A mid the bitter winter of 1950 there was little reason to be optimistic about the outcome of the Korean War. By late December American-led United Nations troops were two months into a demoralizing full-scale retreat. In late October the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) had crossed the Yalu River to join the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) in a massive offensive against U.N. Command forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Relentless assaults by Chinese troops during the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir, in North Korea’s mountainous far north, particularly devastated the coalition troops.
By the outset of 1951 the PVA had pushed U.N. forces back across the 38th parallel. Given their vast numerical superiority, the Chinese seemed unstoppable as they pushed south. On January 7 PVA and KPA troops captured the South Korean capital of Seoul for the second time. The situation became so dire that Allied brass made contingency plans to withdraw all U.N. forces to the Pusan Perimeter, site of the close-run battle the previous September.
In mid-January, however, the Chinese offensive ground to a halt due to increasingly heavy losses and overstretched supply lines. The U.S. Eighth Army, under newly arrived Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, reached the Han River south of Seoul on February 9 after a series of successful offensive attacks aptly code-named Operation
