70 years ago this month, Philadelphia’s Ed Aversa was among the 1st Marine Division soldiers who were hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded at Korea’s Chosin Reservoir. Their legendary fight for survival during a blizzard is now regarded as the Marine Corps’ ‘Finest Hour’. (Originally published in the November 26, 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer)
It was late November 1950, and the biting wind and snow relentlessly swirled around the 1st Division Marines at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea as they desperately fought their way south towards the American held town of Hagaru. Marine Corporal Ed Aversa from the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, began to wonder if he’d make it out of Chosin alive. In the midst of an unprecedented Siberian cold front that gripped the Korean peninsula, as temperatures plummeted to minus 30 degrees, the Chinese had launched a massive, surprise assault against the U.N. forces in North Korea. One of their main objectives was to encircle, and then annihilate, the Marines at Chosin. Although Ed, still spry and feisty at 87 years old, thought that he might die at Chosin, he wasn’t going down without a fight. He smiled at me as he echoed the famous words of his heroic Division Commander, Oliver Smith: “We weren’t retreating, we were just fighting in a different direction.”
But when I pressed him for more details of the battle, his smile quickly faded, and his eyes glazed over as a haunting memory of what he witnessed during the worst of the fighting seeped back into mind. “When we first arrived at Chosin”, Ed recalled, “a truck backed up to the cargo plane we just got off of. It was loaded with dead Marines…naked….not a stitch of clothing on them. Frozen bodies in all different positions. They were so unprepared for the winter, for what happened, that they stripped them of their clothes so they could re-use them. One of our officers said ‘Gentlemen, we are here for one reason now – to survive’.”
In the chaotic days following the Chinese attack, with the army of U.N. forces commander Douglas MacArthur in full-scale retreat, the senior military leaders in Washington ineptly struggled to deal with the crisis. David Halberstam’s brilliant book on the Korean War, “The Coldest Winter” revealed that as MacArthur began to unravel, incoherently mumbling to his aides while refusing to heed the advice from Washington, the Joint Chiefs meekly sat “around waiting for someone else to do something”. But with American soldiers dying by the hundreds each day, there was one senior officer who was outraged by Washington’s impotence and “vacuum of leadership”: General Matthew B. Ridgway. Halberstam detailed a meeting that took place with the Joint Chiefs on December 3rd that very likely led to the eventual decision to replace MacArthur with Ridgway. It was “another long meeting where, in Ridgway’s mind, they were unable to issue an order…Finally, Ridgway asked for permission to speak and then – he wondered later whether he had been too blunt – said that they had all spent too much damn time on debate and it was time to take some action. They owed it to the men in the field, he said, ‘and to the God to whom we must answer for those men’s lives to stop talking and to act’. When he finished, no one spoke.” When the meeting concluded, Ridgway asked Air Force Chief of Staff, Hoyt Vandenberg, “Why don’t the Chiefs send orders to MacArthur and tell him what to do?” Vandenberg shook his head. “What good would that do? He wouldn’t obey the orders. What can we do?” Ridgway then exploded. “You can relieve any commander who won’t obey orders, can’t you?!”
The drama unfolding in Washington paled in comparison to the fierce fight being waged by the Marines at Chosin. Fortunately for them, a brilliant tactical decision made in the weeks prior to the Chinese surprise attack by 1st Marine Division commander, Oliver P. Smith, not only enabled the Marines to escape encirclement, but to also inflict heavy casualties on the marauding enemy soldiers. “Oliver Smith was a smart man, and a good general”, Ed said. In early November, Smith expressed concern with his orders to continue heading north towards the Chinese border because he believed that his Marines were walking into a carefully planned and deadly trap. His request to slow their advance was denied by MacArthur, but, unbeknownst to his superiors, Smith cleverly left supplies and established airfields along their route so that they could fight their way out if his instincts were right.
Ed recalled one particular night of intense combat during their withdrawal from Chosin. “An officer said, “anything moving – hit it. They (the Chinese troops) were 20 yards in front of us, and we didn’t know they were there. Then, all of a sudden, they started with the noise – bugles, whistles – anything to try and rattle us. They didn’t know that every Marine was wide awake waiting for them. When daylight came, their dead were everywhere…only 15 yards away…frozen.” As the fighting withdrawal continued, what initially appeared to be a disaster for the Marines, is now regarded as one of their greatest military moments. “When we got to Hagaru, (Marine 1st Regiment commander) Chesty Puller was standing there with his pipe in his mouth”, Ed recalled, “He said ‘A lot of boys went up that hill, but a lot of men coming down now’.” When the battle finally concluded in mid-December, the Chinese had succeeded in driving the Marines out of Chosin, but at a terrible cost. Although the Marines were outnumbered 8-1, and sustained over 11,000 casualties, U.N. estimates show that Chinese casualties were a staggering 40,000 to 80,000. Chinese General Song Shi-Lun offered his resignation. Unfortunately for Shi-Lun, Ed and his fellow Marines didn’t go down without a fight.
Today, Ed is extremely proud to count himself among the “Chosin Few”, those Marines who stunningly turned certain annihilation into one the most remarkable feats of courage and survival in the annals of military history. He told me that when he looks at how far South Korea has come since the war, he almost can’t believe it’s the same country he left in 1951. “When I first arrived, I thought, what is this place, and what the hell are we doing here? But I look at the country now, and I’m proud of what we did. And the Korean people and the Korean government have not forgotten us.”
In my short time with Ed, I learned that he does not seek recognition, and prefers to keep his emotions in check. Perhaps his most endearing quality is his sense of humor. Following my interview, I put on my coat and said, “It’s supposed to get cold tonight.” Ed shot me a sarcastic look and replied, “When someone says it’s getting cold, I just give ‘em a look and say, ‘Really?’”
More stories of Korean War veterans, as well as veterans of World War I and World War II, can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below: