North Korea tried to unify the peninsula by invading South Korea in June 1950.\xa0 Initially the North Koreans had great success.\xa0 They quickly advanced south while the United States tried to get forces onto the peninsula to stop them.\xa0 This soon became a United Nations\u2019 mission, and the North Koreans were stopped right around the southern port of Pusan.\xa0 Then the United States landed in the rear of the North Koreans at the port of Inchon next to Seoul on South Korea\u2019s west coast.\xa0 The North Koreans started to collapse and the United Nations force pushed back up the Korean peninsula.\xa0 They pushed north of the 38th parallel into North Korea and headed towards the Chinese border on the Yalu river.\xa0 As the U.S. advanced during late October and November they got higher into the mountains and the weather got much colder.\xa0 While this was going on there was the question of what, if anything, the Chinese Communists were planning to do.\xa0 Would the Chinese go to war to keep U.S. forces away from their border? The U.S. commander General MacArthur didn\u2019t think so.\xa0 He was wrong.\xa0 The cold, desolate hillsides were crawling with over three hundred thousand tough and committed soldiers of the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army.\xa0 David Halberstam\u2019s \u201cThe Coldest Winter\u201d tells the story of what happened when the Chinese sprung their trap.