Chosin Reservoir : The Battle That Stalled a War
At the end of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir , both sides were devastated . US and ROK losses totaled 17,833 casualties as a result of combat and non-combat related injuries . 16 The 1st Marine Division reported over seven thousand of these non-combat casualties , a direct result of the intense cold weather . 17 Smith ’ s successful withdrawal of troops and equipment allowed for those troops to reinforce the Eighth Army almost immediately . The PVA forcing US troops to retreat resulted in a huge blow to the concept of US military superiority . Chinese intervention and the withdrawal of troops from North Korean territory ended all hopes of a quick United Nations victory and MacArthur ’ s Home-by-Christmas campaign . MacArthur ’ s opinion of US forces remained unchanged and shortly after , he challenged China by declaring to them that they had been defeated . His initial belief that China would not enter the war , his refusal to acknowledge the full scope of the situation , and his conflicts with President Truman led to his relief as Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Command .
North Korean territory lost to the United Nations Command was returned to North Korea by January 1951 . The combined Chinese and North Korean army would have been able to occupy the whole peninsula . However , the
PLA was forced into a pyrrhic victory at a cost of an estimated forty thousand casualties with some estimates ranging from sixty to eighty thousand troops lost . A total of twelve PVA divisions were no longer combat effective and the entirety of the PVA Ninth Army was unable to return to the war effort until March of 1951 . Two PVA divisions were disbanded as a result of the battle . Despite these losses , China pushed forward and was able to retake Seoul , bolstered by the victory at the Chosin Reservoir . As the Eighth Army was able to survive and rejoin the war effort quickly , US forces were able to retake Seoul again in March 1951 . This caused the Chinese Fourth Phase Offensive to fail and the Fifth Phase Offensive was a catastrophic failure for China . The resulting United Nations counteroffensive stabilized the front lines just north of the 38th Parallel . The combination of all of these losses forced China to change their focus from driving the United States from the Korean Peninsula to defending Chinese assets . Both sides bore terrible loses that made the concept of a quick total victory impossible , resulting in two more years of relative stalemate due to stalled peace talks regarding prisoners of war . As such , the outcome of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir produced conditions that stalled the Korean War and prevented either side from gaining a decisive advantage .
169