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Dougla5 MacArthur'5

Last Triumph Conducted against great odds, the September 1950

amphibious landings at Inchon rehabilitated the U.S. military's tarnished post-World War II image.

BYJIMDORSCHNER

ouglas MacArthur's admirers and detractors alike admitted to his un- canny predilection for vietory, never so evident than at his landing at Inchon in the Korean War, code-named "Oper-ation Chromite." The Inchon landing offered the promise of relieving battered United Na- tions defenders on the Pusan Perimeter, soundly defeating the North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA) and rapidly ending the Korean War. Unfortunately for him, those hopes proved ephemeral during the

brutal winter of 1950-51, as U.N. fortunes were reversed by a massive, elearly telegraphed Chinese inteii/ention, triggered in part by MaeArthur's single-minded pur- suit of a final triumph at the Yalu River Instead of celebrating a solid victory in the late fall of 1950, U.N. forces found themselves once again desperately fighting for sumval. After MacAithur slipped from the stage, relieved of command, the bitter: un- popular war he might have won in 1950 dragged on in a grinding stalemate until July 1953, with the face-saving but inconclusive armistice that remains in effect today

North Korea's invasion of the south on June 25, 1950, caught the United States ut-

Left: With Vought F4U-4S providing air support, the com- mander in chief of United Nations forces in Korea watches his troops land behind the bulk of the North Korean army, in Douglas MacArthur at Inchon, by Mike Gnatek. Right: Amphibious craft make their way toward the beach [©Corbis].

terly unprepared, and as a result its leaders did not develop clear war aims in the months of desperate combat that followed. From the time he first conceived of an amphibious landing to fall on the North Korean rear, however, MacArthur anticipated destroying the NKPA in the process, advancing into North Korea itself and reuniting the countrv under Syngman Rhee's government in a liberated Seoul. Those views were not shared by President Harry Truman's administration in Washington. The White House and Pentagon I'emained focused on the im- mediate threat in South Kor'ea and on marshaling sufficient re- sources to credibly combat North Kor'ea. Little thought was given to larger strategic goals and objectives, other than a rec- ognized desire to extricate American forces from Korea as quickly and completely as possible.

Even at MacArthur's own Far East Command headquarters in Tokyo, little thought was given to alms beyond halting the enemy advance and retaking Seoul. Consequently, he was left to do the strategic thinking largely unimpeded, and his views— and will—prevailed. Only on the question of advancing into North Korea and reuniting the peninsula was there any strong resistance or real debate among MacArthur's masters in Wash- ington, and then only largely after the fact. As far as the supreme commander was concerned, there would be an amphibious landing in the vicinity of Inchon to slice off, halt, isolate and de- stroy the NKPA, coordinated with a breakout from the Pusan

Right: From left foreground. Brig. Gen. Courtney Whitney, General MacArthur and Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond observe the shore bombardment of Inchon from aboard the command ship Mt McKinley on September 15,1950. Below: Members of the 5th Marine Regiment climb out of their landing craft and onto the sea wall at Inchon.

Perimeter by its defender's. Seoul would be liberated and the South Korean govemment restored, followed by the invasion and occupation of North Korea.

As the aggressor, North Korean premier Kim Il-Sung es- poused war aims that were fairly simple and straightforward: Defeat the "puppet" Republic of Korea (ROK) forces before any tangible American combat power could be brought to beai*, and occupy the entire Korean Peninsula in order to legitimize Com- munist political control. Attaining those goals depended on swift militaiy success, followed by Soviet and Chinese political recognition and Western acquiescence. However, the Achilles' heel of the North Korean plan, the need to overpower South Korea quickly, became apparent to MacArthur very early on as the NKPA stalled on the Pusan Perimeter and exposed its vul- nerable real" to a decisive counterblow.

The military forces that the United States expected to take on and defeat North Korea in 1950 were numerically a fraction of their size in 1945, but they were organized in the same way, equipped with the same weapons and employed the same doc- trine. On paper both U.S. Army and Marine divisions consisted ol a core oi three infantn regiments of three battalions each, with supporting aililler>; armor, engineers and specialist trxiops. In reality, U.S. combat forces were drastically understrength and ill-equipped, and most Army soldiers were poorly trained draftees. Massive coordinated firepower and mechanization re- mained the centerpieces of American tactical doctrine. Indeed, throughout the summer of 1950, as mor-e American divisions were fed into the Pusan meat giinder, it was largely the brute force of artillery and air power that checked the North Koreans.

The NKPA was purpose-built and bountifully equipped by the

Having secured the island of Wolmi-do, members of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, collect North Korean prisoners for transport to the mainland at Inchon for medical attention and interrogation (National Archives).

