My husband is a military history buff – if we are in a bookstore and get separated, I know I will find him in the military history section, and if I lose him in a public library, I just look in the 940s through the 990s. He has read hundreds of books on military history in general, he devours whatever he can find on the Korean Conflict, and for many years he has been interested in the story of the battle at the Chosin Reservoir. With all that,  I HAD to jump at the opportunity to receive a copy of Hampton Sides’s book On Desperate Ground  (subtitled The Marines at the Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle) from Doubleday Books and NetGalley in return for my honest review.

 That was my plan…but my husband got to my Kindle first, and that was that! For several days, he was surrounded by maps, Kindle in hand, and I swear he kept saying things like “Oh my God, listen to THIS!”

Here is the basic outline: in October, 1950, while General Douglas MacArthur  (in charge of all the United Nations troops in Korea), was talking with President Truman about how the Communist Chinese forces in Asia would definitely NOT get involved in the war, 300,00 Chinese soldiers began crossing the Manchurian border. They set a trap for the UN forces, which included the U.S. First Marine Division,  at the Chosin Reservoir in the snowy mountains of what is now North Korea. What followed was an epic battle as the Marines tried to escape the trap.

The whole thing was brutal: temperatures were as low as thirty below zero, they were completely surrounded and hugely outnumbered. Although the Marine General and his officers tried to convince MacArthur (who  NEVER SPENT A SINGLE NIGHT IN KOREA during the war) that it was indeed a trap, MacArthur refused to believe the reports from the Marines on the ground until it was too late, and the Marines were pushed into the trap created by the Chinese.

TBH, I couldn’t bear to read it. Sides details incredibly heroic acts as the Marines fought their way twenty miles toward the sea, and showed their amazing efforts to overcome relentless attacks by the Chinese. Thanks to his study of declassified documents, archives, never before published letters, and interviews with survivors (both Marines and Koreans), Hampton Sides has written the definitive account of the story of the Chosin Reservoir, in a very readable way. Five stars.