Roughstuff's Korean War Book Reviews


last updated Sept 26, 1997

Welcome to Roughstuff's Korean War Book Reviews. I might start out humorously and say that for all of its unfortunate reputation as America's forgotten war, there is no shortage of books and articles on the subject. This page covers books specifically. For discussion of magazine, journal, and periodical media articles about the Korean war, click here. For an on site forum about Korean war issues, click here. Links to other Korean war sites, with a brief description of each one, may be found here.

Are ya still with us? Are ya sure you are in the right place? Great! Here you will find short synopses of the many books written about the Korean war. This is a monumental task and I have only just started it; this site will grow in size steadily over the near future.
There are many categories of books about the Korean War-- State Department chronologies, books by journalists such as Maggie Higgins, etc. I had to start somewhere, and I decided the first category of books I would review are the personal histories of the war written by soldiers, sailors and marines who had been on the ground.
Even this category was large; I have a list in front of me of twenty three books to read and review (fortunately I am a 'speed reader' and can pour through them quickly. I should be posting five or six reviews a week, on average) . Included are books written by Black soldiers of the controversial 24th Infantry Regiment, the last segregated unit to fight in America's armed forces. A review of the Army's study of the performance of that Regiment can be found on my Korea discussion page.
This site also will contain material on the subject of gays in the military. On this page the subject will be breached only in the context of Korean War books being reviewed. The bulk of the material again, is on the discussion page. As I review more books I will structure this site more logically than it is now. But as I said, it is just getting started.

Readers are welcome to submit commentary, questions, and suggestions. I will try and answer appropriate questions on this site. For now you can send me mail and I'll get to it as soon as I can.

Korean War Book Reviews



Rishell, Lyle. With a Black Platoon in Combat
A Year in Korea. DS921.6 R57 1993

The first impression this book made upon me was consistent with 'forgotten war' nature of this bitter conflict: the book has yet to be checked out of my university library, despite 4 years on the shelves. Rishell was a white Lieutenant assigned to the Black Platoon of Able Company, 24th IP. Like many Korean War books written by soldiers on the ground, it covers the year from the beginning of the conflict to May 1951, when the stalemate began to emerge.
The book has a good description of how the topography (especially the Taebek mountains), climate and lack of infrastructure in Korea affected the outcome of the war and presented formidable difficulties for both sides.
One criticism I have is the lack of maps in the book. Of course all readers at this point would have a general idea of the layout of the peninsula and how the war raged from one end to the other. But the author constantly refers to small locations and battles, and without some kind of map, the story becomes very confusing. Ironically the author himself states how invaluable maps would have been in managing the conflict more effectively. In the earliest days of the war, the only Korea maps the US had were copies they obtained from the Japanese.
On the all important issue of how the Black Platoons perfomed in Korea, Rishell is more clear. He claims bugouts were widespread in all units early in the war. He criticizes Max Hasting's The Korean War account of the Yechon battle, the first victory by US led forces in the war. He praises the 159th Artillery Battalion, also black, for its support.

Bailey, Hubert. Black Boy What Are You Fighting For
DS 921.6 B3

Captured in by the enemy in early 1951, Medic Roy Calhoun spent the rest of the time in a POW camp. The title of this short booklet comes from a taunt by Captain Lue, the Chinese Commandant of the camp. The book is a flashback told to the author some years later.
Several months after Calhouns' internment, five paratroopers arrive in the camp, surly, cocky and gunning to escape. Pointing out the poor treatment blacks received in America in the past and even to that present day, Lue tries to pry Calhoun to inform on his fellow POWs. Captain Lue even tries to get Calhoun to defect to China after the Armistice is signed, luring him with tales of the glory of Chinese Socialized Medicine. Neither attempt is successful. Calhouns' tender encounters with the Chinese medic assigned to the camp add a sombre note to the book.

Knox, Donald The Korean War: Pusan to Chosin
An Oral History 951.9

The joys of setting up webpages of this sort, and doing dogged research necesary to expand them, is a path fraught with unexpected pain and pleasure. So it was with this book. I was looking in my local library (Amherst, Massachusetts) for Knox's book when I found, to my shock, chagrin and unbounded pleasure, that a sequel exists!! The sequel will be reviewed in a few days.
I was not aware such a sequel existed. I checked out the first copy of this book when i spent six months in Kunsan on assignment a few years ago. I have read Knox's first book no less than twenty times. A similar fate awaits the second......

