OVER THE SEAWALL U.S. Marines at Inchon by Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

Marines in the Commemorative Series About the Author

dwin Howard Simmons, a Eretired Marine brigadier gen- eral, was, as a major, the com- manding officer of Weapons , 3d , 1st Marines, in the landing across Blue Beach Two at Inchon. His THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in active service spanned 30 the Korean War era, is published for the education and training of years—1942 to 1972—and Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine included combat in World War II Corps, Washington, D.C., as part of the U.S. Department of Defense and Vietnam as well as Korea. A observance of the 50th anniversary of that war. Editorial costs have been defrayed in part by contributions from members of the Marine Corps writer and historian all his adult Heritage Foundation. life, he was the Director of Marine Corps History and Museums from 1972 until 1996 and is now the Director KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES Emeritus. DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS He was born in Billingsport, New Jersey, the site of a John W. Ripley, USMC (RET) battle along the Delaware River in the American GENERAL EDITOR, Revolution, and received his commission in the Marine KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES Corps through the Army ROTC at Lehigh University. He Charles R. Smith also has a master’s degree from Ohio State University EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION and is a graduate of the National War College. A one- Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor time managing editor of the Marine Corps Gazette, he W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information Specialist has been published widely, including more than 300 arti- Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician cles and essays. His most recent books are The United Marine Corps Historical Center States Marines: A History (1998), The Marines (1998), and Building 58, Washington Navy Yard Dog Company Six (2000). Washington, D.C. 20374-5040 He is married, has four grown children, and lives with 2000 his wife, Frances, at their residence, “Dunmarchin,” two miles up the Potomac from Mount Vernon. PCN 190 00315 100

Among the other useful sec- which examined the operation Sources ondary sources were Alexander from the viewpoint of its principal The official history, The Haig, Jr., Inner Circles (New York: commanders, using their reports, Inchon-Seoul Operation by Lynn Warner Books, 1992); Clay Blair, writings, and memoirs. Among the Montross and Capt Nicholas A. The Forgotten War: America in primary sources used, the most Canzona, Volume II in the series, Korea, 1950-1953 (New York: important were the unit files and U.S. Marine Operations in Korea, Times Books, 1987); Gen Douglas records held by MCHC of the 1st 1950-1953 (Washington, D.C.: MacArthur, Reminiscences (New Marine Division and its subordi- Historical Branch, G-3 Division, York: McGraw Hill, 1964); Gen nate regiments and . HQMC, 1955), provided a center- Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A Also important were the biograph- line for this account. General’s Life: An Autobiography ic files held by Reference Section. Other official histories of great (New York: Simon and Schuster, Other primary sources of great use were Roy E. Appleman, South 1983); Donald Knox, The Korean use were the oral histories, to the Naktong, North to the Yalu War: Pusan to Chosin (San Diego: diaries, and memoirs of many of (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985); the participants. The most impor- Chief of Military History, Depart- Marguerite Higgins, War in Korea: tant of these were those of ment of the Army, 1961); James A. The Report of a Women Combat Generals Stratemeyer, Almond, Field, Jr., History of Correspondent (Garden City: Cates, Shepherd, O. P. Smith, Naval Operations: Korea (Wash- Doubleday & Company, 1951); Craig, V. H. Krulak, and Bowser, ington, D.C.: Government Printing Gen J. Lawton Collins, Lightning and Admirals Burke and Doyle. A Office, 1962); and James F. Joe: An Autobiography (Baton fully annotated draft of the text is Schnabel, Policy and Direction: Rouge: Louisiana State University on file at the Marine Corps The First Year (Washington: Office Press, 1979); and Cdr Malcolm W. Historical Center. As is their tradi- of the Chief of Military History, Cagle and Cdr Frank A. Manson, tion, the members of the staff at Department of the Army, 1972). The Sea War in Korea (Annapolis: the Center were fully supportive Victory at High Tide (Philadel- U.S. Naval Institute, 1957). in the production of this anniver- phia: Lippincott, 1968) by Col Valuable insights were provid- sary pamphlet. Photographs by Robert D. Heinl, Jr., remains the ed by an Inchon war game devel- Frank Noel are used with the per- best single-volume account of oped at the Marine Corps mission of Associated Press/World Inchon. Historical Center (MCHC) in 1987, Wide Photos. OVER THE SEAWALL U.S. Marines at Inchon by Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

ust three weeks the JCS executive agent for the Far informed his boss, Major General away and there was East Command and nominally Edward M. “Ned” Almond, chief of still no approval higher in the chain-of-command staff of the Far East Command, from Washington for than MacArthur—but only nomi- who awakened MacArthur with the the Marines to land nally. In MacArthur news. The United States was going at Inchon on 15 September 1950. was already a brigadier general to war. General of the Army Douglas when Collins was barely a captain. Four days later, and a day after MacArthur, determined to beat Now MacArthur had five stars and the fall of Seoul, MacArthur flew to down the opposition to the land- Collins four. Korea in the Bataan, to make a ing, called a conference for late in On this afternoon, First Lieuten- personal reconnaissance, taking the day, 23 August, at his head- ant Alexander M. Haig’s task was with him Major General Almond. quarters in the Dai Ichi building in to lay out the pads of paper, pen- Korea stretched beneath them like Tokyo. cils, and water glasses on the table a giant relief map. To the east of of the sixth floor conference room. the Korean peninsula lay the Sea Planning This done, he took his post seated of ; to the west the Yellow in a straight-backed chair just out- Sea. The vulnerability of these two As Commander in Chief, Far side the door. Haig, then the junior watery sides of the peninsula to a East (CinCFE), MacArthur consid- aide-de-camp to MacArthur’s chief dominant naval power was not lost ered himself empowered to con- of staff, was destined to become, on a master strategist such as duct military operations more-or- many years later, the Secretary of MacArthur. The Bataan landed at less as he saw fit. But for an oper- State. Suwon, 20 miles south of Seoul. ation of the magnitude of Inchon The Marine Corps would have MacArthur commandeered a jeep and the resources it would require no voice at the meeting. The Corps and headed north through, in his he needed approval from the high- had neither membership nor repre- words, “the dreadful backwash of est level. sentation on the JCS. Admiral a defeated and dispersed army.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Sherman, not a strong champion of “Seoul was already in enemy doubtful of the landing’s chances Marine Corps interests, was the hands,” he wrote in his of success, had sent out the Army service chief most directly con- Reminiscences some years later. Chief of Staff, General J. Lawton cerned with the amphibious phase “The scene along the Han was Collins, and the Chief of Naval of the still tentative operation. enough to convince me that the Operations, Admiral Forrest P. defensive potential of South Korea Sherman, to review the situation Opening Moves had already been exhausted. The directly with MacArthur. Now he answer I had come to seek was would have to overcome their Only two months before the there. I would throw occupation skeptical resistance. Collins was meeting of MacArthur with Collins troops into this breach. I would and Sherman, in the pre-dawn rely upon strategic maneuver to On the Cover: Using scaling lad- hours of 25 June, 25-year-old overcome the great odds against ders, Marines storm over the seawall Lieutenant Haig, as duty officer at me.” at Inchon. Department of Defense MacArthur’s headquarters in MacArthur returned to what he Photo (USMC) A3191 Tokyo, received a phone call from At left: The mop-up at Inchon liked to call his “GHQ” in Tokyo, the American ambassador in Seoul, turned up a group of young North convinced that to regain the initia- Koreans, left as harassing forces. John J. Muccio, that large forma- tive the United States must use its Photo courtesy of Leatherneck tions of North Korean infantry had amphibious capability and land Magazine crossed the 38th Parallel. Haig behind the advancing North

1 combat-ready, to South Korea. His aim, he later said, was to trade space for time until a base could be developed at Pusan at the southern tip of the peninsula as a springboard for future operations. Approval came from President Harry S. Truman for the imposition of a naval blockade and limited air operations. “The Air Force was under Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer, and the Navy under Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, both able and efficient veterans of the war,” wrote MacArthur. But Vice Admiral Joy, as Commander Naval Forces, Far East, commanded virtually noth- ing. Vice Admiral Arthur D. “Rip” Struble, commander of the Seventh Fleet, a naval officer of consider- able amphibious experience, reported not to Joy but to Admiral Arthur W. Radford who was both Commander in Chief, Pacific, and Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer commanded “FEAF” or Far East Air Forces. Subordinate to him were the Fifth Air Force in Japan, the Twentieth Air Force on Okinawa, and the Thirteenth Air Force in the Philippines. Cates Offers Marines

Back in Washington, D.C., dur- ing the first hectic days after the North Korean invasion, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Clifton B. Cates, was not invited to attend the high-level meetings being held in the Pentagon. After four days of wait- Koreans. He put his staff to work Unready Eighth Army ing, Cates drove to the Pentagon on a broad operational plan: two and, in his words, “kind of forced U.S. divisions would be thrown MacArthur had at his disposal in my way in.” into the battle to slow the onrush Japan the Eighth Army consisting “We were fighting for our exis- of the North Korean People’s Army of four divisions—the 7th, 24th, tence,” said General Lemuel C. (NKPA). A third division would 25th, and the 1st Cavalry—all four Shepherd, Jr., who followed Cates land behind the NKPA and in a at half-strength and under-trained. as Commandant. “Sherman and the flanking attack liberate Seoul, the He began to move pieces of the rest of these fellows wanted to lost capital. 24th Division, rated at 65 percent keep us seagoing Marines, with a

2 battalion landing team being the A few days before the outbreak Marine Corps forces. biggest unit we were supposed to of the war Brigadier General “Having been with the 4th have . . . . Everybody was against William S. Fellers, commanding Brigade in France, I had learned the Marine Corps at that time. general of the Troop Training Unit, that a Marine unit in an Army divi- Secretary of Defense Louis A. came out to Japan to inspect the sion is not good for the Corps,” Johnson, always nagging, Truman progress being made by Forney said Shepherd years later. Enroute hostile, and Cates carried that load and his team. Fellers and Forney to Tokyo he made up his mind that all by himself and did it well.” were at a Fourth of July party he was going to push for a Marine Cates saw Admiral Sherman and being given by the American division to be sent to Korea. told him the Marines could imme- colony in Tokyo when an urgent General Shepherd met with diately deploy to Korea a brigade message required their immediate Admiral Joy and General Almond consisting of a regimental combat presence at “GHQ.” They arrived on 9 July, and next day, accompa- team and an aircraft group. at the Dai Ichi—a tall building that nied by Colonel Krulak, saw “How soon can you have them had escaped the World War II MacArthur himself. He told them ready?” Sherman asked dubiously. bombing because the Imperial that the only hope for an early “As quickly as the Navy gets the Palace was immediately across the reversal of the disastrous situation ships,” shot back Cates. way—to find a planning confer- was an amphibious assault against Sherman, overwhelmed perhaps ence in progress with Almond at the enemy’s rear. by higher priorities, dallied two the helm. They learned that “Here I was,” said Shepherd days before sending a back-chan- MacArthur had advanced the con- later, “recommending that a Marine nel message to Admiral Joy, asking cept of a landing at Inchon, to be division be sent to Korea, and the him to suggest to MacArthur that called Operation Bluehearts and to Commandant didn’t know any- he request a Marine air-ground be executed on 22 July by the 1st thing about what I was doing.” brigade. MacArthur promptly made Cavalry Division—and the 1st MacArthur recalled to Shepherd the request and on 3 July the JCS Provisional Marine Brigade, if the the competence of the 1st Marine approved the deployment. latter could be gotten there in time. Division when it had been under Cates did not wait for JCS Next day Colonel Forney became his command during the Cape approval. Formation of the 1st the G-5 (Plans) of the 1st Cavalry, Gloucester operation at Christmas Provisonal Marine Brigade had one of MacArthur’s favorite divi- time in 1943. Shepherd had then already begun with troops stripped sions. been the assistant division com- out of the half-strength 1st Marine mander. MacArthur went to his Division. In four days’ time—on 6 Shepherd Meets with MacArthur wall map, stabbed at the port of July—the brigade began to load Inchon with the stem of his corn- out at San Diego for the Far East. Three days after the interrupted cob pipe, and said: “If I only had Several months before the Fourth of July party, Lemuel the under my breakout of war, MacArthur had Shepherd, just promoted to lieu- command again, I would land requested amphibious training for tenant general and installed as them here and cut off the North his occupation troops. Troop Commanding General, Fleet Korean armies from their logistic Training Unit, Amphibious Marine Force, Pacific, left Hawaii support and cause their withdraw- Training Command, Pacific Fleet, for Tokyo, accompanied by his al and annihilation.” had been formed in 1943 for just operations officer, Colonel Victor Shepherd answered that if such a purpose. Colonel Edward H. Krulak. Shepherd had been MacArthur could get JCS approval H. Forney, with Mobile Training urged to go to Tokyo by Admiral for the assignment of the 1st Team Able and accompanied by an Radford, a good friend of the Marine Division, he could have it Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Marines, “to see MacArthur and ready by mid-September. Mac- Company (ANGLICO) training find out what all this thing is Arthur told Shepherd to draft for team, arrived in April 1950. A regi- about.” his release a message to the JCS ment in each of MacArthur’s four Shepherd saw his mission as asking for the division. divisions was to be amphibiously being first to ensure that the 1st Bluehearts, which would have trained. Navy partner in the train- Provisional Marine Brigade was used the 1st Cavalry Division, was ing would be Amphibious Group used as an integrated air-ground abruptly cancelled. Planning in One (PhibGruOne) under Rear team and, second, to explore Tokyo, under Brigadier General Admiral James H. Doyle. prospects for the use of additional Edwin K. “Pinky” Wright, USA, and

