Lotta brave Americans from that unit died there. The USMC has had it's share of crummy officers making crummy decisions as well. I'd be damn careful trashing a brother service.
Quite a few CP's were overrun in Korea, and more than one Company lost every single man fighting after the CCF entered the war at the Yalu.
I'm not sure losing every Soldier in the fight and burying your colors under a sea of dead chinese counts as "leaving" them, though.
Korea was one tough s**tstorm, for everybody involved. Hardship and sacrifice that today would be unthinkable, reading about events at Chosin and Kunu Ri is a lesson in exactly how bad war can get.
No, it wan't the Marine Corps.
"When you hear the patter of little feet
it's the U.S. Army in full retreat."
That's a Korean War ditty.
The 4th Marines were on Corregidor in 1942. They burned their colors and surrendered to the Japanese.
Partly at least for that reason it was over 50 years before the 4th Marines colors came back stateside. Maybe someone can comnfirm that.
It was my privilege to meet the lieutenant who actually approached the Japanese about a surrender; Alvin Shoffner, later Brigadier General. He escaped from a Japanese POW camp and was a battalion commander on Okinawa. General Shoffner was also an all American football player on General Bob Neyland's great Tennessee teams of the late 1930's.
He passed away a couple of years ago.
Walt