Book Review for

The Last Stand of Fox Company --
A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat
by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

In November 1950, 246 U.S. Marines of Fox Company, outnumbered by thousands of Chinese soldiers,
defended a rocky promontory overlooking the Toktong Pass during the Korean War. The pass provided
the strategic withdrawal of 10,000 Marines surrounded near the Chosin Reservoir. For four days and
five nights, the Chinese attacked relentlessly but the Marines held them off, often engaging in fierce
hand-to-hand combat. Three-quarters of Fox company were either killed, wounded, or captured,
but they held the hill. Battle descriptions put the reader into the foxholes with the Marines:

"Now, with the Chinese seemingly surrounding their position, Gonzalez...knelt in a firing position.
His BAR man was already emptying clips into the enemy columns from his hole on the left side of
the trench. His fire team leader was doing the same with an M1 from a hole to the right. Gonzalez
lifted his own M1. He had butterflies in his stomach. He had never been in combat before. He was
about to squeeze off his first round when he was knocked to the bottom of the hole by a retreating
Marine. The American, whom Gonzalez did not recognize, tossed him his rifle. He shouted that it
had jammed. He picked up Gonzalez's gun and started firing. Then he jumped the back lip of the
hole and took off down the hill.

Gonzalez unjammed the firing pin on the M1 and rose to shoot again. He saw a squad of Chinese
soldiers, outlined by the moon, crossing the terrain laterally to his left. He fired and a man dropped
-- his first kill. He wanted to cheer, but something told him not to act like an idiot. He was aiming
again when a grenade exploded near his BAR man and knocked him down. Gonzalez started to
crawl on his belly and was halfway across the slit trench when the BAR man popped back up.
He hollered, 'I'm OK!' Gonzalez could see blood gushing down his face.

Again Gonzalez spotted a small cluster of Chinese moving laterally to his left. Again he sighted by the
moonlight. He fired and watched another man fall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw flickering white
sparks an instant before he heard the shots: a burp gun. The flashes reminded him, incongruously,
of summer fireflies back in East Los Angeles. The bullets danced across the lip of his foxhole.

The Chinese sniper had camouflaged himself deep in the tangled thicket on the northeast crest of the
hill. Crouching low in his hole, Gonzalez pulled the pin on a grenade, watched its spoon fly over the lip,
silently counted to three Mississippi, and heaved it in a high arc. He was fired on no more from the
corner of the thicket.

Within seconds two more Marines tumbled into the slit trench next to Gonzalez. One was bleeding
profusely from his forehead and mouth. As the second tended to his buddy a potato masher landed
between them, wounding them both. Gonzalez felt the shock wave of the concussion pass through his
body, but he didn't go down. The two men crawled over the downhill side of the lip and staggered off.

Movement flashed to Gonzalez's right. Two Chinese soldiers charged the foxhole of his fire team leader,
dropped grenades, and hit the ground. Following the explosions they jumped back to their feet and
raced across the hill, leaving the American for dead. Gonzalez shot at their fleeting forms. He did not
know if he hit either one."

How important was this battle? At the opening of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in 2006,
coinciding with the 231st anniversary of the founding of the Marines in 1775, the museum showcased
four signature battles fought by the Corps during the 20th century: The Battle at Belleau Wood in WWI,
the landings at Iwo Jima in WWII, the siege at Khe San in Vietnam,
and the Battle of Fox Hill in North Korea.

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