3 his Joint Strategic Plans and Radford, General Almond, and and, with all that, a “phenomenal- Operations Group (JSPOG), shift- Lieutenant General Walton H. ly gifted soldier.” Almond, like his ed to an amphibious operation in Walker. It had just been idol, General George S. Patton, Jr., September. announced that Walker was shift- designed his own uniforms and ing his flag from Japan to Korea, wore a pistol on a leather belt Under the U.N. Flag and the Eighth Army would adorned with a huge crested buck- become the Eighth U.S. Army in le. He did this, he said, so as to be On that same busy 10 July, Korea, which yielded the acronym easily recognized by his troops. MacArthur’s mantle of authority “EUSAK.” MacArthur explained his General Walker, a tenacious was embroidered with a new reasons for cancelling Bluehearts man who deserved his nickname title—Commander in Chief, United and said that he had not yet cho- “Bulldog” (although he was Nations Command or “CinCUNC.” sen a new target date or location “Johnnie” Walker to his friends), From then on operations in Korea for an amphibious strike, but continued the piecemeal buildup and surrounding waters would be favored Inchon. of the Eighth Army. All of the 24th fought under the light-blue-and- As soon as the meeting was Division was committed by 7 July. white flag of the United Nations. over, Collins and Walker flew to The 25th Division completed its The sailing of the 1st Provisional Korea, where Walker opened a move from Japan on 14 July. Marine Brigade from San Diego field headquarters at Taegu for his began on 12 July. Core of the Eighth Army. Collins spent only an Tactical Air Control Problems ground element was the 5th hour on the ground and did not Marines; the air element was leave the airport before returning The 1st Cavalry Division was in Marine Aircraft Group 33. Filling to Tokyo. process of loading out from Japan the brigade had gutted both the 1st Next day, the 14th, he was in Doyle’s PhibGruOne when Marine Division and the 1st Marine briefed by General Almond and Bluehearts was cancelled in favor Aircraft Wing. Admiral Doyle, who had com- of an unopposed landing on 18 General Cates was in San Diego manded Amphibious Group One July at Pohang-dong, a port some to see the Marines off. His long since January. Before that for two 60 air miles northeast of Pusan. cigarette holder was famous; not years Doyle had headed the Plans developed for Bluehearts by many Marines knew that he used it Amphibious Training Command, both PhibGruOne and 1st Cavalry because gas in World War I had Pacific Fleet. During World War II Division were used for the opera- weakened his lungs. General he served on the staff of tion. For this non-hostile landing Shepherd was also on the dock Amphibious Force, South Pacific. the Navy insisted on control of an and it gave him the opportunity to Collins questioned the feasibility air space 100 miles in diameter cir- discuss with Cates his promise to of landing at Inchon. Doyle said cling the landing site. This Navy MacArthur of a full division. Could that it would be difficult but could requirement for control of air traf- the 1st Marine Division be assem- be done. Before leaving Tokyo, fic over the objective area conflict- bled and made ready in such a Collins assured MacArthur that he ed with Air Force doctrine which short time? would endorse the sending of a called for Air Force control of all “I don’t know,” said Cates dubi- full-strength Marine division. tactical aircraft in the theater of ously; it would drain the Marine Earlier, during the planning for operations. Corps completely. Operation Bluehearts, Doyle had Lieutenant General Earle E. “Clifton,” said Shepherd simply, expressed reservations over the “Pat” Partridge, whose Fifth Air “you can’t let me down.” use of the 1st Cavalry Division Force Joint Operations Center was because it was not amphibiously in Taegu side-by-side with Visitors from Washington trained. His relations with Almond Walker’s Eighth Army headquar- were strained. He thought Almond ters, protested the Navy require- In Tokyo, where it was already arrogant and dictatorial and a per- ment that would have caused him 13 July, MacArthur was meeting son who “often confused himself to vacate the control of air over with visitors from Washington— with his boss.” virtually all of the Pusan Perimeter. Army General Collins and General Lieutenant Haig, Almond’s aide This began a doctrinal dispute Hoyt S. Vandenberg, chief of staff and the keeper of his war diary, involving the tactical control of air of the newly independent Air found his chief “volcanic” in per- that would continue for the rest of Force. Also present were Admiral sonality, “brilliant” but “irascible,” the war.

4 Major General Oliver P.Smith

liver Prince Smith did not fill the Marine Corps The war in Europe, where the Marines gained interna- “warrior” image. He was deeply religious, did not tional fame, passed him by; he spent the war years in lone- drink, seldom raised his voice in anger, and ly exile with the garrison on Guam. Afterward, in the O 1920s, he followed an unremarkable sequence of duty, almost never swore. Tall, slender, and white-haired, he looked like a college professor is supposed to look and much like that of most lieutenants and captains of the seldom does. Some of his contemporaries thought him time: barracks duty at Mare Island, sea duty in the Texas, pedantic and a bit slow. He smoked a pipe in a meditative staff duty at Headquarters Marine Corps, and a tour with way, but when his mind was made up he could be as res- the Gendarmerie d’Haiti. olute as a rock. He always commanded respect and, with From June 1931 to June 1932, he attended the Field the passage of years, that respect became love and devo- Officer’s Course at Fort Benning. Next came a year at tion on the part of those Marines who served under him Quantico, most of it spent as an instructor at the Company in Korea. They came to know that he would never waste Officer’s Course. He was assigned in 1934 to a two-year their lives needlessly. course at the Ecole Superieur la de Guerre in Paris, then As commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, considered the world’s premier school for rising young Smith’s feud with the mercurial commander of X Corps, officers. Afterwards he returned to Quantico for more Major General Edward M. Almond, USA, would become duty as an instructor. the stuff of legends. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 found him at San No one is ever known to have called him “Ollie.” To his Diego. As commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 6th family he was “Oliver.” To his contemporaries and even- Marines, he went to Iceland in the summer of 1941. He left tually to the press, which at first tended to confuse him the regiment after its return to the States, for duty once with the controversial Holland M. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith of again at Headquarters in Washington. He went to the World War II, he was always “O. P.” Smith. Some called Pacific in January 1944 in time to command the 5th him “the Professor” because of his studious ways and deep Marines during the Talasea phase of the Cape Gloucester reading in military history. operation. He was the assistant commander of the 1st Born in Menard, Texas, in 1893, he had by the time of Marine Division during Peleliu and for Okinawa was the America’s entry into the First World War worked his way Marine Deputy Chief of Staff of the Tenth Army. through the University of at Berkeley, Class of After the war he was the commandant of Marine Corps 1916. While a student at Berkeley he qualified for a com- Schools and base commander at Quantico until the spring mission in the Army Reserve which he exchanged, a week of 1948 when he became the assistant commandant and after America’s entry into the war on 6 April 1917, for the chief of staff at Headquarters. In late July 1950, he received gold bars of a Marine Corps second lieutenant. command of the 1st Marine Division, destined for Korea, and held that command until May 1951. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8377 After Inchon and Seoul, a larger, more desperate fight at Chosin Reservoir was ahead of him. In early 1951, the 1st Marine Division was switched from Almond’s X Corps to Major General Bryant E. Moore’s IX Corps. Moore died of a heart attack on 24 February 1951 and, by seniority, O. P. Smith became the corps commander. Despite his expe- rience and qualifications, he held that command only so long as it took the Army to rush a more senior general to Korea. O. P. Smith’s myriad of medals included the Army Distinguished Service Cross and both the Army and the Navy Distinguished Service Cross for his Korean War Service. On his return to the United States, he became the com- manding general of the base at Camp Pendleton. Then in July 1953, with a promotion to lieutenant general, moved to the East Coast to the command of , Atlantic, with headquarters at Norfolk, . He retired on 1 September 1955 and for his many combat awards was promoted to four-star general. He died on Christmas Day 1977 at his home in Los Altos Hills, California, at age 81.

5 Joint Chiefs Reluctant

Returning to Washington, Collins briefed his fellow chiefs on 15 July. He gave them the broad outlines of MacArthur’s planned amphibious assault, but expressed his own doubts based on his expe- rience in the South Pacific and at Normandy. The JCS chairman, General of the Army Omar N. Bradley, thought it “the riskiest military pro- posal I ever heard of.” In his opin- ion, MacArthur should be concen- trating on the dismal immediate sit- uation in South Korea rather than dreaming up “a blue sky scheme like Inchon.” Bradley wrote later: “because Truman was relying on us to an extraordinary degree for military counsel, we determined to keep a close eye on the Inchon plan and, if we felt so compelled, finally cancel it.” The JCS agreed that the 1st Marine Division should be brought up to strength, but stopped short of committing it to the Far East. On 20 July, the Joint Chiefs informed MacArthur that the 1st Marine Division could not be combat ready until December. MacArthur Gen Oliver P. Smith Collection, Marine Corps Research Center MajGen Oliver P. Smith, left, assumed command of the 1st Marine Division at erupted: the 1st Marine Division Camp Pendleton on 26 July 1950. Col Homer L. Litzenberg, Jr., right, arrived on was “absolutely vital” to the plan 16 August with orders to reactivate the 7th Marines and have it ready for sailing being developed, under the code- by 3 September. name Chromite, by General Wright’s group. A draft, circulated agent for the JCS, that lacking the A New CG at CinCFE headquarters on 23 July, Marine division, he had scheduled offered three alternatives: an amphibious assault at Inchon in Late in the afternoon of 25 July, mid-September to be executed by Major General Oliver P. Smith Plan 100-B: A landing at the 5th Marines and the 2d Infantry arrived from Washington and Inchon on the west coast. Division in conjunction with an checked in at the Carlsbad Hotel in Plan 100-C: A landing at attack northward by the Eighth Carlsbad, California. He was to Kunsan on the west coast. Army. His message caused the take command of the 1st Marine Plan 100-D: A landing at chiefs to initiate a hurried teletype Division at nearby Camp Chunmunjin-up on the east conference with MacArthur on 24 Pendleton on the following day. coast. July. MacArthur prevailed and on He phoned Brigadier General the following day, 25 July, the Harry B. Liversedge, the base com- MacArthur’s mind was now fully chiefs finally approved Mac- mander and acting division com- set on Inchon. He informed Arthur’s repeated requests for the mander, to let him know that he Collins, in his capacity as executive 1st Marine Division. had arrived. Liversedge said that

6 Colonel Lewis B.“Chesty” Puller

he younger Marines in the 1st Marines were ecsta- tic when they learned their regiment was going to Tbe commanded by the legendary “Chesty” Puller. Older officers and non-commissioned officers in the reg- iment were less enthusiastic. They remembered the long casualty list the 1st Marines had suffered at Peleliu while under Colonel Puller’s command. His style was to lead from the front, and, when he went into Korea, he already had an unprecedented four Navy Crosses. Born in 1898, Puller had grown up in Tidewater Virginia where the scars of the Civil War were still unhealed and where many Confederate veterans were still alive to tell a young boy how it was to go to war. Lewis (which is what his family always called him) went Gen Oliver P. Smith Collection briefly to Virginia Military Institute but dropped out in and on the parade ground left its mark on the lieutenants August 1918 to enlist in the Marines. To his disappoint- who would be the captains, majors, and lieutenant ment, the war ended before he could get to France. In colonels in the world war that was coming. June 1919, he was promoted to second lieutenant and In June 1939, he went back to China, returning to the then, 10 days later, with demobilization was placed on Augusta to command its Marines once again. A year later inactive duty. Before the month was out he had reenlist- he left the ship to join the 4th Marines in Shanghai. He ed in the Marines specifically to serve as a second lieu- returned to the United States in August 1941, four tenant in the Gendarmerie d’Haiti. Most of the officers in months before the war began, and was given command the Gendarmerie were white Marines; the rank and file of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, at Camp Lejeune. He were black Haitians. Puller spent five years in Haiti fight- commanded (he would say “led”) this battalion at ing “Caco” rebels and making a reputation as a bush and won his third Navy Cross for his suc- fighter. cessful defense of a mile-long line on the night of 24 He returned to the States in March 1924 and received October 1942. The fourth Navy Cross came for overall his regular commission in the Marine Corps. During the performance, from 26 December 1943 to 19 January next two years he did barracks duty in Norfolk, attended 1944, at Cape Gloucester as executive officer of the 7th Basic School in Philadelphia, served in the 10th Marines Marines. In February 1944, he took command of the 1st at Quantico, and had an unsuccessful try at aviation at Marines and led it in the terrible fight at Peleliu in Pensacola. Barracks duty for two years at Pearl Harbor September and October. followed Pensacola. Then in 1928 he was assigned to the Afterwards, he came back to command the Infantry Guardia Nacional of . Here in 1930 he won his Training Regiment at Camp Lejeune. Next he was first Navy Cross. First Lieutenant Puller, his citation Director of the 8th Marine Corps Reserve District with reads, “led his forces into five successive engagements headquarters in New Orleans, and then took command against superior numbers of armed bandit forces.” of the Marine Barracks at Pearl Harbor. From here he He came home in July 1931 to the year-long Company hammered Headquarters to be given command, once Officers Course at Fort Benning. That taken, he returned again, of his old regiment, the 1st Marines. to Nicaragua for more bandit fighting and a second Navy After Inchon, there was to be a fifth Navy Cross, Cross, this time for taking his patrol of 40 Nicaraguans earned at the Chosin Reservoir. In January 1951, he through a series of ambushes, in partnership with the received a brigadier general’s stars and assignment as the almost equally legendary Gunnery Sergeant William A. assistant division commander. In May, he came back to “Iron Man” Lee. Camp Pendleton to command the newly activated 3d Now a captain, Puller came back to the West Coast in Marine Brigade which became the 3d Marine Division. January 1933, stayed a month, and then left to join the He moved to the Troop Training Unit, Pacific, on Legation Guard at Peiping. This included command of Coronado in June 1952 and from there moved east, now the fabled “Horse Marines.” In September 1934, he left with the two stars of a major general, to Camp Lejeune Peiping to become the commanding officer of the Marine to take command of the 2d Marine Division in July 1954. detachment on board the Augusta, flagship of the Asiatic His health began to fail and he was retired for disability Fleet. on 1 November 1955. From then until his death on 11 In June 1936, he came to Philadelphia to instruct at October 1971 at age 73 he lived in the little town of . His performance as a tactics instructor Saluda in Tidewater Virginia.

