How 20K Marines Held Out Against 300K Chinese Soldiers At The Chosin Reservoir, The Korean War's Greatest Battle

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2020

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 heroic--and harrowing--operations 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.

Today I'm speaking with Hampton Sides, author of the account On Desperate Ground a soldier's eye view of this conflict that chronicle of the extraordinary feats of heroism performed by the beleaguered Marines, who were called upon to do the impossible in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:05.4	The unscripted show that celebrates unsung heroes, Mythbust's historical lies, and rediscoveres
0:11.9	the forgotten stories that changed our world.
0:15.5	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
0:21.0	On October 15th, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, who at the time was Supreme Commander of UN
0:26.6	Troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that Communist forces of Kim Il-sung
0:32.0	would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving.
0:36.0	He said very confidently, as MacArthur often did, that the Chinese would never intervene
0:40.5	in the war.
0:42.2	But as he was speaking, 300,000 red Chinese soldiers began to cross the Manchurian border
0:46.9	secretly.
0:47.9	Even though MacArthur and his staff took intelligence warnings as fiction, the first Marine Division
0:53.3	began to move deeply into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap that Mao
0:57.8	had set from MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosing Reservoir.
1:02.1	What these 20,000 Marines pinned down, what followed was one of the most hairy operations
1:06.8	in American military history.
1:09.2	Trapped in the mountains, with temperatures 20 degrees below zero, the Marines had to hold
1:13.5	off a massive numerical disadvantage against Chinese soldiers and somehow evacuate a convoy
1:19.6	13 miles long of vehicles.
1:21.8	Even though there were almost no roads and all infrastructure like bridges was being blown
1:25.8	up, and they had to improvise rebuilding the infrastructure on the fly as they were being
1:30.0	pinned down by enemy soldiers, fighting battle constantly.
	...

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