As part of the final push to end the war in what MacArthur came to exuberantly call his “Home-By-Christmas Offensive,” he sent the U.S. Eighth Army and ROK units advancing up the western side of the peninsula, while the U.S. X Corps, under Army General Ned Almond, landed on the east coast at Wonson and marched north toward the Yalu. The First Marines, fresh from success at Inchon, made up a bulk of the X Corps force and spearheaded the drive up the mountains into the North Korean hinterland.
By late November 1950, forward elements of X Corps were positioned on either side of the amoeba-shaped Chosin Reservoir (the Japanese colonial bastardization of the Korean Changjin) high up in the desolate, jagged hills. The Marines were stretched out over twenty-five miles along a single winding road they dubbed the Main Supply Route (MSR). This single road was in places barely twelve feet wide and bordered by steep cliffs on one side and sheer precipices on the other. It snaked through the mountain passes from the hut villages of Kot’o-Ri south of the reservoir, past Hagaru-Ri on the southern-most shore, slicing through the strategic Toktong Pass, and up to the farthest north positions at Yudam-ni on the west bank of Chosin. The Army unit found itself on the eastern side of the reservoir covering the main drive’s flank.
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