Soviet Union for the sole mission of presenting the West with a fait accompli. An armored shock attack was expected to quickly overwhelm the fledgling ROK army, followed by a drive to the southern tip of Korea. The NKPA's spearhead consisted of a btigade of T-34/85 lanks and massed artillery' led by experienced Korean veterans of World War II Red Ar-my campaigns. The NKPA was designed to caiTy out an inflexible plan with a lim- ited objective and was generally successful until it lost the ini- tiative outside Pusan. By late July, the NKPA was concentrated

aroirnd the Pusan Perimeter, fully engaged in desperate combat with Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker's Eighth Army. Never having planned to fight a protracted conflict, the NKPA was handi- capped by a logistical tail that stretched all the way back to Manchuria, under regular U.N. air interdiction.

f ^ eneral MacAithur conceived of a bold amphibious envelop-1 ment through the western coastal port of Inchon in the first days after the Noith Korean invasion—even while his staff and Washington gloomily confronted the prospect of defeat. From the beginning he visualized a Marine assault force with a follow-on Anny division, and by eaiiy July he was requesting the specialized forces requir"ed fi"om the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Wash- ington. The first hastily drafted Inchon plan. Operation Blue- heart, was developed by the ad hoc Joint Strategic Plans and

Operations Group (JSPOG) under Colonel Donald Gal- loway in Tokyo, but it was canceled on July 12 due to de- teriorating conditions outside Pusan, MacArthur remained intent on the concept, how- ever, and on August 15 he di- rected newly arrived Maj. Gen. Clark Ruffner to take charge of JSPOG planning for an invasion to occur in mid- September The date was de- tennined by the prediction of acceptable tides at Inchon.

As forces were identified to take part in the landing, they were hastily trained where possible. The ArTny's 7th In- fantry Division was given rudi- mentar'y amphibious training, while in Japan, the land forxe headquarters, the instantly created X Corps conducted an inten.se three-day command- post exercise of the invasion and breakout just days before embar king for Korea. Marines assembling from around the world or engaged in combat

in Pusan had little or no opportunity for specific training for the new operation.

Marshaling capable forces, particularly amphibious assault elements, was perhaps the most challenging aspect of Chromite. At the time, the entire Marine Corps strength was only 74,279 men on duty around the world, and while there were officially two Marine divisions, it required a herculean effort for the corps to muster even a partial one for Chromite. On July 2, MacArthur asked the JCS for a Marine regimental combat team (RCT). The next day he requested 1,200 landing craft operators, and on the 5th he requested an engineer amphibious special brigade. That same day the 1st Marine Pro\isional Brigade was formed around the 5th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, Calif., which sailed for Japan on the 14th. During intense ne- gotiations with Washington, MacArthur finally obtained com-

SEPTEMBER2005 MILITARY'HISTORY 33

Members ofthe 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, niop up on Wo!nii-do. Although the island's seizure secured the mouth of Inchon Harbor by 0750 hours, the main invasion force had to wait until late afternoon, when the tide was high enough to move toward the mainland.

mitments for the two regiments then available from the 1st Marine Division, with the addition ofthe 1st Marine Regiment and supporting arms. A full division was eventually authorized by stripping Marine security guards from American embassies and a battalion from the Mediterranean, and by calling up the entire Marine Reserves. Despite such efforts, the 1st Division's third regiment, the 7th Marines, arrived too late for Chromite.

Initially the Army's 1st Cavalry Division was designated for Blueheart, but after that plan was scrapped the division was rushed into Pusan. The 2nd Infantiy Division was later pegged for Chromite before it too was thrown into Pusan. That left only the theater reserve, the 7th Infantry Division in Japan, which itself was denuded of officers, NCOs and specialists to fill out understrength divisions in Korea. After August 1, however, all Army combat replacements arriving from the United States were ordered diverted to the 7th, and these included highly qualified training cadre from the infanti"y and artilleiT schools with significant World War II experience. As a measure of the desperate need for manpower in 1950, though, MacArthur or- dered on August 1 that the division be filled out with 8,000 un- trained Koreans pressed into service from among thousands of refugees crowded into the Pusan Perimeter.

Sealift was another significant hurdle. While the U.S. Navy had large number's of specialized amphibious vessels left over from World War IT, most were in mothballs, without crews and

without the benefit of regular maintenance. To satisfy Mac- Arthur's requirements the Navy hastily recommissioned ships with scratch crews, including reservists, civilian merchant sailors and even locally recruited Japanese. Of the 47 LSTs (landing ships, tank) that departed Kobe, Japan, on September 10 to support the operation, 37 were manned by Japanese crews. On many of the invasion ships essential equipment and machinery had been stripped out, including radios, electrical systems, pumps, hydraulics and even galleys.

