Jeff Shaara: The Frozen Hours

IT’S CALLED “THE FORGOTTEN WAR,” but no war is ever forgotten by the people who fought it. In tackling this story (as in my World War II series), I had the enormous luxury of speaking with living veterans. They are of course very elderly men now, who, like all combat veterans, share the experience of facing a deadly and, in this case, an utterly unfamiliar enemy. But this story is not just about combat. There is another enemy here, in some cases far more deadly: the coldest winter in this part of Asia in decades.

You might notice that I do not use the term “police action” to describe the Korean War. That is the label attached to the conflict by an American government deeply fearful that expansion of the confrontation in Korea might very well erupt into World War III. But this story is told not from the government’s point of view, but through the eyes of a select group of men who were there, who faced their enemy, or those who carried the awesome responsibility of walking the tightrope between their duty to their men and the wishes of their superiors.

This book is not an attempt to explore the entire Korean War. The focus here is more narrow, which raises a question I grapple with, and agonize over in every book I’ve written: What do I leave out? By speaking with veterans and veterans’ groups, I have been offered wonderful material for an enormous variety of stories, every one as important (and often as painful) to the participants as any other. If I should go further down the road, adding more volumes, possibly creating a trilogy of stories set in Korea, then certainly I can include so much more than you will find here. But this is a single volume, my choice for now, and my responsibility is, first and foremost, to tell you a good story.

This book begins with the invasion of the Korean port of Inchon, in September 1950, and then follows events that extend into mid-December. The focus is primarily on the United States First Marine Division, along with smaller army units and a unit of British Royal Marines. For roughly two weeks, beginning in late November, these men engage overwhelming numbers of Chinese troops around a place we know as the Chosin Reservoir. (I use that name throughout this story, as did most of the Western commanders, since it is the name given to the Changjin Reservoir [the Korean name] by the maps then in use, which were almost always Japanese.) The harrowing tale of that vicious struggle between the Allied forces and the Chinese needs no embellishment. When the temperatures drop well below zero, for men on both sides, staying alive means staying warm, while at the same time engaging in deadly combat with an enemy who is as desperate and as miserable as you are.

If you have read my work, you know that my goal is to take you into the minds of the key characters and tell you the story through their eyes. Here there are three primary characters, two of them Americans: Marine Private First Class Pete Riley and the division’s commanding officer, Major General Oliver P. Smith. The third voice is the commanding general of the Chinese field armies that oppose the Marines, General Sung Shi-lun. Also included in this story are characters who are well known to any student of this war: Douglas MacArthur, Lewis “Chesty” Puller, and many others. As well, there are the less familiar, just as important to this story: Marine Sergeant Hamilton “Hamp” Welch, Army Lieutenant Colonel Don Faith, Marine Captain William Barber, and more.

I am often asked about just how these points of view come into being; just how accurate is this story? In every story I do, the events are real, the history as accurate as I can make it. This is a novel by definition because there is dialogue, and you are seeing the events through the eyes of the characters themselves. For me to reach the point where this book emerges, I must feel that I can speak for these men. For that I rely enormously on their own words, their memoirs, collections of letters, diaries, and so on. My goal in the research is not just to get the facts straight, but to get to know these characters as intimately as I can. It is a risky thing to put words into anyone’s mouth, especially a respected figure from history—a challenge I accept. You might not agree with my particular interpretation of an event as it happens in this story, and that is a challenge to legions of military historians, as well as the veterans who were there. Controversy surrounds this entire campaign, as it surrounds many of the people involved. There are always other points of view, and disagreements abound. In every campaign where disasters occur, there is blame. I have been painstaking in keeping close to the historical record. There will be some who disagree with that record, and I’m prepared to accept grief for that. This is one story. It is not the only story and certainly not the final story.

Some of you will no doubt feel I have ignored or overlooked the sacrifices and accomplishments of so many other soldiers, airmen, and Marines, other stories, other heroic deeds, other periods of the Korean War that could have been explored. Perhaps I will move into those areas at another time. For now, this is my salute to the men who were forced to wage war through one of the most horrific events in military history, in conditions none of them had any reason to expect. Many, on both sides, did not survive. And certainly, the casualties in any conflict deserve to be honored. But the survivors deserve as much respect. For me, the greatest assets I had were the living veterans or their families who were willing to sit down and talk. At the end of this book is the Acknowledgments section, where so many of those people are listed. I hope you will take a moment to notice that. It is to those wonderfully generous people that this book is also dedicated.

And I hope that, by the end of this book, in some small way this war might be a little less forgotten .

The Korean Peninsula Before Hostilities, May 1950

Inchon Invasion Plan

Wonsan Landing

Hungnam to Yudam-ni, Troop Positions

Chosin Reservoir Detail

Almond’s Order to Race to the Yalu River

MacArthur’s “Pincer” Plan

Fox Hill—November 27

Fox Hill—November 28

Chosin Reservoir—November 28

FOR CENTURIES, KOREA is a nation of farmers, attracting little attention from the outside world, beyond the immediate interests of its neighbors. It is the Japanese who consider Korea worth pursuing, and throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, the rest of the world seems willing to concede Korea to Japan. Though the United States signs a formal treaty of “amity and commerce” with Korea in 1882, there is little enthusiasm for a confrontation with the Japanese, and when the Japanese occupy Korea in 1905, the American government backs away. Having defeated the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese have no formidable rivals in the region at all, and so are now free to treat Korea as they wish. The result is brutal for the Korean people, whose hatred for the Japanese intensifies into a guerrilla war. But the Japanese are far too powerful, and dissent is crushed.