A Christmas Far from Home

From an acclaimed historian comes the dramatic story of theChristmas escape of thousands of American troops overwhelmingly surrounded bythe enemy in Korea's harsh terrain.Just before Thanksgiving in 1950, five months into theKorean War, General MacArthur flew to American positions in the north andgrandly announced an "e;end-the-war-by-Christmas"e; offensive despite recentintervention by Mao's Chinese, who would soon trap tens of thousands of UStroops poised toward the Yalu River border. Led by marines, an overwhelmed Tenth Corps evacuated the frigid, mountainous Chosin Reservoir fastness and fought aswarming enemy and treacherous snow and ice to reach the coast. Weather,terrain, Chinese firepower, and a four-thousand-foot chasm made escape seemimpossible in the face of a vanishing Christmas. But endurance and sacrificeprevailed, and the last troopships weighed anchor on Christmas Eve.In the tradition of his Silent Night and PearlHarbor Christmas, Stanley Weintraub presents another gripping narrative ofa wartime Christmas season.