Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950 - Hardcover

Russ, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0880642319 ISBN 13: 9780880642316

Publisher: Fromm Intl, 1999

Synopsis

Interweaving eyewitness accounts and personal reminiscences, the author of The Last Parallel offers a chilling account of the 1950 Chosin Reservoir Campaign during the Korean War, describing how badly outnumbered American Marines overcame fierce odds and brutal weather conditions to escape Chinese encirclement.

About this title

Review:

Martin Russ's controversial book Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950 tells the riveting story of how 12,000 Army personnel and Marines fought their way out of an encirclement by more than 60,000 Chinese soldiers. A Marine wounded in combat during the Korean War, Russ writes with a passion for the men who endured freezing temperatures and scaled treacherous mountains while continuing to strike the enemy as they advanced toward safety.

While many accounts of modern war bog readers down in a morass of military and administrative details, Russ's history so clearly distinguishes the various units, locations, and personalities that shaped the campaign that it could easily be compared with the finest novels of battle, including Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels. Expertly moving between American, Chinese, and Korean points of view, Russ argues that the Marines were trapped at Chosin because of the arrogance of Douglas MacArthur, the incompetence of the U.S. Army, and the disciplined planning of the Chinese generals.

Celebrated for his brilliant war memoir, The Last Parallel, Russ has provoked criticism for his tendency in Breakout to disparage the U.S. Army. However, his quotations of numerous dispatches showing Marine commanders' concern about advancing into the Chosin area, as well as his consistent portrayal of Army officers' ineptitude, lend credence to his argument that it was the particular esprit de corps of the Marines that prevented the disintegration of American forces in the freezing wastes of North Korea. --James Highfill

About the Author:

Martin Russ earned a Purple Heart when he served with the Marines in Korea. His previous books include The Last Parallel: A Marine's War Journal, which was a bestseller and a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection. He is also the author of Half Moon Haven, Happy Hunting Ground: An Ex-Marine's Odyssey in Vietnam, and Line of Departure: Tarawa, among others. He and his family live in California's Napa Valley.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fromm Intl
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0880642319
• ISBN 13: 9780880642316
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 452