이것이 전쟁이다! Army Division. It was a force whose general answered directly to MacArthur, not to General Walker of the Eighth Army. Thus two separate commands were now in the field. Without any attempt to establish another strong line anywhere across the peninsula—even at its narrow waist—behind which they might have withdrawn in case of unforeseen trouble, and despite all of the warnings from Lake Success, New Delhi and Peking, it became an all-out race between the two commands to see which would first occupy the banks of the Yalu River, the northern frontier of North Korea—beyond which spread Manchuria, China, Russia . . . the whole Communist empire. During that race north—first in late October, and again early in November— contact had been made with a new opposing force. A handful of prisoners had been taken—quilt-uniformed soldiers of the Chinese Fourth Field Army. But GHQ in Tokyo had dismissed these as token troops sent into Korea to fulfill the promises made by Peking to the demoralized and shattered North Koreans. No one, apparently not even General MacArthur, regarded them as more than just a nuisance. Surely General MacArthur, through Intelligence and his field commanders knew and had weighed the threat of the well-reported massing of Chinese Communist armies along the Manchurian side of the Yalu River. But, as at Inchon, he gambled. Surely he knew that winter could soon hammer North Korea with storms that no general in the history of Asian warfare had ever challenged, and defeated. He gambled. Finally, his two field forces were rushing ahead, under orders, without even bothering to close their flanks or maintain adequate communication between the various fingers of men being pushed north. He gambled that they would advance unopposed . . . and consolidate their positions after they reached the Yalu. He gambled, and catastrophically lost. Winter slammed down upon the mountains of North Korea—and then, to the haunting notes of bugles and the Ⅵ. “Retreat, Hell!” l 155
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