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War in Korea
OUR COPY HAS BEEN WELL USED AND WELL READ. SCUFFING, EDGE WEAR, AND SOME CURLING AT EDGE OF COVERS. SOME DINGS AND DISCOLORATION ON BOARDS.. BINDING HAS SPLIT INSIDE FRONT COVER, BUT ALL PAGES REMAIN TIGHTLY BOUND. CHIPPING ON A FEW PAGES AS WELL AS AGE RELATED TANNING & SOME DISCOLORATION. NO MARKING OR WRITING NOTED WITHIN BOOK. GREAT READING COPY!
- GenresMilitary HistoryHistory
First published January 1, 1963
About the author
Robert Leckie
57 books201 followersLeckie was born on December 18, 1920, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began his career as a writer in high school, as a sports writer for ''The Bergen Evening Record'' in Hackensack, New Jersey.
On January 18, 1942, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in H Company, 2nd Battalion 1st Marines Regiment 1st Marine Division (United States). Leckie saw combat in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and had been wounded by blast concussion in the Battle of Peleliu. He returned to the United States in March 1945 and was honorably discharged shortly thereafter.
Following World War II, Leckie worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the ''Buffalo Courier-Express'', the ''New York Journal American'', the ''New York Daily News'' and ''The Star-Ledger''. He married Vera Keller, a childhood neighbor, and they had three children: David, Geoff and Joan According to Vera, in 1951 he was inspired to write a memoir after seeing ''South Pacific '' on Broadway and walking out halfway through. He said "I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical His first and best-selling book, ''Helmet for My Pillow'', a war memoir, was published in 1957. Leckie subsequently wrote more than 40 books on American war history, spanning from the French and Indian War (1754–1763) to Operation Desert Storm (1991). Robert Leckie died on December 24, 2001, after fighting a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
On January 18, 1942, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in H Company, 2nd Battalion 1st Marines Regiment 1st Marine Division (United States). Leckie saw combat in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and had been wounded by blast concussion in the Battle of Peleliu. He returned to the United States in March 1945 and was honorably discharged shortly thereafter.
Following World War II, Leckie worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the ''Buffalo Courier-Express'', the ''New York Journal American'', the ''New York Daily News'' and ''The Star-Ledger''. He married Vera Keller, a childhood neighbor, and they had three children: David, Geoff and Joan According to Vera, in 1951 he was inspired to write a memoir after seeing ''South Pacific '' on Broadway and walking out halfway through. He said "I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical His first and best-selling book, ''Helmet for My Pillow'', a war memoir, was published in 1957. Leckie subsequently wrote more than 40 books on American war history, spanning from the French and Indian War (1754–1763) to Operation Desert Storm (1991). Robert Leckie died on December 24, 2001, after fighting a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
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October 9, 2024
This was, somewhat curiously, an addition to the World Landmark series rather than the initial US-focused one. Perhaps that's because it was a later edition, first published in 1963, only a few years after the cessation of open hostilities on the Korean front, which also gives it a unique perspective. It's definitely a product of its time for that reason. We now have seventy years of hindsight since the end of that conflict - the shooting aspect of it, at any rate - when, unbelievably, North Korea is now (probably) a nuclear power.
The Korean War is yet another conflict with deeply-seated roots in WWII. It's a very welcome edition, because in the US, at least, I would venture to state that most Americans know little if anything about the Korean War. Many today don't even know that there WAS a Korean War in the 1950s, including, famously, a Vice Presidential candidate of the mid-2000s, who didn't know why North and South Korea were different countries. For that reason, tragically, it's often referred to as "America's Forgotten War." I think there's a book with that title. That is extremely unfortunate, because the conflict still technically exists, as there was no formal peace treaty. Even more concerning, the Chinese puppet state grows closer to attaining the ability to launch a nuclear-tipped ICBM capable of reaching the US mainland with every passing day.
I don't want to summarize the entire Korean War - the book does a decent job of that - but there were some important passages which I think bear mentioning. Most significantly, the Korean conflict was the first test of the newly-formed United Nations, whereby the nations of the world essentially decided, in the wake of one of the most costly conflicts in the history of human civilization, to make war technically illegal, and armed combat limited to only instances of self-defense.
The author notes: "in time, sixteen nations rallied for actual fighting beneath the blue-and-white banner of the United Nations... their coming was one of the noble movements of history and, much as they differed, these men had a common love of a nation's right to be free. For the first time in history, men were putting aside their differences to fight together for someone else's freedom. And the first soldiers to do this were Americans."
