Book Review the Forgotten War by Clay Blair free essay sample

Blair’s book explains the placement, objective, and every command level decision. Generally summarizing the Korean War as in Blair’s Forgotten War – At the end of World War II the western half of the world (the Capitalist side) and the eastern half of the world (the Communist side) divided the Korean peninsula into two nations, the northern half communist and the southern half American occupied and capitalist. The two nations were divided at the 38th parallel. The Korean War itself began when the communist North Koreans invaded their South Korean neighbors by advancing over the 38th parallel boundary, on the 28th of June 1951 when the North Korean army, using Russian equipment and advisors, had conquered much of South Korea, a poorly equipped and poorly led U. S. Army came to the rescue of the South Koreans. President Truman had basically stripped the U. S. Army’s equipment and manpower down to nothing for budget reasons, believing that his military advisors spoiled, dumb, and â€Å"big spenders†, (sparing no expense to win a battle). Truman believed that he could do better than any military official. General Douglas MacArthur, on whom Blair spares no criticism, had been overseeing the occupation of Japan, and was a decorated general during WWII in the Pacific theater, he was the obvious choice to be appointed commander of the U. S. forces which were to hold back the North Korean army at Pusan – the tip of the Korean peninsula. MacArthur was in command of the U. S. 8th Army, which Truman had stripped down into 4 divisions, and was only an occupational force in Japan, participating in almost no training. Although Korea was not an essential objective to the military strategy of the United States during the Cold War, politically the Western half of the world wanted to show that its forces would not allow the expansion of their political enemy, the communists. The U. S. , U. N. , and South Korean armies had their backs against the wall near the sea at Pusan; MacArthur schemed a reckless, but very lucky, surprise amphibious assault on the South Korean port city of Inchon, n the Asan bay of Korea just a few miles east of Seoul . With this miracle assault’s success the army commanded by MacArthur swiftly annihilated the North Koreans and obtained Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. According to Blair, MacArthur’s ego got in the way of his victory; he was not content with his quick, easy, and lucky victory over the communist forces. General MacArthur then foolishly invaded North Korea and pushed the communists to the highest points of their country. Believing that the Capitalist armies might use North Korea for strategic advancements on their country the communist Chinese defensively sent their own military force over the Yalu River, the northern border between China and the Koreas. Upon meeting the opposing U. S. army the Chinese attacked and began to push their greatly outnumbered enemies. The numbers and morale of the now losing American 8th Army quickly disintegrated as they were pushed back into South Korea. Only after the incompetent General Douglas MacArthur was fired from his position and appointment of Blair’s hero Lieutenant General Matthew Bunker Ridgway as commander of the United States’ forces did the war begin to again favor the Americans and troop morale improve. The mistaken President Truman wished for a cheap, swift war and political popularity, his top General, MacArthur continually went against the U. S. president’s orders, and spoke out against the way the war was being fought. Truman relieved the popular general of his position. This was a very bad political move for the President. Lieutenant General Ridgway took command of the American forces as MacArthur’s successor. Now under new management, the Western forces stopped the communist advance a small way into North Korea with defensive positions using a few invasions as a defensive tactic. With the two opposing forces at a standstill peace negotiations dragged on for months. The negotiations improved only after Eisenhower was elected president. In July 1953 an Armistice was signed at Panmunjom that put a hold to the Korean War, even though many people say the Korean War was the United States’ first loss it could still be viewed as a success, simply because the non-communist South Koreans kept their freedom. This, of course, excludes a large amount of criticism and is only a summary of events in The Forgotten War. Blair is an extremely critical author. His views in the book toward the leadership of the United States military and government are extremely negative. Blair finds faults in almost all division and corps commanders, especially General Almond (Who was the 10th Corps commander and originally MacArthur’s chief of staff) , President Truman and General MacArthur. The author has an unwavering admiration for Lieutenant General Ridgway, Blair sees Ridgway as a great hero of the Korean War. The author is excessively critical of all command positions in the Korean War, leaning either one side or another in a dire way everyone in Blair’s book is either a saintly, competent, war hero or a lying, drunk, arrogant, sack of crap. The first person Blair attack is President Truman. Blair blames Truman’s dislike for military personnel, specifically graduates of West Point, for his heedlessness of their advice. In The Forgotten War, President Truman believes that West Pointers are arrogant and incompetent, which for the most part Blair thinks likewise, and that they recklessly spend the governments money, ignorant of the fact that it might be needed elsewhere, this, of course, Blair disagrees with. The President’s disrespect and negligence of his top military advisors led to many problems during the war. One of the biggest was the fact that Truman cut funds to the military for equipment and weapons; the President took one of the most powerful and mobile military forces in the world and stripped it bare. For example Task Force Smith, led by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Smith, consisted of two, lightly armed companies. Task Force Smith was equipped with – other than their standard rifles – four recoilless 75-mm rifles, four 60-mm mortars, four 4. -inch mortars, six 105-mm artillery (with only six rounds), and ten obsolete 2. 36 bazooka rocket launchers, which were ineffective against tanks, as compared to the latter distributes 3. 5-inch rocket launchers. Although the author attacks many military officials he does praise a few, particularly the Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway. After MacArthur’s firing, Lt. Gen. Ridgway forged the beaten down United St ates Army into a force capable of defending the South Koreans. Ridgway quickly saved the day and held off the communists just above the 38th parallel. Blair’s admiration of Ridgway does not get in the way of his criticism, though. The author attacks Ridgway in his decisions during the long negotiations with the Chinese and North Koreans, but in no way is this criticism as terrible as it is for everyone else in the book. Blair himself writes very well. The author does have a tendency to repeat himself, though. He particularly uses sentences starting with â€Å"inasmuch as† or something similar. The book itself, intimidates the novice historian with its size and scope. In reality Blair could have summed up a large amount of his book into half as much as he wrote. But then again, if one wanted a highly opinionated, critical and in-depth explanation of events in the Korean War, Clay Blair’s The Forgotten War is definitely the right book. The author did his homework, though. In The Forgotten War one can find the exact placement of any military unit at any given time during the war. Blair is specific and detailed in his description of U. S. military operations, though he lacks in the area of common, trench-level, soldiers, or their weapons, and the opposing communist side. This lack of action leaves the book a little dry as it is mostly about command level decisions and who made them. A particularly annoying thing about Blair’s writing is that he commonly gave too much information about a particular person; he basically wrote a small life story, and a critical essay about every officer associated with the Korean War. The book seems less like a story about â€Å"The Forgotten War† and more about every single officer in the US military between 1950 and 1953. With the exception of being long and a little boring, Clay Blair’s book is an excellent source of knowledge about the Korean War. The author writes clearly and specifically. He is very critical but with a vast amount of data to back it up. Blair wrote his book with exceptional research and vast knowledge of the American influence in the Koreas.