UNL professor: Marine killed in Frozen Chosin battle was starving, too

[Omaha Steve]

https://omaha.com/news/state-and-regional/unl-professor-marine-killed-in-frozen-chosin-battle-was-starving-too/article_d3e09c68-d2e0-11eb-99df-63e671af2c52.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1

By Steve Liewer

It’s no secret soldiers and Marines who perished in the Korean War battle called “Frozen Chosin” died cold.

Now, research by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln archaeology professor who studies mummified remains tells us at least some of them died hungry.

Karl Reinhard examined a small and extremely rare chunk of coprolite — a scientific term for fossilized feces — discovered after the 2006 disinterment of a Marine Corps private first class who died during the desperate Chosin Reservoir battle in late 1950.

He and his research team found that the Marine had been eating a starvation diet of low-nutrition plants he must have foraged, including raw mustard seeds and a type of wild rose called potentilla.

FULL story at link above.

[mahina]

1. This hurts.

My heart aches got them.

My Grandpa was in the war in Korea
Earlier, in WWII he was in China.

Peace to them

[blm]

2. 🕯

[rampartc]

3. my father was wounded and frostbit at chosin

he never talked about it.

[DashOneBravo]

4. It was awful.

There are a couple of documentaries on that battle. I watched a good one on Netflix. And another on the History Channel.

Warning: one of them is a US soldier who was wounded and on a rack in the truck, being used as a makeshift ambulance. The Chinese used a flame thrower burning the wounded guys. He survived and took part of the documentary.

[denbot]

5. My dad's second oldest brother, Uncle Rudy, U.S. Army Korea.

One of my early exposures to a family war story was of his unit being pinned down and dug in a mass grave for 3 days. The had their rats (rations) but few could eat.