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Summary: Most readable book about military preparedness I've read.
Review: As a young U.S. Army company commander in Korea in 1975, my battalion commander issued me a paperback copy of "This Kind of War" with instructions to read it and discuss it with him. I carried the much refered to, tabbed, underlined and used book for 15 years, when I again returned to Korea. I was pleased, when during in processing, I was issued a hard back copy of the book, as were all officers and sergeants. In 1994, during the Normandy 50th Anniversay Commemoration in France, I presented a copy to President Clinton. Today, as a Colonel with 28 years service, I still find it a readable, honest, timeless, useable source. I think all members of congress and senior administration leaders, as well as anyone concerned about America's military, should read chapter 25. Fehrenbach's insight about America's volunteer military is timeless...his counsel is again being verified today in Kosovo and in our peace keeping missions in Bosnia and Macedonia. Smug, psuedo-intellectual military analysts often disregard Fehrenbach's insight and conclusions. His ability to present complicated issues in a human, realistic, understandable manner circumvents any argument that his opinions are dated. History, to include our Iraq/Bosnia/Kosovo adventures, have proved his premise.
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Summary: From one who was there, its factual.
Review: As an American-born Korean, I obviously have some personal interest in the subject matter, and while I already was possessed of some basic knowledge about the events of 1950-53, I felt I needed a more thorough grounding in the actual battles and the characters of the Korean War. While Mr. Fehrenbach's volume did much to keep me informed about the major clashes, the involved units, and the prominent people, I often found myself bogged down in his often very confusingly organized prose. Never mind writing style -- I often found myself baffled as to just what he was trying to say, or about whom he was trying to say it. Not to mention abominable copywriting, which wouldn't normally bother me so much, except that the frequent punctuation errors and misspellings often just hampered the text's comprehensibility even more.And as one reviewer here previously stated, Mr. Fehrenbach does indeed have a personal axe to grind, which in and of itself wouldn't be so remarkable (few historians can avoid inserting a healthy dose of their own personal biases into their works), except that it oftentimes leads him to keep reaching for the same tired metaphors that might've been meaningful used once, but just seem like laziness the second or third time around. (Yes, we know "there are tigers," Mr. Fehrenbach, but you don't have to keep saying so every other page....) Another big problem I had with this history was the total lack of maps illustrating what he was trying to describe in his often clumsy prose. Even as a Korean, I often had trouble following the litany of names of towns, rivers, and mountains, without a single point of reference to get a better idea of what he was referring to. He obviously had a great passion for the topic, and many of his points about the changing nature of warfare were (and are) cogent, but its many shortcomings made for an oftentimes all-too-frustrating read.
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Summary: This THE book to read on the Korean War
Review: Fehrenbach has captured, better than any other author ever has, the then pitiful state of the American Army, the conditions it fought under, and how brutal the war was. This is the definative book on the Korean War. I have served two tours in Korea, and used this book as a readiness measuring stick for my soldiers. The next Korean War, God forbid it should happen, will not be a Desert Storm. The North Koreans will fight to the death, and probably use chemical and biological weapons. The casulties will be in the millions. The current stories in the press about US soldiers firing on Korean civilians, and blowing bridges with civilians, is adressed in this book. Given the circumstances at the time, it is no wonder. Most interesting, and alarming, is that there are current parallels between the Army then and now. Nowadays, soft, politically correct training is the standard. Hard training and hard discipline are not in vogue - they cause injuries and unpleasantness. These things are not popular with recruits more interested in college scholarships than being soldiers. The current White House, Pentagon, and Army Brass are more given these days to endorse group hugs and politically correctness than true warrior training. Which, by the way, if I have hard traiing & discipline, they will solve current service problems alot better and quicker than the current schemes. When we fight the next hard war, which is what the Army is supposed to be about, not being a form of social welfare service for bailing out short-comers, and when the extra body bags come home because of the lack of hard training, which of these politically correct, social engineering generals will step forward, and announce that they are responsible. And then, as they should, put a bullet in their heads from shame. Anybody ?
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Summary: THE Book on the Korean War ?
