A Task Force Called Faith: The Untold Story of the U.S. Army Soldiers Who Fought for Survival at Chosin Reservoirand Honor Back Home [Hardcover]

WINNER OF THE 2025 ARMY HISTORICAL FOUNDATION (AHF) DISTINGUISHED WRITING AWARD ( Operational-Battle History Category)

The forgotten heroes of Chosin—how Task Force Faith fought against impossible odds and a legacy of unfair shame.

On the 75th anniversary of the legendary Battle of Chosin Reservoir, Steve Vogel tells the little-known story of the Army soldiers who gave all during the Korean War’s most consequential battles and then were denigrated for their sacrifice.A Task Force Called Faithdelivers a fresh perspective on Chosin, where 150,000 Chinese soldiers trapped 20,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers in the frozen mountains of North Korea in November and December of 1950. For seven decades, the Marines who successfully broke out from Chosin have been justly hailed as heroes, but the Army soldiers who fought alongside them have been reviled as cowards. InA Task Force Called Faith, Steve Vogel sets the record straight. What he’s learned is the culmination of twenty-five years of digging into the story, first as a reporter forThe Washington Postand now as a leading military historian.

At Chosin, an Army force of 2,300 soldiers—a unit known as Task Force Faith—was positioned on the east side of the reservoir to protect the Marines’ flank but was overwhelmed by a Chinese force eight times its size. Fighting with little ammunition, support or food in temperatures that plunged to 35 degrees below zero, more than 80 percent of the Army soldiers were killed, captured, or wounded. After the battle, they were falsely accused of throwing down their weapons and feigning wounds. As Vogel documents, their brave fight through four days and five nights bought time for the Marines on the west side to consolidate and fight their way out. The Army survivors and their families have long sought to clear their names of those terrible charges and reclaim the honor they won at the frozen lake.