Valleys of Death: A Memoir of the Korean War - Hardcover

Richardson, Bill; Maurer, Kevin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0425236730 ISBN 13: 9780425236734

Publisher: Berkley, 2010

Synopsis

A hard-fighting soldier's story-from the trenches of America's first battle in the Cold War.

From the devastating counterattack at Unsan to the thirty-four months he spent in captivity-a period of years in which giving up surely meant dying-Col. Bill Richardson's instinct for leadership and stubborn will to survive saw him through one valley of death after the next. Valleys of Death is a stirring story of survival and determination that offers a fascinating, intimate look at the soldiers who fought America's first battle of the Cold War in the unvarnished words of one of their own. Richardson endured many long months of starvation, torture, sleep deprivation, and Chinese attempts at indoctrination, yet maintained defiance under conditions designed to break the mind, body, and spirit of men.

About this title

About the Author:

Colonel William (Bill) Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.) and Kevin Maurer both live in North Carolina.

From Publishers Weekly:

Richardson looks back at the 1950s when he was a master sergeant with the First Cavalry Division in Korea. After U.S. Army occupation duty from 1946 to 1950 in Italy, Germany, and Austria, and the U.N. vote to defend South Korea, he was reassigned to Fort Devens, Mass., to train recruits in weaponry. Shortly after arriving in Taegu, South Korea, their battalion was subjected to North Korean attacks. He recalls both fear and acts of bravery amid the deafening explosions, flying shrapnel, mortar and artillery fire, mass slaughter, bodies lying in piles, and the stunned reaction after a message dropped from a plane: "We were on our own. No relief column was on its way... and if we stayed in this hellhole we would all die." The final third of the book details his torture and starvation during 34 months as a POW, concluding with a short summary of his later military career. Aided by journalist Maurer, Richardson never pulls his punches in these vivid descriptions of bloody combat action, interrupted by occasional flashbacks to his youth on the streets of Philadelphia Photos, maps. (Dec.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0425236730
• ISBN 13: 9780425236734
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352