Along with all the other deficiencies facing the Far East Com- mand, no headquarters existed that was capable of command- ing the landing force. On August 21, MacArthur requested and received permission to activate the X Corps h'om among exist- ing assets in the theater. He selected his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, to command the corps and Maj. Gen. Ruffner, from JSPOG, to serve as the corps chief of staff. The X Corps staff was formed out of the Far East Command staff and proved notably competent once on the ground in Korea.

'hile MacArthur was determined to execute the Inchon op- eration from early July 1950, he faced considerable op-

position and dissension in Washington and from among his own staff and commanders in Tokyo and Korea. The JCS was skeptical about the operation's viability, partly over the choice of Inchon and the short timetable, but mostly due to the opera-

34 MILrTARY HISTORV SEPTEMBER 2005

tion's voracious appetite for scarce resources and forces. During a long late-afternoon meeting at MacArthur's Tokyo headquar- ters on July 23, he tentatively prevailed over the concerns of Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Forrest Sherman, sent out by the JCS to ascertain the state of affairs. While supporting the concept in principle, they pressed for a landing at Kunsan, much far- ther south on the west coast.

The next day MacArthur confronted the unanimous objec- tions of his Navy and Marine commanders, who were anxious about the extreme tides at Inchon, mudbanks along the ap- proach, shipping inadequacies, the short timeline to train and prepar e, the hazards of conducting an am- phibious assault into an urban area and the paucity of personnel to conduct the assault. Once again MacAithur prevailed, partly due to a strong show of support for his subordinates' needs and concerns. That evening, in a teleconference with Washington, MacArthur gained JCS approval for a two-regiment Marine division, and the 1st Marine Division was alerted to deploy from the American West Coast.

MacArthur's problems with selling the operation's \iability and obtaining full authorization were far from over, however. On August 6, Averell Harriman anived in Tokyo as the personal envoy of President Truman, accompanied by Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, the Army deputy chief of staff for operations, and General Lauris Norstad, Air Force vice chief of staff, expressing further doubts from Washington. On Aitgust 23, General Collins and Admiral Sherman re- tLrrned to get yet another update. The next day Sher- man met with Navy and Marine commanders to hear their continuing concerns. Lieutenant General Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr., senior Marine in the Far East, then led them into a meeting with MacArthur to appeal for an alternate landing site. When MacArthur would not waiver, his Navy and Marine commanders fully committed themselves to the Inchon landing.

On August 26, MacAithur assigned the name Chromite to the operation, and on the 28th he received JCS approval to pro- ceed—or so he thought. On September 7, the JCS balked again in reaction to further deterioration in the situation around Pusan and the possible necessity to reinforce Walker. They re- minded MacArthur that Chromite required all his reserves, that it would be another four months before recently activated Na- tional Guard divisions could arrive and that the dreaded Korean winter loomed. After a suspenseful night, Tmman finally ap- proved the operation on the 8th, and the JCS concurred.

Although it was now approved, MacArthur's prospects for a smooth execution of the operation remained dim all through the run-up to D-day, set for September 15. A major hirrdle was the extraction of the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade from combat in the front lines outside Pusan. The brigade had been diverted directly into Pusan on July 29 after initially setting sail to Japan to prepare for Inchon. Five weeks later the Marines remained in combat, and General Walker adamantly refused to release them for fear of cr'eating a gap in his already weak de- fenses. MajorGeneralOliverP. Smith, the 1st Marine Division's commander; had been in Tokyo since August 22, pleading with whomever would listen, including MacArthur and Almond, for

the release of his best combat formation. Finally, in a complex arrangement that put a regiment hum the 7th Infantry Division aboard ships in Pusan Harbor as a floating reserve. Walker agreed to its release on September 6. On the 12th the troops fi- nally sailed from Pusan to join their division off Inchon. The 1 st Marine Regiment and the rest of 1st Marine Division sailed from Kobe on the 12th, while the 7th Division, minus the regi- ment floating off Pusan, sailed from Yokohama the same day.

While the invasion fleet muddled its way through the remains of two tropical storms, naval air and gunfire support ships pre- pared the Inchon landing site on September 13. As a deceptive

Soldiers of the Republic of Korea CROK] army prepare to disembark at Inchon and join the march to liberate their capital of Seoul.

tactic, the battleship USS Missouri bombarded likely invasion sites along the east coast before joining the main force off Inchon.

actual landing on September 15 seemed almost anticli- •i mactic. As predicted by intelligence, Inchon proved only

lightly defended. According to plan, at 0625 hours the 3rd Bat- talion, 5th Marines, accompanied by nine M-46 Pershing tanks, assaulted the island of Wolmi-do, a preliminary objective in Inchon Harbor. By 0750, the island had been secured. At that point, in a surreal intermission, the primary assault forces waited in their ships for the necessary high tides.

