Colder Than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company at Chosin Reservoir

"A MUST READ . . . This book [is] one of the best on that war in Korea. . . . A wonderful account of common, decent men in desperate action."
--Leatherneck

During the early, uncertain days of the Korean War, World War II veteran and company lieutenant Joe Owen saw firsthand how the hastily assembled mix of some two hundred regulars and raw reservists hardened into a superb Marine rifle company known as Baker-One-Seven.

As comrades fell wounded and dead around them on the frozen slopes above Korea's infamous Chosin Reservoir, Baker-One-Seven's Marines triumphed against the relentless human-wave assaults of Chinese regulars and took part  in the breakout that destroyed six to eight divisions of Chinese regulars. COLDER THAN HELL paints a vivid, frightening portrait of one of the most horrific infantry battles ever waged.

"Thoroughly gripping . . . The Chosin action is justly called epical; Lieutenant Owen tells the tale of the men who made it so."
--BooklistJoseph R. Owen, 1st Lieutenant, USMC (Ret.), commanded the mortars and a rifle platoon in Baker, 1/7, one of the rifle companies that spearheaded the breakout from Chosin Reservoir. A 1948 graduate of Colgate University, he served on active duty in the Marine Corps from 1943 to 1946 and from 1948 to 1952.

Owen has been active in Baker, 1/7, reunions and has written articles on the company's wartime experiences for the Marine Corps Gazette and short stories for Leatherneck Magazine. Now retired from his own marketing business, he and his wife divide their time between Skaneateles, New York, and Naples, Florida.