So-called "police actions" are common today - at least, they have become fairly common practice here in the US - and have been subsequently invoked in everything from the catastrophic Vietnam War to operations in the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, but it was a novel idea at the time. In the US, at least, this type of armed conflict has become the dominant type, as war has not been formally declared by the Congress since December, 1941. That's largely a way to get around the fact that war is still technically illegal, at least for UN member states, absent a legitimate claim of self-defense.
Many have criticized normalizing the ability of one man to unilaterally order troops to invade a sovereign nation, which is technically an act of war. According to the US Constitution, a declaration of war must be made by the legislature, approved by both houses of Congress, but that hasn't happened in more than eighty years. Since the last declaration of war, whereby the US formally entered WWII the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the president has simply ordered troops deployed to various parts of the world without a formal declaration of war, a move many have criticized as an end-run around the Congress, employing powers that a president simply doesn't have, irrespective of the fact that he is the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces.
Many have also questioned this mentality, that the US or other nations can invade a sovereign nation without a formal declaration of war, but the author sees it in a different light. He states: "Those sixteen nations that rallied to fight for freedom in Korea showed the world that the notion of nobility is not dead. For three years, they fought to uphold a country's right to choose its own way of life. Nothing on such a scale had ever happened before. The Korean War is the first in history in which troops of a world organization - the United Nations - acted as a 'police force' to fight an aggressor nation."
The use of United Nations troops has also changed somewhat. As opposed to acting as a "world police force," they have now largely been castrated to the degree that during the conflict in Rwanda, they could only stand by helplessly and witness mass slaughter, some of which occurred right in front of them -they were even forbidden from stepping in to save lives or to stop the carnage, even - but again, we must view the Korean situation from the perspective of world leaders scarcely five years after the close of WWII.
One of the primary causes of the conflict was that Russia and other communist nations had become highly aggressive, seeking to conquer territory, ideologically if not overtly militarily, and were imposing their will on weaker nations to form a buffer zone. This has since been termed the "domino effect," which was an apt description. Case in point: the so-called Chinese cultural revolution under Mao occurred in China, which eventually cost the lives of probably as many as perished during the entire five-year conflict that was WWII, some fifty million souls.
Recall that China was a US ally only five years prior, whose involvement was critical to America's success in the Pacific theater. By 1950, however it was clear that the US was going to have to act, to prevent further aggression in the region, and to halt the Soviet Union from imposing its will through force of arms, which often entailed enlisting groups of what we would call radicalized communist domestic terror cells to wreak havoc upon weaker nations.
What made the Korean conflict unique at the time was that so many other member nations became involved, agreeing to commit troops and materials to aid in another country defending itself, absent a formal declaration of war against the hostile nation and its backers, which, in this case, was both the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao. This was indeed somewhat unprecedented, in the history of modern warfare, at least. In the decades since, Russia and China's involvement have become more clearly defined, especially, as noted, after the opening of Soviet state archives.
Some reviewers have criticized the moralizing of the author, but, again, this was written some sixty years ago. Admittedly, his position was far from neutral, but his bias is perhaps forgivable. Example: one of the most shocking aspects of the war - perhaps not so to us, in the modern day - was the issue of the prisoner exchange, something which should not be forgotten about this conflict. For the first time in the history of armed conflict, some 50,000 prisoners of war from the opposing side REFUSED TO GO HOME. This was such a black eye to the communist regimes' propaganda that they refused to end the conflict for a further two years, and attempted every dirty tactic they could conceive in an attempt to force or coerce their own soldiers to return to the open-air prison camps that were their so-called respective nations of origin.
Their tactics failed almost entirely, however, and President Truman stood firm in his assertion that repatriation should only be voluntary. As a result, some 50,000 communist soldiers remained, predominantly in South Korea, and refused to return home. This is, in my opinion, one of Truman's crowning achievements - that he refused, as he put it, to "buy an armistice by turning over human beings for slaughter or slavery."
The author would assert, as will I: this is the fundamental difference between good and evil, and remains so to this day - the acknowledgement of the unalienable right to FREE WILL AND CHOICE. The side of good is the one which acknowledges the right of the People to choose, without fear, coercion or violence, how they want to be governed, what they want to do with their lives, and where and how they want to live. Not surprisingly, to the present day, the peoples of the world continue to choosing the US and its firm allies.
