The Battle of Chosin Reservoir was a pivotal and brutal engagement during the Korean War where outnumbered U.S. Marines and allied forces, despite facing extreme conditions and surprise attacks, fought a successful fighting withdrawal against overwhelming Chinese forces, ultimately saving a significant portion of the South Korean civilian population.
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All right. Well, it's Halloween. I guess
we should talk about that time that the
United States Marine Corps figured out a
way to turn Tootsie Rolls into a weapon.
Today, we're talking about one of the
most underrated and underappreciated
battles in the United States military
history, the Battle of the Chosen
Reservoir. When 15,000 US Marines and
3,000 Army soldiers got ambushed and
surrounded by 120,000 Chinese Communist
forces in the dead of winter with
temperatures reaching as low as -50. But
despite the weather, despite being
ambushed and taken by surprise, and
despite being outnumbered 4 to one, the
United States Marine Corps led this
operation to not only survive, but to
kill a disproportionate amount of the
enemy [music] and save 10% of the South
Korean civilian population in the
process. And we're going to get into it
right after word from our sponsor.
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All right, Battle of the Chosen
Reservoir. In order to understand it,
you have to understand the Korean War.
And considering it's literally called
the Forgotten War, and most people know
nothing about it. We're going to go
ahead and do a little recap so we're all
on the same page. After World War II,
the Korean Peninsula is divided along
the 38th parallel. Pretty much the same
border that we have today. Up north, you
have the North Koreans that are
communist, and they are backed by the
Soviet Union and China. Down south, you
have the capitalist South Koreans that
are backed by the United States of
America and the rest of the Western
world. On June 25th, 1950, the North
Koreans attack. They invade South with
Soviet tanks and Soviet training and
they pretty much steamroll the South
Koreans, capturing Soul, the capital in
less than 72 hours and driving all of
the South Korean forces all the way down
the peninsula to [music] a tiny little
al cove where they are holding out known
as the Busan perimeter. And then America
steps in. Why does America step in?
Because at this point in time, America
is practicing what is known as
containment doctrine. And containment is
referring to communism. Basically, the
American leadership has decided that
communism is bad and we don't want more
of it. However, we don't want to go in
there and root out the entire ideology
because it would be World War II and
there'd be a ton of death. So, America
kind of looks at communism like an
inoperable cancer. We're not willing to
go in there and take it out at the root.
However, we're going to do everything we
can to stop it from spreading. The idea
being if we can stop it from spreading,
we can prevent World War II. Because if
we allow the communists to take South
Korea or any other nation, then it's
going to spread from South Korea to
Japan to Australia, and it's going to go
all over the world, and next thing you
know, we've got World War II, capitalism
versus communism, and it'd be a [ __ ]
catastrophe. Whether that's right or
wrong, that was the idea and the
strategy at the time. Now, the obvious
thing to do would be to land all the
American forces inside the Busan
perimeter and then fight your way back
up the peninsula, but that's not what
General MacArthur and the rest of the
American leadership decides to do. They
decide to take a riskier strategy of
launching an amphibious landing on the
other side of the country in Inchon. Why
is this risky? Because Inchan is not a
very viable location to launch a massive
amphibious landing because it's a
horrible beach. There's literally a seaw
wall there. The only time an amphibious
landing would be possible would be for
one or two hours during high tide. And
when you're talking about moving tens of
thousands of men out of hundreds of
boats in a 1 to two hour gap at a very
particular time, that's going to require
both logistical perfection and a
significant amount of luck. But that's
exactly what happens. On September 15th,
1950, America launches Operation
Chromite, lands 75,000 Marines in
Inchan. They immediately take over
Inchan, catching the North Koreans off
guard and head straight into Seoul and
take it over as well. From here, they
pretty much cut the enemy lines in half,
cutting off supplies to all of the men
south of them, and all the UN forces
break out of Busan, pushing back up the
peninsula. By early October, literally
in two [ __ ] weeks, America has
retaken all of South Korea and pushed
the North Koreans all the way back into
their own country. At this point,
General MacArthur, who's already pretty
renowned for being arrogant, sees the
outrageous success that he's had in this
risky operation. He's taken over all of
South Korea [music] in like two weeks.