Review: I'm afraid I have to go against the flow on TKOW. As a primer on a military that had gotten soft, become unrealistic, and was founded on a society that didn't much care, TKOW was an excellent read. It focused on leadership under extreme adversity and it laid out the price for laxity. In this respect, I concur with other reviewers that it is excellent background for military unit commanders from squad to division levels. As a military history of the Korean War it was an acceptable broad overview. It did provide the major points and it did provide well-written insight into North Korean and Chinese action and thought. But it was only a broad overview. And it had a damning flaw -- no maps! I am unable to comprehend how publishers can continue to publish histories of military operations which are highly dependent upon the relative positions of units and their interplay with terrain -- and provide only a written narritive to explain a geographical layout. I hunted down several maps of Korea myself, but, because of scale, they provided minimal assistance to understanding Fehrenbach's text. So, as a tactical and operational history of the war, I deem TKOW a failure. Finally, I am often irritated and made suspect of texts that provide an overt liberal bias. In the case of TKOW, I was irritated and suspect of a book that advanced an overt conservative bias. Fehrenbach should have easily been able to make his case -- he had the facts -- without editorials on the decline of American culture. Is TKOW worth a read? Yes, it is. I would recommend it for a background exploration of the Korean War. Is it THE book on the Korean War. No, it is not.
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Summary: Still A Superb Take on The Korean War, Despite Its Age
Review: If you only read one book on the Korean War, this is the one. Fehrenbach provides a well-balanced mix of impressions of fighting at the ground level with the broader vision of the war from a strategic and political level. He is unsparing in describing the appalling unpreparedness of the US Army and, more important, the underlying reasons for it that can easily be repeated in the future.
As the book was written nearly 30 years before the end of the Cold War (1963), it frequently tends to speak in the present tense of an era fading into the past. Still, this does little to detract from the book. What would have helped the book immensely is the presence of a few maps to give the reader the ability to identify key locations mentioned throughout the book.
Overall, a "must read," but not an "only read."
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Summary: Know What You're Reading
Review: The author was very personally involved in this subject matter, and so as a result he's got an agenda in writing this book. Although it is, for some things, one of the best places to go for a quick look-up of events, it is also a dangerous source to use since the author has such an axe to grind and is selective about where he grinds it. (Blaming, mostly, Congress for example.) Decent narrative, and fairly fast reading, but unless you know that you're reading an agenda based account, you might not see between the cracks.
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Summary: Legions and tigers and bears! Oh MY!
Review: This is a great book. Not so much for the Korean War History, which is here. Fehrenbach does a fair job in covering alot of the crucial battles. But with no maps of Cloverleaf hill, Chosin, Chipyong 'ni, it is easy to get lost in the text. However that is not what this book is really about: as Fehrenbach says, such details are far better covered elsewhere. The real key is the title: what kind of war is Korea, that makes it 'this kind' of war? Answer: It is the kind of war that must be fought with Legions. Korea, like the British battles with Russia in the far off Khyber pass, needed to be fought with a trained, elite cadre of soldiers who follow orders to go, fight, and die on the distant frontiers. It cannot be fought with citizen soldiers who have heard the trumpet of total war, feeling their nation and way of life lie in the balance (as in WWII, or the civil war), because such a threat does NOT EXIST in wars like Korea. (Or Vietnam, which was just emerging as this text first went into print. )Citizen soldiers will not toady up for wars that are part of an international game of power politics. "The US Army could have fought World War III in 1950," says Fehrenbach, "but it could not fight in Korea." Perhaps. One fatal flaw in this argument is that the Russians never used their own Legions, either. They found convenient proxies--the NKPA and later the Chinese--to do their dirty work for them, spilling American blood in the process. Not until Ronald Reagan--who fought them in central America and their own soft underbelly of Afghanistan with proxies of our own--did this shell game come undone. The communist world fell apart within a decade. In this world there are tigers--i'll grant that to the author--but Russia was not one of them. This book will not grate well with those who (still) have romantic notions of what Communism is all about. Nor will it sit well with those who think the military should be some kind of petri dish for sociological theories, be they those of the Doolittle commission, or the American Psychiatric Association. But for those who want to read about the Korean War, woven with some invaluable commentary from a professional soldier and leader of men in combat, Fehrenbach's book is invaluable.
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Summary: The Best Single-Volume History of the Korean War
Review: This is without a doubt the best single-volume history of the Korean War. Fehrenbach did a great job. He not only had the foresight to include an informative glossary of weapons but also a final chapter on "lessons learned." It's too bad our nation's enlightened policy makers haven't learned from the mistakes of their predecessors. As for the question of "typos", I've an older copy so I can't honestly comment on the the newer editions. All things considered, it's a peerless and important work.
