Rating: 
Summary: Custer's last stand in snow!
Review: I read a lot of military history, but I hadn't read much about the Korean War. What a way to start! This book by Russ is a real classic and a tribute to the valor of the US Marines fighting for their lives around the Chosin Reservoir. I couldn't put this book down. Many times during descriptions of all out attacks by masses of Chinese troops against isolated groups of Marines I was put in mind of Custer's last stand. The big difference here is that the Marines managed to scrape and claw their way out. Definitely a 5 star recommendation!
Rating: 
Summary: Annoying and one-sided
Review: Breakout attempts to retell the story of the Chosen Reservoir campain, which has been told many times in the past. Martin Russ is a veteran of the USMC who served later in the Korean War, and he carries with him all of the prejudices and sentiments that go along with that. You expect him to think the Marine Corps is the best fighting force in the world, but the animosity is stronger than that, in some way.It's important to understand what this book is and isn't. It isn't a history of the campaign in any real way. There are no footnotes, and the bibliography is two pages long and consists of only published sources, plus interviews. The maps are mostly useless, and don't convey much of what happened in the campaign. This isn't really a history book, it's an oral history book. This means that the bulk of what you read is narratives by the participants, what they saw and did in particular situations. Much of the book consists of paragraphs that start with a person's name, followed by a colon, then a passage in quotation marks. There's little attempt to place the remarks in context or critically examine them and compare them, anything that would make this a more analytical history. Instead, you hear the various narrators, almost all of them Marines, tell you what the battle was like. There's also almost no attention paid to either the Korean participants in the campaign, and what space is devoted to the civilians in the area is almost all in terms of what the Marines thought of them. There's virtually nothing on the Communist Chinese Forces either, I guess since Russ (and anyone else) can't get into the Communist Chinese archives. As a result there's pretty much nothing new here, and you have to wonder why the author wrote the book. The reviewers who complain about the attitude of the author with regards to the army are generally correct. I found the information on Task Force Faith getting its Presidential Unit Citation rather easily on the internet. Since the Citation was awarded in 2000, and the book was published in 2002, it's hard to imagine that they couldn't have put in a postscript, if not in the hardback then in the paperback edition issued a year later. Instead, the author includes a passage where a Marine tells you that Lt.Col. Faith (commander of Task Force Faith) didn't deserve his posthumous Medal of Honor. The anti-army attitude is pretty much the whole tenor of the book, and there are a few aspects of it which are particularly annoying. For one thing, the author works hard to tell you which members of the army were cowards in a number of instances, but is suitably coy when telling you of the few Marine cowards. Later, he suggests that Lt.Col. Faith was racist because he shot a pair of Korean soldiers, who were attached to his force, for cowardice. He makes almost no mention of the Marine's repetitive usage of the term "gook" though, and repeats an incident where the Marines kill some Korean civilians without comment. When the army lets the Marines down, it's inexcusable. When Marine Corsairs hit Task Force Faith with napalm by accident, nothing similar is said. I do think this book has some value, if only because it reflects the attitudes of the Marines at Chosen Reservoir. The only problem with this is that it's been done before, repeatedly, and the author has made no effort to update his material.
Rating:
Summary: The "Chosin Few" Deserve Better
Review: One would be hard-pressed to find a greater story of courage and heroism than that of the Chosin Resevoir Campaign. But if you read this book you might be duped into thinking that the "bad guys" in the story were not the Koreans or Chinese, but the United States Army. Russ's "Marine good, Army bad" ideology gets old very fast and would seem to be an insult to the Army boys who fought and DIED beside the perfect, flawless Marines. Other than this un-intelligent bias against fellow American soldiers, Russ is a pretty bad writer and gives little context to what was happening and why it was happening. This leaves the reader befuddled and makes the narrative choppy and hard to decipher. In short, there are many better studies of this campaign out there. Read those first. Semper Fi.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good book but Appleman's is more complete
Review: What to make of this book? There is so much to like. The chapters are nice, sound bites of a few pages, so if you are reading this book in bed at night (as I sometimes do), you'll never get stuck in the middle of a big battle. There is so much that I do not like: Russ seems comfortable commenting on the cowardice or shortcomings of some combatants, which is likely to grate on the reader. Overall this is a nice book, but Appleman's "Escaping the Trap" does a better job describing the whole environment and the military decisions that lead to the Chosin disaster. Sure, Russ has snippets here and there--about Task Force Faith, or Smith's insistence on the runway at Hagaru-- which provide some context. But Appleman is better. At the other end of the military literature spectrum, Joseph Owen's Colder Than Hell is better. Owen gives you a better idea of the ethos (or pathos) of what it means to be a Marine. Russ's portrayals of men are often shallow and stereotypical. Chew En Lee comes off as an arrogant [person] more hung up on being called 'sir' than with the safety of Bifulk. Yancey plucks slugs out of the roof of his mouth, hawks bloody clams thru most of the text, and has a few teeth shaved off to boot. At least Maggie Higgins was shuttled out of Koto-ri. So what if Lt. Col. Murray felt it would have been 'good public relations' had she been allowed to march out. If I were general Smith, I would have told her I had the lives of thousands of Marines to save, not the career of one journalist to create. So what is this book? Picture yourself at a Chosin Few reunion with these veterans, now dwindling in number with easch passing year. WAlk around from table to table. Here several discuss the valiant stand at Fox Hill. There, another group shares their experiences in Hell Fire Valley, perhaps with a few British accents mixed in. A somber collective recalls the agony and abandonment of Task Force Faith. Pilots recall support missions. Chaplains recall souls saved and others consigned to God. Corpsman and Medics remember frozen syrettes and filthy bandages.
