ABSTRACT

The period encompassing the Great Retreat of the forces of the United Nations Command (UNC) from North Korea following the full-scale intervention of the Chinese in late 1950 and the stabilization of the front in the middle of the peninsula concurrent with the start of armistice negotiations in the summer of 1951 was of enormous importance in shaping the ultimate outcome of the Korean War. Operational realities during this almost eight-month stage forced first one side and then the other to abandon expectations of total victory. A great deal more has been written in English about some topics than others in this so-called period of mobile warfare, though coverage is admittedly expanding (McFarland 2010). Quite apart from a more general imbalance between scholarly coverage of the two sides and the paucity of detailed work on the part the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army played, extensive coverage of particular episodes has not been matched by similarly extensive analysis of others which, in the words of the leading American historian working on the war, remain “relatively unknown” (Millett 2007: 160).