The Navy and Marine Corps had never fully accepted the plan; yet they carried it out to perfection. As MacArthur had said, "The Navy has never turned me down yet, and I know it will not now." And the first hours and days of Inch'on were strictly a Navy-Marine affair. Until a beachhead was secure on the peninsula, the Army was merely along for the ride.
Because of the extreme tides on 15 September 1950, the assault had to be made in two phases. Wolmi Island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, guarded Inch'on Harbor. There were troops and guns on Wolmi-do, and it had to be reduced before landing craft could crash against the seawall of Inch'on itself. It had been decided to land a battalion of Marines on Wolmi-do early in the morning; they would secure the island and hold it while the falling tide forced the fleet to retire. Then, in late afternoon, the fleet would surge back into the harbor, throw its landing craft against the sixteen-foot seawalls surrounding the city of a quarter-million people. The amphibious assault could not begin until past 5:00 P.M., when the tide was high enough to float landing craft over the slimy mudbanks of the harbor, and this left the attacking Marines only two hours' daylight to land and secure their beachhead.
If the Marines on Wolmi-do ran into serious trouble, there would be no way the fleet could help them, other than gunfire and air support, until the tide turned.
At approximately 0630, under an overcast sky, Lieutenant Colonel Taplett's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, followed a heavy naval gunfire and air preparation onto the beaches of Wolmi-do. Three LSV's landed tanks in support of 3/5. It took Taplett's men exactly one hour and twenty-five minutes to overrun and secure the rocky, caverned, 1,000-yard wide island.
The 5th Marine veterans killed or captured some 400 North Koreans of the 226th Independent Marine Regiment on Wolmi-do. They suffered total losses of 17 wounded.
Then the tide began to gurgle over the mud flats toward the Yellow Sea, and the fleet had to retreat down muddy, tortuous, Flying Fish Channel. For long hours Taplett's Marines were all alone on Wolmi-do, in the face of a now thoroughly alerted enemy.
But from offshore the big rifles of the fleet belched a curtain of fire and steel around the Marines, and Naval and Marine air ranged freely over Inch'on and twenty-five miles beyond, interdicting any possible enemy move. Then, in the rain that had begun to slash down into the smelly mud bottoms, the fleet steamed in with the resurging tide.
At 1733 the first landing craft of the 5th Marines grated against the seawall just north of Wolmi-do, near the center of Inch'on. Marines piled over the wall on scaling ladders or poured through holes blown in the barrier by naval gunfire. Within minutes they were in Inch'on's streets. After a brief, vicious fire fight along the wall, the enemy broke. Twenty minutes after touching shore, a Marine flare ascended into the sky, signaling the capture of Cemetery Hill, an initial objective.
At almost the same instant that the 5th Regiment went ashore, the 1st Marines struck toward Blue Beach, south of the built-up areas of Inch'on. After climbing the high seawall, the 1st Regiment moved north around the outskirts of the city to cut the Seoul-Inch'on highway. The rapidly failing darkness proved the most serious obstacle in their path.
There had been only 2,000 North Korean troops in the Inch'on area. By 0130 on 16 September, the Marines had completely ringed the city and taken each of their initial objectives. They had lost only 20 killed, 174 wounded, and I missing. Unfortunately, many of these casualties had been inflicted by trigger- happy naval gunners aboard LST's, who had fired into the 2/5 Marines.
Once Inch'on had been encircled, ROK Special Marines were allowed to enter the city to mop up. This they accomplished with such a vengeance that for a number of hours no man, woman, or child of Inch'on, friend or foe, was safe.
Now X Corps held a secure beachhead only eighteen miles from the vital nerve center of Seoul, thanks to the Navy and the 1st Marine Division. On 16 September, Murray's 5th Regiment and Puller's 1st pushed inland rapidly. By 18 September they had Kimpo Airfield. American air support now could fly from land bases. By nightfall of the 18th, Marines reached the banks of the Han.