Perhaps in this corner, some officers speak contemptuously of Almond and scowl at his confusing howitzers with anti-aircraft batteries. Over there, praise for the engineers whose treadle bridge enabled the wounded to escape. In hushed tones privates and corporals trade stories of bravery and folly among their fellow marines amidst the terror of combat. If you really are walking amongst this elite group of Chosin few, it is best to keep your heart and mind open, and your mouth closed. Their stories are vibrant and real even now, 52 years later. Let no idle civilian or political chatter interfere with the story these men, often in vain, still try to tell. This book certainly accomplishes that.
Rating:
Summary: Breakdown
Review: The reader who comes to Breakout with little familiarity with the literature of war stories will be in for something of a shock. Although there are enough battle scenes in this book to fill ten bloody movies, the corresponding historical and cultural context is almost entirely missing. Russ is not an inventive or subtle writer, adopting instead the stye of boys adventure books to tell the harrowing tale of U.S. Marines trapped in the vicinity of North Korea's Chosin Reservoir by a much larger but under-equipped force of Chinese soldiers. Nevertheless, there is still something of value here, beneath the repetitious details and reconstructed dialog, and that's a glimpse of American military strength and weakness at mid-century, during the war between the wars (WWII, Vietnam) that otherwise capture our attention. Half a century later, it's difficult to imagine waging war without the ability to resupply troops or evacuate the wounded, with air power that can only be used during daylight and helicopters too fragile to be of much use except in perfect weather. Korea was not a war of electronics and sophisticated weaponry and space-age materials, but a war of metal and canvas and jammed weapons and primitive field medicine. But some things remain the same even 50 years later: the CIA is still misjudging the capabilities of America's enemies and North Korea is still an unresolved problem. I came to Breakout to shut up a relative who couldn't stop talking about it. I still don't fully understand what it is about this type of book that appeals so strongly to some readers, but at least I can now attempt to talk to him about it. Perhaps a useful annual exercise would be to read a book that you would otherwise never consider and then attempt afterwards to analyze why you wouldn't have considered it. A case could be made that this book would be a good place to begin your workout.
Rating: 
Summary: 'Breakout' is a bust
Review: Mr Martin Russ has presented a largely anecdotal aaccount of the Chosin Reservoir battles, with the added bonus of disparaging the US Army troops involved, many of whom are now resting in shallow graves in northeast Korea. His little book is controversial, and for good eason. Much of what Russ alleges is not wholly accurate, to put it politely. His main tactic in distorting the image of army units involved is to accentuate the negative and completely ignore the positive. This is not readily apparent to the reader unless he is well versed with what happened in X Corps in 1950. I will admit that I am in general agreement with Russ in regards the miscalculation on the part of the army command, and the unpreparedness of the US Army in 1950 has been told elsewhere. Admittedly one understands that this book is intended to lionize the marines. But this can be done without the vicious pseudo-historical licentiousness which characterizes the book. There is a preoccupation that many marines and some marine writers have with heaping opprobrium on th US Army and in almost instances that I've observed involves hearsay and little else. Upon reading this book one will begin to perceive, after a while, an incredibly spiteful undertone as the unsubstatiated remarks begin to pile up, which makes me question his agenda. Mr Russ lists several books in his bibliography, and some refute much of what he says. Interestingly, he has not footnotes. One example involves 'D' Company, 10th Engineer Comabat Battalion, who were pressed into the defense of Hagaru, on a critical terrain feature of East Hill. Russ describes how pitifully armed they were, and later mentions that when the Chinese attacked, they "fled for their lives down the icy slopes, in terror" Actually D Company was well armed and this was already documented. The fact is that the Chinese overran Korean construction troops on D Co's flank, snuck up on the Americans and took part of their position. The engineers fell back but then put up a stout defense, inflicting very heavy casualties. This had already been recounted in personal memoirs and through exhaustive research by the late historian Roy Appleman, in 'Escaping the Trap',a detailed book about X Corps, which is also listed in Russ's own bibliography! As for the ill-fated army task force on the east side of the reservoir, Russ spares no vitriol and portrays the troops as hapless minions, the one exception being (predictably) Captain Ed Stamford, USMC, their tac-air controller. Russ explains that Capt. Stamford was the only marine in the Chosin campaign who excuses the doggies for their woeful ineptitiude, as he has