7 he had just received a tip from Behind the Organized Reserve Eighth Army began arriving direct- Washington that the division was was the Volunteer Marine Corps ly from the United States, including to be brought to war strength and Reserve—90,044 men and women, the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade sail to the Far East by mid-August. most of them veterans, but with no which debarked at Pusan on 3 Both Liversedge and Smith knew further training after their return to August. that what was left of the division civilian life. President Truman, In Tokyo, General Stratemeyer was nothing more than a shell. with the sanction of Congress, became agitated when he learned Smith took command the next authorized the call-up of the that the 1st Provisional Marine day, 26 July. He had served in the Marine Corps Reserve on 19 July. Brigade, as an integrated air- division during World War II, com- An inspired public information ground team, intended to retain manding the 5th Marines in its officer coined the phrase, “Minute mission control of its aircraft. An Talasea landing at New Britain and Men of 1950.” uneasy compromise was reached was the assistant division comman- On 26 July, the day following by which the Marines were to der at Peleliu. Only 3,459 Marines JCS approval of the 1st Marine operate their two squadrons of car- remained in the division at Camp Division’s deployment, a courier rier-based Vought F4U Corsairs Pendleton, fewer men than in a arrived at Camp Pendleton from with their own controllers under single full-strength regiment. Washington with instructions for the general coordination of When the Joint Chiefs asked Smith in his fleshing-out of the 1st Partridge’s Fifth Air Force. General Cates how he planned to Marine Division: ground elements bring the 1st Marine Division up to of the 1st Provisional Marine Reserve Comes to Active Duty war strength, he had ready a two- Brigade would re-combine with pronged plan. Plan A would pro- the division upon its arrival in the The first reservists to reach vide three rifle companies and Far East; units of the half-strength Pendleton—the 13th Infantry replacements to the brigade 2d Marine Division at Camp Company from Los Angeles, the already deployed. Plan B would Lejeune, North Carolina, would be 12th Amphibian Tractor Company use Reserves to fill up the division. ordered to Camp Pendleton and of San Francisco, and the 3d Essential to the filling out of the 1st re-designated as 1st Marine Engineer Company from Marine Division—and the 1st Division units; all possible regulars Phoenix—arrived on 31 July. Marine Aircraft Wing as well—was would be stripped out of posts and Elements of the 2d Marine Division the mobilization of the Marine stations and ordered to the divi- from Camp Lejeune began their Corps Reserve. “Behind every sion; and gaps in the ranks would train journey the same day. In that Marine regular, figuratively speak- be filled with individual Reserves first week, 13,703 Marines joined ing,” wrote official historians Lynn considered to be at least minimally the division. Montross and Captain Nicholas A. combat-ready. On 4 August, the Commandant Canzona, “stood two reservists ordered the reactivation of the 1st who were ready to step forward Eighth Army Withdraws to Pusan Marines and 7th Marines. Both reg- and fill the gaps in the ranks.” iments had been part of the 1st The 33,527 Marines in the In Korea, at the end of July, Marine Division in all its World War Organized Reserve in 1950 were Walker ordered the Eighth Army to II campaigns. The 1st Marines was scattered across the country in fall back behind the Naktong River, activated that same day under units that included 21 infantry bat- the new defensive line forming the command of the redoubtable talions and 30 fighter squadrons. so-called “Pusan Perimeter.” Both Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, Virtually all the officers and non- flanks of the Eighth Army were who, stationed at Pearl Harbor as commissioned officers had World threatened. In light of this deterio- commanding officer of the Marine War II experience, but the ranks rating situation, the Joint Chiefs Barracks, had pestered Headquar- had been filled out with young- asked MacArthur if he still planned ters Marine Corps and General sters, many of whom did not get to an amphibious operation in Smith with demands that he be boot camp. Subsequent reserve September. An unperturbed returned to the command of the training had included both weekly MacArthur replied that “if the full regiment he had led at Peleliu. By armory “drills” and summer active Marine Division is provided, the 7 August, the strength of the 1st duty. Someone wryly decided they chances to launch the movement Marine Division stood at 17,162. could be classified as “almost com- in September would be excellent.” The experiences of Lieutenant bat ready.” Reinforcements for Walker’s Colonel Thomas L. Ridge’s 1st

8 Battalion, 6th Marines, were typical transferred to Fleet Marine Force, Mediterranean, traveled by ancient of the buildup being done at a Pacific, in time for staff duty for troop train to Camp Pendleton dead run. Ridge had just taken Iwo Jima and Okinawa. As an where it became the 3d Battalion command of the battalion. A crack observer at Okinawa he was twice of the reactivated 1st Marines. In rifle and pistol shot, he had spent wounded. about 10 days, the two-element, most of World War II in intelli- Ridge’s battalion, barely half-strength battalion expanded gence assignments in Latin returned to Camp Lejeune from six into a three-element, full-strength America, but in late 1944 was months deployment to the battalion. The two rifle companies Major General Field Harris

uring the course of the Korean War, Major General Field Harris would suffer a grievous per- Dsonal loss. While he served as Commanding General, , his son, Lieutenant Colonel William F. Harris, was with the 1st Marine Division, as commanding officer of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, at the Chosin Reservoir. The younger Harris’ battalion was the rear guard for the breakout from Yudam-ni. Later, between Hagaru-ri and Koto-ri, Harris disappeared and was posted as missing in action. Later it was determined that he had been killed. Field Harris—and he was almost always called that, “Field-Harris,” as though it were one word—belonged to the open cockpit and silk scarf era of Marine Corps avi- ation. Born in 1895 in Versailles, Kentucky, he received his wings at Pensacola in 1929. But before that he had 12 years seasoning in the Marine Corps. He graduated from the Naval Academy in March 1917 just before America’s entry into World War I. He spent that war at sea in the Nevada and ashore with the 3d Provisional Brigade at Guantanamo, Cuba. In 1919 he went to Cavite in the Philippines. After three years there, he returned for three years in the office of the Judge Advocate General in Washington. While so assigned he graduated from the George Washington University School of Law. Then came another tour of sea duty, this time in the Wyoming, then a year as a student Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A310952 at Quantico, and flight training at Pensacola. His new three steps up the chain of islands earned him a Legion gold wings took him to San Diego where he served in a of Merit. After World War II, he became Director of squadron of the West Coast Expeditionary Force. Marine Aviation in the Office of the Chief of Naval He attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Operations (and received a fourth Legion of Merit). In Field, Virginia, after which came shore duty in Haiti and 1948 he was given command of Aircraft, Fleet Marine sea duty in the carrier Lexington. In 1935, he joined the Force, Atlantic. A year later he moved to El Toro, Aviation Section at Headquarters, followed by a year in California, for command of Aircraft, Fleet Marine, Pacific, the Senior Course at the Naval War College in Newport, with concomitant command of the 1st Marine Aircraft Rhode Island. In August 1941, he was sent to Egypt from Wing. where, as assistant naval attache, he could study the His Korean War service was rewarded with both the Royal Air Force’s support of Britain’s Eighth Army in its Army’s and the Navy’s Distinguished Service Medal. On desert operations. his return to the United States in the summer of 1951, he After Egypt and United States entry into the war, he again became the commanding general of Air, Fleet was sent to the South Pacific. In the Solomons, he served Marine Force, Atlantic. He retired in July 1953 with an successively as Chief of Staff, Aircraft, Guadalanal; advancement to lieutenant general because of his com- Commander, Aircraft, Northern Solomons; and comman- bat decorations, a practice which is no longer followed. der of air for the Green Island operation. Each of these He died in 1967 at age 72.

9 in the battalion each numbering about 100 men were doubled in size with a third rifle added. A third rifle company was activated. The weapons company had no heavy machine gun pla- toon and only two sections in its antitank assault and 81mm mortar . A heavy machine gun platoon was created and third sec- tions were added to the antitank assault and 81mm mortar platoons. World War II vintage supplies and equipment came in from the mobi- lization stocks stashed away at the supply depot at Barstow, California—sufficient in quantity, poor in quality. The pressure of the unknown D-Day gave almost no time for unit shake-down and training. Simultaneously with the ground unit buildup, Reserve fighter and ground control squadrons were arriving at El Toro, California, to fill out the skeleton 1st Marine Aircraft Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A20115 Wing. The wing commander, Major MajGen Field Harris and a portion of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing staff arrive at General Field Harris, Naval Barber’s Point in Hawaii in early September enroute to the Far East. Leaving the Marine transport are, from left, Col Edward C. Dyer, Col Boeker C. Batterton, Col Academy 1917, and a naval aviator William G. Manley, and Gen Harris. since 1929, had served in the South Pacific in World War II. More ready for amphibious operations as rifle practice. The “buddy sys- recently he had been Director of until 1951. Now, the division was tem” was employed—each Korean Aviation at Marine Corps to get 30 percent of all replace- recruit was paired off with an Headquarters. He was one of those ments arriving from the United American counterpart. prescient senior Marines who fore- States. Moreover, a week later, on Major General David G. Barr, saw a future for helicopters in 11 August, MacArthur directed the 7th Infantry Division’s com- amphibious operations. Walker to send 8,000 South Korean mander, had been chief of staff of recruits to fill out the division. several commands in Europe dur- 7th Infantry Division and KATUSA The first of 8,600 Korean ing World War II. After the war he replacements, straight out of the had headed the Army Advisory In parallel actions, MacArthur on rice paddies of South Korea and Mission in Nanking, China. He 4 August ordered Walker to rebuild off the streets of Pusan, began now seemed a bit old and slow, the Army’s 7th Infantry Division— arriving by ship at Yokohama a but he knew Chinese and the the last division remaining in few days later. This infusion of raw Chinese army. Japan—to full strength by 15 untrained manpower, called September. The division had been “KATUSA”—Korean Augmentation 1st Marine Division Loads Out reduced to less than half-strength of the U.S. Army—arrived for the by being repeatedly culled for most part in baggy white pants, Loading out of the 1st Marine fillers for the three divisions white jackets, and rubber shoes. In Division from San Diego began on already deployed to Korea. Until three weeks they had to be 8 August. That same day, General MacArthur’s directive, the division clothed, equipped, and made into Fellers, back from Japan, told was not scheduled to be up to soldiers, including the learning of Smith that the division would be strength until 1 October and not rudimentary field sanitation as well employed in Korea between 15

10 Colonel Homer L. Litzenberg, Jr.

is troops called him “Litz the Blitz” for no partic- ular reason except the alliteration of sound. He Hhad come up from the ranks and was extraordi- narily proud of it. Immediately before the Korean War began he was in command of the 6th Marines at Camp Lejeune, very much interested in his regimental baseball teams, and about to turn over the command to another colonel. When war came he was restored to command of the regiment and sadly watched his skeleton battal- ions depart for Camp Pendleton to form the cadre for the re-activated 1st Marines. This was scarcely done when he received orders to re-activate the 7th Marines on the West Coast. Litzenberg was a “Pennsylvania Dutchman,” born in Steelton, Pennsylvania, in 1903. His family moved to Philadelphia and, after graduating from high school and two years in the National Guard, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1922. Subsequent to recruit training at Parris Island, he was sent to Haiti. In 1925 he became a second lieutenant. East Coast duty was followed by expeditionary service in Nicaragua in 1928 and 1929, and then by sea service in a string of battleships—Idaho, Arkansas, Arizona, New Mexico—and the cruiser Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A4718 Augusta. After graduating from the Infantry School at After Inchon, he continued in command of the 7th Fort Benning in 1933, he had two years with a Marine Marines through the battles of Seoul, Chosin Reservoir, Reserve battalion in Philadelphia. Next came two years and the Spring Offensive, coming home in April 1951. on Guam as aide to the governor and inspector-instruc- Soon promoted to brigadier general and subsequently to tor of the local militia. He came home in 1938 to serve major general, he had many responsible assignments at several levels as a war planner. including assistant command of the 3d Marine Division When World War II came, he was sent, as a major, to in Japan, Inspector General of the Marine Corps, com- England to serve with a combined planning staff. This mand of Camp Pendleton, and command of Parris Island. took him to North Africa for the amphibious assault of He returned to Korea in 1957 to serve as senior member Casablanca in November 1942. He came home to form of the United Nations component negotiating at and command the 3d Battalion, 24th Marines, in the new Panmunjom. At the end of the year he came back for 4th Marine Division, moving up to regimental executive what would be his last assignment, another tour of duty officer for the assault of Roi-Namur in the Marshalls. He as Inspector General. then went to the planning staff of the V Amphibious He retired in 1959, with an elevation to lieutenant Corps for Saipan and Tinian. general because of his combat awards that included a After the war he went to China for duty with the Navy Cross, a Distinguished Service Cross, and three Seventh Fleet and stayed on with Naval Forces Western Silver Stars. He died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on Pacific. He came home in 1948 and was given command 27 June 1963 at age 68 and was buried in Arlington of the 6th Marines in 1949. National Cemetery with full military honors. and 25 September. on 14 August, 10 days after activa- vation of the 7th Marines. Nucleus Much of the heavy equipment to tion. The Navy had very little of the 7th Marines would be the be loaded arrived at dockside from amphibious shipping on the West skeleton 6th Marines, which had the Barstow supply depot with no Coast, and much of the division already lost two battalions to the time for inspection. General and its gear had to be lifted by 1st Marines. The 3d Battalion, 6th Shepherd arrived on 13 August to commercial shipping. Marines, a half-strength peacetime observe and encourage, joined Among the pressing matters dis- battalion with pieces scattered next day by General Cates. Puller’s cussed by Smith with his superiors around the Mediterranean, became 1st Marines sailed from San Diego Cates and Shepherd was the reacti- the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, with

11 orders to proceed to Japan by way sive series of briefings in the White embarkation date given him by of the Suez Canal. Fillers for the House on 10 August, culminating Smith. The 7th Marines, filled up battalion and a completely new in an afternoon meeting with the with regulars pulled away from third rifle company would have to National Security Council. posts and stations and reservists, come from Camp Pendleton. President Truman was told that a sailed from San Diego on 1 What was left of the 6th Marines war-strength Marine division was September. arrived at Pendleton on 16 August. being assembled for service in The 7th Marines activated the next Korea. Admiral Sherman assured Marine Versus day. Colonel Homer L. “Litz the the President, however, that the Air Force Close Support Blitz” Litzenberg, Jr., a mercurial JCS would have to pass on man who had commanded the 6th MacArthur’s plans for an amphibi- General Stratemeyer, Mac- Marines at Camp Lejeune, contin- ous operation. Arthur’s Air Force component com- ued as commanding officer of the On 12 August, MacArthur issued mander, apparently first heard of 7th Marines with orders to embark CinCFE Operations Plan 100-B, the possibility of an Inchon landing his regiment not later than 3 specifically naming Inchon-Seoul on 20 July. His first action was to September. as the objective area. No copy of instruct his staff to prepare a small this plan was sent to the JCS. command group with which he Joint Chiefs Have a Problem could accompany MacArthur on O. P. Smith Departs Pendleton the operation. Almost a month Although the National Defense later, on 14 August, MacArthur dis- Act of 1947 was in effect, the rela- General Smith sent off the first cussed the proposed landing with tionship of the Joint Chiefs to the echelon of his division headquar- Stratemeyer, pointing out that theater commanders was not too ters by air on 16 August. Two days Kimpo Airfield, just west of the clear. As a theater commander later he closed his command post Han River from Seoul, was the best MacArthur had broad leeway in at Camp Pendleton and left by air in Korea. MacArthur emphasized his actions. The JCS faced the for Japan. Delayed by shipping that the airfield must be quickly Hobson’s choice of asking shortages, outloading of a third of rehabilitated from any battle dam- MacArthur no questions and mak- Smith’s division—essentially the age and put to use. ing no challenges, or exerting reinforced 1st Marines—was com- By then news stories were their capacity as the principal pleted on 22 August. In all, 19 appearing that compared Fifth Air advisors to President Truman in ships were employed. Force support of the Eighth Army his role. Following close behind, Litzen- unfavorably with the close air sup- The Joint Chiefs held an inten- berg beat by two days the port being provided the Marine

USS Mount McKinley (AGC7) was the command center hotel for the large number of VIPs who were in Gen Douglas afloat for the Inchon landing. It also served as a floating MacArthur’s official party or were simply passing through. National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-424523