In any case, Knox's Pusan to Chosin deserves close reading by all Korean War buffs. This book is not a first person account of one part of the war, which many narrative war histories consist of. Instead, it is a roving compilation of memories and narratives of the war by scores of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who fought in the wars's early months. Between early summer and Christmas, 1950, the front line between the combatants surged south to the dangerously vulnerable Pusan Perimeter, north to the Yalu, and finally back below the 38th parallel in the rout caused by Chinese intervention. The despair of the early retreats from Chonan, Pyongtaek, and Taejon stands in stark contrast to the brisk, confident advances after Inchon. Somehow Knox, while dancing around the Peninsula and across these broad tides of optimism and defeat, manages to produce not just a coherent story of the war, but a memorable one. He accomplishes this by allowing the men on the field to tell their story in parallel fashion. The reader sees the Inchon landings, the Pusan defenses, or the Chosin debacle through the eyes of dozens of infantry, officers, artillerymen, medics, or chaplains. In short, overlapping and interwoven narratives, the Korean War's earliest phases unfold briskly. Its almost like the author has the participants sitting around a table, years later, telling their stories to you directly. It is that gripping. Maps (are you listening, Mr. Rishell) make the campaigns easy to follow.

Highlights



Knox, Donald The Korean War, Uncertain Victory The concluding volume of an oral history. 951.9

This book, as its name implies, continues the groundpounding saga of the Korean War that started a year earlier. Many of the original cast of characters are back...Norman Allen's caustic letters to his mom, old soldiers from the Inchon landings and Pusan Perimeter in new terrain and with new regiments or companies...and the story line remains the same, too: climb hills, get killed, get pushed off, get killed, get hills back.
Unique Features of this book include: review continues, will be finished soon

Gigantes, Philip Dean (Gerassimos Gigantes) I Should Have Died DS 921 D42 1979

Mr. Gigantes is a scion of one of Greece's legendary military familes from WW's I and II. Hired as a stringer by the London Observer as a Korean War Correspondent, he takes too many 'foolish risks'--including actually participating in the fighting-- and is taken prisoner. The first part of the book of course spends alot of time talking about the dismal conditions in POW camps, but the most unique aaspect of this book are the authors numerous flashbacks, reveries, even hallucinations about his youth in Greece; and the terrific pressure and abuse he endured in living up to his family name.
The rest of the book is about his later career as a journalist and does not directly relate to the korean War and this website.

Gardella, Lawrence Sing a Song to Jenny Next DS 921.6 637 1981

readers familiar with SpecOps in military literature know that these undercover, secretive missions can be a great way for the authorities to get rid of enemies and troublemakers alike. The rugged, solitary soldier, manipulated and abandoned when convenient by faceless bureaucrats, is a popular plot line. Is Mr. Gardellas' book proof that truth can be stranger than fiction?
Almost chucked out of the Marines in 1952 when they found he had lied about childhood asthma, his reprieve was to join what turned out to be a top-secret commando unit on a lethal, and colorful, odyssey through Manchuria and Northwest China. The task force was to rendezvous with local insurgents, and blow up laboratories where nuclear materials were stored and research conducted. Dying of leukemia several decades later, Gardella decided to spill his story, for three reasons.
First, the six men sent on the mission were never supposed to get back anyway. A cryptic 'CIA message ' was found when one of the units' training officers was captured in Manchuria by the very insurgents with whom the commandos were working! The message provides both evidence of betrayal, and title for the book.
Six ships sunk. Will not return.
They feel the same as most of us.
But hung his name on anyway.
Sing a song to jenny next.

emphasis by roughstuff.

One of the commandos interprets this message as the six men (ships, in the message) are to be abandoned. Also, the North Korean towns Hungnam and Songjen are probably part of a similar operation that should go forward. The training officer is killed by the insurgents and the commandos secure safe passage back to the US by threatening to reveal the whole operation.
Second, Gardella also feels The US government had not kept him apprised of the risk he would get cancer from the exposure to radioctive materials.
Finally, Gardella felt that 'times had changed' and the promises he made--to then President Truman, who came to visit the lad at a hospital-- were no longer so cogent.