This book provides a good overview of the Korean conflict, but readers should note: there were some mistakes and factual errors to be on the lookout for, which is perhaps forgivable, seeing that the book was published so shortly after the (formal) end to the conflict. As stated, we have learned quite a lot over the last seven decades about the origins of the war, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, as noted, a fair bit of information, particularly Stalin's involvement, came to light with the opening of Soviet state archives under Yeltsin and other immediately post-Soviet leaders, access which has yet again closed. Don't expect impartiality or neutrality, either, but, seeing what has occurred with North Korea in the last decade or so, perhaps that's not unwarranted.
Overall, it's a great introduction, even if it's now quite dated. It may be preferable to read something more recently published, but it's a good primary source all its own to get the perspective of someone who also fought in that theater during WWII. It's important to remember that the text is written through the lens of someone who experienced something similar to those soldiers who fought valiantly for three years to preserve the freedom of a people other than their own.
The Korean War is yet another conflict with deeply-seated roots in WWII. It's a very welcome edition, because in the US, at least, I would venture to state that most Americans know little if anything about the Korean War. Many today don't even know that there WAS a Korean War in the 1950s, including, famously, a Vice Presidential candidate of the mid-2000s, who didn't know why North and South Korea were different countries. For that reason, tragically, it's often referred to as "America's Forgotten War." I think there's a book with that title. That is extremely unfortunate, because the conflict still technically exists, as there was no formal peace treaty. Even more concerning, the Chinese puppet state grows closer to attaining the ability to launch a nuclear-tipped ICBM capable of reaching the US mainland with every passing day.
I don't want to summarize the entire Korean War - the book does a decent job of that - but there were some important passages which I think bear mentioning. Most significantly, the Korean conflict was the first test of the newly-formed United Nations, whereby the nations of the world essentially decided, in the wake of one of the most costly conflicts in the history of human civilization, to make war technically illegal, and armed combat limited to only instances of self-defense.
The author notes: "in time, sixteen nations rallied for actual fighting beneath the blue-and-white banner of the United Nations... their coming was one of the noble movements of history and, much as they differed, these men had a common love of a nation's right to be free. For the first time in history, men were putting aside their differences to fight together for someone else's freedom. And the first soldiers to do this were Americans."
So-called "police actions" are common today - at least, they have become fairly common practice here in the US - and have been subsequently invoked in everything from the catastrophic Vietnam War to operations in the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, but it was a novel idea at the time. In the US, at least, this type of armed conflict has become the dominant type, as war has not been formally declared by the Congress since December, 1941. That's largely a way to get around the fact that war is still technically illegal, at least for UN member states, absent a legitimate claim of self-defense.
Many have criticized normalizing the ability of one man to unilaterally order troops to invade a sovereign nation, which is technically an act of war. According to the US Constitution, a declaration of war must be made by the legislature, approved by both houses of Congress, but that hasn't happened in more than eighty years. Since the last declaration of war, whereby the US formally entered WWII the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the president has simply ordered troops deployed to various parts of the world without a formal declaration of war, a move many have criticized as an end-run around the Congress, employing powers that a president simply doesn't have, irrespective of the fact that he is the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces.
Many have also questioned this mentality, that the US or other nations can invade a sovereign nation without a formal declaration of war, but the author sees it in a different light. He states: "Those sixteen nations that rallied to fight for freedom in Korea showed the world that the notion of nobility is not dead. For three years, they fought to uphold a country's right to choose its own way of life. Nothing on such a scale had ever happened before. The Korean War is the first in history in which troops of a world organization - the United Nations - acted as a 'police force' to fight an aggressor nation."
The use of United Nations troops has also changed somewhat. As opposed to acting as a "world police force," they have now largely been castrated to the degree that during the conflict in Rwanda, they could only stand by helplessly and witness mass slaughter, some of which occurred right in front of them -they were even forbidden from stepping in to save lives or to stop the carnage, even - but again, we must view the Korean situation from the perspective of world leaders scarcely five years after the close of WWII.
One of the primary causes of the conflict was that Russia and other communist nations had become highly aggressive, seeking to conquer territory, ideologically if not overtly militarily, and were imposing their will on weaker nations to form a buffer zone. This has since been termed the "domino effect," which was an apt description. Case in point: the so-called Chinese cultural revolution under Mao occurred in China, which eventually cost the lives of probably as many as perished during the entire five-year conflict that was WWII, some fifty million souls.
Recall that China was a US ally only five years prior, whose involvement was critical to America's success in the Pacific theater. By 1950, however it was clear that the US was going to have to act, to prevent further aggression in the region, and to halt the Soviet Union from imposing its will through force of arms, which often entailed enlisting groups of what we would call radicalized communist domestic terror cells to wreak havoc upon weaker nations.