12 brigade by its organic squadrons. On 23 August, Stratemeyer sent a memorandum to MacArthur stating that the news stories were another step “in a planned program to dis- credit the Air Force and the Army and at the same time to unwarrant- edly enhance the prestige of the Marines.” He pointed out that the Marine squadrons, operating from two aircraft carriers, were support- ing a brigade of about 3,000 Marines on a front that could be measured in yards as compared to the Fifth Air Force which had to supply for a front of 160 miles. General Walker, collocated at Taegu with General Partridge, pulled the rug out from under National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-422492 General Stratemeyer’s doctrinal Gen Douglas MacArthur, center, greets Gen J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff, U.S. concerns and contentions of Army, and Adm Forrest P. Sherman, Chief of Naval Operations, upon their unfairness, by commenting official- arrival in Tokyo on 21 August 1950. A critical conference would be held two days ly: “Without the slightest intent of later at which MacArthur would have to convince these two members of the Joint disparaging the support of the Air Chiefs of Staff that a landing at Inchon was feasible. Force, I must say that I, in common with the vast majority of officers of then returned to Tokyo for the cru- I learned that the division was to the Army, feel strongly that the cial conference at which Mac- land at Inchon on 15 September,” Marine system of close air support Arthur must overcome JCS reserva- Smith wrote later. has much to commend it . . . . I tions concerning the Inchon land- On arriving at GHQ comfortably feel strongly that the Army would ing. before the appointed time of 1730, be well advised to emulate the Major General Smith arrived at Smith found that he was to meet Marine Corps and have its own tac- Haneda airport in Japan on 22 first with Almond, who kept him tical aviation.” August and was met by his old waiting until 1900. Almond called friend, Admiral Doyle, the most soldiers and officers “son,” Top Brass Gathers in Tokyo prospective Attack Force but when 58-year-old Almond Commander. Smith later remem- addressed 57-year-old Smith as General Collins and Admiral bered that Doyle “was not very “son,” it infuriated Smith. Almond Sherman—the latter had not been happy about the whole affair.” further aggravated Smith by dis- to Korea before—made a quick They proceeded to Doyle’s com- missing the difficulties of an visit on 22 August to Walker’s mand ship, USS Mount McKinley amphibious operation as being Eighth Army headquarters at (AGC 7). Smith’s orders were to “purely mechanical.” Taegu. Collins found Walker “too report his division directly to Having had his say, Almond involved in plugging holes in his Commander in Chief, Far East, for ushered Smith into MacArthur’s leaky front to give much thought operational control. His appoint- office. MacArthur, in a cordial and to a later breakout.” On the morn- ment with General MacArthur was expansive mood, confidently told ing of 23 August, Collins accompa- set for 1730 that evening at the Dai Smith that the 1st Marine Division nied Walker on a visit to all U. S. Ichi building. Colonel Alpha L. would win the war by its landing division commanders and the Bowser, Jr., the division G-3, who at Inchon. The North Koreans had Marine brigade commander, had come out with the first eche- committed all their troops against Brigadier General Edward A. Craig. lon of Smith’s staff, gave him a hur- the Pusan Perimeter, and he did Collins found these field comman- ried briefing on the tentative plans not expect heavy opposition at ders confident but weary. Collins for the division. “For the first time Inchon. The operation would be

13 somewhat “helter-skelter,” but it high ground north of Suwon. ing with “the best that I can say is would be successful. It was Thereafter, X Corps—1st Marine that Inchon is not impossible.” MacArthur’s feeling that all hands and 7th Infantry Divisions— would Collins questioned the ability of would be home for Christmas, if form the anvil against which the the Eighth Army to link up quickly not to the United States, at least to Eighth Army, breaking out of the with X Corps. He suggested Japan. Pusan Perimeter, would deliver the Kunsan, to the south, as an alter- Smith reported to Doyle his con- hammer blows that would destroy nate landing site. Sherman, in gen- viction that MacArthur was firm in the North Korean Army. eral terms, supported Collins’ his decision to land at Inchon on After Wright’s briefing, Doyle, as reservations. General MacArthur 15 September. Doyle replied that the prospective Attack Force com- sat silently, puffing his pipe, for he thought there was still a chance mander, gave a thorough analysis several moments. He then spoke to substitute Posung-Myun, a few of the naval aspects of the landing. and all agree that his exposition miles to the south of Inchon, as a Of greatest concern to Doyle were was brilliant. He dazzled and pos- more likely landing site. Doyle was the tides. A point of contention sibly confused his audience with having his underwater demolition was the length of the naval gunfire an analogy from the French and teams reconnoiter those beaches. preparation. Doyle argued for Indian War, Wolfe’s victory at Next day, 23 August, Smith met three to four days of pre-landing Quebec: “Like Montcalm, the North again with Almond, this time bombardment by air and naval Koreans will regard the Inchon accompanied by General Barr, gunfire, particularly to take out the landing as impossible. Like Wolfe I commander of the 7th Infantry shore batteries. MacArthur’s staff [can] take them by surprise.” Division. When Smith raised the disputed this on the basis of the As he himself remembered his possibility of Posung-Myun as a loss of tactical surprise. Admiral summation years later in his mem- landing site, Almond brushed him Sherman was asked his opinion oirs: off, saying that any landing at and replied, “I wouldn’t hesitate to The Navy’s objections as to Posung-Myun would be no more take a ship up there.” tides, hydrography, terrain, than a subsidiary landing. “Spoken like a Farragut,” said and physical handicaps are MacArthur. indeed substantial and perti- Critical 23 August With his concerns brushed nent. But they are not insu- Conference Convenes aside, Doyle concluded his brief- perable. My confidence in the

Smith was not invited to the 23 MajGen David G. Barr, left, Commanding General of the U. S. Army’s 7th Infantry Division meets with MajGen Edward M. Almond, Commanding August conference. Nor was General, X Corps, to discuss the Inchon landing. The 7th Division would land Shepherd. The all-important sum- behind the Marines, advance on their right flank, and seize the commanding mit conference began with brief ground south of Seoul. National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC349013 opening remarks by MacArthur. General Wright then outlined the basic plan which called for an assault landing by the 1st Marine Division directly into the port of Inchon. After the capture of Inchon, the division was to advance and seize, as rapidly as possible, Kimpo Airfield, the town of Yongdung-po, and the south bank of the Han River. The divi- sion was then to cross the river, capture Seoul, and seize the domi- nant ground to the north. Meanwhile, the 7th Infantry Division was to land behind the Marines, advance on the right flank, secure the south bank of the Han southeast of Seoul and the

14 Navy is complete, and in fact inaccurate and should I run Inchon and what was his capabili- I seem to have more confi- into a defense with which I ty to concentrate there? dence in the Navy than the cannot cope, I will be there Admiral Sherman was momen- Navy has in itself . . . . As to personally and will immedi- tarily carried away by MacArthur’s the proposal for a landing at ately withdraw our forces oratory, but once removed from Kunsan, it would indeed before they are committed to MacArthur’s personal magnetism eliminate many of the hazards a bloody setback. The only he too had second thoughts. Next of Inchon, but it would be loss then will be my profes- morning, 24 August, he gathered largely ineffective and indeci- sional reputation. But Inchon together in Admiral Joy’s office the sive. It would be an attempt- will not fail. Inchon will suc- principal Navy and Marine Corps ed envelopment which would ceed. And it will save 100,000 commanders. Present, in addition not envelop. It would not lives. to Sherman and Joy, were Admirals sever or destroy the enemy’s Radford and Doyle and Generals supply lines or distribution Others at the conference Shepherd and Smith. Despite gen- center, and would therefore recalled MacArthur’s closing words eral indignation over MacArthur’s serve little purpose. It would at the conference as being: “We failure to give due weight to naval be a “short envelopment,” shall land at Inchon, and I shall considerations, it was now abun- and nothing in war is more crush them.” This said, MacArthur dantly clear that the landing would futile. But seizure of Inchon knocked the ashes of his pipe out have to made at or near Inchon. and Seoul will cut the into a glass ashtray, making it ring, But perhaps there was still room enemy’s supply line and seal and stalked majestically out of the for argument for another landing off the entire southern penin- room. site with fewer hydrographic prob- sula . . . . This in turn will par- General Collins still harbored lems. Shepherd announced that he alyze the fighting power of reservations. He thought a main was going to see MacArthur once the troops that now face point had been missed: what was again before returning to Pearl Walker . . . . If my estimate is the strength of the enemy at Harbor and that he would make a

15 final plea for a landing south of in many ways did a good job under Collins and Sherman reported to Inchon in the vicinity of Posung- difficult conditions.” O. P. Smith Bradley and the other chiefs what Myun. would not come to share they had learned about the Inchon Shepherd’s good opinion of plan, repeating their own misgiv- Disappointment for Almond. ings. On 26 August, Bradley briefed General Shepherd President Truman and Secretary Plans Progress Johnson. The President was more Shepherd, accompanied by optimistic than the chiefs. Krulak, arrived at GHQ for his The day following the 23 August scheduled visit with MacArthur but conference, General Stratemeyer ‘Conditional’ Approval was short-stopped by Almond who directed his staff to develop a FEAF dismissed the Posung-Myun site, plan to support the landing. The On 28 August, the Joint Chiefs saying that Inchon had been decid- plan was to be separate from the sent MacArthur a “conditional” ed upon and that was where the CinCFE plan and was to provide approval, concurring in an landing would be. The discussion mission direction for all combat air- amphibious turning movement, became heated. Fortunately, craft not essential to the close sup- either at Inchon or across a favor- MacArthur entered the room and port of the Eighth Army. able beach to the south. Chief waved Shepherd and Krulak into MacArthur, on 26 August, for- “conditions” were that MacArthur his office. mally announced Almond’s assign- was to provide amplifying details ment as commanding general of X and keep them abreast of any mod- Shepherd had some expectation Corps. MacArthur had told him that ification of his plans. The Joint of being named the landing force he would continue, at the same Chiefs specifically suggested prepa- commander. Admiral Sherman had time, to be the chief of staff of Far ration of an alternate plan for a recommended, without any great East Command. MacArthur’s pre- landing at Kunsan. amount of enthusiasm, that diction was that Almond would X Corps dated its Operation Shepherd command X Corps for soon be able to return to Tokyo. Order No. 1, written largely by the the operation because of his great The landing at Inchon and subse- facile pen of Colonel Forney, as 28 amphibious experience and the quent capture of Seoul would end August; distribution was a day or expertise of his Fleet Marine Force, the war. so later. The 1st Marine Division Pacific staff. General Wright on General Bradley’s assessment of “was charged with the responsibili- MacArthur’s staff also recommend- Almond was less than enthusiastic: ty as the Landing Force to assault ed it, but a rumor was prevalent INCHON, conduct beachhead that Almond would get X Corps. Ned Almond had never operations, seize and protect MacArthur confirmed this intention, commanded a corps—or KIMPO airfield, then advance to saying he would liked to have had troops in an amphibious the HAN River line west of SEOUL. Shepherd as commander, but that assault. However, he and his This achieved, the Division was he had promised it to Almond. He staff, mostly recruited from further directed to seize SEOUL, asked if Shepherd would go along MacArthur’s headquarters, and the commanding ground north as his amphibious advisor. were ably backstopped by the of SEOUL, on order.” Shepherd hedged slightly. He said expertise of the Navy and O. P. Smith’s division staff, then he would gladly go along as an Marines, notably that of Oliver on the Mount McKinley, was at half observer. P. Smith, who commanded strength. Part of the remainder was Shepherd showed no rancor, the 1st Marine Division, which enroute from the United States; then or later, at not getting com- would spearhead the assault. part was with Craig’s 1st Marine mand. He and Almond were both Brigade in the south of Korea. The Virginians and both had gone to MacArthur had not asked Collins brigade, although an organic part Virginia Military Institute—Almond, and Sherman to approve his plan of the division, was still under the class of 1915 and Shepherd, class nor would they have had the operational control of General of 1917. Their personal relations authority to do so. The best they Walker. Smith’s staff, directed by were good but not close. Shepherd had to take back with them to Colonel Gregon A. Williams as later characterized Almond as “an Washington was a fairly clear con- chief of staff, worked well with excellent corps commander. He cept of MacArthur’s intended oper- Doyle’s PhibGruOne staff. Above was energetic, forceful, brave, and ations. this harmonious relationship, the

16 exact status of the more senior detailed plan for the Inchon der, conferred with Joy, Struble, commands was indistinct and Landing was drawn up, and and Almond at CinCFE headquar- vaguely defined. From amidst a two days later an advance ters on 30 August. All that he could welter of paper, misunderstanding, planning draft of 1stMarDiv get was a general agreement on ragged tempers, and sleep depriva- OpO 2-50 (Inchon Landing) the adequacy of a CinCFE 8 July tion, Division Order 2-50, expand- was issued. directive, “Coordination of Air ing on the corps order, emerged on Effort of Far East Air Forces and 4 September. Time available for planning was United States Naval Forces, Far Smith wrote later in the Marine so short that the assault regiments, East.” Building on that, Stratemeyer Corps Gazette: contrary to amphibious doctrine, sent a message to MacArthur, the would get rigid landing plans gist of it being: “It is recognized By dedicated work on the drawn up completely by division. that ComNavFE must have control part of the Division staff, with The always dapper General of air operations within the objec- the wholehearted support of Stratemeyer, seeking to solidify his tive area during the amphibious Adm Doyle’s PhibGruOne contention that he was General phase. Air operations outside of staff, within three days a MacArthur’s tactical air comman- the objective area are part of the

Junior officers and enlisted Marines did not get a briefing by then, because of leakage to the press, it was an open on their unit’s role in the landing until embarked in secret that the Marines were going to land at Inchon. amphibious shipping enroute to the objective area. However, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2681

17 overall air campaign, and during prospect for at least four months. Reconnaissance reports indicated the amphibious phase contribute In light of this situation, a fresh 106 hard targets, such as gun to the success of the amphibious evaluation of Inchon was request- emplacements, along the Inchon operation.” ed. beaches. MacArthur’s headquarters issued Some of the best beach intelli- Operation Order No. 1 on 30 MacArthur Protests gence was obtained by Navy off- August, but neither a copy of this shore reconnaissance. Best known order nor any other amplifying An indignant MacArthur fired are the exploits of Lieutenant detail had reached Washington by back an answer, the concluding Eugene F. Clark, ex-enlisted man 5 September. On that date the paragraph of which said: “The and an experienced amphibious chiefs sent a further request for embarkation of the troops and the sailor. He and two South Koreans details to MacArthur. Choosing to preliminary air and naval prepara- left Sasebo on 31 August on board consider the 28 August JCS mes- tions are proceeding according to the British HMS Charity, sage to be sufficient approval, schedule. I repeat that I and all my transferred the next morning to a MacArthur dismissed the request commanders and staff officers are South Korean frigate, and landed with a brief message, stating “the enthusiastic for and confident of that evening on Yong-hong-do, 14 general outline of the plan remains the success of the enveloping miles off Inchon and one of the as described to you.” movement.” hundreds of islands that dotted Later he would write that his The last sentence was manifest- Korea’s west coast. The islanders plan “was opposed by powerful ly not true. Lack of enthusiasm was were friendly. Clark organized the military in Washington.” He knew readily apparent at all levels of island’s teenagers into coastwatch- that Omar Bradley, the JCS chair- command. ing parties and commandeered the man, had recently testified to Next day, 8 September, the JCS island’s only motorized sampan. Congress that large-scale amphibi- sent MacArthur a short, contrite For two weeks he fought a noctur- ous operations were obsolete. He message: “We approve your plan nal war, capturing more sampans, disliked Bradley personally and and the President has been sending agents into Inchon, and derisively referred to him as a informed.” The phrase “the testing the mud flats for himself. “farmer.” President has been informed” His greatest accomplishment was Both Bradley and Truman came annoyed MacArthur. To him it discovering that one of the main from Missouri working-class fami- implied something less than presi- navigation lights for Flying Fish lies and were proud of it. A routine dential approval and he interpret- Channel was still operable. GHQ at had been established under which ed it as a threat on President Tokyo instructed him to turn on the Joint Chiefs kept Truman Truman’s part to overrule the Joint the light at midnight on 14 informed, usually by a personal Chiefs. General Collins, for one, September. This he would do. briefing by Bradley, of the current had no recollection of Truman ever Anticipated hydrographic condi- situation in Korea. expressing any doubt about the tions were much more frightening On 7 September, MacArthur success of the Inchon landing or than the quality of expected received a JCS message which he any inclination to override the enemy resistance. Doyle’s Attack said chilled him to the marrow of actions of the JCS with respect to Force would have to thread its way his bones. The message asked for the operation. from the Yellow Sea through the an “estimate as to the feasibility tortuous Flying Fish Channel. As and chance of success of projected Beach Reconnaissance had already been determined, the operation if initiated on planned 15th of September was the best schedule.” According to the intelligence day of the month because of the The offending message remind- available to General Smith, the height and spacing of the tides. ed MacArthur that all reserves in enemy had about 2,500 troops in The morning high tide—an incred- the Far East had been committed the Inchon-Kimpo region, includ- ible 31.5 feet—would be at 0659 to the Eighth Army and all avail- ing at least two battalions of the and the evening high tide at 1919. able general reserves in the United 226th Independent Marine In between these times, as the tide States—except for the 82d Regiment and two companies of fell, the currents would rip out of Airborne Division—had been com- the 918th Artillery Regiment. The the channel at seven or eight mitted to the Far East Command. North Koreans had apparently pre- knots, exposing mud flats across No further reinforcement was in pared strong defensive positions. which even amphibian tractors