Everything's going great. He gets the
idea in his head of like, hey, what if
we break containment doctrine and we
push into North Korea and just eliminate
the North Koreans completely and then we
can unify Korea.
>> No, don't like that.
>> So, he takes this idea to the president
and the joint chiefs of staff. The joint
chiefs of staff actually kind of like
the idea, but President Truman is
hesitant because he doesn't want to
start World War II. So, he issues the
order, US forces are allowed to proceed
into North Korea with caution. However,
disclaimer, only South Korean forces can
[music] advance all the way to the
border between North Korea and China.
And this is a brilliant strategy on
President Truman's part because you have
to understand, China is a communist
nation that's not only backing North
Korea, but they're ran by Chairman Mao.
And he just got done fighting a civil
war in his own country, fighting against
the side that the United States was
backing. And he knows that America
[ __ ] hates communism. So Chairman Mao
is understandably paranoid that America
is going to invade. He also is battleh
hardened. He has a ton of men that are
also battleh hardened. So Truman by
doing this is saying like, "Hey, we'll
advance into North Korea, but we're only
going to send the South Koreans all the
way up to the Chinese border." And this
is going to send the clear message to
China. Hey, America's not coming to
invade China. We're just going to, you
know, stop here 100 miles back and then
we're going to let the South Koreans
handle the Korean business. Korea will
get unified and you can stay over there
with your communism and not food. But
General MacArthur in his infinite
[ __ ] wisdom and arrogance decides
that he's going to defy the orders of
the president, aka the
commanderin-chief. But not only just the
commander-in-chief, the same
commander-in-chief that ended World War
II. Clearly, that guy doesn't know what
the [ __ ] he's talking about. So he
violates orders and orders all of the
American forces to advance north all the
way to the Yalu River, which is the
terrain feature that defines the border
between China and North Korea.
>> That seems like a bad sign.
>> Now, from Chairman Ma's perspective,
this is an enormous [ __ ] issue.
Understandably so. I mean, imagine if
the roles were reversed and China were
marching north through Mexico and he
ordered his Chinese communist forces to
go all the way up to the Rio Grand. Do
you think America and Texas would sit
there and twiddle their thumbs and hope
that the Chinese were going to stop at
the Rio Grand knowing that China had
taken a vow to basically eradicate
capitalism? Absolutely [ __ ] not. So,
why would you expect your enemy to not
do the exact same thing that you would
do in that situation? Sorry, if you're
getting the vibe that I don't like
General MacArthur, it's because I don't.
GENERAL MACARTHUR'S A HERO. He said he
would return to the Philippines in World
War II, and that's exactly what he did.
Oh, did he did he did he fly in like
Superman shooting laser beams out of his
eyes and tank the entire island by
himself? Or was it the 1 million Marines
and army guys that went in there and
gave their lives to liberate the
Philippines? And why did he have to take
a vow to return to the Philippines
anyways? Was it because after Pearl
Harbor had been attacked and he received
early warning that the Japanese were
coming, he decided to not get all of his
planes up in the air? So when the
Japanese showed up, they got to bomb all
the planes still on the [ __ ] ground
getting a bunch of men killed. And then
he tried to delay the battle strategy of
having all of his men fall back to
Baton. And instead he tried to defend
the entire island at first, getting even
more men killed because losing the
Philippines would make him look bad. And
then when pretty much all hope was lost,
he decided to hop in a PT boat in the
middle of night and evacuate himself and
abandon his men. Is that why he had to
return? That's not fair because he was
ordered by the president to evacuate the
Philippines. Oh, just like he was given
the order by the president to not have
US troops approach the Chinese border,
but ordered his troops to go right there
anyways. It's almost like he's willing
to follow orders whenever it saves his
own ass. And he's willing to defy them
and put all of his men in harm's way the
second he thinks it's going to pad his
own [ __ ] glory. I'm sorry. I'm
getting very sidetracked. I apologize.
>> Almost lost my cool there.
>> MacArthur issues the order to go all the
way to the Yo River, aka the Chinese
border. Marines go into North Korea,
start kicking ass, start beating their
way all the way up the peninsula.