lived with them and understands their shortcomings. But historian Appleman in his research for his second work 'East of Chosin' came across Stamford and the two became friends; Stamford and his wife stayed at Appleman's home when he was interviewed. Ed Stamford, in those many interviews comes across as frank and eloquent in his opinions. He stated that most of the army officers and many of the NCO's were apparently very well trained and good leaders. The only negatves mentioned were that the weakness lay in the loss, through prior transfer, of senior NCO's. The other lay in the training of the individual soldiers. I suspect that Russ's portrayal stems from an "as told to" article from Nov 1951 in which Stamford purportedly relates to a marine writer what he experienced. In discussions with Appleman, Stamford said he was incensed by the article and did not want it used as a source for anything about him. He said that it was inacurrate and he did not like its tone or rhetoric. It had not been cleared with him before publication. This article has been regurgitated in at least one other Chosin work (by Hammel), and no one is the wiser. The treatment accorded the army task force by Russ is a disconnected series of rhetorical little vignettes. Russ twists and shapes their plight to fit his high-handed interpretation.. Lt. Colonel Don Faith, who was well respected and an outstanding leader, is portrayed as mediocre and on the verge of losing his mind. Russ even insinuates that Col. Faith was unworthy of his posthumous Medal of Honor, an assertion I find shameful. There were many, many Americans there who died in performance of their duty. At least eight Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded for bravery and command competence for a ferocious 80-hour battle in sub-zero weather against what we now know were two Chinese divisions. A second army colonel was later posthumouly awarded the Medal of Honor for actions at Koto-ri and also on the march to the coast. Also the USMC recently was moved to award retroactively the Navy Presidential Unit Citation to the task force, once their story became fully known. The book also makess mention of the marines' alleged collective "disgust and outrage" over the army's conduct, and that the Navy issued a memo to their personnel not to engage in any unfavorable discussion of the army's behavior to the press. The reader is left to his own imagination on this point. In reality this bulletin was issued in response to the defamatory statements of one Navy chaplain, Lt Commander Otto Sporer, to Fortnight and Time magazines. The X Corps Inspector General immediately began an investigation in April of 1951 of the 31st Infantry and found the charges against it to be at odds with the facts. Sporrer was subsequently court martialed. Russ also presents purely anecdotal accounts of inept troops from the 3rd Infantry Division firing at each other and at the marines. You heard it here first. Too bad we'll never understand exactly how he heard it. To sum it all up, Martin Russ's book wouldn't be so bad without the gratuitious assertions and character assassination. s
Rating: 
Summary: Great Story
Review: This book provided great insight into the amazing heroism, as well as the abject suffering that took place at Chosin reservoir. Numerous survivors' stories were the most interesting. I also came away knowing a little more about the plight of the poor Korean refugees, not to mention the Chinese footsoldiers, most of whom were probably peasant conscripts. The only dissapointment is Russ's constant hyperbolic pro-marine rhetoric, which would be tolerable if he didn't go out of his way to simultaneously disparage all other armed service branches. Pretty immature. I appreciate the marines, but would have enjoyed this book more if Russ could get the corps out of his blood long enough to tell an objective story.
Rating:
Summary: Brrrrr!
Review: This book should be required reading in all high school American History classes. I saw the movie "Retreat, Hell" shortly before reading this book. After seeing the movie, when I read the book, both the descriptions of the weather and the onslaught of Chinese forces sent shivers throughout me.
Rating:
Summary: Americans at their finest
Review: This book captures the true spirit of American will-power and resolve. The Korean War is not focused on often by the media or Hollywood. Sandwiched between our nations greatest victory and our greatest defeat (and I do not mean at the hands of those who fought it), this battle was perhaps conducted in the most harsh of climates, at the greatest disadvantage. If you are a fan of the under-dog, and have a love for your country, I would strongly recommend this book. It is not only a great read, it will also give you a greater understanding and respest for those who fought this great fight.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest war book ever
Review: If you only read one book about American warfare Breakout should be it. In this one book Martin Russ both educates and inspires. Furthermore, the lessons about effective combat leadership are invaluable. There is much to learn from the actions of men under fire and this book imparts some of the best lessons within its pages.
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