On the same day, elements of the 7th Division went ashore. On the 19th, the 2/32 Infantry had relieved the 2/1 Marines south of the Seoul-Inch'on highway.
But the enemy had time to react. The NKPA 18th Division, bound for the Naktong, turned and engaged the 1st Marines. The NKPA 70th Regiment hurried into Seoul from Suwon. American air reported large numbers of troops moving toward Seoul and Yongdungp'o from the north.
But the enemy simply did not have the means to meet X Corps. He had been taken by complete surprise, and he was already stretched too thin in the south. The 20,000-odd soldiery he could throw into the battle for Seoul could stem the tide, but not reverse it.
MacArthur had told Ned Almond, "You will be in Seoul in five days."
Almond, however, was not so sanguine. "I can't do that—but I will have the city within two weeks."
On 20 September, elements of Murray's 5th Marines crossed the Han on LVT's. They moved to within three miles of the great Yongsan railroad station in Seoul, then settled down to a bloody struggle along a line of low hills ringing Seoul on the west. To their right, and south, Puller's 1st Marines moved against Yongdungp'o. On the far south, toward Suwon, 7th Division secured the flank.
On 21 September General MacArthur, feeling confident of success, returned to the Dai Ichi in Tokyo.
For four days the Marines and infantry locked the stubbornly defending NKPA in close combat along the western approaches to Seoul. The largest unit opposing them, the NKPA 25th Brigade, was newly activated. But its commanding general, Wol Ki Chan, had studied in Soviet military schools, and the majority of its officers and N.C.O.'s had seen battle with the Communist Chinese. The low hills and caves of the area gave them a good area for defense, and they had sufficient artillery and automatic weapons.
On 22 September and 23 September, both U.S. and ROK Marines engaged in heavy fighting along the ridge lines, with little gain. The 7th Marines, under Colonel Litzenberg, came ashore and entered the battle.
On 24 September, D Company, 2/5 Marines, assaulted Hill 66 in the center of the enemy line of resistance. Dog company's skipper, First Lieutenant Smith, was killed at the start of the final charge; his men pushed on over him and reached the crest of 66. The enemy fought, then panicked, running from the hill, leaving dead everywhere. Hill 66 cost Dog Company 36 killed and 142 wounded out of 206 officers and men—but its capture broke the back of the NKPA defense. The next day the entire North Korean hill line broke. The NKPA left 1,200 dead behind them in their positions.
On 25 September, the Marines were inside Seoul, and 7th Division held South Mountain. Just prior to midnight, because he wanted to send the message exactly three months from the date of the North Korean aggression, General Almond announced the liberation of Seoul.
He was a little premature. Less than half of Seoul was in U.N. hands, and while certain enemy forces were evacuating, others had been ordered to stay behind for a last-ditch stand.
While fighting still raged from barricade to barricade, and from street to street inside the Korean capital, MacArthur issued U.N. Command Communiqué Number 9 on 26 September. MacArthur stated that Seoul was recaptured.
However, for two more days inside the city, from Seoul Middle School to the Kwang Who Moon Circle, from the Circle to the Court of Lions in front of Government House, the Marines had their hands full mopping up. Official communiqués studiously ignored this action.
In the process the city of Seoul was badly scarred. When MacArthur arrived at Kimpo from Tokyo on 29 September, parts of Seoul were still burning—but crowds of Koreans by hundreds of thousands lined the streets between Kimpo and Government House, cheering hysterically as MacArthur and ROK President Syngman Rhee drove to the National Assembly Hall.
At high noon, MacArthur and Rhee entered the Hall, which was packed with selected Korean officials and American military. On the platform sat Walton Walker and other American ranking
officers, and Rhee's Austrianborn wife. MacArthur spoke, briefly for him, but in his usual sonorous and dramatic style:
"Mr. President: By the grace of a merciful Providence our forces fighting under the standard of that greatest hope and inspiration of mankind, United Nations, have liberated this ancient capital city of Korea… ."