They're advancing so fast that the front
lines are moving faster than the supply
lines can keep up. They're literally
outrunning the supply lines. While
that's going on, Chairman Ma and China
sees that America is invading North
Korea. So, they do an understandable
thing and start amassing hundreds of
thousands of troops on the Chinese
border in case America decides to
attack. American intelligence knows
about this. They give the reports to
General MacArthur. General MacArthur
ignores them.
>> What a stupid son of a [ __ ]
>> The Marines keep advancing north,
outrunning supply lines. At this point,
Chairman Mao starts sending his Chinese
forces into North Korea under the cover
of night on foot. By November 1st, 1950,
Chinese troops are confirmed in combat
with the United States Marine Corps.
Hits Truman's desk, hits MacArthur's
desk. MacArthur says that's not
possible. Keep advancing towards the
Chinese border. November 2nd, 1950,
Marines advance into the Sudong Gorge on
their way to the chosen reservoir when
they are ambushed by a sizable Chinese
element. Unfortunately for them, the
Marines that they ambushed was the first
Marine Division being led by none other
than Chesty [ __ ] Polar, the
greatest marine of all time. The First
Marine Division suffers 30 casualties
and the Chinese suffer upwards of 300.
So that's good. The battle went about as
well as it could have for war, but also
pretty big [ __ ] red flag that there's
actual Chinese elements now in North
Korea engaging the Marines, which
MacArthur, you'll never guess, decides
to ignore.
>> I don't see much of nothing. A matter of
fact, I can't even see you, sir.
>> And for the first couple of weeks in
November, there's skirmishes all over
the place between Chinese forces and the
US Marines. But MacArthur and his guys
make the call. Just keep pushing. So,
the lead element of the First Marines
winds up in a place called Hagaroo, just
south of the chosen reservoir, which is
a massive man-made lake. From here, the
plan is we're going to have to split and
send guys up both sides to keep
advancing north. The man in charge of
this section of the Marines is General
Oliver Smith, and he is not happy about
this idea at all. Here's the thing. The
terrain in this area of North Korea is
described as being straight [music] up
or straight down. Either you're going up
a hill or you're going down a hill. And
the roads that you see on the map are
literally bank going downhill, road,
cliff. There's nowhere to go. There's
one way in and one way out, both
directions. And calling it a road is
kind of a stretch. It's literally an old
ox trail that they can barely fit a
truck on. And going back the other
direction isn't any better. Going back
towards Friendly Lines, there's still
one trail going to the nearest town of
Cotto Ri, and that's 12 mi away. And
then from Cotto again, there's one
trail, one road that goes 35 mi back to
the port where all the supplies have to
come in. So at Hagaroo, they are like 50
mi deep with one way in and one way out.
And if anything goes wrong, they're
[ __ ] And they want to keep advancing
further in, splitting their forces under
the same conditions. But thankfully,
General Smith realizes this is a
humongous mistake and starts stockpiling
supplies at Hagaroo and orders his
engineers to start building an air strip
so they can fly [ __ ] in and out. Seeing
this, General MacArthur and his staff
are like, "Way to go, General Smith."
Preparing for the worst, hoping for the
best. What a brilliant point. No, I'm
just kidding. MacArthur and his staff
are mad at General Smith and make fun of
him for being overly cautious and
slowing down the operation instead of
just driving headfirst further into
enemy territory with no backup plan. But
General Smith, being a good leader,
says, "I don't really care about my own
personal glory of being the first guy to
reach the Yaloo River. I would much
rather do it the safe way and look out
for my guys." So that's exactly what he
does. He stocks up supplies in Hagaroo
and builds an airirst strip. Hey, and
bear in mind it's November in North
Korea. It's dipping down into like
negative -40 negative50 at night and it
snows there. We're one snowstorm away
from blocking this ox trail, cutting off
supply lines and everybody freezes and
starves to death. So even without the
threat of the Chinese military, this was
a good and necessary idea. So they set
up the first Marine Division
headquarters right there with 3600 men
and the air strip. From here, they send
the rest of the Marines and the army
guys up around the chosen reservoir. Up
the right side, they send 2500 US Army
guys backed up by about a thousand South
Koreans. While they're advancing north,
they come across a place called Hudong.
