VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (Korean War Gallery) -- Notes:
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Description of Subject Matter: More than a half-century ago, thousands of Americans fought a bitter war on the Korean peninsula against a very determined enemy. Known as “the forgotten war,” the battle for Korea was the first US combat action of the Cold War. The Korean War also marked resurgence for the Marine Corps which had been dramatically reduced in size during the years following World War II.
Korea marked the first combat use by the Marine Corps of both helicopters and jet aircraft. On display is a Grumman Panther jet fighter which flew as part of the first Marine jet combat mission in December 1950 and an early Sikorsky helicopter. The gallery describes the “see-saw” nature of the war’s opening battles and the conflict’s gradual transformation into a static war of attrition, reminiscent of World War I trench warfare. Other exhibits highlight the introduction of Combined-Arms Teams, flak jackets (body armor) and expanded roles for women and minorities within the Marine Corps during this time period.
Visitors ride with Marines to the sea wall at Inchon as part of General MacArthur’s strategic end run to attack the enemy’s rear. A Pershing tank rumbles through the war-torn streets of Seoul. On Toktong Pass near the Chosin Reservoir, visitors encounter Marines who are cold, tired and dangerously short of ammunition. Visitors feel the cold; they hear the Chinese soldiers advancing up the snowy mountain and watch the Marines prepare for the next attack. It is a battle that must be won against overwhelming odds. Lastly, a sobering look at a POW cage serves as a reminder of the high price of war.
Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
MCMKW_130210_022.JPG: "A Coat of Many Colors"
"The running fight of the Marines... had some aspects of Bataan, some of Anzio, some of Dunkirk, some of Valley Forge."
-- Time magazine, 18 December 1950
Marines who survived the epic breakout from Chosin Reservoir in December 1950 bore the marks of the ordeal on their filthy uniforms. Exhausted by days of sleepless fighting and marching, and weakened by frozen extremities and rampant dysentery, they had battled eight Chinese divisions and a frigidly hostile environment. With the invaluable aid of Marine and Navy aircraft overhead, they fought their way to the sea. Chosin remains a touchstone of Marine Corps history.
MCMKW_130210_033.JPG: A guide mentioned the Tootsie Roll wrapper. Why was it in the display? He explained this story...
Tootsie Roll
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...
During the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in 1950, mortar sections under the United States Marine Corps started to run out of mortar rounds. The radio men of these sections started requesting more rounds. There were too many nearby enemy anti-air emplacements however, and the risk that they might lose any airlifted supplies was too great, so they had to wait. After two days of waiting, all the mortar sections ran out of rounds. At this point the risk was taken and supplies were dropped anyway. When the troops found the crates of mortar rounds, they found the crates were instead filled with Tootsie Roll. The cause of this error was that a supply specialist did not know that the codename for mortar rounds was "Tootsie Rolls", and instead ordered hundreds of crates of Tootsie Roll candies instead of mortar rounds.[4]
MCMKW_130210_052.JPG: 1946-1953:
Send in the Marines:
The Marines sustained more than twice as many casualties in the Korean War as they did in France in World War I.
Politicians termed Korea a "Police Action" and historians called it "The Forgotten War," yet the conflict in Korea was as violent a war as the Marines ever fought. For three bloody years, the United States and its allied battled against North Korea and China. At stake was the freedom of the Republic of Korea.
The US Marine Corps, overlooked during the post-World War II focus on nuclear warfare, fought in Korea with traditional readiness and renewed intensity. Facing tenacious enemies, the Leathernecks distinguished themselves defending Pusan, assailing Inchon, recapturing Seoul, breaking out of the Chosin Reservoir ("Frozen Chosin"), and holding the line during two years of stalemate. Along the way, the Marines pioneered the tactical use of helicopters and refined sea-based close air support. The ravaged Republic of Korea survived and later flourished.
MCMKW_130210_064.JPG: The Pusan Perimeter:
"We've got to stop the sons-of-bitches no matter what!"
-- President Harry S. Truman
On 25 June 1950, the North Korean People´s Army (NKPA) stormed across the 38th Parallel, the border between communist North Korea and America´s ally, the Republic of Korea. Supported by powerful Russian-built T-34 tanks, they overpowered South Korean units, seized the capital of Seoul, and raced southward. President Harry Truman transferred U. S. Army units stationed in Japan to Korea under United Nations auspices.
Army garrison troops arriving in Korea could not stem the onslaught. By the end of July, UN control had shrunk to a toehold in the peninsula’s southeast corner, protecting the vital port of Pusan. Collapse of the Pusan perimeter would lose the war. LtGen Walton Walker, commanding the Eighth Army, exhorted his troops to hold firm. "We must fight to the end — a retreat… would be one of the greatest butcheries in history!" UN resistance stiffened along the Naktong River, but more North Korean units advanced to force the crossings. Help was on the way: a newly formed Marine air-ground brigade would reach Pusan on 2 August to preserve the embattled perimeter.
