The Fifties

by David Halberstam

At this point, the UN troops, whose misfortune it was to be carrying out MacArthur’s last great dream of glory, were undersupplied, underclothed, underfed, and far from their base camp. As those United Nations units moved forward they began to feel a growing sense of isolation. Something ominous was in the air. In late November, a British officer was taking his first bath in weeks when word was brought to him that four men on horseback had been spotted near his brigade headquarters. He dressed and rushed over just in time to see them ride off. He knew instantly that they were Chinese, not North Korean. Later, he came to refer to them as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In Tokyo, MacArthur urged his two main forces on to their appointed meeting place at the Yalu. The optimism at his headquarters was at its height. The war was virtually finished, MacArthur told reporters in briefings. There was talk about bringing the boys home for Christmas. In Washington, the Defense Department started canceling plans for projected troop shipments to Korea. Yet the In Min Gun had fled north in October, and some American field commanders regarded it as disturbing: Almost overnight the enemy seemed to have disappeared.