The Darkest Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950: The Battles That Saved South Korea--and the Marines--from Extinction


Bill Sloan - 2009
    A narrative studded with gripping eyewitness accounts, it focuses on the fateful days when the Korean War's most decisive battles were fought.

The Korean War: A History


Bruce Cumings - 2010
    But as Bruce Cumings eloquently explains, for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long fight that still haunts contemporary events. And in a very real way, although its true roots and repercussions continue to be either misunderstood, forgotten, or willfully ignored, it is the war that helped form modern America’s relationship to the world.With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its start as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America’s post–World War II occupation of Korea, the untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and the powerful militaries organized and equipped by America and the Soviet Union in that divided land. He tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, and exposes as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides and the “oceans of napalm” dropped on the North by U.S. forces in a remarkably violent war that killed as many as four million Koreans, two thirds of whom were civilians.In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a U.S. home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.Elegantly written and blisteringly honest, The Korean War is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential.

Colder Than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company at Chosin Reservoir


Joseph R. Owen - 1996
    . . This book [is] one of the best on that war in Korea. . . . A wonderful account of common, decent men in desperate action."--LeatherneckDuring the early, uncertain days of the Korean War, World War II veteran and company lieutenant Joe Owen saw firsthand how the hastily assembled mix of some two hundred regulars and raw reservists hardened into a superb Marine rifle company known as Baker-One-Seven.As comrades fell wounded and dead around them on the frozen slopes above Korea's infamous Chosin Reservoir, Baker-One-Seven's Marines triumphed against the relentless human-wave assaults of Chinese regulars and took part  in the breakout that destroyed six to eight divisions of Chinese regulars. COLDER THAN HELL paints a vivid, frightening portrait of one of the most horrific infantry battles ever waged."Thoroughly gripping . . . The Chosin action is justly called epical; Lieutenant Owen tells the tale of the men who made it so."--Booklist

The Last P.O.W. (Kindle Single)


Mike Chinoy - 2014
    For nearly two months, he was held by North Korea’s fearsome security services, subjected to intensive interrogation, and repeatedly warned that if he did not confess his “crimes,” he might never be allowed to return home. In visiting the North, Newman was returning for a final glimpse of the country where he served a half century earlier. Perhaps naively- and in sharp contrast to America’s former enemies Japan, Germany, and Vietnam - he did not realize that for the North Koreans, the war had never ended. His role in 1953 as a U.S. military adviser to the “Kuwol Comrades”-- anti-communist Korean guerrillas who fought behind North Korean lines -- convinced a paranoid North Korean regime that despite his age, his heart condition, and the passage of time, Newman was a dangerous “enemy” agent. "The Last POW" is the exclusive account of Newman’s ordeal -- how the North Koreans tried, without success, to break his will; his interactions with his sinister interrogator and the other North Koreans involved in his detention; the "confession" he was forced to broadcast, and how he tried to signal he was being coerced. While Merrill was detained in Pyongyang, his family -- his wife Lee, living in a retirement home in Palo Alto, and his son and daughter-in-law in Pasadena -- were frantically trying to determine what had happened to him and what they could do to secure his freedom. Newman’s detention became a symbol of the seemingly irreconcilable differences that keep North Korea and the U.S. in a permanent state of tension, and revealed the inner workings of the security apparatus of one of the world’s most totalitarian states. Eventually, his case would involve the State Department, the international news media, eccentric former basketball player Dennis Rodman, and possibly North Korean leader Kim Jong Un himself. His story serves as a warning against underestimating the lengths to which a paranoid and secretive regime will go to defend what it perceives as a threat to its security or reputation. But it is also an inspiring tale of an ordinary American family’s courage and resilience in a situation as frightening as it was bizarre. Mike Chinoy is a Senior Fellow at the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California. He previously spent 24 years as a foreign correspondent for CNN, serving as Bureau Chief in Beijing and Hong Kong, and as Senior Asia Correspondent.. He is the author of "Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis," and "China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution." He his visited North Korea 17 times. Cover design by Evan Twohy.

Over and Out


James F. Jordan - 2013
    A first hand account of my tour of duty in Vietnam.

Welcome To Dong Tam (Jayhawk Two One Book 1)


Michael Trout - 2014
    This is the first in a series of true stories about a young helicopter pilot’s tour of duty in Vietnam.

Spectre 07: Memoir of a Risk-Taker


Robert Reneau - 2019
    Air Force Lt. Col. (Ret) Bob Reneau began writing this story as his autobiography for his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and succeeding generations. However, he was convinced by many friends to turn it into book form for anyone. Bob has spent twenty-five years as an Air Force pilot. He was an original AC-130 pilot in Laos and Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. As an Airlifter flying the C-130, Bob was stationed and flew out of Sewart AFB, Tennessee, Evreux AB in France, Naha AB; Okinawa (now Japan), and Patrick AFB, Florida, where he flew Gemini Space Mission support. He was on top of all but one splashdown as telemetry and voice relay. Bob was also stationed at Ubon AB, Thailand, Rhein-Main, Germany, and Pope AFB, North Carolina. He flew all over Europe, Southeast Asia, North Africa, South Africa, Australia, and the United States. He has flown around the world two times, He was also a Reconnaissance and Special Operations pilot, logging over 8000 flying hours. He has served in most of the major air commands. His medals include the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, twelve Air Medals, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry (individual award), and many other awards and decorations. Bob hopes to leave more information for his progeny than his father did. Although he talked freely to his sons about his war experiences, Bob’s father neglected to mention them in his limited biography. He served as an unarmed chaplain during WWII. He went ashore onto Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion where his landing craft was blown out from under him. He made it onto the beach on a floating pontoon and served through many famous battles including the Battle of the Bulge, The Ardennes Forest and others. This is Bob’s interesting, funny, poignant, and informative story.