18 Terrain Handbook No. 65: Seoul and Vicinity (GHQ, Far East Command, 16 August 1950) This pre-landing aerial photograph shows clearly the convo- do, the island at the lower left of the photo, the key to the luted nature of the Inchon “beachhead.” MajGen Oliver P. whole situation. Seizure of Wolmi-do would precede the Smith, commanding the landing force, considered Wolmi- main landings on Inchon itself. could not be expected to crawl. Smith’s plan, as it emerged, was ed that the new 1st Korean Marine to take Wolmi-do on the morning Corps Regiment be added to the Wolmi-do: Key to Operation tide by landing the 3d Battalion, troop list. The assignment of the 5th Marines, across Green Beach. Republic of Korea (ROK) Marines Wolmi-do (“Moon Tip Island”), Then would come a long wait of to the division was approved by the long narrow island that formed 12 hours until the evening tide GHQ on 3 September. The Eighth the northern arm of Inchon’s inner came in and the remainder of the Army was instructed to provide harbor, was thought to have about division could continue the land- them weapons. 500 defenders. Wolmi-do harbor ing. The rest of the 5th Marines Almond asked Smith to take part was connected to the Inchon dock would cross Red Beach to the in a war-gaming of the operation. area by a 600-yard-long causeway. north of Wolmi-do, while Puller’s Smith saw it as nothing more than “Wolmi-do,” wrote Smith, was “the 1st Marines landed over Blue a “CPX” or command post exercise key to the whole operation.” Beach in the inner harbor to the and a waste of precious time. He Brigade staff officers, headed by south. Designation of the landing sent a major in his place. their chief of staff, Colonel Edward sites as “beaches” was misleading; Almond inspected units of Barr’s W. Snedeker, were called to Japan the harbor was edged with cut- 7th Division at their camps—Fuji, from Pusan. They recommended granite sea walls that would have McNair, McGill, Drake, and that the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, to be scaled or penetrated. Whittington—between 31 August be used for the assault of Wolmi-do. Colonel Snedeker recommend- through 3 September. His aide,

19 74 miles an hour, struck Kobe on 3 September. Two feet of water cov- ered the docks. One ship, with all the division’s signal gear, settled to the bottom at her pier. All unload- ing and loading stopped for 24 hours. Property sergeants, called in from the outlying battalions, worked frantically to sort out their units’ gear. Adding to General Smith’s wor- ries, the availability of the 5th Marines was now challenged. General Walker, deeply involved in the bitter defense of the Naktong Bulge, strongly opposed the release of this now-seasoned regiment from his Eighth Army. To meet Walker’s objections, and influenced by his own favorable impression of the 7th Division, Almond sent Colonel Forney, now the Marine Deputy Chief of Staff, X Corps, to ask O. P. Smith whether the 7th Marines would arrive in time to be substituted for the 5th Marines, or alternatively, if not, would the 32d Infantry be acceptable? A conference on the proposed substitution was held on the evening of 3 September. Present, among others, were Generals Almond and Smith and Admirals Joy, Struble, and Doyle. Strangely, General Barr, the 7th Division’s commander, was not there. The discussion became heated. Smith argued that the proposal went beyond a considered risk. If the substitution were made, he First Lieutenant Haig, accompanied headquarters. “The front line is the declared, he would change his him and took extensive notes. perimeter of the place where you scheme of maneuver. He would With few exceptions, Almond happen to be,” said Almond. call off the landing of the 1st gained a “good” to “excellent” Meanwhile, the main body of the Marines over Blue Beach and give impression of the units he visited. 1st Marine Division arrived at Kobe, them the 5th Marines’ mission of On the morning of 2 September Japan—except for the 5th Marines, landing on Red Beach with the 32d Almond met with the officers of his which was still at Pusan, and the Infantry following behind. Corps staff who were involved in 7th Marines, which was still at sea. Admiral Struble (Shepherd his war game. He pointed out the thought him “slippery”) resolved necessity for frequent visits to sub- Typhoon Jane the contretemps by suggesting that ordinate units by commanding offi- Disrupts Embarkation a regiment of Barr’s 7th Division cers and the need for strong, well- be immediately embarked to stand organized, defenses for Corps Typhoon Jane, with winds up to off Pusan as a floating reserve,

20 allowing the release of the 1st set sail from Tokyo for Kobe on 4 Battalions of the 1st Marines. Provisional Marine Brigade. In September, arriving there early the Afterwards he went to Camp Sakai General Smith’s mind, Almond’s next afternoon. That evening Smith near Osaka to see the 11th proposal exemplified the wide gulf called a conference of all available Marines, the division’s artillery reg- separating Army and Marine Corps Marine Corps commanders to iment commanded by Colonel thinking. As Colonel Bowser, stress the urgency of the operation. James H. Brower, and was favor- General Smith’s operations officer, ably impressed.” He commented in remembered it, Doyle and Smith Almond Inspects Marines his diary: “A large percentage of “came back about 11 o’clock hav- the troops were drawn from active ing won their point, that the A day later, 6 September, Marine reserve units . . . . The [Marine] brigade must come out of General Almond came to Kobe to Army should have done likewise the Pusan perimeter and be part of inspect 1st Marine Division units. but did not.” our landing force.” He lunched with the staff noncom- In the evening Smith and his The Mount McKinley, flagship of missioned officers at Camp Otsu staff briefed him on the division’s the Attack Force—with Smith on accompanied by General Smith operation plan. Again Almond was board so as to be in a better posi- and Lieutenant Colonel Allan favorably impressed, but he tion to supervise the out-loading— Sutter, then visited the 2d and 3d thought Smith’s planned subse- quent moves ashore too slow and President Harry S. Truman and Marine Commandant Gen Clifton B. Cates deliberate. He stressed to Smith the exchange warm greetings at a Marine Corps field demonstration at Quantico in need for speed in capturing Kimpo June 1950,10 days before the outbreak of the Korean War. This friendly rela- Airfield and Seoul itself. Smith was tionship dissolved when Truman, in an ill-advised note, called the Marine Corps “the Navy’s police force.” less impressed with Almond, say- Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A407260 ing: “The inspection consisted [of Almond] primarily questioning men, I suppose for the purpose of finding out what made Marines tick.” In the 1st Marine Division, oper- ational planning trickled down to the battalion level. The 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas L. Ridge, had steamed comfortably to Japan in the General Simon B. Buckner (AP 123) and was ensconced in what had been the barracks for a battalion of the 24th Infantry Division at Otsu on the south shore of Lake Biwa. There was no room for field training and the best the battalion could do was road-bound conditioning marches. The commanding officer and the three majors in the battalion were summoned to a meeting on board the regimental command ship berthed in Kobe. There had been a plethora of rumors, but now for the first time they learned officially that they were to land at Inchon. The regimental S-2, Captain Stone W. Quillian, went over the beach defenses, tapping a large map

21 studded with suspected weapons President labeled the United September. The brigade had done emplacements. The S-3, Major Nations intervention in Korea a most of its fighting with a peace- Robert E. Lorigan, then briefed the “police action.” The enraged time structure, that is, at about scheme of maneuver. The 3d Marines chalked on the tarpaulins two-thirds its authorized wartime Battalion would be the right flank covering their trucks and tanks, strength: two rifle companies to a unit of the main landing. These “Horrible Harry’s Police Force” and battalion instead of three, four were the D-Day objectives. Tap, similar epithets. guns to an artillery battery instead tap. This piece of high ground was What had happened was that on of six. The 5th Marines did not get the battalion’s objective. Tap, tap. 21 August, Congressman Gordon a third company for its three This hook of land on the extreme L. McDonough of California had infantry battalions until just before right flank had to be taken. Tap, written President Truman a well- mounting out for Inchon. tap. The landing would be at 1730; intentioned letter urging that the The Korean 1st Marine it would be dark at 1900. There Marines be given a voice on the Regiment, some 3,000 men, com- were no enthusiastic cheers from Joint Chiefs of Staff. The President manded by Lieutenant Colonel the listeners. fired back a feisty note: “For your Kim Sung Eun, arrived in Pusan on Then the regimental comman- information the Marine Corps is 5 September to join the 1st Marine der, Chesty Puller, got to his feet. the Navy’s police force and as long Division. They were in khaki uni- “You people are lucky,” he as I am President that is what it forms including cloth caps, and growled. “We used to have to wait will remain. They have a propa- equipped with Japanese rifles and every 10 or 15 years for a war. You ganda machine that is almost equal machine guns. The South Korean get one every five years. You peo- to Stalin’s . . . . The Chief of Naval Marines were issued American uni- ple have been living by the sword. Operations is the Chief of Staff of forms—including helmets—and By God, you better be prepared to the Navy of which the Marines are each was given one day on the die by the sword.” a part.” rifle range to fire his new American The troop list for the landing He had dictated the letter to his weapons. force totalled 29,731 persons, to be secretary, Rose Conway, and sent Built around a cadre drawn from loaded out in six embarkation it without any member of his staff the ROK Navy, the Korean Marine groups. Four groups would load seeing it. Corps (“KMCs” to the U.S. Marines) out of Kobe, one group out of McDonough inserted the letter had been activated 15 April 1949. Pusan, and one group—made up into the Congressional Record Company-size units had first of the Army’s 2d Engineer Special where it appeared on 1 September. deployed to southern Korea, and Brigade—out of Yokohama. Not all The story reached the newspapers then to Cheju Island, to rout out units could be combat loaded; four days later and a great public Communist-bent guerrillas. After some compromises had to be outcry went up. By five o’clock the the North Korean invasion, the accepted. next afternoon Truman’s advisors KMCs, growing to regimental size, One Marine Corps unit that was had prevailed upon him to send an had made small-scale hit-and-run not ready to go was the 1st apology to General Cates: “I sin- raids along the west coast against Armored Amphibian Tractor cerely regret the unfortunate the flank of the invaders. Battalion, activated but not yet choice of language which I used.” Craig assigned Lieutenant combat ready. The Army’s Truman, in further fence-mending, Colonel Charles W. Harrison, until Company A, 56th Amphibian in company with Cates, made a recently the executive officer of Tractor Battalion, was substituted. surprise visit two mornings later at the 6th Marines at Camp Lejeune, a convention as liaison officer to the KMCs. His President Writes Letter coincidentally being held in party, given a radio jeep, was Washington’s Statler Hotel and made up of three corporal As the Marines combat loaded charmed his audience. radiomen, and a corporal driver. their amphibious ships at Kobe, Harrison was well-chosen. His par- the Pacific edition of Stars and Pulling Together ents had been missionaries in Stripes reached them with a story the Landing Force Korea. He himself had graduated that President Truman had called from the foreign high school in them “the Navy’s police force.” General Craig’s 1st Provisional Pyongyang in 1928 and he had a This compounded a previously Marine Brigade was relieved of its working knowledge of Korean. perceived insult when the combat commitment at midnight, 5 While the 5th Marines were

22 loading out, a paper, marked briefed him on the 7th Infantry under 18 before sailing, reducing “Confidential” and giving specifics Division’s plan of operations. the landing force by about 500 on a landing beach at Kaesong, Almond thought the plan ade- men. Those who were close to was widely distributed and one or quate, but was concerned over being 18 were held in Japan on more copies were purposely “lost.” possible problems of liaison and other duties and eventually found Perhaps the word got back to the coordination with the 1st Marine their way to the division as North Koreans. Division. Events would prove him replacements. The amphibious assault trans- right port Henrico (APA 45) known to Second Typhoon the fleet as “Happy Hank,” had Almond’s Good Ideas brought the 1st Battalion, 5th Weathermen said that a second Marines, to Pusan. Now the ship A restive General Almond typhoon, “Kezia,” was following received the same battalion, its formed, for work, a close behind “Jane.” Rear Admiral numbers, thinned by the fighting Special Operations Company, X Arleigh A. Burke, USN, had arrived in the Pusan Perimeter, now Corps, sometimes called a “Raider in Tokyo from Washington to be brought up to war strength. The Group,” under command of Admiral Joy’s deputy chief of staff. Navy crew did their best to pro- Colonel Louis B. Ely, Jr., USA. With Burke attempted to make an office vide a little extra for their Marine Almond’s encouragement, Ely pro- call on MacArthur to express his passengers. The wardroom was posed a raid to seize Kimpo concerns regarding the coming made available to the officers 24 Airfield. Almond asked Smith for typhoon and was blocked by hours a day. 100 Marine volunteers to join the Almond. Burke refused to discuss Marguerite “Maggie” Higgins, a Special Operations Company; the matter with Almond and went movie-star-pretty blonde reporting Smith, skeptical of the mission and back to his office. By the time he on the war for the New York unimpressed by Ely, stalled in pro- got there, a message was waiting Herald-Tribune occupied one of viding Marines and the request that MacArthur would see him. the few staterooms. She had been was cancelled. As it turned out, Ely Burke hurried back to GHQ and a war correspondent in Europe and his company would make an explained to MacArthur that if the during the last years of World War approach to the beach, but the dis- typhoon came up and blew west II and had been in Korea since the tance from ship to shore proved there could be no landing on the beginning of the new war. Ribald too great for rubber boats. 15th or 16th. rumors as to her imagined noctur- Brigadier General Henry I. “What do we do, Admiral?” nal associations inevitably circulat- Hodes, USA, the assistant division asked MacArthur. ed throughout the ship. commander of the 7th Infantry “We sail early,” said Burke. Major General Field Harris, Division, visited Smith on the MacArthur agreed. Commanding General, 1st Marine Mount McKinley on 9 September. Navy meteorologists had first Aircraft Wing—O. P. Smith’s avia- Almond, still concerned by Smith’s picked up signs of Kezia off the tor counterpart—arrived in Tokyo deliberate manner, had come up Mariana Islands on 6 September. on 3 September. His forward eche- with yet another idea for the swift Whipping up winds of 100 miles lon of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, seizure of Kimpo. Almond’s new per hour, the typhoon moved was informed of the Inchon-Seoul plan called for landing a battalion steadily toward Japan and the East operation three days later. of the 32d Infantry on Wolmi-do China Sea. Most endangered were Planning for the employment of the evening of D-Day. It would the amphibious ships of Admiral Marine air was completed on 9 “barrel” down the road to Seoul in Doyle’s Attack Force. The route for September. Marine Aircraft Group trucks and tanks provided by the all six transport groups to Inchon 33, relieved of its close support Marines. Smith, horrified by a plan placed them squarely in the path role in the Pusan Perimeter, would he considered tactically impossi- of the on-coming oriental hurri- be the operating element. Harris ble, told Hodes that he had no cane. and his forward echelon embarked tanks to lend him. Both Doyle and O.P. Smith, the at Kobe on 10 September as The Secretary of the Navy, alert- two who would bear the burden Tactical Air Command, X Corps. ed by parents’ complaints that of directing the actual landing, Meanwhile, Almond continued underage sons were being sent to were painfully aware that all the his restless visits and inspections. Korea, on 8 September sent a last- normal steps of preparing for an On 9 September, General Barr minute order to remove Marines amphibious operation were either