After a mention of the horrors of war visited upon the land, and of the spiritual revulsion against Bolshevism, he faced Rhee, saying:
"In behalf of the United Nations Command I am happy to restore to you, Mr. President, the seat of your government that from it you may better fulfill your constitutional responsibilities."
While MacArthur concluded with a recital of the Lord's prayer, in which the assemblage joined, glass from the battle-shattered roof tinkled down. MacArthur paid no attention.
Little, stooped, wrinkled Syngman Rhee rose to speak. The man who had spent the greater part of his life in exile, now aging badly but still active and courageous, for a few seconds could not speak for emotion. He held out his hands in front of him, clenching and unclenching his fingers, and blew on their tips. Only those who knew Syngman Rhee well understood why his hands worked when he was under emotional strain—over fifty years before, Japanese officers had tortured him by lighting oil paper pushed up under his fingernails, and had finished by smashing his fingertips one by one.
Men who knew nothing of Syngman Rhee's harsh years in exile, or of the Japanese torments during the Protectorate, tended to be impatient with Rhee's stubborn anti-Japanese stand in relations between the two countries. But when Rhee merely considered the notion of Japanese fishing boats approaching Korean water, his fingers hurt.
Now Rhee turned toward the Americans in his audience, and said:
"How can I ever explain to you my own undying gratitude and that of the Korean people?"
The ceremony ended, MacArthur returned to Tokyo to receive plaudits from the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from all the non-Communist world.
In the ensuing days, Marines and Army pushed out from Seoul, establishing blocking positions south toward Suwon, and taking Uijongbu. On the high ground in front of Uijongbu the 1st Marine Division met its last organized resistance on 3 October.
Before abandoning the ROK capital, however, the NKPA and Communist officialdom had wreaked a frightful revenge on the helpless bodies of the old men, women, and children of the families of South Korean policemen, government employees, and soldiers. Thousands had been shot or otherwise executed. And from this time forward, learning what had been done in their captured cities and towns, the ROK Army and Government showed no mercy to any Communist, whether NKPA, guerrilla, or sympathizer. To a certain extent, Communist frightfulness was repaid in kind.
ROK officials were adamant in their determination never again to allow a Communist-sympathizing underground to exist in South Korea.
Meanwhile, the United States X Corps was in the enemy rear, seated firmly astride his lines of communications with his homeland. The anvil was in place. Now all that remained was for the hammer to fall.
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16
Revenge
The last time we saw Taejon, it was not blight or gay, Now we're going back to Taejon, to blow the goddam place away!
— Song sung by members of the 24th Division attacking back into Taejon, 27 September 1950.
GENERAL MACARTHUR'S master plan for ending the Korean conflict envisioned a massive offensive by Eighth Army to coincide with the landings at Inch'on. The United Nations troops within the Pusan Perimeter would break out, drive north, and link up with X Corps in Seoul, while the enemy forces were smashed between the two friendly armies.
To take advantage of the morale boost word of the successful landing would bring to U.S. troops, Eighth Army's offensive was delayed until 0900 on 16 September 1950. It was also hoped by FECOM that the enemy would be demoralized by the news, but evidence indicates that the North Korean High Command concealed word of the landing from their men fighting on the Naktong.
On 15 September, most staff officers of Eighth Army were far from sanguine of their prospects. There was an ammunition shortage, especially critical in 105's. All units of Eighth Army had been fighting continually for many days, and there was no chance to concentrate a large offensive force for a breakout. And the Intelligence estimate of enemy strength was more than 100,000 combat troops, with 75 percent equipment.
The same estimate indicated that the enemy still held the initiative and was not likely to lose it in the immediate future. Eighth Army, however, had been on the defensive too long. Defense had become almost a state of mind with high officers; they found it hard to adjust to taking the offensive.