And after that, the road conditions and
the weather is so bad they have to leave
their armored unit, their tanks there in
Hudong while the rest of the men advance
forward. And they end up taking up
position right here and they dig in.
Going out the left side of the
reservoir, they have Fox Company, 234
Marines that go up on a ridge, securing
a choke point on the road right here.
And then the rest of the 8,000 Marines
advance into a place called Udomi, where
they dig in. November 23rd rolls around,
Thanksgiving. They all get to eat cold
turkey while they're freezing their ass
off in -20 plus degree temperatures.
November 24th, MacArthur comes through
division headquarters celebrating,
telling everybody, "We're all going to
be home by Christmas. [music] Hooray."
And then he takes off and [ __ ] off in
his plane. What MacArthur doesn't know
is that Mao has already sent in 120,000
soldiers to surround everybody at the
chosen reservoir. And the Marines don't
know that either. So, they're all just
hanging out freezing their asses off.
It's so cold that the lubrication that
they use on their guns actually turns
into jelly and would jam the guns. So,
they strip all their guns of all the
lubrication. And if they get in a
firefight, they're just going to have to
run the guns dry. But that's not going
to happen because MacArthur was just
here. He said, "We're going to be home
by Christmas. The war is basically won.
Hooray. I just got to sit around and
freeze my ass off for a few more days
and it's all going to be good until it's not.
not.
November 27th, 10:00 at night, both at
Udomi, the Army position and Fox
Company, all the Marines are hanging
out. They're in their sleeping bags.
They're sleeping. They're waiting for
the war to get over. And then they hear
bugle calls off in the distance. And
within minutes, all hell breaks loose as
wave after wave of Chinese soldiers
start rushing their position. The
Marines that were up monitoring the
perimeter are scrambling to get the guns
up and running because the bolts have
frozen in place because it's so [ __ ]
cold. They're literally pissing on the
machine guns to break the bolts loose.
The Marines that were sleeping are
scrambling to get out of their sleeping
bags and get their guns as a firefight
breaks out. The Marines that are just
waking up don't even have time to get
all their cold weather gear on. Some of
these guys are literally running around
in a firefight in50°ree weather with no
boots, just wearing their socks. The
Marines start mowing down the Chinese
soldiers as they attempt to attack their
position. But the Chinese just keep
coming wave after wave after wave. And
after the first couple of waves, the
waves that are coming out now, some of
them don't even have guns on them.
They're just running into the
battlefield, picking up a gun off a dead
Chinese soldier, and then attacking the
Marine position. The Marines got
everything going for them. They have
machine guns. They have the high ground.
Granted, it's -50°, but that affects
everybody, the enemy included. But the
Chinese are throwing so many men at the
Marines, they can't keep up. Even with
the machine guns running full clip,
they're still managing to get to the
marine position. And other Marines are
fighting off Chinese in hand tohand
combat with rifles and bayonets trying
to keep them off of the machine gunners.
It's literally the nastiest, grittiest
warfare you could imagine. It is a knife
fight inside of a freezer. The foxholes
are shallow because the ground was so
frozen. So the Marines literally start
taking the dead bodies of Chinese
soldiers and stacking them into walls
using them for cover. And it goes all
night long. The Marines at UDAME, the
army on the other side of the reservoir,
and Fox Company all fight their asses
off all night. And you got to remember,
Fox Company's only 234 guys holding a
position by themselves with no backup
for miles. And they are getting attacked
by thousands of Chinese soldiers. And if
they can't hold the choke point at this
road, 8,000 Marines up north at U Damn
are completely cut off and are
absolutely gonna die. Luckily, the man
in charge of Fox Company is Captain
William Barber, a veteran of Saipan and
Tarowa, two of the biggest, nastiest
battles of World War II. He radios into
HQ as they're getting attacked. We're
surrounded, but we can hold them. The
234 Marines of Fox Company quite
literally spend their night farming the
commies for XP. Captain Barber even gets
shot through the leg, refuses to get
medevaced, and walks around the
battlefield on a crutch, commanding his
men all night long. Morning breaks, the
battle's over. Fox Company has sustained
24 casualties. Bear in mind, casualties
is dead and wounded, whether that be
from battle or cold weather. On the flip
side of the coin, Fox Company literally
quits counting the dead bodies outside
the perimeter at 1,500. That's not
including all of the ones that were
wounded by the battle and the [music]
weather. Across the entire chosen
reservoir, the Marines up at UDami, Fox
Company, and the Army, it's suspected
that America lost between 6 and 700
soldiers with hundreds of more wounded
from the battle or cold weather. The
conservative estimates of the Chinese
casualties are in excess of 12,000. The
battle reports get sent down to General
Smith. Smith is freaking out. He kicks
him up to Higher Command, and Higher
Command doesn't believe him.