23 Photo courtesy of LtCol Leo J. Ihli, USMC (Ret) Marines prime an F4U-4B of VMF-323 for take-off from the Sicily (CVE 118), played a companion role in close support deck of the light aircraft carrier Badoeng Strait (CVE 116) of the assault. The bent-wing Corsairs would prove once standing off Korea. VMF-214, embarked in sister carrier again to be ideal close support aircraft. being compressed or ignored com- even time for landing exercises by (CV 45), Philippine Sea (CV 47), pletely in order to squeeze the the LVTs. Some of the LVT crews and Boxer (CV 21) continued for operation into an impossibly short had not even had the opportunity the next two days. time frame. During World War II, at to try their engines out in the water Joint Task Force 7 (JTF 7) was least three months would have and paddle around.” officially activated under Admiral been spent in planning and train- Struble the following day, 11 ing for an operation of this magni- Execution September. Almond and X Corps tude. Beginning with Guadalcanal, would be subordinate to Struble a rehearsal—or rehearsals—was Marine aircraft squadrons VMF- and JTF 7 until Almond assumed considered essential. For Inchon 214 and VMF-323 began the soft- command ashore and JTF 7 was there would be no rehearsal. ening-up of Wolmi-do on 10 dissolved. Doyle wryly concluded that a good September with the delivery of Preliminary and diversionary air deal would depend upon how napalm. Operating from the decks and naval gunfire strikes were skillfully the individual coxswains of the light carriers Sicily (CVE roughly divided into 30 percent could perform in finding their way 118) and Badoeng Strait (CVE 116) delivered north of Inchon, 30 per- to the beaches. (“Bing-Ding” to the Marines and cent south, and 40 percent against Captain Martin J. “Stormy” sailors), the Marine fliers burned Inchon itself. Except for a few gun- Sexton, a World War II Raider and out most of the buildings on the nery ships held back to protect the now aide-de-camp to General island. Strikes by Navy aircraft flanks of the Pusan Perimeter, JTF Smith, said later: “There was not from the big carriers Valley Forge 7—in its other guise, the Seventh

24 Fleet—included all the combatant to Itazuke air base. From there the group was Lieutenant General ships in the Far East. Among them they would go by automobile to George Stratemeyer, USAF, who were three fast carriers, two escort Sasebo. had had some expectation of carriers, and a British light carrier. accompanying MacArthur as his air In the final count, the force num- MacArthur Goes to Sea boss. In assignment of spaces, bered some 230 ships, including 34 MacArthur grandly ignored tradi- Japanese vessels, mostly ex-U.S. Because of the storm the Mount tional ship protocol and took over Navy LSTs (landing ships, tank) McKinley was late in reaching port. Doyle’s cabin. Doyle moved to his with Japanese crews. The French MacArthur’s party waited in the sea cabin off the flag bridge. contributed one tropical frigate, La Bachelor Officers Quarters, pass- Almond appropriated the ship’s Grandiere, which arrived at ing the time having sandwiches. It captain’s cabin. O. P. Smith man- Sasebo with a five-month supply was close to midnight before the aged to keep his stateroom. of wine and a pin-up picture of Mount McKinley rounded the southern tip of Kyushu and After breakfast on the morning Esther Williams, but no coding of the 13th, Admiral Doyle led the machine. docked at Sasebo. MacArthur and his party boarded the ship and she embarked flag officers in a tour of Mount McKinley, with Doyle, the Mount McKinley, hoping to Smith, and their staffs on board, was underway again within an hour. With General Shepherd came impress the Army generals that got underway from Kobe the amphibious operations required morning of 11 September—a day his G-3, Colonel Victor H. Krulak, and his aide and future son-in-law, specialization. MacArthur did not ahead of schedule because of the go along. approach of Typhoon Kezia—and Major James B. Ord, Jr. steamed for Sasebo. Winds of the MacArthur had five generals in The absence of General Strate- typhoon whipped up to 125 miles his party—Shepherd, Almond, and meyer from MacArthur’s party was per hour. Doyle was gambling that Wright, and two others: Major a clear signal that the Navy had Kezia would veer off to the north. General Courtney Whitney—his been successful in keeping the Air Almond held a last meeting at deputy chief of staff for civil affairs, Force from operating within the GHQ on 12 September to deal with but more importantly his press offi- amphibious objective area—a circle the urgency for an early sailing cer—and Major General Alonzo P. with a 100-mile radius drawn because of the threat of Kezia. Fox. Fox was chief of staff to around Inchon. There would be no General Shepherd, General Wright, MacArthur in his capacity as FEAF operations within this radius and Admiral Burke attended. That “SCAP” (Supreme Commander unless specifically requested by afternoon General MacArthur and Allied Powers) and Lieutenant Struble. MacArthur remained above his party left Haneda airport to fly Haig’s father-in law. Absent from these doctrinal squabbles.

25 Operation ‘Common Knowledge’ What appeared to be a string of place off Inchon. General Craig’s mines was sighted in the vicinity of embarked 1st Provisional Marine Neither General MacArthur nor Palmi-do. The opened Brigade, having arrived from Admiral Struble favored extensive fire with their 40mm guns and the Pusan, was formally dissolved on air and naval gunfire preparation mines began to explode. Leaving 13 September and its parts of the objective area, primarily the Henderson behind to continue returned to the control of the par- because it would cause a loss of shooting at the mines, the five ent division. Craig became the tactical surprise. Their concern was other destroyers steamed closer to assistant division commander. largely academic. All sorts of leak- their objectives. Gurke anchored The Attack Force eased its way age circulated in Japan—and even 800 yards off Wolmi-do, which was up Flying Fish Channel so as to be reached the media in the United being pounded by carrier air. in the transport area before day- States—that an amphibious opera- The remaining four destroyers light on 15 September. General tion was being mounted out with a took station behind Gurke. Just MacArthur spent a restless night. probable target of Inchon. At the before 1300 they opened fire. Standing at the rail of the Mount Tokyo Press Club the impending Within minutes return fire came McKinley in the darkness, he landing was derisively called blazing back from hidden shore entertained certain morbid “Operation Common Knowledge.” batteries. Collett took five hits, thoughts, at least as he remem- The North Korean command knocking out her fire direction sys- bered them later in his almost certainly heard these tem; her guns switched to individ- Reminiscences: “Within five hours rumors and almost equally certain ual control. Gurke took two light 40,000 men would act boldly, in had tide tables for Inchon. Mao Tse hits. DeHaven was slightly dam- the hope that 100,000 others man- Tung is supposed to have pointed aged. Lyman K. Swenson felt a ning the thin defense lines in South at Inchon on a map of Korea and near miss that caused two casual- Korea would not die. I alone was have said, “The Americans will ties. After an hour’s bombardment responsible for tomorrow, and if I land here.” the destroyers withdrew. One man failed, the dreadful results would American intelligence knew that had been killed—ironically rest on judgment day against my the Russians had supplied mines, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) David soul.” but how many had been sown in Swenson, nephew of the admiral George Gilman, an ensign in the Flying Fish Channel? The lack of for whom the destroyer was Mount McKinley, had less lofty time and sufficient minesweepers named—and eight were wounded. thoughts: “None of us boat group made orderly mine-sweeping From their more distant anchor- officers had ever had any experi- operations impossible. age, the cruisers picked up the ence operating under such tidal bombardment with 6-inch and 8- conditions before, let alone ever ‘Sitting Ducks’ inch salvos. After that the carrier having been involved in an aircraft resumed their attack. amphibious landing . . . . As the The pre-landing naval gunfire Next day, 14 September, five of morning of September 15 bombardment began at 0700 on 13 the destroyers came back (the approached, we realized we had September with a column of cruis- damaged Collett was left behind) all the ingredients for a disaster on ers and destroyers coming up the and banged away again. At first the our hands.” channel. The weather was good, destroyers drew feeble return fire. the sea calm. Four cruisers—Toledo By the time they withdrew 75 min- Destination Wolmi-do (CA 133), Rochester (CA 124), HMS utes later, having delivered 1,700 Kenya, and HMS Jamaica—found 5-inch shells, there was no return L-hour was to be 0630. At 0545, their bombardment stations several fire at all. The Navy, with consid- the pre-landing shore bombard- miles south of Inchon and dropped erable satisfaction, reported ment began. Lieutenant Colonel anchor. Six destroyers—Mansfield Wolmi-do now ready for capture. Robert D. “Tap” Taplett’s 3d (DD 728), DeHaven (DD 727), Battalion, 5th Marines, was boated Lyman K. Swenson (DD 729), Attack Force Gathers by 0600. The carrier-based Marine Collett (DD 730), Gurke (DD 783), Corsairs completed their last sweep and Henderson (DD 785)—contin- Admiral Doyle had won his of the beach 15 minutes later. ued on past the cruisers and were gamble against the typhoon. The “G Company was to land to the about to earn for themselves the Yellow Sea was quiet and all ele- right of Green Beach in the assault, rueful title of “Sitting Ducks.” ments of the Attack Force were in wheel right, and seize the domi-

26 ships converted to rocket ships— sent their loads of thousands of 5- inch rockets screeching shoreward toward Wolmi-do. The island seemed to explode under the impact. Then the landing craft began the run to Green Beach. MacArthur, Shepherd, Almond, Smith, Whitney, and Doyle all watched from the flag bridge of the Mount McKinley. Seven LCVPs brought in the first wave, one platoon of Company G on the right and three platoons of Company H on the left. The land- ing craft converged on the narrow beach—scarcely 50 yards wide— and grounded at 0633, three min- utes behind schedule. The remain- der of the two assault companies came in as the second wave two minutes later. Resistance was limit- ed to a few scattered shots. Captain Patrick E. Wildman, commanding Company H, left a small detachment to clear North Point and then plunged across the island toward his objectives—the northern nose of Radio Hill and the shoreline of the burning indus- trial area facing Inchon. After a short pause to reorganize, Bohn took Company G towards the southern half of Radio Hill, 105 meters high. Resistance was half- hearted. At 0655, Sergeant Alvin E. Smith, guide of the 3d Platoon, secured an American flag to the trunk of a shattered tree. MacArthur, watching the action ashore from his swivel chair on the nant hill mass on the island, Radio already awake. They hoped for the bridge of the Mount McKinley, saw Hill,” remembered Robert D. traditional “steak and eggs” pre- the flag go up and said, “That’s it. “Dewey” Bohn (then a first lieu- landing breakfast of World War II; Let’s get a cup of coffee.” tenant; he would retire a major instead they got scrambled pow- Ten tanks—six M-26 Pershings general). His company was dered eggs, dry toast, and canned and four modified M-4A3 embarked in the fast destroyer apricots. At about first light, Shermans, all under Second transport Diachenko (APD 123). Company G went over the side Lieutenant Granville G. Sweet— She stopped her engines at about and down the cargo nets into the landed in the third wave at 0646 0300, the troop compartment lights bobbing LCVPs, which then from three utility landing ships came on, and reveille sounded cleared the ship and began to cir- (LSUs). They crunched their way over the public address system. cle. inland, poised to help the infantry. Most of the Marines were Three LSMRs—medium landing Lieutenant Colonel Taplett land-

27 Moving on to the near end of the causeway that stretched to Inchon itself, McMullen found more North Korean defenders hid- ing in a cave. One of Sweet’s tanks fired a 90mm round into the mouth of the cave. There was a muffled explosion and 30 dazed and deaf- ened North Koreans came stagger- ing out with their hands above their heads. “Captured forty-five prisoners . . . meeting light resis- tance,” radioed Taplett at 0745 to the Mount McKinley. Wildman’s Marines were finding it slow going in the ruins of the industrial area. Taplett ordered Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2686 Bohn to take the rest of Radio Hill Reveille in the amphibious ships went at 0300 on the morning of 15 September. and by 0800 the high ground was Marines hoped for the traditional “steak-and-eggs” D-day breakfast of World War Marine Corps property. II, but most transports fed simpler fare, such as powdered eggs and canned apri- cots. Breakfast on board the landing ships was even more spartan. ‘Wolmi-do Secured’ ed from his free boat a few min- nest of about a platoon of by- utes later. At almost the same time, passed North Koreans. A flurry of Once again Taplett radioed the Captain Robert A. McMullen hand grenades was exchanged. Mount McKinley, this time: brought in the fourth wave bearing McMullen signaled Sweet’s tanks to “Wolmi-do secured.” Company I, the battalion reserve. come forward. A Sherman with a With the success of the Marine His company, following behind dozer blade sealed the die-hard landing blaring over the loud- Company H, encountered an angry North Koreans in their holes. speakers, MacArthur left the bridge By 0655, the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, had landed on shell-blasted tree. An hour later the battalion commander Wolmi-do and had an American flag flying at the top of a reported resistance as light and 45 dazed prisoners taken. National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-GK-234I-A2694

