The 1st Marine Division and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir

The Frozen Chosen: the 1^st Marine Division and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, Osprey Publishing, 2016, £20, 296 pages, ISBN 978-1-4728-1436-4

The title of this excellent book doesn’t do it justice.  As well as chronicling the battles of the US 1^st Marine Division in Korea in 1950-1951, it gives a full explanation of the differing mindsets and actions of President Harry S. Truman and his government in Washington, and General Douglas MacArthur and his military staff in Tokyo.  It is for this reason that it is particularly valuable for non-American readers.

Cleaver charts the failure of the US, particularly the CIA, to understand the aspirations of national communist movements in South-East Asia, regarding all communists as a monolithic bloc dominated by the Soviet Union.  Thus it failed to understand the aims of Kim Il-Sung in North Korea and, later, the threat perceived by the recently formed communist government in China when American troops moved up to their border in strength.

Perhaps because this is written by an American it is brutally honest about the state of training, motivation and inherent racism in the US troops moved to Korea from the occupation force in Japan.  Cleaver is no great fan of MacArthur and many of his military cronies in Tokyo.  At various times he describes MacArthur as a ‘charlatan’ who was regarded by Eisenhower as a drama queen; as ‘militarily brilliant but politically unreliable’ and as ‘the most dangerous man in America’ (Roosevelt).  Yet he calls his amphibious assault at Inchon ‘strategically inspired’ and blames Washington rather than MacArthur for the decision to drive on to the Chinese border after the North Koreans had been pushed back to the 38^th Parallel for the first time.

After a long section describing the actions of the Marines and other US troops, Cleaver finishes with a chapter, which could usefully have been more detailed, dealing with the political manoeuvring in the US and UN once the fighting had stabilised again around the 38^th Parallel.  He covers Truman’s decision to relieve MacArthur of his command and explains the reasons, mainly the latter’s popular support amongst the American people, why Truman stayed his hand for so long in the face of blatant insubordination by MacArthur.

Cleaver was for many years a Hollywood scriptwriter, although contributing regularly to military journals, and he drives his story forward at a good pace that should ensure it is attractive to general historians as well as military history enthusiasts.