Morrow, Curtis James What's a Commie ever done to Black People?
A Korean War Memoir DS 921.6 m67 1997

When I first saw the title of this book, I was reminded of a TV interview with Muhammed Ali and his opposition to the Vietnam War. "No Viet Cong ever called me Nigger!," said Ali, challenging the cameras as he always did. Even at that young age (I was only in my early teens at the time) I was impressed with the truth of the statement, but I had an annoying voice in the back of my head that kept asking me, 'yeah, but so what.'
Morrows book is a trenchant (pun intended) description of his experiences in Korea both as a soldier and as a black man. Like many soldiers, he felt a need to exorcise the bad memories. This book is his cathartic. Two parts of the book were of special relevance to me.
One was the mixed feelings he had coming back to his home town and being a hero. He felt uncomfortable with being a sort-of military poster boy. He felt he was being used when he spoke to high schools about the Korean War or the War against communism. Especially bothersome was some "little ol' fat lady recruiter" who came up and told him all the publicity had doubled enlistments.
The other was his incongruous remarks about faggots in the personnel department at Fort Leonard Wood. As a reviewer I will brush this aside as an off-the-cuff remark probably not indicative of Morrow's true feelings toward gays (if he has any). But, from the readers standpoint, it is most inconveniently placed smack in the middle of a section where he gets very high on the horse and very outraged about the racism at Fort Leonard Wood and elsewhere. It is awkward, to say the least, to criticize racial stereotypes on the one hand while spewing sexual stereotypes on the other, Mr. Morrow. A soapbox is a risky foundation from which preachers have swiftly fallen countless times.
But enough of this. The issue of gays in the military is dealt with elsewhere in this website. Morrows book is a good one, and I enjoyed it.

Rudolf W. Stevens, Old Ugly Hill
a GI's 14 months in the Korean Trenches 1952-53 DS921.6 S74 1995

Mr. Steven's book has such an innocent tone to it. Acknowledging he was just a small part of a big picture, he wrote this book partly at the urging of his children and grandchildren. The book reads almost as if you were a wide eyed, sniffeling little urchin sitting on Mr. Steven's lap as he shares his whole military experience with you... Its not all fun, games and bedside tales in this book. One failed screening patrol that suffered 11 casualties left the author wondering if the military brass 'had enough sense to to get out of bed without breaking a leg." Stevens also refers to the fragging of an unpopular Colonel 'Ortega' (the name is fictitious) with two sticks fo dynamite under his bunk. Like many Korean War vets, he also feels the blood shed over nameless ridges--Old Baldy, in this case-- was senseless. The terrain they could survey from the top of Old Baldy could easily be searched by spotter plane.
Despite some sour spots--the author speaks unkindly about the performance of a 'platoon of Puerto Ricans'-- this is a good story. Ne'er a cuss or swear word to be found. As a sense of gloom and foreboding swept the troops going across the sea of Japan from Sasebo to Pusan, the author glumly reports that 'there sure was a sense that the ship soon was gonna hit the sand'

Maihafer, Harry J. From the Hudson to the Yalu
West Point '49 in the Korean War DS 921.6 m35 1993

This is a good book but Knox's books above are far better. If you want to read about Adrian Brian's 'I' company adventures, why not read about them firsthand? Compared with Knox's book, Maihafer's third hand accounts are stale and clinical. This is not to say the book is bad is not an enjoyable read, just that it is more like a silent movie, compared to Knox's virtual reality style. To be honest, I expected this from a West Pointer/Officer type, as it behooves them to remain a certain distance from the reality of War.

My only encounter with West Pointers was years ago, when I stayed at the Hotel Thayer for an intercollegiate debate tournament being held on the---campus? base? I never knew what to call it. Now, if you have ever read the Gormenghast Trilogy about that ponderous, gothic, byzantine castle, i assure you, the Hotel Thayer is a fairly good representation. The whole place was haunted with tradition--'presidents have slept here, Gary!' my debate coach intoned. Such characteristics may mold great military leaders, but they do not mold great writers.

Two flaws mar this book. First, Maihafers' constant reference to the fate of Class of '49 buddies makes it sound like Korea was some sort of post graduation ritual. I am sure the author doesn't mean to characterize Korea as some sort of fraternity right-of-passage, for it was a painful and frequently fatal one; but thats' the impression I get from the text.
Second, i am tempted to ask if Mr. Maihafer was in the same Korean War I have read about elsewhere. Little is said about the poor performance of Army units in the wars' early weeks. The collapse of discipline and chain of command in the rout at Chosin is given short shrift as well. Here was an excellent chance for Army brass to either set the record straight, or admit to its deficiencies. Maihofers book does neither.

Berry, Henry Hey Mac, Where Ya Been?
Living Memories of US Marines in the Korean War DS 921.6 B44 1988

This is a good book. You have to admire the author's initiative in hunting down jarheads from Maine to San Diego 30 years after the war is over. Berry has the men talk alot about their pre-service and pre-Korean War militayr experience, which adds alot of color to the book. Many of the stories get a bit repetitive as the fellas tell their tales of Pusan, Inchon, Chosin, and the subsequent stalemate, but their was enough of a twist to each rendition to keep this readers' interest. Berry does provide a useful survey of the post WWII political and military situation in the US...attempts to eliminate the Marine Corps, the severe force cuts and poor readiness of key personnel and equipment.

