This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness

I was first introduced to this book while serving in Korea. It was a different book in the sense that it told the story of the war from the individual's point of view. The author is not some historian reconstructing events from news clippings and war reports in a library somewhere. He was actually there. The author describes the terrain, sounds, and smells as one who spent a considerable amount of time there. We have so many books on Vietnam and World War 2, and yet the Korean war/conflict is often forgotten. This book reminds us of the amount of men lost on both sides. I thought the author was fair in his treatment of Douglas MacArthur and President Truman in the book. You can tell he was a bit disturbed by the fact that we lost as show more many men waiting for the politicians to work things out diplomatically as we did during the initial combat operations and rightfully so. It's a shame that we didn't end up with a unified Korea after the Chinese were pushed back across the Yalu. We could have prevented the devastating rule of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

The author ends this book with some of the most moving words I have ever read. This book does justice to all the veterans who fought and died in the Korean war. I highly recommend it. show less

Wow for an older history, wow a five star read. T.R. Fehrenbach’s, This Kind of War The Classic Korean War History is an outstanding history of the long under studied war A classic small unit history that doesn’t fail to address high level leaders both civilian and military.

A full war history from the origins to the final outcome and analysis. Fehrenbach touches those who fought and died in the war in numerous small unit engagements at the platoon, company, regimental and division level. He paints a picture of war entered by a nation that neither wanted or was prepared for war either emotionally nor politically with soldiers ill trained to fight a war.

I would definitely recommend this to all interested in the study the war.

A journalistic, but accurate description of the "police Action" on the Korean peninsula between 1950 and 1953. The USa was facing a war conducted by an army of lower technology, and was very surprised to discover that their opponents would give them a very great deal of trouble tactically, and politically.

An excellent (and detailed history) of the Korean War (my father fought there), yet the effort would have been more appreciated had the author not marbled the book so heavily with opinions blaming a permissive society for a sub-par US fighting force.

The ranting does nothing to further the book, and the author doesn't support his assertions.

The rest of the books is first-rate.

Now, I can find Korea on the map, but not much more. And here we have a book about the Korean War without any maps —or photos or graphic illustrations—whatsoever (in the Kindle version anyway), which made understanding the narrative of the battles difficult. Sometimes Fehrenbach gets lost in the “fog of war” as he writes quite a bit about foxhole-level fighting. While important, it distracted from getting the big picture of the war. Some of the author’s opinions were insightful and some left me scratching my head…again to the detriment of understanding history.

Definitely readable. Long, yes, but readable. I'm not into the Korean war but I found that I could maintain interest in this book. It was quite the slog but the writing is clear and fairly clean and I was surprised that I made it thru - there were times I couldn't follow but fewer than I expected.

One of the best accounts of the war. Well written with both strategic, tactical and individual stories told.