>> I don't believe you. So MacArthur sends
out his right-hand guy, his psy yes man,
General Almond. Mr. Peanut shows up to
the [ __ ] army position in his
helicopter. Hops out and the army
commander informs him, "I've got like
400 dead soldiers. A bunch of guys are
wounded. We've captured a bunch of
Chinese guys last night and we've
recognized patches from at least two
separate divisions. Meaning that there's
at least two divisions of Chinese
soldiers. 26,000 guys surrounding this
position right now." To which General
Almond, not believing him, says,
"There's not two divisions in all of
North Korea." Quote, "Are you going to
let a bunch of Chinese laundry men get
the best of you?" End quote. He then
gets in his helicopter and [ __ ] off.
MacArthur and his staff then issue the
order to the First Marine Division to
continue their advance towards the Yaloo River.
River.
>> Why are you the way that you are?
>> At this point, General Smith and his men
realize that they are now basically
completely on their own and Higher
Command has lost their [ __ ] minds.
General Smith knows that if Fox Company
falls, all the Marines at UDam knee are
done for. And if he falls at the
crossroads, at the base of the chosen
reservoir, the entire division is done
for. The real problem is his HQ at the
base of the chosen reservoir, right at
the crossroads, has 3,600 marines, but
they're not infantry. These aren't
combat troops. These are cooks and
mechanics and engineers and [ __ ] These
are not hardened combat troops, but
they're about to be because he orders
absolutely everybody to get their guns
and get ready for a fight and pick up
defensive positions because the Chinese
are coming for them next and he knows
it. And sure enough, the Chinese start
launching attacks during the day on
November 28th. They launch attacks
everywhere they had attacked the night
before and they're now attacking the
division HQ at Hagaroo where General
Smith is. The Chinese penetrated so far
south that they actually came up behind
Hagaroo and Hagaroo is now completely
surrounded as well. General Smith knows
that Mao wants to divide and conquer and
he can't let him do it. So, he sends the
order out to his men in the field. Hold
your position as long as you can and
then make your way back to Hagaroo so we
can consolidate forces. And that's
exactly what they do. They fight all day
and all night on the 28th, the 29th, the
30th, and then when they can't take
anymore, they finally start to make
their way back to Hagaroo. And this
isn't just hop in the trucks and drive
10 miles down the road. They're
completely surrounded. that they are
moving. They are fighting every single
inch of the way while trying to get
hundreds of wounded men out the entire
time. The army fights their way down to
Hudong where they reconvene with their
tanks and continue fighting their way
down to Hagaroo. The Marines have to
fight their way down to where Fox
Company is, reconvene with them, and
continue fighting their way down to
Hagaroo. And while that's going on, on
November 29th, Hagaroo is completely
surrounded. The road is cut off. They
have no way of escaping. So they call up
what remains of the first Marines down
south. And they have a colonel in charge
of them, Chesty Polar, who drives north
and takes over the nearest town from
Hagaru called Cotto. The Chinese try to
stop Chesty Polar and the First Marines,
but they can't stop him. Once he's taken
the town, they launch multiple attacks
trying to retake it, but they can't.
From here, they immediately put together
Task Force Dale, 900 infantry troops
that are going to convoy 11 miles up to
Hagaroo to reinforce them. Task Force
Dale has to fight through the entire
way. One-third of the men in that convoy
end up getting killed or wounded.
Another third are forced to turn back
because there's so many damaged trucks
blocking the road. And only onethird
makes it into Hagaroo. But now Hagaroo
has 300 infantry soldiers helping all
the cooks and mechanics. As the Marines
from Udamni and the Army unit continue
to fight their way south, the only thing
keeping Hagaroo in this fight is the
airfield, bringing in C47s full of
supplies and carrying out thousands of
wounded. You know that same airfield
that General Smith got a bunch of [ __ ]
for building because it was unnecessary
and he was being overly cautious. Yeah.
