Hungnam

Hungnam was the port on Korea’s northeast coast that became the destination of the 1st U.S. Marine Division’s retreat from the Chosin Reservoir during the Chinese intervention in the Korean War. In the account of the winter retreat, it is the coastal endpoint from which the division was evacuated.

Setting and Role

Hungnam appears as a port within the wider military crisis that followed the Chinese attack. The United Nations forces were retreating under pressure, while bitter winter weather compounded the danger; in the northeast, the 1st U.S. Marine Division faced a withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir to Hungnam, a distance of forty miles.

Retreat and Evacuation

The movement to Hungnam was presented as an ordeal rather than a routine repositioning. The division’s retreat through the winter fighting ended at the port, where evacuation followed. The book compares the withdrawal to Xenophon’s retreat of the Ten Thousand and Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, placing the episode among the campaign’s most dramatic and difficult reversals.

Narrative Significance

Hungnam’s importance in this account comes from its function as a destination and point of evacuation amid a broader United Nations retreat. The place name gives the division’s withdrawal a concrete endpoint: the movement from the Chosin Reservoir to the coast, where evacuation offered a way out of an increasingly perilous position.