On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman the the Communist forces of Kin Il Sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war. As he was speaking, 300,000 Chinese soliders began secretly crossing the Manchurian border. Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir. What follwed was one of the most heroic and harrowing operations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time. Faced with probable annihilation, and temperatures plunging to twenty degrees below zerio, the surrounded, and hugely outnumbered, Marines fought through the enemy forces with ferocity, ingenuity, and nearly unimaginable courage as they marched their way tot he sea.
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