Well, now it's the only lifeline they have.
have.
>> I [screaming] [ __ ] knew it.
>> The army fights their way down. They
make it into Hagaroo on December 1st.
that same exact day, they've got C-47s
coming in, dropping supplies, carrying
out wounded. And somewhere along the
lines, obviously, they're running low on
ammo. They're running low on medical
supplies. They're running low on food.
It's a complete disaster. And one of the
things they needed were 60 mm mortar
rounds, commonly referred to as Tootsie
Rolls. Well, apparently the guy loading
the C-47 didn't know that. So, an entire
C47 full of literal Tootsie Rolls, like
the candy, shows up. Literally just
cases and cases and pallets and pallets
of [ __ ] Tootsie Rolls. And the
Marines are like, "I guess we're eating
candy and kicking ass. Why not?" Bear in
mind, they're still getting attacked all
day and all night, just repelling wave
after wave, meat wall after meat wall of
commies. And pretty soon, it's just dead
commies and Tootsie Roll wrappers all
over the [ __ ] place. And then the
Marines start to realize when it's
sub-zero temperatures, Tootsie Rolls are
more than just a delicious treat. If you
stick it in your mouth and chew it up a
little bit and take it out, it makes
basically rubber cement. And they start
using it to patch fuel lines and patch
holes and fix all kinds of [ __ ] in
Hagaroo. And the Marines in the army
just keep fighting all day, all night.
They're doing everything they can for
their wounded. The cold absolutely
sucks. It's freezing the morphine.
People are in pain. But on the flip
side, the cold is also freezing shut
wounds that would normally cause a lot
of men to bleed to death. So the cold
actually ended up saving a lot of lives
as well. Everybody's got frostbite to
varying degrees, but everybody just
keeps fighting their ass off day and
night. And by December 2nd, the rest of
the Marines from Udomi make their way
into Hagaroo. And while all this is
going on, somewhere along the line, it
finally dawns on higher command that
they have severely [ __ ] up. MacArthur
is just a defeated man. The newspapers
back home have completely written off
the entire First Marine Division with
newspaper headlines basically saying,
"They're doomed. They're a lost
division. They're all going to die. pray
for your loved ones. And as the Marines
from Udomi are coming in, even though
they haven't read those headlines and
they haven't heard that, they feel that
way. Their heads are hanging low,
they're beat up, they're frostbitten,
they've got wounded, and it just [ __ ]
sucks. And as they come marching in, all
the other Marines in Hagaroo and the
army start chanting the Marine Corps
hymn. And as the Marines hear that, they
lift their heads a little bit higher and
they go from staggering into Hagaroo to
marching into Hagaroo. And this is it.
This is a Hollywood moment. This is a
the Tiger playing in a Rocky movie where
everybody decides this fight isn't
[ __ ] over yet.
Obviously, the Marines that have been at
Hagaroo are in a little bit better shape
than the guys that were up at UDAME and
the Army unit. They're bringing
everybody in. They're getting them fed.
They're trying to get everybody warm.
They got C-47s flying in supplies,
carrying out wounded, bringing in
ammunition, food, rations, absolutely
everything. The Marines are literally
using flamethrowers to heat up the food
because it's frozen solid. The Chinese
are still trying to attack, but
America's got air superiority,
artillery, supplies. They've got
everything going for them except for
numbers. The question now becomes, how
are we going to get everybody out of
here? We could fly everybody out with
C-47s, but then we're going to have to
abandon all the trucks, all the
artillery, all the equipment, and then
you're going to have the bigger issue of
once the Chinese figure out that we're
flying out all of our guys, the guys
that they leave out at the ass end, if
they get attacked, they're all going to
die. So, that's not really an option.
The only option is to fight 11 miles
south back to Cotto Ri with Chesty and
the rest of the First Marine Division.
And then from there, they're going to
have to link up and fight further south
from Cotto Ri down to the port of
Hungnam where they're going to be able
to get on a ship and get out of there.
