In June 1950 the North Koreans invade South Korea. Truman is reluctant to intervene, but two weeks later a UN resolution is passed setting up a unified command. The South Korean Army and the hastily-assembled and ill-equipped American reinforcements from Japan are driven back. The war is transformed by General MacArthur's amphibious assault. The momentous decision is made to strike north across the 38th Parallel towards the border with Manchuria. Quite unexpectedly, a 'new kind of war' erupts as 1.3 million Chinese troops pour over the border swamping UN positions. Thus began the struggle which did not end until the armistice in 1953 and which saw the world teeter on the brink of a Third World War.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the first and only war fought by the United Nations against a communist aggressor nation, this book provides a gripping account of a conflict in a faraway peninsula where young men battled and often died for principles they barely understood.