Book: The Dragon Strikes: China and the Korean War: June-December 1950

["Mike Yared" <mikeyared@hotmail.com>]

This book review was in Infantry magazine, Vol.90, n.1, p.49.
January-April 2000.

The Dragon Strikes: China and the Korean War: June-December 1950

The Dragon Strikes: China and the Korean War: June-December 1950.
By Patrick C. Roe.
Presidio Press, 2000.
466 Pages. $34.95.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Michael F. Davino, U.S. Army.

In late November 1950, the United Nations Command launched what became known 
as the "Home for Christmas" offensive. Despite an earlier clash with Chinese 
Communist Forces that had left a regiment of the Ist Cavalry Division 
bloodied in the Eighth U.S. Army zone and a Marine regiment's defeat of a 
Chinese division in the X Corps zone, the UN Command attempted a massive 
attack to reunify the Korean peninsula. Within a month, the Eighth Army had 
been defeated by the Chinese and was withdrawing below the 38th parallel 
where the war began. In the X Corps zone, the Ist Marine Division had to 
break out from encirclement and was evacuated by sea to Pusan with the rest 
of X Corps. In the words of author Patrick Roe, the course of history was 
changed. The Dragon Strikes is a close study of the Chinese involvement in 
the first six months of the Korean War. It is an excellent account and a 
timely one. Its publication coincides with the 50th anniversary of the war 
and a time when the potential threat China poses to the United States is 
under increasing scrutiny. Patrick Roe, who served as the intelligence 
officer of a Marine rifle battalion in the Chosin Reservoir campaign, 
examines in great detail both the Chinese actions against the U.S. X Corps 
in Northeastern Korea and the defeat of the U.S. Eighth Army at the 
Chongchon River. He reviews the pre-war situation and analyzes why the 
Chinese chose to enter the conflict. He covers the deception plan of the 
Chinese, explaining how they were able to intervene in such a decisive 
manner while remaining undetected by U.S. intelligence services. Unlike many 
authors who tend to hold General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and his G-2, 
Major General Charles Willoughby, almost solely responsible for the 
disastrous campaigns in north Korea, Roe describes the role of the Joint 
Chiefs, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council 
in the debacle. He explains the complex chain of events that had the 
national command authorities on the verge of panic, and unable to issue firm 
orders to MacArthur. This book will give readers interested in the Korean 
War an excellent understanding of how the Chinese were able to defeat a 
technologically superior enemy. It is an excellent addition to the 
literature available on the so-called "Forgotten War."


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