protect the flanks of the column had abandoned its positions and joined the south-bound Marines on the road, a disgusted Marine officer told the Army officer in charge to let his soldiers stay on the road: "'I don't want troops as lousy as yours out there on our flank. We'll take care of that.'"

After completing their ordeal, with the Chinese forces beaten back and fading into the distant hills, the battered Marines marched into the port city, Hungnam. Their courage, honor and commitment to their Corps and to each other had prevented what could have been a total rout. An epic struggle, the "Frozen Chosin" has taken its place in Marine Corps history alongside Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima.

As the 1st Division sailed from the harbor on December 15, 1950, one of the most memorable chapters in Marine Corps history came to a close. "'The only way we got out of Frozen Chosin is because a lot of young guys knew how to fight,' Russ relates Henry Litvin, M.D., a Navy surgeon who made the trek as saying, 'God Bless the Chosin Marines.'"

Martin Russ served with a Marine rifle company in 1952-53 during the final stages of the Korean War. With his combat insight and attention to the tactical imperatives and human costs of battle, Breakout is a hands-down winner. It's hard to believe these events--part of what has been called the "Forgotten War"--happened nearly 50 years ago, but when tensions in the region heat up--as they do from time to time--we would do well to remember them.

Summary of Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950

This is the gripping story that Martin Russ tells in his extraordinary book. Breakout is an unforgettable portrayal of the terror and courage of men as they face sudden death, making the bloody battles of the Korean hills and valleys come alive as they never have before.

While many accounts of modern war bog readers down in a morass of military and administrative details, Russ's history so clearly distinguishes the various units, locations, and personalities that shaped the campaign that it could easily be compared with the finest novels of battle, including Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels. Expertly moving between American, Chinese, and Korean points of view, Russ argues that the Marines were trapped at Chosin because of the arrogance of Douglas MacArthur, the incompetence of the U.S. Army, and the disciplined planning of the Chinese generals.

Celebrated for his brilliant war memoir, The Last Parallel, Russ has provoked criticism for his tendency in Breakout to disparage the U.S. Army. However, his quotations of numerous dispatches showing Marine commanders' concern about advancing into the Chosin area, as well as his consistent portrayal of Army officers' ineptitude, lend credence to his argument that it was the particular esprit de corps of the Marines that prevented the disintegration of American forces in the freezing wastes of North Korea. --James Highfill

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