II have trouble understanding how Diego can say that the Chinese winter clothing was better than ours, as bad as our shoepacs were, they were a damn sight better than the Chinese tennis shoes. Our trigger finger leather gloves with wool inserts were warmer and more functional then the Cotton gloves I saw the Chinese wear. Our hooded parka's enabled us to wear our steel helmet, The Chinese wore no helmet, only those ear flap things. I'd call their quilted outfits equal to what we had to wear-except the quilted suits were not very durable, prone to tear and rip easily. Lee Lee, SLA Marshall's great book "The River and the Gauntlet" and others covering the Chosin Resevoir withdrawal agree with you. The stories of finding Chinese literally frozen alive are more than just anectodal, and the Chinese themselves have long commented that they were not prepared for siege warfare in Korea as they ran into in 1950-51. Later they did apparently provide some heavier winter uniforms, but we were still using some of the items developed and used in Korea as late as 1987 and they worked pretty well from my point of view. Cookie Sewell AMPS |