Re: The Minstrel Boy

[Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>]

No, it didn't look the least like "losing the war" from a perspective away
from those poor guys in TFS -- to THEM it must have seemed pure hell.  But
the guys in Washington and Tokyo knew what resources were available and
knew the time it would take to get them there.

The one possibility for a significant failure was that a really rapid NKPA
advance might have closed out the Pusan Perimeter before it could have been
firmed up.  Thanks to a number of factors -- not least being the
contributions of the Marines on ground and air -- the Perimeter DID stick.
But, even if we'd lost the Perimeter, we would still have gone back in to
clean up South Korea.  We really didn't have a choice, and, by late July,
'50, we had good reason to believe that the USSR and China would not become
involved if the battle remained in South Korea.

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!