Chinese Hordes and Human Waves
by Brigadier Brian Parritt
Pen and Sword
This is a book about the Korean war by a British soldier who took part as an artillery officer and went on to serve 37 years in the British Army, culminating in five years as director of the Intelligence Corps.
It is divided into two halves: his own combat experience in the last seven months, and his analysis of how the war started and why the United States, the world's most powerful military, was unable to prevent it.
What Brigadier Brian Parritt adds to our understanding is his knowledge and experience as head of British Army intelligence and a career that took him to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo, Cyprus, Libya and Northern Ireland.
The US made two 'grotesque' intelligence mistakes - its failure to predict the North Korean invasion in June 1950 and the Chinese intervention in October that year. In the first half of 1950, there were many signs that Kim Il-sung was preparing an invasion - significant military supplies and weapons being sent to North Korea by the Soviet Union, major construction work on roads leading to the border, removal of civilians from the area, and an increase in its propaganda that the South was preparing an attack.
But Washington believed the Soviet Union would not risk a third world war by backing Kim in an operation which would involve the US. 'Any intelligence that did suggest an invasion was deliberately discounted,' Parritt writes.