Treasure (Fox Book 5)


Adam Hardy - 2016
    Lieutenant George Abercrombie Fox was no exception. It began well with a sharp action and a prize taken. Then things began to go wrong. A lee shore and an escape against desperate odds. Treachery, death and the treasure. Always the treasure. FOX IS NOT THE NOBLE HERO OF TRADITIONAL FICTION. FOX IS A FIGHTING MAN WHO TRANSCENDS HEROISM — HE DOESN’T CARE HOW HE WINS AS LONG AS HE WINS. HE’S MEAN, CUNNING AND MOST VICIOUS WHEN TRAPPED. THERE’S NO WAY TO OUTFOX FOX! Adam Hardy was a pen name used by Kenneth Bulmer (1921-2005). A prolific writer, Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and many short stories, both under his real name and various pen names. He is best known for science fiction, including his long-running Dray Prescot series of planetary romances, but he wrote in many genres.

Tan Tru


Larry Brooks - 2013
    Originally written as a piece of our family history, it chronicles events that unfolded during 1968 and early 1969 while serving as a young infantryman with the 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam's Mekong Delta and relates how experiences on the US home front impacted and were affected by the aggressive military tactics of 1968. Most of all the book tells the true stories of young soldiers engaged in mortal combat and the daily struggle to survive..

MASH: An Army Surgeon in Korea


Otto F. Apel - 1998
    A year later he was chief surgeon of the 8076th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital constantly near the front lines in Korea. Immediately upon arriving in camp, Apel performed 80 hours of surgery. His feet swelled so badly that he had to cut his boots off, and he saw more surgical cases in those three and a half days than he would have in

The Secrets of Inchon


Eugene Franklin Clark - 2002
     According to his colleagues, Commander Eugene Franklin Clark had "the nerves of a burglar and the flair of a Barbary Coast Pirate." And in August 1950, when General MacArthur made the unpopular decision to invade Inchon-a move considered by many to be tactical suicide-he sent in Clark to find out what they needed to know.

I Escaped North Korea!: Survival Stories For Kids


Scott Peters - 2019
     14-year-old Dae has been taught that North Korea is the best place in the world. Yet the painfully skinny boy can't help wondering why all his family has to eat is watery porridge made from grass. At school, Dae and his friends bow before the giant portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, their clothes flapping around their bony limbs. Dae begins to question why the Great Leaders look so well fed. When Dae's beloved father is hauled away to a hard-labor camp, the young teen must fend for himself. Alone, things turn from bad to worse and Dae dreams of rebellion—of fleeing across the scary border into China to look for work. For how else can he help feed his family and pay the bribes to free his father? But can he survive the deadly crossing? Does he have what it takes to escape? Young readers will be transported by this new series about brave kids who face real world challenges and find ways to escape. Sure to appeal to fans of New York Times Bestseller Lauren Tarshis's I Survived Series and Refugee by Alan Gratz. A study guide is available at https://tinyurl.com/studynk A powerful, relevant read in turbulent times.

U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima


Raymond Henri - 2020
    Marines of this tiny yet strategically important volcanic island. The book is based on each author's own observations while on the island, plus the experiences of dozens of men involved in various aspects of the intense fighting. Presented in chronological order, the battle unfolds from the initial D-Day air force bombings and naval barrage, to the amphibious assault, to the slow gains made each day as the Marines inched forward under heavy fire. Despite its small size, Iwo Jima was considered the most heavily fortified island in the world, supporting thousands of nearly bomb-proof shelters and caves, hundreds of reinforced machine-gun, mortar, tank, and artillery positions, and more than 20,000 fanatical Japanese defenders. Included is a roster of Marines killed or missing in the battle, plus 12 maps and 32 pages of photographs.

The Marines of Autumn


James Brady - 2000
    Now, for the first time ever, the Korean War has a novel that captures that courage and sacrifice.When Captain Thomas Verity, USMC, is called back to action, he must leave his Georgetown home, career, and young daughter and rush to Korea to monitor Chinese radio transmissions. At first acting in an advisory role, he is abruptly thrust into MacArthur's last daring and disastrous foray-the Chosin Reservoir campaign-and then its desperate retreat.Time magazine at the time recounted the retreat this way: The running fight of the Marines...was a battle unparalleled in U.S. military history. It had some aspects of Bataan, some of Anzio, some of Dunkirk, some of Valley Forge, and some of 'the retreat of the 10,000' as described in Xenophon's Anabasis.The Marines of Autumn is a stunning, shattering novel of war illuminated only by courage, determination, and Marine Corps discipline. And by love: of soldier for soldier, of men and their women, and of a small girl in Georgetown, whose father promised she would dance with him on the bridges of Paris. A child Captain Tom Verity fears he may never see again.In The Marines of Autumn, James Brady captures our imagination and shocks us into a new understanding of war.

Sweating the Metal: Flying Under Fire. A Chinook Pilot's Blistering Account of Life, Death and Dust in Afghanistan


Alex Duncan - 2011
    At the machine's controls is one man and if he doesn't stay calm then everyone could die. That man is Flt Lt Alex 'Frenchie' Duncan and he's been involved in some of the most daring and dangerous missions undertaken by the Chinook force in Afghanistan. In this book he recounts his experiences of life under fire in the dust, heat, and bullets of an active war zone. At 99ft long, the Chinook is a big and valuable target to the Taliban, who will stop at nothing to bring one down. And yet Frenchie and his crew risk everything because they know that the troops on the front line are relying on them. Sweating the Metal is the true story of the raw determination and courage of men on the front line—and it's time for their story to be told.