Roy Appleman's "Disaster in Korea' is the best account of the events of the Thanksgiving Offensive by the CCF. Appleman published three volumes on this event and the operations following Ridgeway's appointment as 8th army commander following Walker's death. He was a long time CMH historian and was frankly disgusted with how the Army footdragged on the Korea operational histories. He is the author of Vol 1 of that series, 'South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu" which was published in the teeth of resistance from lots of interest groups in the Army and out who did not want to recall just how bad the Korean War's opening campaign was. Gen. Collins 'War in Peacetime' basically uses this book as his source . Collin's work published after he retired from LSU is equally damning if you carefully read his first person comments of the war as seen by the CSA from the Pentagon.
Thank you for the post..These Heros should never be forgotten.
A TV documentary covered this, perhaps on AHC.
***about 300,000 CCF soldiers were already in country, with more arriving every day***
My brother-in-law was there. He said when the Chinese started their attacks the first had rifles, the next had sticks, stones, spears. Those following picked up anything they could find for a weapon. The Chinese had so many excess military age men they thought nothing of mass charges. It was their way of controlling their population.
He walked across Korea back and forth several times, and saw things he would not talk about. When he was transferred out and sent back to the USA, he refused to leave the ship in several European ports of call. He only departed when the ship reached the USA.
My 90 year old neighbor was in the middle of all this. He led long range recon patrols up to the Yalu, located and identified several massed concentrations of Chinese troops in assembly areas, reported it to higher HQs and was largely ignored.
He gathered his platoon together, told them to grab as much warm clothing, food and ammo as they could wear and carry and be prepared to move.
He probably saved their lives- the ones that survived.
My dad was not in this fighting, but was Navy seabee over on the coast pulling them out.