‘Win a quick war if you can; if you can’t, win a slow one’

From Small Wars, Faraway Places by Michael Burleigh. Page 145. On the Chinese People's Volunteer Army entry into the Korean War.

Starting on 25 November, the forces which MacArthur sent north in his ‘Home by Christmas’ offensive were attacked along a 300-mile front by 300,000 PVA, who compensated for their lack of radios by using bugles, cymbals, drums, whistles and even flutes for battlefield communications. They also attacked by night to neutralize the impact of US air supremacy and avoided roads, marching instead along Korea’s hilly central spine. They had a mere 300 trucks to move supplies (always at night because of US bombing) and were otherwise totally reliant on mules and human bearers to move ammunition, food and equipment south, and their wounded north. Yet an army whose doctrine relied on the co-operative attitude of surrounding peasants found itself as disliked by the North Koreans as the Americans were. The feeling was mutual, as the Chinese really did not like the North Koreans. The country was bleak, the women unappealing and the national dish of fermented and highly spiced cabbage produced epic flatulence.

The troops themselves could move fast because they carried very little kit, and whereas a US division required 610 tons of supplies a day, the equivalent figure for the PVA was 50. PVA soldiers carried an odd assortment of mainly American and Japanese weapons, and lacked heavy artillery. Their reversible brown and white cotton-filled jackets were impossible to dry when they became wet because they dared not light fires. When the temperature really plummeted, they smothered their faces with pork fat and stuffed straw in their rubber-soled canvas sneakers. The only sleeping bags they possessed were captured from the enemy. Two-thirds of Chinese casualties were caused by frostbite, and it was certain death to fall into exhausted sleep without huddling together for warmth. They could eat only cold food, usually shaoping, unleavened bread made from a mixture of sorghum, millet, lima beans and flour which they carried with them. Chinese soldiers rarely received leave, except on extreme compassionate grounds, and their recreational activities were minimal. Medical provision for the wounded was primitive, only amputees were repatriated and the Chinese dead were rarely buried.

In addition to dealing with primitive communications and tenuous logistics, Peng was constantly harassed by Mao and Kim. What was he to make of such exhortations as ‘Win a quick war if you can; if you can’t, win a slow one’? He did his best to make it quick. After destroying an ROK corps on the Ch’ongch’on River, he smashed the US 2nd Infantry Division on the right flank of the UN advance. US Eighth Army’s headlong retreat was covered by the suicidally brave stand of the Turkish Brigade. At Chosin Reservoir the US 7th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team and the US 1st Marine Division were nearly encircled and suffered some 15,000 casualties before they escaped thanks to concentrated bombardment by the USAF and the massed guns of US X Corps.