So they spend the next 4 days getting
ready for this massive movement, trying
to fly out the most wounded on the
airplanes, but they're not going to be
able to get all the wounded out in time.
They're going to have to put them in
trucks and take them with them. Now,
this type of movement is what many
historians and battlefield experts would
refer to as a fighting retreat.
Basically, you're going to have to fight
while you're defending your wounded and
extract the other way. The problem is,
and what General Smith would later
argue, this is not a fighting retreat
because I'm completely surrounded. I'm
not falling back to friendly enemy
lines. I'm literally assaulting another
direction. And that's exactly what he
tells his men. And it sets the vibe for
the entire operation. We're not falling
back. We're going back in and through
the enemy.
>> Let's [ __ ] go.
Get your spectral sock out, nerds. It's
going to get good. And that's exactly
what they do. The Marines punch through
and fight 11 miles straight to Cotto Ri
where they link back up with Chesty and
the rest of the First Marine Division.
While in Cotto Re, they're still
obviously having supplies and everything
air dropped in. And whether it was
purely a mistake or whether somebody in
the Air Force has a really good sense of
humor, some of the supplies that they
air dropped in were crates and crates of condoms.
condoms.
>> I'm sorry, what? which whether it was
intentional or not provided a muchneeded
comic relief because let's face it, the
Marines are only good at three things.
Getting stuff dead, broken, or pregnant,
and pretty much all the enemies dying
off. Everything's already broken, being
patched together with [ __ ] Tootsie
Rolls. There's only one thing left they
could do, and that's it.
>> All jokes aside, there's still work to
be done, and somebody's got to get the
Marines back on task. And this is where
Chesty comes up with one of the most
famous quotes in Marine Corps history.
Quote, "We're surrounded. That
simplifies the problem. They're to the
left of us. They're to the right of us.
They're in front of us. They're behind
us. They can't get away this time. And
with that, around 14,000 Marines and a
thousand vehicles set off on this 35mm
journey. Now, remember, this is a narrow
road, only one car wide. This convoy
stretches for miles. As the lead element
approaches Fuchillan Pass, there is a
bridge. It is the only way to get across
this massive gorge. And when they get
there, the bridge is blown up right in
the middle with a 29 ft gap in it. The
Chinese have them trapped. There is no
other way out. This is it. This is game
over for anybody except for America.
Because America has the greatest
logistical capability that the world has
ever seen. So when the Marines get on
the radio and say, "We need a bridge,"
the Air Force simply replies, "Copy."
>> The Marines then leave the trucks on the
road, fight up the ridge, take the high
ground, and start engaging the enemy for
hours, giving the Air Force time. While
that's going on, the Air Force acquires
eight portable bridge sections weighing
3,000 lbs a piece that have never been
dropped out of a plane before. Do
practice runs figuring out how to drop
these things out of a plane without
breaking them and without getting people
killed. Figures it out and air drops the
bridge pieces back at Cotto Ri where the
Marines load them onto trucks and
bulldozers and get them in the convoy
headed to the bridge. And this gets done
in the span of less than 24 hours. Once
the bridge pieces make it there, with
the Marines still engaging the enemy and
the workers under fire, they then
install the bridge sections and have it
go from there's no bridge here, we're
[ __ ] to, hey guys, we've got a bridge
in less than 36 hours. Oh, and I forgot
to mention this was during the worst
weather of the entire affair with
temperatures dipping down to -55° during
a blizzard where visibility was less
than 50 ft in front of your face. And
that's it. Once they cross this bridge,
they're home free. There's a couple of
more skirmishes between here and
Hungnam, but they just wipe them to the
side. You got to remember the Chinese
have been out there just as long as
them, and they're not getting all this
resupply and everything else. These guys
are hurting. They're rolling up on setup
ambushes and checkpoints. And the
Chinese soldiers are literally just
frozen solid in place. And as they're
making this multi-day voyage to Hungnam,
this last 35 miles, the weather breaks
and it goes from being 555° to like 30°,
an 80° temperature shift. And to these
guys, it's [ __ ] hot out. So when the
14,000 Marines roll into Hungnam, the
same Marines and newspapers have been
saying they're as good as dead. They're
doomed. They're a lost cause for weeks.