The NKPA was in far worse condition than American Intelligence dared guess. Enemy losses in early September had been enormous; they will never be known with complete accuracy. Some idea of what was left to the People's Army in middle September can be gleaned from a captured daily battle report that showed one battalion of the 7th Division at the following strength: 6 officers, 34 N.C.O.'s, 111 privates, armed with 3 pistols, 9 carbines, 57 rifles, and 13 automatic rifles. There were 92 grenades left to the battalion, and 6 light machine guns, with less than 300 rounds of ammunition for each.
All in all, the People's Army could not have numbered more than 70,000 officers and men by 15 September, of which less than 30 percent were the original veterans of Manchuria and Seoul. Morale among the new inductees was low—only the fact that anyone who showed open reluctance to fight was shot held the army together at all. Almost all divisions were suffering badly from hunger. But the fact that the men of the Inmun Gun knew that their own fanatic officers and N.C.O.'s would shoot them kept the South Korean conscripts from surrendering.
The thirteen divisions ringing Pusan retained no more than half their original guns and equipment.
The forces they ringed numbered now more than 150,000—60,000 of them heavily armed United States combat troops. However, these figures do not show a factor that continued to haunt American commanders throughout the war—the weakness of the rifle companies, the units that actually bore more than 90 percent of the fighting. While there were at least 10,000 men in or attached to the three new corps HQ's formed in early September, many rifle companies stood at 25 percent strength.
Throughout the war, the logistic tail. continued to wag the fighting dog. While certain commanders complained and warned, none ever took any effective steps to amend the front-to-rear ratio, which of course could not be done without drastically altering the logistical practices and standard of living of the United States Army. In fact, as the war progressed, the amount of supplies required to support the American troops increased. PX goods were assigned to every company, creating both a transport problem and a headache for some company officer who had better things to worry about.
Throughout the war, because of the continuing lack of motivation of U.S. personnel, every effort was made to raise morale by the supply of goods and luxuries to the troops. Unit PX's carried tons of soft drinks and candy bars from battle to battle; they sold watches, cameras, and radios at tax-free prices, though the demand for these always exceeded the supply.
Actually, it was impossible to support overseas combat troops at anything like a decent American standard of living. The very nature and necessities of war forbade it. But every effort was made. Discussing the dozens of ships carrying fresh meats, poultry, and other goods from the States to Korea, one FECOM commander later wrote, "We can never again afford to support troops in battle with such logistic luxury." But this commander took no steps to halt the trend.
Because of the large numbers of service troops required to support American forces, the odds at platoon level were not quite so disparate as they would seem. Many United States battalions had only a few hundred effective fighting men.
Combat losses in September 1950 had been heavy among United States troops—heavier than they would be at any other time in the war. Already American ba
ttle casualties totaled almost 20,000. And while 60,000 of the entire 70,000 men of the ROK Army were disposed on line, the ROK's were in about the same condition as the NKPA. Many of their trained men were gone, and the new recruits had no training or inclination for fighting.
Still, the United Nations had two-to-one superiority in manpower, and at least a five-to-one edge in firepower—the dominant factor in battle. They held the sea, and had complete control of the air, and could deliver the frightful combat power that control of the air implies.
All that was needed to break out of the Pusan Perimeter was a change of attitude.
The Eighth Army plan of attack was simple. It called for the Eighth and ROK armies to attack from their present bridgehead, with main effort along the Taegu-Kumch'on-Taejon-Suwon axis, to (1) destroy the enemy on the line of advance; (2) effect a junction with X Corps.
The newly activated I Corps, General Milburn, was to make the major effort in the center of the Naktong Line. Its route of advance lay roughly over the same roads and through the same towns through which Eighth Army had been pushed south in July and August.
Major General Frank Milburn's I Corps was given the 1st Cavalry Division, the 24th Infantry Division, 1st ROK Division, 5th Regimental Combat Team, and the British 27th Infantry Brigade, plus supporting troops. The U.S. 2nd and 25th divisions on the south were to remain under Army control until 23 September, at which date they would come under a newly organized IX Corps HQ.
The ROK divisions remained under their own corps HQ, although they were now fighting under almost complete United States direction.
This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History Page 25