Pictorial History of the Korean War, 1950-1953

This work, is truly an overlooked resource. Put together by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and edited by Jay Cassino, it contains hundreds of photographs (a number in striking color) seldom seen elsewhere as well as an illuminating running commentary on the process of the war up to the end of 1950 during which time a war of maneuver held sway over the peninsula.
But most important and valuable is the straightforward campaign commentary by General Douglas McArthur, commentary which captures his unvarnished views of the outbreak of the war, the battle for the Pusan perimeter, his bold stroke at Inchon, the ultimately disastrous lunge to the Manchurian border, and ending with his concluding war essay "South Korea Cleared of Reds" as well as his more widely known speech to the U.S. Congress following his removal by President Truman.
While many subsequent authors have been critical of McArthur - and rightly so in a number of instances and for a variety of reasons - few appear to have read this illuminating account by him. Fewer still seem to have chosen to engage the commentary of events it contains.
Anyone interested in the "inside baseball" of the American side of the first year of the Korean War would do well to explore this unusual - and often extremely candid - account. For example, I have never encountered pictures of the Third Infantry Division's heavy tank battalion providing rear guard support for the successful evacuation of Hamhung. Nor have I seen the flat and telling statements such as "When the unit was ordered to abandon its mountaintop position there wasn't sufficient time to drive the tanks down the icy slopes. All the tanks except Sgt. Pouin's were sent hurtling over the side of a cliff." (300) This account deserves much wider coinage and usage.