He had barely finished his training at Camp Pendleton when Japan surrendered, ending World War II.

I am glad they did because my weapon jammed.”. Hell!

The narrow road was littered with burnt-out cars, broken equipment, redundant gear and dead Chinese soldiers. About 30 miles further north, White had a close call. Their feet were nothing but ice.”. If you are new to the channel then click on the information icon for the entire playlist to help get you up to current faster. But their evasive maneuvers lured Marines and U.S. Army divisions into a valley around a storage lake called the Chosin Reservoir. Log in. "Retreat, hell!" It was the dark of night. © 2020 A&E Television Networks, LLC. And victory, seemingly in reach, evaporated, leaving the war to slog on for several more years. The Chosin Reservoir battle has become one of the most storied exploits of grit and sacrifice in Marine Corps history. On December 6, Chinese forces blew up a crucial bridge over a treacherous mountain gorge, cutting off the evacuation route. Both Whited and White remember heated house-to-house combat as they closed in on retaking Seoul.

“We had no clue where we were. Whited and his anti-tank unit spent the coming days crawling up mountainsides to use their 75-millimeter recoilless “rifle”—a shoulder-mounted anti-tank weapon—to bust Chinese bunkers. All Rights Reserved. Robert Whited, two years White’s junior, also spent his childhood in the heartland, in Nebraska. Then, Communist China entered the conflict at “frozen Chosin,” shifting the war’s momentum again. Agro Squerrils 1,213 views This allowed the 5 and 7 Marines to move east and southward out of the valley.

For White, his frostbite ended his combat career, and he was carried out through the Funchilin Pass. The saga of a battalion of U.S. Marines during the Korean War, starting with their training, landing at Inchon in 1950, advance into North Korea and their subsequent retreat back to the 38th parallel. Some fanart for the "Retreat, Hell" short story series over on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/bfrj07/retreat_hell/ But White and Whited won’t have any of it. The losses at Chosin Reservoir had been painfully high for U.S. troops. It turned out they came right through the middle of our position.”. If you got a target, shoot at it.”, The men on the ground were not the only ones unprepared for Chinese intervention. We’re not retreating. It was this unbending faith in their service as U.S. Marines that carried both men through America’s darkest hour in the Korean War: the harrowing retreat from North Korea’s Chosin Reservoir, where American forces were surrounded, vastly outnumbered and facing mass slaughter in brutally cold mountains near the Chinese border. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Whited and White not only feel let down by Tokyo, but they have little good to say about General MacArthur who, after Chosin, pressed to expand the war into and against China. So back I went.”. Like everyone else, Jean White wore watertight winter boots that captured and stored the sweat of a day’s march. At night, however, these “sweat packs” ended up freezing around the men’s feet. Even bullet wounds sometimes froze, keeping soldiers from bleeding out until they went inside heated tents. "* For Robert Whited and Jean White, there was never a question that they would serve in the military. The first [Chinese fighter] that I hit, I hit him six times with my carbine, and the guy ran right past me. We got attacked… There were North Koreans…trying to flee from the onslaught from the South.

Original Story : https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/series/retreat_hellIf You enjoyed consider leaving a Tip : https://www.paypal.me/agrosquerrilOR Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/agrosquerrilsGreetings Ladies and Mentlegents and welcome to my channel where I like to make LEGAL Audiobooks of various types from web novels and short stories. However its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, and scholars.Science fiction literature, film, television, and other media have become popular and influential over much of the world. At the Chosin Reservoir, subzero temperatures were much the enemy as communists;  frozen bodies were used as sandbags. But air support saved the day, Whited recalls, by air-dropping two portable, prefab Bailey bridges via parachute: “Had it not been for that, well, I can only say that we would have been the guests of the Chinese for a long time.”. Hell!” “Marines” and “retreat” don’t pair well together in a sentence. His plan? Together with U.N. allies and South Korean troops, U.S. forces had pressed northward through Korea, capturing the northern capital of Pyongyang on October 19 and approaching the Yalu River, the border to China, by the end of November. Any map illustrating the troop movements would suggest yes.

History Reads features the work of prominent authors and historians. With his father working in the Oakland shipyards and relatives fighting the war in Europe and the Pacific, Whited was chomping at the bit to enlist. Ultimately, some American units took the brunt of the attack, allowing others to escape on a hard-fought 70-mile march to the sea. MacArthur was ultimately relieved of his command by President Truman, who opposed the idea, remaining committed to keeping Korea a "limited war.". I was only 16, but big enough,” says Whited, who was working as a chaser in a bull ring in Wyoming when he made his first attempt. Feet froze into blocks of ice inside boots. Whited occupied a roadblock with his anti-tank unit between Hagaru-ri and Yudam-ni, the farthest western concentration of Marines in the valley. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Two years later Whited, at 18, he joined the Corps, which deployed him to the Marine Brigade in Guam after training in San Diego. Far worse off were the 31 and 32 Infantry Regiments on the east side of the Reservoir, who suffered the brunt of Chinese attacks. The Korean War began in June 1950, when communist-backed troops from the north of the recently divided nation stormed into … Making their way south toward an evacuation seaport required the Marines and Army Infantry to march some 70 miles down a winding, icy mountain road—through a stretch called Hellfire Valley and then down Funchilin Pass. Casualties were high. Click here for the story of two Japanese-Americans who fought the Nazis in Europe—and discrimination at home. Instead, about two weeks later, the two veterans enjoyed Christmas in Pusan—with a hot turkey dinner.

Like many Marines and Infantrymen in the Korean War, Whited felt ill-equipped for the type of combat he faced there. “My platoon leader saw signs of activity up on the hill. Read harrowing tales from the WWI trenches, from the diaries of a Harlem Hellfighter.

On September 15, 1950, Whited’s unit moved quickly after the Inchon landing. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle, The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat, This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, Give Me Tomorrow: The Korean War’s Greatest Untold Story–The Epic Stand of the Marines of George Company. As a high-school freshman in Spokane in 1941, White idealized young pilots training for war, who seemed ever-popular with the girls. White and Whited also point to the American military’s lack of preparation for such a forbidding climate. Besides providing entertainment, it can also criticize present-day society, and is often said to inspire a \"sense of wonder\".--------------------------------------------------Taken from Wikipedia#Hfy #Scifi #Narration