What made the Korean conflict unique at the time was that so many other member nations became involved, agreeing to commit troops and materials to aid in another country defending itself, absent a formal declaration of war against the hostile nation and its backers, which, in this case, was both the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao. This was indeed somewhat unprecedented, in the history of modern warfare, at least. In the decades since, Russia and China's involvement have become more clearly defined, especially, as noted, after the opening of Soviet state archives.
Some reviewers have criticized the moralizing of the author, but, again, this was written some sixty years ago. Admittedly, his position was far from neutral, but his bias is perhaps forgivable. Example: one of the most shocking aspects of the war - perhaps not so to us, in the modern day - was the issue of the prisoner exchange, something which should not be forgotten about this conflict. For the first time in the history of armed conflict, some 50,000 prisoners of war from the opposing side REFUSED TO GO HOME. This was such a black eye to the communist regimes' propaganda that they refused to end the conflict for a further two years, and attempted every dirty tactic they could conceive in an attempt to force or coerce their own soldiers to return to the open-air prison camps that were their so-called respective nations of origin.
Their tactics failed almost entirely, however, and President Truman stood firm in his assertion that repatriation should only be voluntary. As a result, some 50,000 communist soldiers remained, predominantly in South Korea, and refused to return home. This is, in my opinion, one of Truman's crowning achievements - that he refused, as he put it, to "buy an armistice by turning over human beings for slaughter or slavery."
The author would assert, as will I: this is the fundamental difference between good and evil, and remains so to this day - the acknowledgement of the unalienable right to FREE WILL AND CHOICE. The side of good is the one which acknowledges the right of the People to choose, without fear, coercion or violence, how they want to be governed, what they want to do with their lives, and where and how they want to live. Not surprisingly, to the present day, the peoples of the world continue to choosing the US and its firm allies.
This book provides a good overview of the Korean conflict, but readers should note: there were some mistakes and factual errors to be on the lookout for, which is perhaps forgivable, seeing that the book was published so shortly after the (formal) end to the conflict. As stated, we have learned quite a lot over the last seven decades about the origins of the war, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, as noted, a fair bit of information, particularly Stalin's involvement, came to light with the opening of Soviet state archives under Yeltsin and other immediately post-Soviet leaders, access which has yet again closed. Don't expect impartiality or neutrality, either, but, seeing what has occurred with North Korea in the last decade or so, perhaps that's not unwarranted.
Overall, it's a great introduction, even if it's now quite dated. It may be preferable to read something more recently published, but it's a good primary source all its own to get the perspective of someone who also fought in that theater during WWII. It's important to remember that the text is written through the lens of someone who experienced something similar to those soldiers who fought valiantly for three years to preserve the freedom of a people other than their own.
January 25, 2019
Written in the early 60s, this certainly isn't trying to be an impartial look at the fight against communism for the kiddies, but that and some purple prose aside, it was an interesting quick look at the war, which, despite having read a much longer, and awful, history of Korea, I knew very little about.
Most interesting tidbit: A big part of the slow Armistice talks revolved around 60k Chinese and North Koreans POWs who didn't want to be repatriated.
Oh, and the whole thing got UN okay because China was now Communist and didn't have a seat, and Russia was protesting that move by abstaining...hah, silly Russians.
Most interesting tidbit: A big part of the slow Armistice talks revolved around 60k Chinese and North Koreans POWs who didn't want to be repatriated.
Oh, and the whole thing got UN okay because China was now Communist and didn't have a seat, and Russia was protesting that move by abstaining...hah, silly Russians.
May 19, 2017
Written for a younger audience, this book is a good overview and review of the Korean War. I feel like it was geared towards boys with the way it was worded, and reminded me of classic boy adventure tales sometimes. I also found it interesting how biased it was (America-hurrah!) but in a way I liked that aspect because it showed the historical American perspective at the time (1960's) of a recent historical American event.
December 29, 2015
A late elementary-school introduction to the Korean War. Clearly representative of the time, with subtle digs at the Communists and more obvious flag-waving for the US and allies.
I didn't realize how long and drawn out the end of that conflict was, nor did I know how many POWs of the U.N. refused repatriation to NK or China. Heh.
I didn't realize how long and drawn out the end of that conflict was, nor did I know how many POWs of the U.N. refused repatriation to NK or China. Heh.
June 11, 2014
Jess read this one on her own as part of her '14 summer reading challenge...an original Landmark series book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews