Product Description

"A MUST READ . . . This book [is] one of the best on that war in Korea. . . . A wonderful account of common, decent men in desperate action."
--Leatherneck

During the early, uncertain days of the Korean War, World War II veteran and company lieutenant Joe Owen saw firsthand how the hastily assembled mix of some two hundred regulars and raw reservists hardened into a superb Marine rifle company known as Baker-One-Seven.

As comrades fell wounded and dead around them on the frozen slopes above Korea's infamous Chosin Reservoir, Baker-One-Seven's Marines triumphed against the relentless human-wave assaults of Chinese regulars and took part  in the breakout that destroyed six to eight divisions of Chinese regulars. COLDER THAN HELL paints a vivid, frightening portrait of one of the most horrific infantry battles ever waged.

"Thoroughly gripping . . . The Chosin action is justly called epical; Lieutenant Owen tells the tale of the men who made it so."
--Booklist

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #158089 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08-30
• Released on: 1997-08-30
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 6.83" h x .87" w x 4.17" l, .35 pounds
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The morning of December 8, 1950, found Marine lieutenant Owen, along with the rifle company he led, fighting his way through "blood-splotched snow" with the temperature at 25 degrees below zero?the beginning of another day in North Korea. Owen's dramatic account of that morning begins this close-focus combat memoir. Rifle company Baker-One-Seven, Owen tells us, "functioned at a primal level: they ate, slept, and fought, and they tried to get warm." What Owen presents here is an extraordinarily detailed and realistic account of combat at the level of individual soldiers and small units, covering the role of infantrymen in war, the dangers they are exposed to, the relations that form among them, what keeps them going, their ingenuity and their daring. Only occasionally and in passing does the author put the action of his rifle company into broader perspective, or refer to nonmartial matters such as his wife and two young daughters back in the States. Owen's journal-like account can be repetitive, but it's never monotonous. By offering an extended look at deadly combat taking place on snow-covered mountainous terrain in bone-jarring cold, Owen highlights the hardships and tactics characteristic of the war in Korea. Photos; maps.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Among the many legendary battles and campaigns of the United States Marine Corps there has been none like the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir deep in North Korea in early December of 1950. In the breakout from this trap, the Marines, although suffering grievous casualties, smashed close to ten Chinese divisions while coming out with all of their wounded and most of their equipment and dead. Owen, a graduate of Colgate University and a WWII veteran, describes his experiences as commander of his company's mortars section and a rifle platoon. He is eloquently direct in his depictions of the horrors of combat, the intense cold, and his love and care for his men and family. Rohan's reading is as disciplined and crisp as the text. His voice is precise and clear and adroitly gives character to the men (and some of these men really are characters) by intonation and accent. An exciting reading of an extraordinary deed. M.T.F. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
An enlisted marine who was eventually commissioned, Owen survived three years of World War II in the Pacific and six months in Korea in 1950 as a mortar officer. His Korean sojourn and his marine career ended with the First Marine Division's legendary march out from the Chosin Reservoir, during which he was severely wounded. His is a thoroughly gripping account of how a mixture of reservists and regulars were flung in the general direction of Korea, molded into an infantry rifle company, and compelled to fight their way to the sea. They faced not only the Chinese, but savage weather, short supplies, army units "bugging out," the problems of a newly integrated Marine Corps (whose African American members performed at a very high level, by the way), and gruesome terrain. The Chosin action is justly called epical; Lieutenant Owen tells the tale of the men who made it so. Roland Green