Far from learning a lesson from the defeat they suffered in the "Thanksgiving Day offensive" due to the powerful strike by the KPA in late October Juche 39 (1950), the U.S. imperialists launched the "general Christmas offensive" in November to realize their wild ambition for occupying the whole of Korea at any cost.

In order to cope with the "general offensive" resumed by the enemies, the President set forth the policy of carrying out the second operation in the third stage of the war, which called for launching an counteroffensive in all sectors of the front with its main attack on the western part of the front, encircling and annihilating the main enemy groups through a joint operation of the KPA main forces and its units on the Second Front and thus liberating the whole northern half of Korea.

He made sure that the counterattack was launched in the western sector of the front on the night of November 25, the day after the enemy forces commenced the "general offensive", and in the eastern sector of the front it was launched in keeping with the advance of the combined units involved in the major attack in the western sector of the front.

By the order of the President, the KPA units went over to the counterattack and annihilated the aggressors near the upper reaches of the Chongchon River and the Taedong River in the western sector of the front and on the shore of Lake Jangjin and in the valleys of the Kaema Plateau contiguous to the lake in the eastern sector of the front.

The KPA units continued their attack to annihilate the enemies through the joint operation of the units on the main front and those on the Second Front in the enemy rear, and liberated the whole areas north of the 38th parallel until late December 1950.

The "general Christmas offensive", which ended in the "general retreat" only a few days after its start, gave MacArthur styling himself "Napoleon in the East" the "honor" of dismissal, and earned Smith, commander of the U.S. First Marine Division, the nickname of "grave general" who drove most of his soldiers to death on the shore of Lake Jangjin.