28 taken and the job completed in less than two hours. Three Marines were wounded, bringing Taplett’s casualties for the day to none killed, 17 wounded. Word was passed that some of the North Koreans who had escaped were trying to swim for Inchon. A number of Bohn’s Marines lined up rifle-range fash- ion and shot at what they saw as heads bobbing in the water. Others dismissed the targets as imaginary. Mopping up of the island was completed by noon. Taplett, growing restless and seeing no sign of enemy activity, proposed to division that he make an assault on the city from his pre- sent position or at least a recon- Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2798 naissance in force. Smith respond- Some North Korean defenders of Wolmi-do stubbornly remained in their cave- ed to his proposal with a firm neg- like positions and had to be burned out by flamethrowers. U.S. Marines were ative. readily distinguishable at this stage of the war by their wear of camouflage hel- met covers and leggings. Waiting for Evening Tide to pen a message to Admiral placements. Flamethrowers and Struble in his flagship Rochester: 3.5-inch rocket launchers burned The remainder of the division “The Navy and Marines have never and blasted the dug-in enemy. was steaming toward the inner shone more brightly than this Seventeen were killed, 19 surren- transport area. There would now morning.” dered, and eight or more managed be a long wait until the evening Ashore, Taplett consolidated his to hide out. The lighthouse was tide swept in and the assault regi- gains. His three rifle companies, by prearranged plan, took up defen- M-26 Pershing tanks, new to the Marines, began to land in the third wave at Wolmi-do and were soon put to use against North Korean fortified positions. A sive positions facing Inchon. The tank-infantry patrol assaulted and took Sowolmi-do, an islet dangling at the end empty swimming pool at the tip of of a causeway from the main island. North Point became a stockade for Department of Defense Photo (USMC) prisoners. At about 10 o’clock Taplett ordered Bohn to take Sowolmi-do, an islet dangling to the south of Wolmi-do with a lighthouse at the end of the causeway. Bohn sent Second Lieutenant John D. Counselman, leader of his 3d Platoon, with a rifle squad and a section of tanks. As a prelude to the assault, a flight of Corsairs drenched Sowolmi-do with na- palm. Covered by the two tanks and a curtain of 81mm mortar fire, Counselman’s riflemen crossed the narrow causeway, taking fire from a hill honey-combed with em-

29 be found in the way of targets within a 25-mile radius of Inchon. (The D-Day action for the aircraft on board the carrier Boxer was labeled “Event 15” and consisted of a strike with 12 F4U Corsairs and five AD Skyraiders.) The smoke of the bombardment and from burn- ing buildings mixed with the rain so that a gray-green pall hung over the city. H-Hour for the main landing was 1730. Lieutenant Colonel Raymond L. Murray’s 5th Marines, minus the 3d Battalion already ashore on Wolmi-do, was to land over Red Beach, to the left and north of Wolmi-do. Murray’s regi- ment was to seize the O-A line, a blue arc on the overlay to the division’s attack order. On the Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2723 ground O-A line swung 3,000 Marines from the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, escorted a steady stream of prison- yards from Cemetery Hill on the ers back to Green Beach on the seaward side of Wolmi-do. Landing ships and north or left flank, through craft could beach as long as the tide was high, but once the tide receded they Observatory Hill in the center, and would be left high and dry on the mud flats. then through a maze of buildings, including the British Consulate, ments could be landed. Marines, standing at the rail of their trans- A corpsman bandages the forearm of a wounded North Korean prisoner on ports, strained their eyes looking Wolmi-do. He and other prisoners were moved to one of the several prison stock- ades that were set up on the landing beaches. for their intended beaches but Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2802 could see nothing but smoke. The bombardment, alternating between naval gunfire and air strikes, con- tinued. During the course of the after- noon, Admiral Struble had his admiral’s barge lowered into the water from the Rochester (“Roach- Catcher”). He swung by the Mount McKinley to pick up General MacArthur for a personal recon- naissance from close offshore of Wolmi-do and the harbor. Almond and Shepherd went with them. They swung close to the seawall fronting the harbor. “General,” said Shepherd, “You’re getting in mighty close to the beach. They’re shooting at us.” MacArthur ignored the caution. Naval gunfire and carrier air sought to hit everything that could

30 Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348839 Gen MacArthur indulged his passion for visiting the “front.” VAdm Arthur D. Struble’s barge. Struble sits to MacArthur’s During the interval between the morning and evening land- right. On his left is Army MajGen Courtney Whitney, often- ings he personally “reconnoitered” the Inchon beaches in called MacArthur’s “press secretary.” until it reached the inner tidal December 1941 and spent the war the British Consulate, and the inner basin. as a prisoner of the Japanese. tidal basin. The 1st and 2d Battalions, 5th Roise, commissioned from the “Two things scared me to Marines, under Lieutenant University of Idaho in 1939, had death,” said Roise of the landing Colonels George R. Newton and served at sea during the war. plan. “One, we were not landing Harold S. Roise respectively, In the assault, Newton’s 1st on a beach; we were landing would land abreast across Red Battalion and Roise’s 2d Battalion against a seawall. Each LCVP had Beach. The new 1st ROK Marine would come away from the attack two ladders, which would be used Regiment would follow them transports Henrico and Cavalier to climb up and over the wall. This ashore. (APA 37) in landing craft. Both bat- was risky . . . . Two, the landing Newton and Roise had the talions would land in column of was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. This Pusan Perimeter behind them, but companies across the seawall onto would give us only about two not much other infantry experi- narrow Red Beach. Newton, on the hours of daylight to clear the city ence. Newton, commissioned in left, was to take Cemetery Hill and and set up for the night.” 1938 from the Naval Academy, was the northern half of Observatory Captain Francis I. “Ike” Fenton, with the Embassy Guard at Peking Hill. Roise, on the right, was to Jr., commander of Company B in when World War II came on 7 take his half of Observatory Hill, Newton’s battalion, sharply

31 Lieutenant Colonel Raymond L. Murray eldom does a Marine Corps regiment go into Silver Stars for his staunch leadership. combat with a lesser grade than full colonel in At Inchon, Major General O. P. Smith gave Murray command. But when Brigadier General Edward and his now-seasoned regiment the more complicat- S ed northern half of the landing. After Inchon and Craig arrived at Camp Pendleton in July 1950 to form the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade for service in Seoul, Murray would continue in command through Korea he found no reason to supplant the command- the Chosin Reservoir campaign. That battle in sub- ing officer of the 5th Marines, Lieutenant Colonel zero weather brought him the Army’s Distinguished Raymond Murray. The tall, rangy Texan was an Service Cross as well as his second Navy Cross. exception to the general rule. He had already made Finally, in January 1951 he was promoted to colonel. his reputation as a fighter and of being a step ahead Coming home from Korea in April 1951, he attend- of his grade in his assignments. As a major at ed the National War College and then was hand- Guadalcanal he had commanded the 2d Battalion, 6th picked to command The Basic School, since World Marines, and for his conspicuous gallantry had War II at Quantico. Next he served at Camp earned his first Silver Star. Pendleton and Camp Lejeune. A promotion to After Guadalcanal, came Tarawa for the battalion brigadier general came in June 1959. Assignments in and a second Silver Star for Murray, now a lieutenant Okinawa, then Pendleton again, and Parris Island fol- colonel. Finally, at Saipan, although he was painfully lowed. Serving at Headquarters Marine Corps in 1967 wounded, Murray’s control of his battalion was such as a major general, he was ordered to Vietnam as that it brought him a Navy Cross. Deputy Commander, III Marine Amphibious Force. Novelist Leon Uris served in Murray’s battalion. His strong physique finally failed him. He was Later, when he wrote his book Battle Cry, he used invalided home in February 1968 to Bethesda Naval Murray as his model for “High Pockets” Huxley, his Hospital where he remained until his retirement on 1 hard-charging fictional battalion commander. August 1968. He now lives in Oceanside, California, Born in Alhambra, California, in 1913, Murray close to Camp Pendleton. grew up in Harlingen, Texas. When he accepted his Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A42922 commission in July 1935, after graduating from Texas A&M College, then the incubator of many Army and Marine officers, he had behind him four years of the Army’s Reserve Officers Training Corps and two years of the Texas National Guard. He had also starred at football and basketball. After attending Basic School, then in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, he was detailed to the 2d Marine Brigade in San Diego. The brigade went to troubled China a year later. Murray served for a short time in Shanghai, then moved to a prized slot in the Embassy Guard in Peking. He came back to San Diego in 1940 and returned to the 2d Marine Brigade which within months expanded into the 2d Marine Division. A 1st Provisional Marine Brigade was pulled out of the 2d Division in the summer of 1941 for service in Iceland. Murray, now a captain and soon to be a major, went with it. He was back in San Diego in April 1942 and in October sailed with the 6th Marines for the war in the Pacific. He came home in August 1944 and served at Quantico, Camp Lejeune, Hawaii, and Camp Pendleton. Promotions were slow after 1945 and Murray was still a lieutenant colonel when the Korean War began in 1950. As commander of the infantry element of the later-day 1st Provisional Marine Brigade in the “fire brigade” defense of the Pusan Perimeter, he received his third and fourth

32 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2865 Navy transports stand off Inchon and Wolmi-do before the rowed back from the Japanese, was a rusty travesty of the landing. Amphibious lift for Inchon, some of it literally bor- great amphibious armadas of World War II. remembered the characteristics of Beach. Puller’s mission was to Blue Beach Two, also 500 yards Red Beach: secure the O-1 line, a 4,000-yard wide, had its left flank marked by arc that went inland as deep as the supposed road and its right Once on the beach there 3,000 yards, and then hooked flank by a narrow ramp jutting sea- was an open area of about around to the left to cut off Inchon ward. A cove, further to the right, 200 yards. The left flank was from Seoul. named at the last minute “Blue marked by Cemetery Hill. Blue Beach One, 500 yards Beach Three,” offered an alternate From the sea it looked like a wide, had its left flank marked by or supplementary landing site. sheer cliff. To the right of a salt evaporator. What looked to Ridge, with the 3d Battalion, was Cemetery Hill was a brewery, be a road formed the boundary to to cross the seawall girdling Blue some work shops, and a cot- the south with Blue Beach Two. Beach Two and take Hill 233, a ton mill. Further to the right The 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, mile southeast of the beach, and, and about 600 yards in from was under affable, white-haired on the extreme right, a small cape, the beach was Observatory Lieutenant Colonel Allan Sutter. flanking Blue Beach and topped Hill, overlooking the entire After landing over Blue Beach by Hill 94. landing area and considered One, he was to take a critical road At best, the four assault battal- critical; it was the regimental junction about 1,000 yards north- ions coming across Red and Blue objective. Further to the right east of the beach, and Hill 117, Beaches would have but two was a five-story office build- nearly two miles inland, which hours of high tide and daylight to ing built of concrete and rein- commanded Inchon’s “back door” turn the plan into reality. Smith, forced steel. and the highway to Seoul, 22 miles after fully committing his two regi- away. ments, would have nothing left as Captain John R. Stevens’ Sutter, a graduate of Valley a division reserve except two half- Company A was to land on the Forge Military Academy and trained Korean Marine battalions. right flank. In the assault would be Dartmouth College, had gained his the 2d Platoon under Second Marine Corps commission in 1937 Assaulting Red Beach Lieutenant Francis W. Muetzel and through the Platoon Leaders the 1st Platoon under Gunnery Course, a program under which It would be a long ride to Red Sergeant Orval F. McMullen. In college students spent two sum- Beach for the 1st and 2d Battalions reserve was the 3d Platoon under mers at Quantico to qualify as sec- of the 5th Marines. Troops began First Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez, ond lieutenants. He then spent a debarking from the transports at who had joined the company as it year at the Basic School in about 1530. “As you climb down loaded out from Pusan. Philadelphia before being assigned that net into the LCVP you’re Three miles to the south of the troop duties. During World War II, scared,” remembered Private First 5th Marines, Chesty Puller’s 1st Sutter was a signal officer at Class Doug Koch of Company D, Marines was to land across Blue Guadalcanal, Guam, and Okinawa. 5th Marines. “What keeps you

33 four boats on the left carried the two assault platoons of Company A. Captain Steven’s mission was to take Cemetery Hill and to secure the left flank of the beachhead. The four boats on the right carried the assault elements of Captain Samuel Jaskilka’s Company E, which was to clear the right flank of the beach and then capture the hill that held the British Consulate. As the first wave passed the mid-way point, two squadrons of Marine Corps Corsairs—VMF-214 under Lieutenant Colonel Walter E. Lischied and VMF-323 under Major Arnold A. Lund—came in to strafe both Red and Blue Beaches. They exhausted their loads and flew away. Not satisfied, Captain Stevens called for further air strikes against Red Beach. Four Navy A- 4D Skyraiders made strafing passes until the wave had only 30 yards to go. On the right, First Lieutenant Edwin A. Deptula’s 1st Platoon, Company E, hit the seawall at 1731, one minute behind schedule. Designated Marines threw grenades up over the seawall, and after they exploded, Deptula took his platoon up the scaling ladders. A few stray rounds whined over- head. Deptula pushed inland about 100 yards to the railroad tracks against no resistance. The rest of Company E landed about 10 min- utes later. Captain Jaskilka (who would retire as a four-star general) quickly re-organized his company going is knowing this is what you pletely masked the beach area. near the Nippon Flour Company have to do.” The Horace A. Bass, an escort building just south of the beach- The Horace A. Bass (APD 124), destroyer converted into a high- head. Deptula’s platoon continued the Red Beach control vessel, speed transport and anxious to get down the railroad tracks to the slowly steamed ahead with a long into the fight, banged away with British Consulate. Jaskilka sent file of landing craft “trailing behind her 5-inch guns. She then dipped another platoon to cross the rail- like a brood of ducklings.” her signal flag and the first wave road tracks and then move up the The supporting rocket ships let headed for Red Beach. slope of 200-foot-high Observatory go with a final fusillade of some The eight LCVPs in the first Hill. 6,500 5-inch rockets. The resulting wave crossed the line of departure On the left flank it was not quite cloud of dust and smoke com- at H-8 with 2,200 yards to go. The that easy. One of the four landing

34 Gen Oliver P. Smith Collection, Marine Corps Research Center Aerial photo of Red Beach shows the pounding it took in the Battalions, 5th Marines, landed across this beach immedi- pre-landing naval gunfire and air attacks. The 1st and 2d ately north of the causeway leading to Wolmi-do. craft, with half the 1st Platoon, Cemetery Hill loomed ahead, but He took out the bunker with a Company A, on board, lagged Muetzel’s immediate objective was grenade and moved forward behind with engine trouble. The Asahi Brewery. He slipped south against a second bunker, pulling remaining three boats reached the of Cemetery Hill and marched the pin from another grenade. seawall at 1733. Sergeant Charles unopposed down a street to the Before he could throw it, he was D. Allen took his half of the 1st brewery. There was a brief indul- hit. The grenade dropped by his Platoon over the wall and received gence in green beer. side. He smothered the explosion fire from his north flank and from Sergeant Allen, with his half-pla- with his body. This gained him a a bunker directly to his front. toon, was making no progress posthumous . Two Several Marines went down. against the bunker to his front. The Marines went against the bunker To Allen’s right, Second second wave landed, bringing in with flamethrowers. They were Lieutenant Frank Muetzel found a the 3d Platoon under Baldomero shot down but the bunker was breach in the seawall and brought Lopez and the missing half of the taken. his 2d Platoon ashore. Facing them 1st Platoon. Too many Marines Captain Stevens’s boat landed was a pillbox. Two Marines threw were now crowded into too small him in Company E’s zone of grenades and six bloody North a space. action. Unable to get to his own Korean soldiers came out. Lopez charged forward alone. company, he radioed his executive

