State OKs ‘Mount Chosin Few’

MAT-SU — The effort to rename a Cordova-area mountain after the most brutal battle of the Korean War has cleared the state and is in the hands of the federal government.

The Alaska Historical Commission voted Thursday to approve naming an unnamed peak Mount Chosin Few after the Battle of Chosin Reservoir

“The first question many Americans ask a Korean War veteran is, ‘Were you at the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir?’ That stands in history as one of the most difficult battles in modern times,” says Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who chairs the commission, in a press release announcing the decision. “It’s unusual for Alaska to name mountains after an event. However, this cold, snowy place can help us remember sacrifices that thousands made in that harsh land.”

Richard Lilly of Wasilla who, along with John Beasley of Palmer, is heading up the effort to name the peak, said it’s not quite a done deal yet. The federal government still has to sign off on it, a process that can take as long as a year.

“Hopefully it’ll go through. I don’t know if this is the hardest part or not,” he said. “It’s for the guys — not for us, but for those other guys.”

After settling on the idea, Beasley and Lilly collected letters of support.

Vic Voltaggio, national commandant of the Marine Corps League, called it a “fitting tribute to those who never made it back.”

Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson said the effort “reminded me how much we owe the soldiers who have given their lives to serve and protect us.”

Jack Nolan, president of The Chosin Few Inc., said a peak named for the battle “would endure forever” and he could “think of no more significant means of honoring our current survivors a nd memorializing our beloved brothers.”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s letter of support says “it is certainly fitting that the survivors of the campaign be honored in a public way while many of them are still alive.”

The name change also won approval from the Mat-Su Borough Assembly, which passed a resolution Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss penned in support.

At the meeting where the resolution was approved, Beasley noted that the mountain, 28 miles from Cordova, is inhospitable, with snow and severe weather.

“The environment is very similar to the Chosin Reservoir,” Beasley said.

The battle occurred in November and December of 1950 when 18,000 Americans and Allied forces — mostly U.S. Marines — were sent into the mountains to march on North Korea.

A Chinese force four to five times the size of the allied forces surprised and surrounded them. The Marines lost 3,000 men fighting to break the encirclement. Fully 17 warriors won the Congressional Medal of Honor, the military’s highest honor, for their bravery in the battle.

“The Chinese had orders to eliminate us,” Beasley told the assembly. “We blocked their path to South Korea and the retaking of Seoul.”

He said that the allies stopped the communists, inflicting 25,000 casualties, and made it back to the sea.

Sixty years later, the ranks of the survivors are dwindling. The Chosin Few Inc. has in its bylaws a requirement that members were present at the battle.

“A few more years and we’re going to close up shop,” Beasley said.

But a mountain bearing the name of the battle, he said, will live on.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.