The Chosin Reservoir Campaign of the Korean War is the stuff of legend in the Marine Corps. During the pivotal 1950 battle, 15,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines, alongside another 15,000 UN soldiers, fought through a force of 120,000 Chinese soldiers to reach the sea some 78 miles away.
During the campaign, U.S. forces successfully evacuated 98,000 refugees while inflicting heavy losses on the Chinese army.
The Marine Corps led the push against a numerically superior Chinese force. The Marines broke through an enemy encirclement, and even rebuilt a bridge that the Chinese destroyed.
In the process, they also saved the UN's army in Korea from total defeat.
The campaign is one of the defining events of the Marine Corp's modern history, but it remains largely unknown outside of military and historical circles. Marine Corps veterans Brian Iglesias and Anton Sattler have released an award-winning documentary, CHOSIN, that details the operation with interviews from veterans who fought there.
Here is a history of the campaign from the few archival photos that document one of the pivotal campaigns of the Korean War.
By the middle of 1950, the Korean War seemed all but won. The communist Korean People's Army was routed and UN forces were quickly advancing up through the northern half of the Korean Peninsula
Then, on October 19, 1950, Chinese leader Mao Tze Tung secretly sent large formations of troops into North Korea in an attempt to rescue the communists' war effort.
On November 2, Chinese forces encountered U.S. Marines. The Chinese suffered heavy casualties and withdrew to the Chosin Reservoir in an attempt to lure allied forces into a trap.
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