Finally, at 1645 the landing craft carrying the 1 st Marines and the rest of the 5th Marines crossed their lines of departure. At 1733 the 5th Marines assaulted the sea wall by charging up bamboo ladder's hastily constructed by Japanese wor'keî s prior to their embarkation. By midnight, the key high ten"ain of Cemetery Hill and Obseivation Hill were in Marine hands. By 0130, all D-day objectives had been met. As dawn broke at 0548 on the 16th, prowling Marine Vought F4U-4 Corsairs jumped six North Korean T-34 tanks on the Seoul highway and de- stroyed three, for the loss of one Corsair. The remaining T-34s were destroyed later that day by advancing Marine Pershings.

By noon, the 1st Marine Division controlled all high ground east of the city, thus preventing North Korean artillery fire ftom reaching the beachhead area, and the first 7th Division elements

SEPTEMBER 2005 MILITARY HISTORV 35

Marines take a breather amid the rubble resulting from the preliminary bdmljyrdment of Inchon, which was lightly defended by North Korean troops. When those soldiers were taken by surprise, Inchon's swift fall to MacArthur's troops was almost anticlimactic.

arrived in the harbor. By 1800, the 1st Marine Division tactical headquarters was established ashore and General Smith as- sumed command of operations from Rear Adm. James H. Doyle, the amphibious group commander By nightfall, the 5th Marines contr oiled the Seoul highway.

At first light on the I7th, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, en- gaged and destroyed a further six T-34s. By that evening the 5th Marines had seized the southern portion of Kimpo air-field, a major objective on the outskirts of Seoul. The next day, the third since landing, the 5th Marines secured Kimpo and advanced to the Han River, seizing Hill 99 on the way. That afternoon the first Marine Corsair landed at Kimpo to begin close support op- erations. By nightfall on the 19th, the 5th Marines had joined with ROK marines for an assault crossing of the Han to begin the attack on Seoul itself.

Back in Inchon, the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Infantiy, 7th Divi- sion, was ashore and relieved the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, along the Seoul highway. The landing and breakout phase was effectively over; Next came the liberation of Seoul and the linkup with the Eighth Army, which had broken out of Pusan and driven pell-mell north up the peninsula. Operation Chromite was over: Mission accomplished.

Two decisive and interrelated factors shaped the operation's outcome. The first was MacArthur's faith, persistence and talent in selling the concept, not only to Washington but also to the doubters within his own command. The second was the United States' ability to quickly marshal appropriate forces in a highly constrained environment. By 1950, a single U.S. Army division defended all of Europe from more than 100 Soviet divisions. The Marine Corps had to scour the world to come up with an

ad hoc division for its primary mission, a strategic amphibious assault on a de- fended shore. The Navy was forced to hastily pull LSTs from mothballs and man them with Japanese crews, while the U.S. Air Force stripped the Air National Guard of World War II veteran North American F-51D Mustang fighters and pilots in order to provide basic close air support.

Underlying those two factor's in Chro- mite's ultimate success was the less glam- orous phenomenon of superb staff work behind the scenes at Far East Command, in JSPOG, within the scratch-built X Corps and particularly the dedicated Nav\' and Marine staffs of Admiral Doyle and General Smith. Finally, as with most successful military endeavors, there was a great deal of luck involved.

For the North Koreans, Inchon wasemblematic of the weakness behind its whole scheme to unify Korea. All their hopes of quick success were dashed on the jur>'-rigged U.N. defense outside Pusan. Inchon sealed their fate. Nonethe- less, Norih Korea had nearly succeeded. It bargained on a lack of will, interest and capability on the part of the United

States. Given the signals emanating from Washington, and con- sidering the state of the U.S. military at the time, its analysis was justified. But North Korea underestimated U.S. prospects for mounting so determined a reaction, and it could not have predicted a U.N.-sponsored Allied effort that ultimately involved forces from 16 nations. North Korea gambled and lost.

Oper̂ ation Chromite did not introduce any (imdamentally new aspects to the art of war. Rather, the operation served to r einfor ce traditional lessons, such as the importance of maintaining trained and ready forces to deter" aggression or confront a contingency, the priceless value of sure-footed staff work, and the tangible benefits of innovation, Ilexibility and individual resourceful- ness—all qualities on which Americans pride themselves.

MacArthur identified a strategic opportunity, managed to cobble together forces to execute a plan and then permitted his commanders and troops to pull it off. The Inchon invasion was undoubtedly the right course of action at that junctur"e in the fighting and it opened up numerous options for how, when and where to actually end the war. That MacArthur and the admin- istration in Washington subsequently failed to secur*e the hard- won victory illustrates the danger of military actions out of sync with broader political realities. MH

Jim Dorschner is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. The author oj several official Anny histories, he serx'ed as a special correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly and has also authored articles in a variety of publications. For further reading, try: Years of MacAithur, Vol. 3, by D. Clayton James; Inchon Landing, by Michael Langley; and The Secrets of Inchon, by Eugene Franklin Clark.

36 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2005