Give Me Tomorrow

October 1, 2010

Military historian O'Donnell (They Dared Return: The True Story of Jewish Spies Behind the Lines in Nazi Germany, 2009, etc.) chronicles a Marine company's struggles in the toughest campaign of the Korean War.

George Company was thrown together from raw recruits and World War II veterans in the wake of North Korea's invasion of the south in 1950. When they went ashore at Inchon, most of the men had never seen combat and some barely knew how to handle their weapons. But their arrival tipped the balance, beginning an offensive that drove the North Koreans nearly to the Chinese border by late October—at which point the Chinese army came into the conflict. That invasion set up George Company's defining moment. Surrounded by overwhelming numbers near the Chosin Reservoir, the company held out with nearly inhuman determination to protect a vital intersection and haven for other cut-off units. Gen. Oliver Smith's response, when asked if his men would retreat, showed the Marines' resolve: "Retreat, Hell; we're just advancing in another direction." Drawing on interviews with the surviving members of George Company, O'Donnell graphically details the rigors of battle in the brutal Korean winter. First Sgt. Rocco Zullo, a prototypically tough Marine who'd seen action in the Pacific during WWII, is in many ways the hero of the story. He drove his green recruits to remarkable feats of valor until he was wounded in late 1950. His men believed him dead until he showed up at a reunion decades later. While he does not underplay the horrors of the war, and does justice to the lighter moments that men remember years later, the author shines when he captures such catch-in-the-throat moments as when the Fifth and Seventh Marines, coming into base after a harried withdrawal under intense Chinese pressure, marched in singing the Marine Hymn. A final withdrawal, which included crossing a deep chasm on an air-dropped bridge, brought the soldiers to temporary safety, though its members saw more action throughout the war.

George Company's performance at Chosin Reservoir practically defines heroism. O'Donnell brings it to vivid life.

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November 15, 2010
The author of the well-received We Were One (2006) turns his attention to the Korean War, specifically to George Company of the First Marines. Mobilized at Camp Pendleton in the summer of 1950, the company went ashore at Inchon and battled house-to-house through Seoul. Then they sailed around to Wonsan and began the march north that led to the Chosin Reservoir campaign. An epic in spite of all the times it has been called Frozen Chosin, the effort put George Company against formidable opponents. They faced entire regiments of Chinese, abominable subarctic weather, shortages of supplies, and impossible or at least impassable terrain. Most of them were barely trained teenagers, but the training was marine training and their leaders were the formidable likes of First Sergeant Rocco Zullo, who isnt the only marine portrayed with great skill here. Altogether, place this book beside We Were One in the certainty of attracting the same audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)