With a Black platoon in combat : a year in Korea / Lyle Rishell. [electronic resource]

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rishell, Lyle, 1927-2011.

Series:

Texas A & M University military history series ; 29

Texas A & M University military history series With a Black Platoon in combat

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rishell, Lyle, 1927-2011.

Rishell, Lyle.

Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American.

Korean War, 1950-1953.

African American soldiers--Korea.

African American soldiers.

Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American--Korea.

Genre:

Personal narratives -- American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 176 p. ) ill. ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

College Station : Texas A&M University Press, c1993.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The first year of the Korean conflict was a dark and humiliating period for many of the troops who fought there. Against a backdrop of U.S. political indecision and reduced military capability, American soldiers fought a dedicated and numerically strong enemy force that was determined to overrun South Korea. One of these units, the segregated 24th Infantry Regiment, was made up of black soldiers, commanded for the most part by white officers. Lyle Rishell, an infantry.

Platoon leader, led a black platoon of Able Company in that regiment. This book tells the dramatic, often frustrating, sometimes heroic story of that platoon in that first, fateful year of war. From detailed notes he made at the time, and from his memories of those days, Rishell reconstructs the deployment and tactics of his unit, its day-to-day actions and survival. The story that unfolds is one of honor, fear, fighting spirit, fierce combat, and the cries of wounded.

Men. The 24th Infantry Regiment has received bad press from many historians of the Korean conflict, who claim that the black soldiers and noncommissioned officers were undisciplined and even cowardly in battle. Rishell's moving account, based on his own experiences, describes his men as no better or worse than any other infantrymen in the first year in Korea. His troops fought well from July, 1950, to May, 1951, in nearly constant front-line action against the North.

Koreans and the Chinese Communists, despite a variety of significant fundamental obstacles, including the racial prejudice of much of their own army. It is a unique and compelling story of the relationship of a white officer and black soldiers before integration of the services and the civil rights legislation of the sixties. It is also an important corrective to a poorly understood aspect of one of America's most dismal conflicts.

Contents:

Korean War Chronology

1. Alpha Phase

2. Mobilization and Movement

3. Korea, the Hermit Kingdom

4. First Contact

5. The Pusan Perimeter

6. The Fight Continues

7. Perimeter Breakout

8. Mop-up Operations

9. Redeployment

10. Time Out

11. Call It Homecoming

12. The Han River Crossing

13. Thrust and Counterthrust

14. Phase Omega

Appendix A. 24th Infantry Regiment

Appendix B. Composition of Second Platoon.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0-585-17513-6