Roll in. They do it sitting on top of
>> So they link up with the UN forces in
Hungam. There's now a 100,000 men there,
but there's still hundreds of thousands
of Chinese that are coming down as
reinforcements to crush them. They got
to get out of there as soon as possible.
They've got a 100 ships to load
everybody up on. But then things get
complicated because a 100,000 Korean
civilians start showing up from all the
towns and villages nearby because the
Chinese were looting them and killing
them or they just don't want to live
under the threat of communism their
entire lives and they just start walking
to Hungnam and beg them to help. We've
only got 100 ships to get a 100,000 of
our own guys out of there. I don't think
many people would judge them if they
said, "I'm sorry, we can't help you.
We're trying to do everything we can,
but we got to save ourselves first." But
that's not what they did. US forces have
lost a ton of men. They've got thousands
of wounded. They've got over 10,000 men
suffering from frostbite. And they say,
"Fuck it. We can still impromptu
successfully pull off one of the largest
humanitarian evacuations in the history
of the world. Why not?" They rigged the
entire city to blow up, including the
port, and then loaded absolutely
everybody, the UN troops and 100,000
civilians on board of these ships. And
it is just assacked like sardines. To
give you an idea of how packed it was,
the USS Meredith, a merchant marine
vessel that only had 68 crew members,
managed to cram over 14,000 Korean
civilians on board. And on an extremely
dangerous 7-day voyage to safety, not a
single one of them would die. In fact,
five people were born, giving it the
nickname the ship of miracles. So, they
got absolutely everybody evacuated onto
ships, got underway on this extremely
dangerous 7-day voyage, and then blew up
the entire city. Over a million people
in South Korea today are descendants of
those civilians that the UN troops
saved. At the Battle of the Chosen
Reservoir, 1,079 American troops died in
combat. Another 45,582
were wounded with thousands more
suffering from frostbite. Conservative
estimates from the UN believe that the
Chinese military suffered somewhere
around 43,000 casualties with other
credible estimates ranging as high as in
excess of 60,000. The Chosen Reservoir
would go on to become one of the most
decorated battles in American history
with the men earning 17 medals of honor,
including Captain Barber of Fox Company,
73 Navy crosses, one of which went to
Chesty Puller, and 23 Distinguished
Service Crosses. Many of the Marines
that survived the chosen reservoir would
later in life go on to express great
pride in the fact that they not only
managed to save themselves, but they
managed to save South Korea as well. And
allegedly, many of them requested to be
buried with Tootsie Rolls. Thank you for
watching. Best way to support the
channel is go buy some merch over the
fatlectrician.com. Quackbang out.
guys were they were so
so tough, so tough in what they had been
through. You know, you see [music]
things like that and you know what are
the limits of a man's endurance and his
courage and his spirit.
>> We felt that we were going to kick some
butt and we [music] were kicking butt up
there until you got to Hellfire Valley.
I should put that in there. I would say
when I got to Hellfire Valley on the way
out walking out, you could almost cry
seeing those Marines laying there. Until
you see your guy laying there, you don't
think much of it. As we got near the
lines, we were aware that we were
getting into Hagaroo. Somebody said,
"Uh, count, Cadence. Count." And people
started getting in step. You could hear
the shoe packs first clumpity clump
clump clumpy and then they clump clump
clump. People were getting in step.
We're marching.
>> We marched into Hagaroo. The sound of
feet crunching in the frozen ice.
Someone watching us said, "Look at those
bastards. [music] Those magnificent bastards.
bastards.
You're not the same person.
You're a different person.
You're just something you never thought
you'd be. I'm I I'm happy that I was
able to participate in something that
was as important as the Korean War. We
had an obligation to fulfill
and we did it. Freedom has a price. It's
not free.
You have to fight for this freedom. And
when I look and see what the South
Korean people are enjoying today,
I guess I'm glad I was part of that.
Time proves that we were absolutely
right in doing what we did to help save them.
them.
>> You're proud that you did it. You don't
realize how proud you are until you get
older. I don't know why, but I can
relate and say I was a chosen survivor.
not everybody can say that. I was there.
You're proud of the moment.
And you're glad you survived. And God
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