Hard to top this oh so cool Charles Reid print I found waiting for me in the driveway when I got home today and here upi thought it was the new door knob I had ordered from Amazon. My dad was actually in this march out of the Frozen Choisin in Korea in November 1950 so he could be one of these marines who walked out in MINUS 32 degree weather. About 10000 Marines two regiments I think were surrounded at Choisin by more than 100000 Chinese. They held out for a week and finally walked out while the severely wounded rode on the trucks thru the mountain ravines. Dad’s company held the Toktong Pass which was the retreat for the Marines.

Their one lonely company of 246 men -Fox Company-were completely surrounded by thousands of Chinese. By the time they got help they had 28 or so men left able to fight. They piled dead Chinese up like cordwood or sandbags around their gun emplacements. Dad wrote up one of the gunners Hector Cafferati for the Medal of Honor which he received for killing more than 1000 Chinese with his machine gun. Dad thought Hector had probably shot more than 5000 in the week of fighting but nobody would believe it if he recorded those numbers in the write up.

I had sent Charles Reid a copy of the book Last Stand of Fox Company which records the battle. And Charles and Judy graciously sent me a print of the watercolor. Lucky girl here!! This is a brief review of the book:From the book The Last Stand of Fox Company

“November 1950, the Korean Peninsula. After General MacArthur ignores Mao’s warnings and pushes his UN forces deep into North Korea, his 10,000 First Division Marines find themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by 120,000 Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir. Their only chance for survival is to fight their way south through the Toktong Pass, a narrow gorge in the Nangnim Mountains. It will need to be held open at all costs. The mission is handed to Captain William Barber and the 246 Marines of Fox Company, a courageous but undermanned unit of the First Marines. Barber and his men are ordered to climb seven miles of frozen terrain to a rocky promontory overlooking the pass. The Marines have no way of knowing that the ground they occupy – it is soon dubbed “Fox Hill” – is surrounded by 10,000 Chinese soldiers. As the sun sets on the hill, and the temperature plunges to 30 degrees below zero, Barber’s men dig in for the night. At two in the morning they are awakened by the sound – bugles, whistles, cymbals, and drumbeats – of a massive assault by thousands of enemy infantry. The attack is just the first wave of four days and five nights of nearly continuous Chinese attempts to take Fox Hill, during which Barber’s beleaguered company clings to the high ground and allows the First Marine Division to battle south. Amid the relentless violence, three-quarters of Fox Company’s Marines are killed, wounded, or captured. Just when it looks like the outfit will be overrun, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Davis, a fearless Marine officer who is fighting south from Chosin, volunteers to lead a force of 500 men on a daring mission that cuts a hole in the Chinese lines and relieves the men of Fox Company.

The Last Stand of Fox Company is a fast-paced and gripping account of heroism and self-sacrifice in the face of impossible odds. The authors have conducted dozens of firsthand interviews with the battle’s survivors, and they narrate the story with the imm…..”

Well after all that excitement I have been working on my Prints this evening with the help of my friend Thomas Needham and they will be available thru Art onBroad as soon as I get them there. Definitely by Small Business Saturday. And they will be available on my website.

So right here I should insert some of the Prints. Well duh they are on my laptop and I am worn out and on my iPado bare with me. Hopefully tomorrow!! Soooo a little silly sketch I did of elephants. Colored with my faber castell watercolor pencils. I think it got a little dark. Oops. What happens when you color late into the night. I think I will try to lighten some of the pink at least. Rather garish right now.

Lamy EF Stillman and birn Zeta.

Margaret who has some Prints to sign before bedtime!!!