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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.

That is a fascinating post. The US did have what we would now call LURPs attached at army ,corps, and division level. Little exists written about their activities. Certainly FECOM in Tokyo, especially MacArthur's G-2 would not have been accepting of anything like this from 8th Army. The day after Thanksgiving, if memory serves me right, a Chinese Captain who was a division assistant S-3 defected. This man had been an officer in a KMT division that was mass incorporated into the PLA. He also had the ability to memorize entire pages of information. He revealed in great detail enemy ORB and operational plans to the regiment level in his corp and with less detail at other corp and numbered army level. US intel officers were aghast at what was coming. The X hour for the CCF offensive was only hours away so it was impossible to get the information to army level and then disseminate it to divisions. Appleman’s ‘Disaster in Korea’ is fascinating and unsparing about what happened to the 8th Army . The Army had a narrow squeak as the Communists were aiming at nothing less than cutting most of the 8th Army combat strength off and then going on to drive the UN forces off the peninsula. Unfortunately for the Chinese, their primitive logistics and communications system broke down and they could not continue the operational tempo they started with. This offensive made a very deep psychological impact on the Army and the whole US defense establishment. It was never publicly discussed in any detail because it was felt it would shock and demoralize the American public. So aside fromparts of S L A Marshall's ‘the River and the Gauntlet’ there were no detailed semiofficial or journalistic accounts published and the focus was on the ‘good news’ story of the Marines at the Chosen. The men who fought this hellish battle got little recognition for decades and now it is something like the Battle of Buena Vista in relevance to virtually all Americans.