The Darkest Summer

Book excerpt: The acclaimed, dramatic story of the first three months of the Korean War, when outnumbered and outgunned Marines and GIs executed two of the greatest military operations in history and saved South Korea—and the Marine Corps—from extinction. The Darkest Summer is the dramatic story of the first three months of the Korean War as it has never been told before. A narrative studded with gripping eyewitness accounts, it focuses on the fateful days when the Korean War’s most decisive battles were fought and the Americans who fought them went—however briefly—from the depths of despair to the exultation of total conquest. Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of surviving U.S. veterans, it reveals how one ninety-day period changed the course of modern history and opens a unique and revealing window on an all-but-forgotten war.