The Marines of Autumn: A Novel of the Korean War - Softcover

Brady, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312280815 ISBN 13: 9780312280819

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2001

Synopsis

War has been the inspiration of such great novels as The Red Badge of Courage and A Farewell to Arms, and daring feats of courage and tragic mistakes have been the foundation for such classic works. Now, for the first time ever, the Korean War has a novel that captures that courage and sacrifice.

When Captain Thomas Verity, USMC, is called back to action, he must leave his Georgetown home, career, and young daughter and rush to Korea to monitor Chinese radio transmissions. At first acting in an advisory role, he is abruptly thrust into MacArthur's last daring and disastrous foray-the Chosin Reservoir campaign-and then its desperate retreat.

Time magazine at the time recounted the retreat this way: "The running fight of the Marines...was a battle unparalleled in U.S. military history. It had some aspects of Bataan, some of Anzio, some of Dunkirk, some of Valley Forge, and some of 'the retreat of the 10,000' as described in Xenophon's Anabasis."

The Marines of Autumn is a stunning, shattering novel of war illuminated only by courage, determination, and Marine Corps discipline. And by love: of soldier for soldier, of men and their women, and of a small girl in Georgetown, whose father promised she would dance with him on the bridges of Paris. A child Captain Tom Verity fears he may never see again.

In The Marines of Autumn, James Brady captures our imagination and shocks us into a new understanding of war.

About this title

Review:

Readers nostalgic for the patriotic news reports of American wars prior to Vietnam, or those who enjoy vintage Hollywood war movies, will savor James Brady's accurate and informed treatment of the disastrous Chosin Reservoir campaign in North Korea in the fall and early winter of 1950. His hero is Captain Tom Verity, a Yale-educated, war-seasoned Marine who at the opening of The Marines of Autumn is teaching Chinese history at Georgetown University and raising his 3-year-old daughter alone after the death of his young wife. Verity was born in China, the son of an American businessman, and returned to the States only in his teens. Recalled to active service because of his familiarity with several Chinese dialects, he is assured that he will only be needed for a month or so, to roam the countryside in a Jeep and monitor Chinese radio activity across (and soon within) the Korean border.

The campaign itself provides a rich subject. As Brady depicts it (both here and in his memoir, The Coldest War), thousands of men were betrayed by the ambition of General MacArthur and the pigheadedness of his intelligence officers. They ignored mounting evidence that entire regiments of Chinese communist forces were crossing the border into North Korea by night and hiding in the hills surrounding the Chosin Reservoir, a narrow mountain pass through which American troops were being sent en masse as a giddy, premature display of victory over the North Koreans. After the liberation of Seoul in September 1950, and with presidential hopes in mind, MacArthur had decided to push his troops forward all the way to the Yalu River, the border with China, while assuring President Truman that there was no organized resistance to their advance, and that American soldiers would be home by Christmas.

Verity watched the Marines arrive by sea, realizing that his brief tour of duty might be prolonged and feeling nostalgic for the rifle platoon he had led on Okinawa:

They looked pretty much like all the Marines he'd ever seen, some clean-shaven and baby-faced like kids' bottoms; others hairy and tough; craggy men like Tate and gnomes like Izzo; pimpled boys and top sergeants going gray, men with their helmets securely fastened with chin straps, others with their steel hats cocked back off their faces, straps a-dangle.

Hell, Verity thought, they look like... Marines.

Admittedly, it is hard to avoid cliché in this genre. The unconventional plot--an ill-advised advance followed by a hasty and equally costly retreat--helps Brady. And there is no flag-waving at the end of The Marines of Autumn. The author's treatment is sentimental but realistic, and will be relished by Marines and ex-Marines alike, since the army is the butt of every joke. --Regina Marler

From the Back Cover:

PRAISE FOR JAMES BRADY

"The privation undergone by the U.S. Marines at the 'Frozen Chosin' in Korea, 1950, stands with the monumental infantry ordeals in the history of warfare. Now James Brady, who himself fought as a Marine rifle platoon leader in the same Taebaek Mountains of North Korea, brings this annal of valor to life in prose that is at once brutal, humorous, harrowing, and indelible. The Marines of Autumn takes its place among the unforgettable chronicles of war crafted by men, to paraphrase Whitman, 'who were there, who knew, who suffered.' Outstanding."
--Steven Pressfield, author of Tides of War and Gates of Fire

"In this thoroughly engrossing novel Brady captures the way the Marines of 1950 thought, talked, fought, and died. His Marines of Autumn are not the Marines of World War II or Vietnam, but the Marines of Korea, and a uniquely fascinating breed they were...At last we have a major Korean War novel!"
--Martin Russ, author of Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950

"The Marines of Autumn is a you-are-there epic story that portrays the horror and the heroism of the corps' finest yet most critical hour. A truly gripping tale of a war that America has sadly forgotten."
--David Hackworth, U.S. soldier, Korea, 1950

"War reporting t its best-a graphic depiction, in all its horror, of the war we've almost forgotten...Jim Brady has used his finely honed reportorial skills to record his own frontline experiences in the Korean War. His story reads like a novel."
--Walter Cronkite on The Coldest War

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312280815
• ISBN 13: 9780312280819
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 274