By Todd DePastino
Thanksgiving 1950. Huge snowstorm in Pittsburgh. “Mild Blizzard” in Chicago. And, in Korea, hope for a quick end to war.
General Douglas MacArthur’s stunning landing at Incheon two months earlier had swung the war in the United Nation’s favor. Seoul was back in UN hands. President Harry Truman praised the operation as one of the finest he’d ever seen. South Korea’s Syngman Rhee thanked the United States for what he called an act of bold leadership. MacArthur assured his commanders they would finish the job by Thanksgiving and “get the boys home by Christmas.”
That was the mood as UN forces crossed the 38th parallel in October and pushed toward the Chinese border. The 1st Cavalry Division entered Pyongyang on October 19. Other units pressed north through bitter wind and steep mountains toward the Chinese border at the Yalu River. Zhou Enlai, China’s foreign minister, warned repeatedly that Beijing would intervene if UN troops advanced too close. Truman and the Joint Chiefs were worried. But MacArthur waved them off. There was no chance the Chinese could turn the tide.
Watch the old Army newsreel Combat Bulletin #105 from 1951 below. It tells the story of rising confidence and dashed hopes.
The film shows the U.S. 7th Infantry Division working its way toward the Yalu, with aircraft strafing snowy hills around them. The camera catches soldiers digging in along a frozen riverbank.
The mood at 3:19 is upbeat: “Thanksgiving Dinner. Turkey with all the trimmings served piping hot is a pleasant interlude. It brings a touch of home in the icy waste of Korea.” The troops eat turkey in their foxholes, steam rising from their mess kits into the cold air.
Then, less than a minute later: “But Thanksgiving peace doesn’t last long. The Chinese hordes attack suddenly, crossing the ice on the Yalu in ever-increasing numbers.”
The first Chinese attacks came at night, through deep snow, with bugles, horns, and flares cutting through the dark. UN lines buckled almost immediately. Combat Bulletin #105 shows the aftermath: Marines and Army units pulling back along the Hagaru road, transport planes dropping supplies to keep them alive, abandoned trucks half-buried in snow, and wounded men lifted onto aircraft at makeshift airstrips in Koto and Hagaru.
South Korean and American troops, along with thousands of refugees, crowd the shoreline as landing craft shuttle people to transports offshore. Naval guns boom from the horizon as a rear-guard of the 3rd Infantry Division buys time for the withdrawal. It is all filmed without drama. Just cold, raw footage that shows how a seemingly victorious army found itself suddenly fighting for escape.
By Christmas, UN forces were back near the 38th parallel, where the war had started that June.
The dream of a fast victory evaporated almost overnight. General Omar Bradley called the collapse “the greatest military disaster in the history of the United States.” Time magazine ran a headline calling it the “worst defeat” the country had ever suffered. A whole new static war across what would become the DMZ began.
The armistice that finally halted the fighting wouldn’t arrive until July 1953, after more than 36,000 Americans had been killed. But the turning point came on Thanksgiving weekend 1950, when expectations for quick victory stumbled on a forerseeable snag: underestimation of the enemy.
