China Invasion: People’s Liberation Army Crosses the Yalu October 1950–March 1951

In his first four volumes on the Korean War, the author looked at the North Korean invasion of the south, which pushed back UN forces under General Douglas MacArthur into the Pusan enclave on the southeast tip of the Korean peninsula. Following a daring and highly successful amphibious counterattack at Inch’ŏn, MacArthur liberates Seoul before confidently crossing the 38th Parallel into North Korea, with the objective of totally eliminating the North Korean military machine right up to the Chinese Manchurian border.

Communist Chinese forces, that had been secretly infiltrating North Korean territory by slipping across the Yalu River from mid-October, ambushed a South Korean regiment in the mountains of central North Korea. This would be the first of several Chinese victories over unsuspecting and overstretched South Korean and American units in the winter of 1950–51.

Chinese leader Mao Zedong, ostensibly fearful of the consequences of hostile American forces on his country’s border along the Yalu River, ordered hundreds of thousands of his soldiers into battle in Korea, with express orders to annihilate the UN forces.

In the western half of the theatre, US General Walton H. Walker’s Eighth Army front along the Ch’ŏngch’ŏn axis was breeched, while to the east the US X Corps suffered a series of crushing defeats, including at the Chosin Reservoir, precipitating a massive evacuation from the North Korean port of Hungnam.

American superiority in the Korean War now deteriorated rapidly, as hopes of imminent victory gave way to a desperate struggle for survival against seemingly endless numbers of well-equipped Chinese hordes.