Every reader is likely to find a part of this book which sticks in his memory. Mine were as follows.



Melady, John Korea: Canada's Forgotten War
DS919.2 M44 1983

Listen, eh....Korea was Canada's forgotten war, too, eh? Melady wrote this book to point out that Canadian troops fought in those rice paddies and on those ridges, too. 516 Canadians died as a result of the Korean War. The book is more than battlefield stories. In sweeping prose Melady covers the post world war II tragedy of Korean division; how Maj. General Hodge hurt the process of rebuildng the south; and the desperate, sometimes comical, sometimes heroic, ROK resistance in the wars' early hours.

Back in Canada, Melady shares stories of the rush to enlist..one fella with a scar from his neck to to his naval who claimed it was for an appendectomy; another guy in the medical corps, who told the psychiatrists he liked to go out at night and strangle sheep.

But by far the most intriguing story is that of the mysterious Dr. Cyr, aka Fred Demara. From March to October 1951 this fellow masqueraded as Surgeon-Lieutenant Cyr and practiced medicine (admittedly often by stealing a look at a textbook or soliciting help from other medics) on the Cayuga for six months, even managing to pull one of the Captains teeth. Eventually, the real Dr. Cyr, back in New Brunswick, happened to read a story about himself in the newspaper. The ruse fell apart shortly afterwords.

Still, the book is not all jest and off-the-cuff irony. Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry fought gallantly and tragically at Kapyong-ni in early 1951, preventing a breach in the UN lines and perhaps the fall of Seoul (again). For this they were awarded the Presidential Citation for 'Outstanding Heroism'-- the only Canadians to ver receive this award. Quite an accomplishment for soldiers who, a few months before, were afraid the War would be over before they arrived in Korea.

Ok folks...i have to take a break from these relentless sagas from folks at the front. Lets take a look at the politics of the Korean War for a few moments. And where was there more politics than at the Panmunjom peace talks. ??

C. Turner Joy How Communists Negotiate
DS 921.6 J6

Whew!!! Wanna quick review of 2 years of communist stalling and intransigence? Read this old book that dates back to the fifties. One could never get a book like this published in this genteel revisionist era, where the UN asks us to share the angst of the North Korean people as they starve to death under Stalinomics. This book is depressing in such an enlightening way. Its all here...the lies, deceits, red herrings, and imbecilic behavior we've come to know and love from Communists the world over.
On a lighter note. Admiral Joy would make an excellent neo-Jesus. He is very good at making analogies and parables which exemplify the inherent contradictions which often typified the Communist positions. He makes it clear that communists often have succeeded in obtaining at the bargaining table what they did not, or could not, obtain on the battlefield.
His book covers the negotiations not so much in a chronological fashion-- although there is much of that-- as by devoting individual chapters to various communist negotiating tactics. Readers familiar with the Korean and Vietnam War talks will recognize the following.



Joy also talkes about a few blunders made by the UN side. The ones most readers are familiar with are the decisions by the UN side

Allowing construction of airfields meant that Soviet MIGs could refuel at North Korean bases, attack UN forces, and then scoot back into their santuaries in Manchuria. Without aerial reconnaisance ensuring true compliance with Armistice terms would be impossible. And UN officials were so petrified of offending the Russians that they hesitated to even label them as aggressors in the conflict. Such timidity makes George Bush look decisive.
Joy claims these concessions and wafflings undercut the team negotiating in Panmunjom. Of course, it is a fact of life for negotiators from Western Democracies that the merits and weaknesses of their positions are discussed not only at the tbale, but in the press and political forums back home.

The most interesting part of the book is where Joy gives six powerful arguments that the prisoner repatriation issue should not have been part of the negotiations. Not only was it an arbitrary extension of Articles 7 and 118 of the Geneva Convention, but it was a political issue, not a military one, and had no business in an armistice agreement. He continues....

Voluntary repatriation placed the welfare of communist soldiers above that of our own UN command personnel in Communist prison camps, and above that of UN personnel still on the battle lines in Korea.
page 152

Quite a different view than many others have taken of prisoner repatriation! Of course, Admiral Joy was speaking as a military person, rather than as a State Department Goody-two-shoe, so such frankness is to be expected.


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