[The Marine Brigade under BGen Edward Craig that arrived on 2 August swiftly went into action. The brigade´s carrier-borne aircraft flew against NKPA targets the next day. Marine infantry engaged the enemy in broiling heat west of Masan on the 7th, leading the first successful counteroffensive of the war.
The newly arrived Marine Brigade provided a boon to the besieged Eighth Army, desperately holding the Naktong River line against NKPA assaults. General Walton Walker employed the Marines as his emergency "Fire Brigade," shuttling them around the perimeter to counterattack each massive breakthrough. In a costly month of hard marching and bitter fighting, the Marines hurled back each enemy penetration. "Here were professionals," reported an Associated Press correspondent.]
MCMKW_130210_070.JPG: The Cold War Heats Up:
"If this was allowed to go unchallenged, it would mean a third world war."
-- President Harry S. Truman
In the unsettled aftermath of World War II, much of Europe and Asia fell into the hands of totalitarian regimes in the thrall of international Communism. Americans celebrating the end of Nazi and Japanese aggression in 1945 soon realized that freedom was once again threatened. Against the backdrop of nuclear-armed tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the survival of the world depended on the ability of the United Nations and the two superpowers to keep a local crisis such as Korea from escalating to total war. The Korean conflict, the first U.S. combat action of the Cold War era, remained limited and undeclared.
MCMKW_130210_083.JPG: Marines in the Nuclear Age:
"The helicopter offers a valuable means of accelerating and dispersing the ship-to-shore movement."
-- Colonel Robert A. Hogaboom, 1947
The dawn of the nuclear age, coupled with the onset of new long-range bombers, convinced some post-World War II leaders that elite assault troops such as Marines were no longer essential. The Marines rejected the logic but admitted that the nuclear thread demanded greater dispersion and enhanced tactical mobility for future amphibious assaults. Helicopters -- primitive as they were in 1946 -- offered the ideal solution. That year, a board of visionary Marines recommended development of helicopters to deliver assault troops ashore from dispersed amphibious ships. Marines became the first service to employ the new aircraft in Korea.
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2006_VA_MCM_KWar: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (Korean War Gallery) (29 photos from 2006)
2007_VA_MCM_KWar: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (Korean War Gallery) (18 photos from 2007)
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Generally-Related Subject Description: The National Museum of the Marine Corps is a lasting tribute to U.S. Marines -- past, present, and future. Situated on a 135-acre site adjacent to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, the Museum's soaring design evokes the image of the flag-raisers of Iwo Jima and beckons visitors to its 118,000-square-foot structure. World-class interactive exhibits using the most innovative technology will surround visitors with irreplaceable artifacts and immerse them in the sights and sounds of Marines in action.
Collections of the National Museum of the Marine Corps:
The collections held in trust at the National Museum of the Marine Corps document over 230 years of Marine Corps history. The mission of the Museum is to collect and preserve in perpetuity, artifacts that reflect and chronicle the history of the Corps. The more than 60,000 uniforms, weapons, vehicles, medals, flags, aircraft, works of art and other artifacts in the Museum’s collections trace the history of the Marine Corps from 1775 to the present.
The Museum’s holdings, which range from combat aircraft to individual Civil War era blouse buttons, are divided into four broad categories: ordnance, uniforms and heraldry, aviation, and art. Some of the more unusual items in the care of the Museum include a coat worn by Marine Captain Levi Twiggs during his service in the Indian Wars, a presentation baton given to John Philip Sousa on his departure as director of the Marine Corps Band, and an Oscar awarded to the Marine Corps for the World War II documentary “Tarawa.” Perhaps the most symbolically important artifact in the Museum’s collection is the second American flag raised over Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi. Associated Press combat photographer Joe Rosenthal’s image of the raising of this flag became one of the most iconic images of World War II and the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The Museum collects artifacts selectively and responsively – accepting o ...More...
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2006_VA_MCM_Misc: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (misc) (38 photos from 2006)
2007_VA_MCM_Misc: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (misc) (26 photos from 2007)
2010_VA_MCM_Misc: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (misc) (36 photos from 2010)
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2007_VA_MCM_Atrium: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (outside and Leatherneck Gallery) (37 photos from 2007)
2010_VA_MCM_Atrium: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (outside and Leatherneck Gallery) (37 photos from 2010)
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2010_VA_MCM_Pre: VA -- Quantico -- National Museum of the Marine Corps (pre-World War I) (88 photos from 2010)
2013 photos: So far, I'm mostly using my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I'm also using a Nikon D7000 and Nikon D600.
Trips this year have been limited to a Civil War Trust conference in Memphis.