Korea: Readings About the Forgotten War.

• Author: Silbergeld, David L. L.
• Position: Brief Article

With the arrival of the millennium, we remembered that 50 years ago this winter, the U.S. Marines--in the face of massive intervention into the Korean War by Chinese regular troops--conducted their famed "advance to the rear" from the Chosin Reservoir.

During the next three years, those events will be commemorated with ceremonies, memorials and specials on the History Channel. These books may help our readers put the times and the war in perspective.

Start with a photographic history, "War in Korea: 1950-1953," by D.M. Giangreco, published by Presidio Press, of Novato, Calif., with a sales price of $50.

This 10-chapter, 330-page volume is an effective way to begin the story of Korea, where the United States lost 35,000 lives in three years, and where we have more than 6,000 personnel missing in action to this day. The book includes incredible detail, maps and a narrative of the ebb and flow of the war. More than 500 black and white photographs tell their own story.

Donald Knox's two-book series is next on our list. The tale begins with "The Korean War, An Oral History: Pusan to Chosin," published by Harvest Books (Harcourt, Brace, in New York City) and selling for $21 in soft cover. Covering events from June 25 through December 31 of 1950, the book includes first-hand accounts of the roller-coaster events in the opening months of what was termed a "police action."

We are taken, in steps, from the attack by the North Korean People's Army (NKPA), abundantly equipped with modern arms by their Soviet sponsors, to the desperate Eighth Army defense of Pusan, to the MacArthur's landing at Inchon, to U.S. pursuit to the Yalu River and the Chinese intervention.

The second book in the series is "The Korean War: Uncertain Victory," also published by Harvest Books for $14.95 in soft cover. This volume takes us from January 1951 to the armistice in July 1953. We see the inception of truce talks, action with allied units in the UN operations, riots in prisoner-of-war (POW) camps, stories of our POWs and the battle of Pork Chop Hill.

"Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War"--by Eric Hammel, printed by Presidio Press, of Novato, Calif., and selling for $19.95 in soft cover--covers one of the forgotten war's legendary events, which took place in a freezing hell of winter.

As U.S. forces made their way to the Yalu, the U.S. military command made errors of intelligence, overconfidence and miscalculation. It violated one of the most important principles of...