Review by Booklist Review
Coleman, now a retired lieutenant colonel, was a sergeant in the 187th Regimental Combat Team and survived the brutal fighting in February 1951 for the critical central South Korean town of Wonju. Mixing personal memories, oral history, and thorough research in primary and secondary sources, he traces the Korean War's first eight months with an unsparing eye for the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. He then focuses on the Chinese Fourth Offensive, which met an Eighth Army that, transformed by General Matthew Ridgway, refused to retreat and used its superior firepower to deadly advantage. Traditional accounts of the decisive U.N. victory in the battle emphasize the fighting around Chip'young Ni, but Coleman's detailed account of the fighting around Wonju stresses its equal role in taking stra-tegic initiative away from the Chinese. Even in very good accounts of very ugly firefights, Coleman remains evenhanded, which helps him produce an exceptionally worthy addition to Korean War battle literature. --Roland Green
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
