They took a lot of crap and the survivors didn't impress the Marines they walked out with. This wasn't a bad unit. They had landed at Inchon and had fought all the way up to the point where they were destroyed.
If MacArthur, Ned Almond,and the rest had not been so blind to evidence of the oncoming Chinese intervention and hung them out there they wouldn't be dead and the Marines wouldn't have fought a legendary battle.
One point I noted in researching this was that, for once, the Marines were better equipped with cold weather gear. When these army troops were armed and sent out to screen the retreating column along the ridge tops where it was about 20 below they kept falling back and rejoining the column. They had been thorougly whipped.
I tried hard to find ONE survivor to talk or write to about James Bowman, who is up there on this list, I couldn't find one. I didn't realize exactly how few survivors there were.
frozen Chosin Reservoir to the 1st Marine perimeter where Chesty Puller ....
My dad was with the Chesty Puller 1st Marines at the Frozen Chosin