Jeff Shaara - The Frozen Hours

Though combat erupts along the various fronts, there is a realization on both sides that with the Americans insisting on maintaining a “limited war,” without the potential for nuclear weaponry, peace can only be achieved by negotiation. According to historian David Halberstam, “No one knew how to end it. The war had settled into unbearable, unwinnable battles. It had reached a point where there were no more victories, only death.”

In July 1951, peace talks begin at Kaesong, northern South Korea, and eventually are moved to Panmunjom, close to the border itself. But while the United Nations negotiators push for a resolution, the Chinese are distrustful at best of any offer or suggestion that does not originate in Peking. Worse for the negotiations, Joseph Stalin is firmly behind the Chinese, and believes that a protracted war will weaken his primary communist rival, as well as his adversaries in the West. The negotiations drag out for close to two years, while on the battlefront, blood continues to spill.

With the election of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, the new president makes clear that he wants nothing to do with the deadly drudgery of the unwinnable war he has inherited. Events take a dynamic turn when, in March 1953, Stalin dies, throwing the Soviet Union into political chaos. Without the Soviets to back up their threats, the Chinese begin showing flexibility. It is South Korean president Syngman Rhee who now slows efforts at peace. Rhee has greater ambitions than presiding over half of Korea, though the Americans are adamant that the boundary must remain intact. The alternative is more bloodshed and a far longer war, which no one in the West will accept. Rhee threatens to continue the war against North Korea on his own, a threat that is laughably toothless.

The last great fight takes place in spring 1953. Known as Pork Chop Hill, the fight symbolizes much of what has taken place for the prior three years: a meaningless battle over meaningless ground that takes the lives of far more soldiers on both sides than any victory could justify. It is the American general, Maxwell Taylor, now commanding the Eighth Army, who orders the Americans to withdraw, thus conceding the hill to the Chinese. The propaganda value of such a grab has become utterly irrelevant to the Americans, who only wish the fighting to stop. On July 27, 1953, the truce begins.

One bright moment during the protracted agony of the truce is the delivery, by the North Koreans, of the 113 corpses buried by Smith’s Marines on their evacuation from Koto-ri.

Predictably, the Chinese trumpet their supposed victory, while in the West, the war is as quickly forgotten as the media, and the fighting men themselves, will allow. To this day, the 38th parallel is a military hot zone, two mighty armies facing off over a no-man’s-land, where a single spark might ignite the war once again.

Despite Chinese claims of overwhelming and lasting victory, a casual observation of the state of affairs for both North and South Korea might tell a different tale. South Korea is one of the most vibrant economies in Asia, with strong financial and cultural ties to the West. The South Korean people enjoy one of the highest standards of living in all of Asia. In contrast, North Korea is possibly the most repressive and isolated society in the world, where the starvation of the citizenry is an acceptable condition of militarism.

If there is an honest victory to be claimed in Korea, it is by Mao Tse-tung, who demonstrates his willingness and his ability to confront the West militarily, and survive in the process. If there is defeat, it comes to the American methods of fighting a war that secured victory in World War II. By 1945, the Americans create the largest and most destructive fighting machine the world has ever seen, capable of not only defeating but annihilating any enemy. By the 1950s, that machine has been rendered weak by the nation’s conscience, the shocking realization that the nuclear capabilities now in possession of a number of nations are capable of destroying all of humanity. The restrictive philosophy of “limited war” now governs American leadership’s hesitation about ever using its nuclear weapons again. That policy is tested severely once more, in Vietnam, a decade later. While fierce debate rages (then and now) about the wisdom of tempting a nuclear holocaust, the unwillingness thus far of the two superpowers, the Americans and their Russian counterparts, to risk a war that could erase humanity, goes beyond philosophical debates. As has happened in the American Civil War and World War I, the technology for mass destruction has far outpaced man’s ability to maintain the peace. To this day, Korea remains an open sore, a war that had no end, where men with guns watch each other across walls of barbed wire.

GENERAL OLIVER P. SMITH

“This campaign is perhaps the most brilliant divisional feat of arms in the national history. Smith made it so, through his dauntless calm, his tender regard for his regiments, and his unshakable belief that rest when needed, rather than precipitate haste, was the only thing which would bring his men through the greatest of combat trials. In battle, this great Marine had more the manner of a college professor than a plunging fighter. But our services have known few leaders who could look so deeply into the human heart….His greatest campaign is a classic which will inspire more nearly perfect leadership by all who read and understand that out of great faith can come a miracle.”

“The performance of the First Marine Division…constitutes one of the most glorious chapters in Marine Corps history.”

“They have gone. We could not stop them.”

With the Chosin Reservoir campaign concluded, a great many civilian and military observers invite Smith to voice his displeasure with his former commander, Ned Almond, but Smith chooses what many describe as the high road, and rarely speaks out negatively about the trials he endured serving under the thumb of Tenth Corps. Smith says, in part, “I did not desire to enter into any controversy, and declined to discuss the matter.” However, one of Smith’s most trusted staff officers, his G-3, Alpha Bowser, writes, “I feel to this day, and will feel until I go to my grave, that if the enemy had possessed good intelligence and good communications [Tenth Corps’ orders] would have resulted in the First Marine Division, and most of the Seventh Division, never returning from that place.”

Though many have labeled the sharp disagreements between Smith and Almond as the typically tiresome interservice feuding, most impartial observers concede that the clashes between Smith and Almond had much to do with Almond’s fanatical loyalty to Douglas MacArthur, and his belief in MacArthur’s infallibility. Orders from Tokyo rarely took into account actual conditions in the field, and the complete failure of MacArthur’s intelligence arm to present an accurate picture of conditions caused orders to be passed through Ned Almond that took no measure of the quality and disposition of the enemy they faced. Smith’s recognition of this very likely saves the lives of most of his division and a sizable percentage of the army troops under his command.

Smith continues in command of the First Division through its next major engagement, Operation Dauntless, which begins April 21, 1951. Once again, the Marines and one division of ROK troops are ordered to push northward, attempting to reclaim territory in central Korea now occupied by the Chinese, territory seized as part of their overall success throughout the Korean winter. As before, the Marines and Korean troops easily advance, only to be surprised by a sudden massive onslaught from hidden Chinese positions. Though the Marines hold well and inflict significant casualties on the Chinese, the ROK unit collapses completely. The resulting breach in the position creates a crisis for Smith’s regiments. But their position, though bloodied, holds. Once more, the Marines cause enormous casualties to an enemy who outnumbers them, blunting the Chinese offensive.