Talk:Battle of Chosin Reservoir

"Crippling Loses"

Although Chinese troops managed to surround and outnumber the UN forces, the UN forces broke out of the encirclement while inflicting crippling losses to the Chinese. The evacuation of the X Corps from the port of Hungnam marked the complete withdraw of UN troops from North Korea.

There are two problems here: (1) in what sense were the Chinese losses "crippling"? Those losses were a small drop in China's manpower pool. Unless someone can produce evidence to justify this claim -for example by documenting that Chinese losses effected their subsequent operations in Korea- I'm editing this to reflect a NPOV; (2) this sentence goes to great lengths to avoid saying the obvious - that Chosin Reservoir was a DEFEAT for the US / UN. Lexington50 (talk) 20:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

1) 40% of all Chinese forces in Korea were knocked out during the battle and were never replaced. (As indicated in the aftermath section)

2) All of them were elite formations. (As indicated in the background and aftermath section)

3) Chinese sources, including official history have described the battle as a massive failure. (Per footnotes from Chinese books)

4) The success of UN Counteroffensive in the spring of 1951 is directly caused by the huge Chinese losses. (Supported by both Chinese and US sources)

5) US X Corps was ordered to withdraw, not because Chinese defeated them. Legitimately it is a UN victory that only turned into a defeat due to situations outside of this battle. By looking at the Chinese casualties numbers, after the first 3 days of battle, most of the Chinese forces were destroyed or starved/frozen to death even before the UN forces were thinking about a break out. Hardly a defeat for UN forces.

And I should caution you not to confuse Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River with this battle, like most of the US published Korean War history books tend to do. I hope this address your concern. Jim101 (talk) 20:59, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Like so many of the American commercially published 'history books' that Jim101 references and the "official" US Marine Corps published history, most of which do not have a NPOV; they are written to glorify the Marine Corps. For instance, is it not written in at least one of the references that this battle was a "Campaign"? Then why is not on the list of Official US Navy Campaigns? Remember that the US Marine Corps is a part of the Department of the Navy within the US Department of Defense and is not entitled to have a separate list of campaigns. Accuracy is always in question and brighter people than I have written many half and total untruths and called it fact. If it is written and verifiable, it must be fact? Meyerj (talk) 11:38, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a little correction for the one who put that article.

First of all Thank you for writing an article about the Chosen Reservoire Battle (the Forgotten war)...documentation about such war unfortunately are rare. You mention that the UNdeployed to the Chosen were nickname "The chosen Few" actually there are a small conflict on it...The men who died at the chosen were nickname "The Chosen" the very few that survive the battle were nickname the Chosen few. There will be a documentary movie created by a Captain featuring many survivor of the Chosen reservoir airing at the NatGeo this September I believe... I strongly recommand watching it... The title is " THE CHOSEN". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.12.55.129 (talk) 14:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide a source that I can use to correct the mistake? Jim101 (talk) 16:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

All the survivors of the of the reservoir, in particular, the 5th and 7th Marines, the 1st Marines lead by Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller, who were fighting to hold open their egress route have taken the title of Chosin Few. There are ligitimate branches of the Chosin Few across America and they all wear the symbol and words "Chosin Few". The 1st Marine Division along with elements of the 7th, 8th Army, the climate and Superior American Air Support from the US Navy, Marines and Air Force inflicted severe damage to the PLA's ability to prosecute this battle. The Marines were the spearhead, I know, my father was with the 7th Marines, however, they had help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.162.0.46 (talk • contribs)

Rememberence

Would it make sense to add a section at the bottom of the article about rememberence/memorials of this battle in the "forgotten war"? A new memorial in Forest Park, St Louis, MO for the battle was dedicated today. I have a great picture of living members of the "The Chosin Few" gathered around the memorial if that is of interest. Apparently I don't have privlidges to upload to wikipeida - but I'd be happy to e-mail to somebody if they are interested.

As long as you have a reliable news source on the event, you are free to add it yourself. Jim101 (talk) 01:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Question, are you talking about the Camp Pendleton memorial? Because that is the only memorial I can find that is backed up by notable news sources. Jim101 (talk) 02:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I added the information on Camp Pendleton memorial. Jim101 (talk) 02:31, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Legacy

The US military recently had a large gathering of veterans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle (source) —Ed!^(talk) 06:20, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Nice summary on the numbers of MOH awarded during the battle. Jim101 (talk) 07:37, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Unit cohesion

While studying military history for a Wikipedia article on Unit cohesion, I came upon this quote:

• ... traditional explanations do not adequately answer why the Marines survived as a fighting force and the 31st RCT was defeated in detail. [1]

So what was it that led to the disintegration of the RCT? Was it just the rapid loss of two top commanders, or was there something else? --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

First of all, Task Force Faith was annihilated as an unit with most of its records/witnesses lost, so there are really no clear answers to this question nor a clear recounts of the actual event (otherwise I would put it there already). By tracing the Task Force Faith breakout effort on December 1, it appears that heavy Chinese fire managed to pin down most of the soldiers, killed a lot of officers in the process, and command and control just broken down from that point. By viewing from the Chinese account of the same engagement, it appears that Chinese thrown 3 whole divisions against Task Force Faith and attack it non-stop from November 27 to December 1, while at the same time completely giving up on 1st Marine Division after the failure of the November 27 attack. Probably the command and control break down PLUS the sheer weight of Chinese number buried the fate of the Task Force. Jim101 (talk) 02:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Thomas Ricks says http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=21094 that the reason the Marines were all bunched up on the west side while a pitiful Army group had to be put on the east at the last moment is that OPS refused to divide his own force of Marines. Hcobb (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Why is it a campaign?

Jim101, Since you are the current owner of this article, tell me why you have written that this battle of the Chosin Reservoir is also called the Chosin Campaign. Not all military fights are campaigns. The USMC seems to be the only official agency to call it a campaign, yet they have no campaign streamer for it on their colors. Not even their parent organization the Department of the Navy, nor the Department of Defense call it a Campaign. Admittedly some authors have repeated the word from the book of Marine Corps, but repeating a known untruth does not make it correct. Meyerj (talk) 01:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

USMC seems to be the only official agency to call it a campaign...this is the problem. Per WP:NPOV and WP:COMMONNAME, USMC viewpoint on this matter must be represented, even if it is somewhat ingenious/fringe. As long as this article's itself is not named as Chosin Campaign, then it is a fair compromise between WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Furthermore, Chinese source also refer to this battle as a "campaign", so USMC naming convention is far from minority. Jim101 (talk) 15:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Meyerj (talk) 18:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)