TY - BOOK AU - Sides,Hampton TI - On desperate ground: the Marines at the reservoir, the Korean War's greatest battle SN - 9780385541152 AV - DS918.2.C35 S53 2018 U1 - 951.904/242 23 PY - 2018///] CY - New York PB - Doubleday KW - United States KW - Marine Corps KW - Marine Division, 1st KW - History KW - Korean War, 1950-1953 KW - Campaigns KW - Korea (North) KW - Changjin Reservoir KW - Changjin Reservoir (Korea) KW - History, Military KW - 20th century N1 - Includes bibliographical references (pages 345-378) and index N2 - "On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war. As he was speaking, 300,000 Red Chinese soldiers began secretly crossing the Manchurian border. Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir. What followed was one of the most heroicand harrowingoperations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time. Faced with probable annihilation, and temperatures plunging to 20 degrees below zero, the surrounded, and hugely outnumbered, Marines fought through the enemy forces with ferocity, ingenuity, and nearly unimaginable courage as they marched their way to the sea. Hampton Sides superb account of this epic clash relies on years of archival research, unpublished letters, declassified documents, and interviews with scores of Marines and Koreans who survived the siege"-- ER -