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Summary: An Excellent Introduction Riddled With Typos
Review: This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History is both a comprehensive history of the 1950-1953 Korean War, and also a window into contemporary events on the Korean peninsula. It is also an historical document itself, for Cold War and U.S. Army historians alike. First published in 1963, before the end of the Vietnam War and the end of military conscription, it points out why the United States is best served by a professional army. The narrative begins on Sunday, June 25, 1950, but then deftly returns to the preceding 50 years of the Japanese colonial period. Fehrenbach treats the war in two phases: maneuver phase (June 1950-1951); and stalemate (1951-1953). Really two wars, the conflict settled into an agonizing contest of diplomatic wills, where small units scrapped for pieces of mountainous terrain while negotiators quibbled over the POW issue. Fehrenbach highlights the stories of non-commissioned officers and field officers during key battles to illustrate the changing fortunes of the war. The author's command of military history makes the battle narrations particularly poignant. But Fehrenbach also recounts the stories of United Nations prisoners in North Korea and the United Nations POW camp on Geoje Island. Fehrenbach consistently argues and illustrates, that American troops were generally unprepared both psychologically and physically to fight against the North Koreans and Chinese. He also argues, that this lack of preparedness resulted in the deaths not only of soldiers in the field but prisoners in the camps. He also criticizes the Doolittle Commission, which recommended changes in the leadership structure following the Second World War, and budget cutbacks for serious inadequacies in training and equipment. This Kind of War, marketed as a 50th anniversary edition, is riddled with typographical and grammatical errors, which distract from the flow of the text. Fehrenbach's argument is also burdened with anti-communist diatribes, which punctuate his valid discussions of leadership and training inadequacies, but distract from the story flow. Although some discussion of the political squabbles between liberal containment hawks and anti-communists is warranted, Fehrenbach descends into jingoism with single sentence slogans. This Kind of War is an indispensable introduction to the Korean War, which balances all aspects of the war. It also is a political document, which is still used by contemporary officers to punctuate the need for preparedness in the ranks. It also contains easy-to-read maps, a concise chronology of the war, and a catalog of equipment each side used. It also is insightful as a guide to the diplomatic history of the DPRK-US relationship, still currently being played out.
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Summary: Originally Sub-titled: "A Study in Unpreparedness"
Review: Unpreparedness is a major theme in American military history. In his popular and unsympathetic view of America's involvement in Korea, T.R. Fehrenbach argues that the American armed forces were psychologically unprepared for the type of limited war that took place in Korea ("this kind of war"). The author questions whether the citizen-soldier and the society from which it breeds were willing to fight and die for an intangible foreign policy in Asia. Originally published two years before a full American commitment in Vietnam (1963), the author warns that this type of conflict will become the rule rather than the exception and America had better train a professional force both physically and mentally to deal with such future conflicts. Fehrenbach's reporting contains many lessons learned and leadership analysis which appeals more to current active duty military personnel. Fehrenbach's book is considered a classic, and is listed on many of the professional military reading lists. Fehrenbach's strengths lie in his combat narrative, particularly at the small unit level, however, when the author attempts to place the conflict in its overall political perspective, he falls short. Many paragraphs contain merely two or three sentences, that for this reviewer, made this book a chore to read in places. In this regard, Fehrenbach trails behind other authors on the subject such as Roy Appleman, and a recently published series edited by Allan R. Millett. Having himself commanded units at platoon, company, and battalion level in Korea, Fehrenbach is direct and pulls no punches. In contrast to those who argue that Korea was a success in that the United States accomplished its mission of re-establishing the Republic of South Korea, Fehrenbach holds the war was a stalemate resembling trench warfare on the Western Front from 1914-1918. Although stating that his evidence is compiled from many sources: official records, operations journals, memoirs, newspapers, and oral histories, the reprinted edition reviewed here contained no notes or bibliography: inexcusable for a work of history! The author is adamant in his conclusion: "A nation that does not prepare for all the forms of war should then renounce the use of war in national policy." He adds: "A people [America] that does not prepare to fight should then be morally prepared to surrender. To fail to prepare soldiers and citizens for limited, bloody ground action, and then to engage in it, is folly verging on the criminal." I've read better books, but this one deserves checking out for the author's uncanny foresight and solid analysis.
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