Korea Military

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. Max Hastings, preeminent military historian, takes us back to the bloody, bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950.

Some warriors are drawn to the thrill of combat and find it the defining moment of their lives. Others fall victim to fear, exhaustion, impaired reasoning, and despair. This was certainly true for twentieth-century American ground troops. Whether embracing or being demoralized by war, these men risked their lives for causes larger than themselves with no promise of safe return.

Admiral Lenson leads Operation Rupture, the invasion of South China, in a bid to finally end the war and restore peace. Meanwhile, Captain Cheryl Staurulakis fights to take a radical new “super ship” to sea, even though its power and capability may introduce more risk than reward.

North Korea is one of the most troubled societies on earth. The country's 24 million people live under a violent dictatorship led by a single family, which relentlessly pursues the development of nuclear arms, which periodically incites risky military clashes with the larger, richer, liberal South, and which forces each and every person to play a role in the "theater state" even as it pays little more than lip service to the wellbeing of the overwhelming majority.

This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America's modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies.

The war that broke out in Korea on a Sunday morning 70 years ago has come to be recognized as a critical turning point in modern history - as the first great clash of arms of the Cold War, the last conflict between superpowers, and the root of a nuclear crisis that grips the world to this day. In this vivid, emotionally compelling, and highly original account, Charles J. Hanley tells the story of the Korean War through the eyes of 20 individuals who lived through it.

Having spent centuries in the shadows of its neighbors China and Japan, Korea is now the object of considerable interest for radically different reasons - the South as an economic success story and for its vibrant popular culture; the North as the home to one of the world's most repressive regimes, at once both bizarre and menacing. Korea: A Very Short Introduction explores the history, culture, and society of a deeply divided region.

The Frozen Chosen is an account of the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea by the First Marine Division from November to December 1950, following the intervention of Red China in the Korean War. Fought during the worst blizzard in a century, it is considered by the US Marine Corps to be the Corps' finest hour. Fourteen Medals of Honor, a record for any American battle, and 85 Navy Crosses attest to the intensity of the battle.

After its successful landing at Inchon and capture of Seoul in September 1950, the U.S. X Corps was joined by Eighth Army, and many people expected the two commands to be combined into one. Instead, General MacArthur ordered the X Corps to load onto ships and travel around the peninsula to northeastern Korea and the port city of Wonsan, which the South Korean I Corps had captured.

The Korean CIA Director is killed by a North Korean assassin. Counterfeiting, drugs, and weapons of terror finance the North Korean government. Three Air Force Pararescuemen and a CIA Officer join with the South Korean 707th Brigade and a team of female assassins to form a team known only by President Reagan and CIA Director Casey, as "the Silent Six". Their task: the destruction of the North Korean gangster regime. "The Silent Six" is the ultimate Special Operations Team.

Author David Joseph brings his most intriguing thriller yet - a terrifying story about terrorism and rescue - brilliantly paced with superb nonstop action. While tracking the 9/11 terrorist hijackers at the "Kuala Lumpur Summit", the Silent Six team are redirected on a rescue mission of sheer audacity and nerve - rescue a group of children being transported from Camp 14 in North Korea.

In 1946, Master Sergeant Donald Nichols was repairing jeeps on the sleepy island of Guam when he caught the eye of recruiters from the army's Counter Intelligence Corps. After just three months' training, he was sent to Korea, then a backwater beneath the radar of MacArthur's Pacific Command. Though he lacked the pedigree of most US spies - Nichols was a seventh-grade dropout - he quickly metamorphosed from army mechanic to black ops phenomenon.

The narrative of the Korean War in the West, and particularly in the United States, tells the tale of a conflict between two global superpowers and competing ideologies in a far-flung corner of the globe. The reality is that the wheels of motion that drove the country to war in 1950 began turning long before American boots set foot on Korean soil. The heart of the conflict was a civil war between a population arbitrarily divided by colonization and the global geopolitics at the end of the Second World War.

An American soldier's life spirals out of control after he makes a fateful discovery on the Korean DMZ and then falls in love with a beautiful brothel courtesan whose tragic past becomes entwined in a volatile confrontation with Communist North Korea. It's the 1960s, the Vietnam conflict is raging, and a delicate Korean armistice threatens to fall apart at the world's most dangerous border, pushing the US toward the brink of another war in Asia. With his life in danger, GI Eddie Profar must decide if he should reveal his startling secret, which has already caused the deaths of two people.

The focus of the United States during the Cold War was to prevent the spread of communism. The soldiers who served then were the wall that protected the world from that threat. None were in harm's way more than those who patrolled inside the DMZ in Korea. This book covers the history for the years following the "Second Korean War". No longer an official combat zone, it was still one of the most dangerous places in the world. This book documents the history of the DMZ from the perspective of the soldiers who were actually there, facing that threat each day.

해양과 대륙의 충돌로 해석하는 임진왜란은 한반도에 어떤 의미를 던지는가? 이후 동아시아는 어떻게 흘러가는가? 이 책은 동아시아를 보는 일반적인 통념과 전혀 다른 결론을 보여준다. 동서양을 막론하고 해양과 대륙이라는 양대 세력이 다투면서 문명과 역사가 바뀌었다는 주장은 많았다. 다만 그 배경이 한반도를 포함한 동아시아이고, 임진왜란부터 태평양전쟁까지 일본이라는 해양 세력이 주축이 되어 전개되는 것을 보면 생소함을 넘어 거부감이 들지도 모른다. 그러나 이어령 전 문화부 장관도 말했듯이, 한국은 해양과 대륙 사이에 있는 반도 국가로서 그 역할이 점차 커지고 있다. 21세기 한국에 걸맞은 역할이 필요하다. 대륙 일변의 역사에서 벗어나 해양을 중심으로 동아시아를 본다면, 당신은 오늘날까지 연속하는 해양과 대륙의 패권 대결을 현명하게 바라볼 수 있을 것이다.

A major historical account of the Korean War, its origins, and its evolving impact on the world. Sixty years after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea, the Korean War has not yet ended. Sheila Miyoshi Jager presents the first comprehensive history of this misunderstood war, one that risks involving the world’s superpowers - again. Her sweeping narrative ranges from the middle of the Second World War - when Korean independence was fiercely debated between Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill - to the present day.

In 1952, John T. “Jack” Downey, a 23-year-old CIA officer from Connecticut, was shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. The pilots died in the crash, but Downey and his partner Richard “Dick” Fecteau were captured by the Chinese. For the next 20 years, they were harshly interrogated, put through show trials, held in solitary confinement, placed in reeducation camps, and toured around China as political pawns.

A newly married Methodist minister, Larry Zellers, was serving as a missionary and teacher in a small South Korean town near the 38th parallel when he was captured by the North Koreans on June 25, 1950. Until his release in 1953, Zellers endured brutal conditions and inhumane treatment. Through his story, Zellers shows that, despite the opinion that POWs live only for themselves, many in the camps worked to help others and conducted themselves with honor.

The Special Activities Group (SAG) and its subordinate companies have received little attention from historians, despite being an elite combat unit and participating in highly classified and dangerous missions in Korea. Rarely receiving more attention than a footnote, their story usually begins and ends on the night of September 12, 1950, with an amphibious raid near Kunsan. Until their inactivation on March 31, 1951, SAG simply disappears from most Korean War histories.