35 officer, First Lieutenant Fred F. flare, signaling that Cemetery Hill the Henrico in Wave 5 along with Eubanks, Jr., to take charge. was secure. It had cost his compa- John Davies of the Newark Daily Stevens then radioed Muetzel to ny eight Marines killed and 28 News, Lionel Crane of the London leave the brewery and get back to wounded. Daily Press, and a photographer. the beach where he could help Coming in on the third and As their landing craft hit the sea- out. fourth waves, Company C, 1st wall, the wave commander, First On the way back, Muetzel found Battalion, was to take the northern Lieutenant Richard J. “Spike” a route up the southern slope of half of Observatory Hill, and Schening, urged on his Marines Cemetery Hill and launched an Company D, 2d Battalion, was to with, “Come on you big, brave assault. The summit was alive with take the southern half. It did not Marines. Let’s get the hell out of North Koreans, but there was no work out quite that way. Parts of here.” fight left in them. Dazed and spir- Companies C and D were landed The photographer decided he itless from the pounding they had on the wrong beaches. Company had had enough and that he would taken from the air and sea, they C, once ashore, had to wait 12 go back to the Henrico. Maggie threw up their hands and surren- minutes for its commander, considered doing the same, but dered. Muetzel sent them down to Captain Poul F. Pedersen. In then, juggling her typewriter, she, the base of the hill under guard. Pedersen’s boat was the fifth wave along with Davies and Crane, fol- Eubanks’ Company E Marines commander who had decided to lowed Schening over the seawall. meanwhile had bested the tow a stalled LCVP. Once ashore, Eight LSTs crossed the line of obstructing bunker with grenades Pedersen had trouble sorting out departure, as scheduled, at 1830 and a flamethrower. His 1st and 2d his company from amongst the and were headed for the seawall. Platoons pushed through and jumble of Marines that had gath- Seeing the congestion on Red joined Muetzel’s 2d Platoon. At ered in the center of the beach. Beach, the skippers of the LSTs 1755, 25 minutes after H-Hour, Maggie Higgins, the Herald- concluded that the Marines were Captain Stevens fired an amber Tribune correspondent, came off held up and could not advance.

36 Magness had taken his 2d Platoon, Company C, reinforced by Second Lieutenant Max A. Merritt’s 60mm mortar section, up to the saddle that divided the crest of Observatory Hill. Their radios were not working and they had no flares. They had to inform the beach of their success by sending back a runner. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion’s reserve company—Company B under Captain “Ike” Fenton—had landed in the 2d Battalion’s zone. Lieutenant Colonel Newton ordered Fenton to assume Company C’s mission and take the northern half of Observatory Hill. Six Marines were wounded along the way, but by about 2000 Fenton was at the top and tied in with the Magness-Merritt platoon. In the right half of the regimen- tal zone of action, Roise was get- ting the congestion on the beach straightened out. Company D, commanded by First Lieutenant H. J. Smith, had followed Company E ashore, but had landed to the left in the 1st Battalion zone. Smith (called “Hog Jaw” to make up for his non-existent first and second names) understood that Jaskilka’s Company E was already on the crest of Observatory Hill. Under that assumption he started his Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A3701 company in route column up the Marines enroute to Red Beach go over the side of their assault transport, down street leading to the top of the hill. the cargo net hand-over-hand, and into the waiting LCVP, a version of the famous “Higgins boat” of World War II. An enemy machine gun interrupt- ed his march. After a brisk firefight The lead LST received some mortar in a building on Observatory Hill. that caused several Marine casual- and machine-gun fire and fired A chance 40mm shell from one of ties, the enemy was driven off and back with its own 20mm and the LSTs knocked out the gun. Company D began to dig in for the 40mm guns. Two other LSTs joined Weapons Company and Head- night. A platoon from Company F, in. Unfortunately, they were spray- quarters and Service Company of the battalion reserve, filled in the ing ground already occupied by Roise’s 2d Battalion landed about gap between Company D and the the Marines. 1830 and came under LST fire that Magness-Merritt positions. The The LST fire showered Muetzel’s killed one Marine and wounded 23 only part of the O-A line that was platoon, holding the crest of others. not now under control was the Cemetery Hill. Muetzel pulled back By 1900, all eight LSTs had extreme right flank where the line his platoon. As his Marines slid stopped firing and were nestled ended at the inner tidal basin. down the hill, they came under fire against the seawall. By then Maggie Higgins, after seeing the from a North Korean machine gun Second Lieutenant Byron L. war, such as it was, found a boat

37 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A3190 Marines go over the seawall forming the sharp edge of Red Baldomero Lopez. Moments later he would give his life and Beach. The Marine on the ladder has been identified as 1stLt earn a posthumous Medal of Honor. on Red Beach that was returning to der, came ashore at about 1830 Amphibian tractors, rather than the Mount McKinley, where, after and set up his command post at landing craft, were used for the the personal intercession of the end of the causeway that led assault. The seawall was in disre- Admiral Doyle, she was allowed to from the mainland to Wolmi-do. pair with numerous breaks up stay for the night. She slept on a Roise wished to stay where he was which it was presumed the stretcher in the sick bay. Next day, for the night, but Murray ordered amphibian tractors could crawl. Admiral Doyle specified that in the him to reach the tidal basin. The 18 Army armored amphibians future women would be allowed Company F, under Captain Uel D. (LVT[A]s) forming the first wave on board only between the hours Peters, faced around in the dark crossed the line of departure at of nine in the morning and nine at and plunged forward. Shortly after 1645 and headed toward Inchon. night. (About a month later, midnight, Roise reported that his At four knots they needed three- Maggie’s transportation orders half of the O-A line was complete. quarters of an hour to hit the were modified. She would still be beach at H-Hour. allowed on board any Navy ship Assaulting Blue Beach The soldiers had the compasses but would have to be chaperoned and seamanship to pierce the by a female nurse.) The confusion was greater on smoke and reached the beach on Murray, the regimental comman- Blue Beach than on Red Beach. time. The second and following

38 First Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez

aldomero Lopez was always eager. During World War II, he was 17 when he enlisted in the Navy in BJuly 1943. Most thought him a Mexican American, but his father, also named Baldomero, as a young man had come to Tampa from the Asturias region of Spain. Los Asturianos, the men of Asturias, are known for their valor and honor. He was appointed from the fleet to the Naval Academy in July 1944. His class, 1948A, was hurried through in three years. Lucky Bag, his class book, called him “one of the biggest hearted, best natured fellows in the brigade.” Otherwise he does not seem to have been exceptional. His nickname at the Academy was “Lobo.” This changed to “Punchy” after he came into the Marine Corps in June 1947, because it was generally believed that he had boxed while at Annapolis. After Basic School he stayed on at Quantico as a platoon commander in the Platoon Leaders Class. In 1948, he went to North China as part of a Marine presence that was in its last days. He served first as a mortar section leader and then as a rifle platoon commander at Tsingtao and Shanghai. When the Marines closed out in China, he came back to Camp Pendleton. In the early summer of 1950, when the formation of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade stripped the 1st Marine Division dry, he asked to be included but was left behind. He went out, however, to Korea in the draft that was sent to Pusan to fill the 5th Marines to war strength before embarking for Inchon. He Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A43985 was given the 3d Platoon, Company A, 1st Battalion. whose fire was pinning down that sector of the Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball presented the beach. Taken under fire by an enemy automatic posthumous Medal of Honor to his father and mother at weapon and hit in the right shoulder and chest as ceremonies in Washington on 30 August 1951. he lifted his arm to throw, he fell backward and Citation: dropped the deadly missile. After a moment, he For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the turned and dragged his body forward in an effort risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as to retrieve the grenade and throw it. In critical con- a Rifle Platoon Commander of Company A, First dition from pain and loss of blood, and unable to Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division grasp the hand grenade firmly enough to hurl it, he (Reinforced), in action against enemy aggressor chose to sacrifice himself rather than endanger the forces during the Inchon invasion in Korea on 15 lives of his men and, with a sweeping motion of his September 1950. With his platoon, First Lieutenant wounded right arm, cradled the grenade under him Lopez was engaged in the reduction of immediate and absorbed the full impact of the explosion. His enemy beach defenses after landing with the exceptional courage, fortitude and devotion to duty assault waves. Exposing himself to hostile fire, he reflect the highest credit upon First Lieutenant moved forward alongside a bunker and prepared Lopez and the United States Naval Service. He gal- to throw a hand grenade into the next pillbox lantly gave his life for his country. waves did not do so well. Rain and sion to stop sending any further Marines, remembered it: smoke had completely blotted out waves ashore until he could see any view of the beach. From the what was happening to them. We had been told that a bridge of his ship, the Blue Beach Permission was denied. wave guide would pick us up control officer watched the first As Major Edwin H. Simmons, and lead us to the line of two or three waves disappear into the commander of Weapons departure . . . . Two LCVPs the smoke. He requested permis- Company, 3d Battalion, 1st did come alongside our wave.

39 The first was filled with pho- tographers. The second was loaded with Korean inter- preters. Two of these were hastily dumped into my LVT, apparently under the mistak- en notion that I was a battal- ion commander. Both inter- preters spoke Korean and Japanese; neither spoke English. Time was passing, and we were feeling faintly desperate when we came alongside the central control vessel. I asked the bridge for instructions. A naval officer with a bullhorn pointed out the direction of Blue Two, but nothing could be seen in that

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2816 direction except mustard-col- A key objective for the 5th Marines was the 200-foot-high Observatory Hill. Both ored haze and black smoke. the 1st and 2d Battalions converged on the hill with Marines from Company B We were on our way when taking the weather station on its top. our path crossed that of

Marines setup a temporary barricade on the causeway to position a 3.5-inch rocket launcher and a machine gun just Inchon, after mopping up and consolidating their positions in case. The 3.5-inch rocket launcher proved itself adequate on Wolmi-do. Although not expecting a counterattack, they against the vaunted T-34 tank. National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A2747

40 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) Amphibian tractors (LVTs) churn away from the landing used chiefly for the assault of Blue Beach within the inner ships (LSTs) that brought them to Inchon. “Amtracks” were harbor.

another wave. I asked if they vehicles backed off and milled landing either on Beach BLUE-1 or were headed for Blue Two. around, getting intermixed with along the rock causeway by a con- Their wave commander the incoming troop-carrying Waves trol boat. Instead they were direct- answered, “Hell, no. We’re 2 and 3. ed to the right of the two beaches the 2d Battalion headed for From his seat on the bridge of prescribed for the regiment and Blue One.” We then veered the Mount McKinley, MacArthur, landed at Beach BLUE-3.” off to the right. I broke out surrounded by his gaggle of gener- Wave 2 for Blue Beach Two, my map and asked my LVT als and admirals, peered through with Ridge’s assault companies, driver if he had a compass. the gathering gloom of smoke, passed through the Army tractors, He looked at his instrument rain, and darkness and listened to Company G under Captain George panel and said, “Search me. the reports crackling over the loud- C. Westover on the left, Company I Six weeks ago I was driving a speaker. From his perspective, all under First Lieutenant Joseph R. truck in San Francisco.” seemed to be going well. “Bull” Fisher on the right. They Lieutenant Colonel Sutter’s sec- reached the seawall about 10 min- The nine Army LVT(A)s making ond wave landed elements of both utes after H-Hour. The tractors up the first wave for Blue Beach his two assault companies, bearing Company G formed up in One got ashore on schedule, but Company D, under Captain Welby column and muddled their way up found themselves boxed in by an W. Cronk, and Company F, under the drainage ditch. Company I earth slide that blocked the exit Captain Goodwin C. Groff, across went over the seawall using alu- road. The remaining nine Army Blue Beach One shortly after H- minum ladders, some of which armored amphibian tractors, form- Hour. Some of his amphibian trac- buckled. Assault engineers from ing Wave 1 for Blue Beach Two, tors hung up on a mud bank about Captain Lester G. Harmon’s made it to the seawall shortly after 300 yards offshore and their occu- Company C, 1st Engineer H-Hour but were less successful in pants had to wade the rest of the Battalion, reached the wall and getting ashore. The “road” separat- way. Most of Sutter’s last three rigged cargo nets to help the later ing Blue One and Two turned out waves, bringing in his reserve, waves climb ashore. to be a muck-filled drainage ditch. Company E, drifted to the right. As Ridge, the 3d Battalion comman- After exchanging fire with scat- Sutter reported it: “For some der, accompanied by his executive tered defenders in factory build- unknown reason the third, fourth, office, Major Reginald R. Myers, ings behind the seawall, the Army and fifth waves were diverted from seeing the congestion on Blue

41 Beach Two, moved in his free boat Most of Company B and some of head on the south. The North to explore the possibilities of Blue Company A had landed before Koreans were driven out, but at a Beach Three. He found a mud Hawkins could correct the error. cost. Swanson himself was severe- ramp broken through the seawall Most of those who landed were re- ly wounded in the thigh and evac- and some of his battalion was boated and sent on to Blue Beach uated. (Swanson returned to the 3d diverted to this landing point. An Two. Because of a shortage of Battalion in late winter 1951, was enemy machine gun in a tower boats, however, one platoon was wounded in the hand at the end of about 500 yards inland caused a left behind. Marching overland to March, and killed by one of our few casualties before it was Blue Beach Two this orphan pla- own mines on 15 May 1951.) knocked out by fire from the toon gilded the lily by picking up Corley’s Company H, less its 1st Army’s armored tractors. a bag of prisoners enroute. Platoon, moved into the gap More serious problems confront- The 3d Battalion, 1st Marines’ between Companies G and I. The ed Lieutenant Colonel Jack reserve—Company H under 2d Platoon, Company H, was sent Hawkins’ 1st Battalion, which was Captain Clarence E. Corley, Jr.— forward at midnight to outpost Hill in regimental reserve. Boated in landed across Blue Beaches Two 233, a mile to the front, got LCVP landing craft, he was ordered and Three. The 1st Platoon, led by halfway there, to Hill 180, and by Puller, who was already ashore, First Lieutenant William Swanson, received permission to stay put for to land his battalion. If things had had the mission of securing the the night. gone well Hawkins should have right flank of the bridgehead. Generals Almond and Shepherd beached at about H+45 minutes or Swanson slid his platoon behind came in with the ninth wave, along 1815. Veering off far to the left in Company I and moved against a with Admiral Struble, for a look- the gloom, his leading waves mis- platoon-sized enemy dug in on see at how events were progress- took the wall of the tidal basin for Hill 94, which topped the fish- ing on Blue Beach. Almond’s aide, the seawall of Blue Beach Two. hook cape bounding the beach- Lieutenant Haig, had come in to

42 National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-GK-234I-A409339 On the morning following the landing, the Marines tage over the mediocre defense force. North Korean resis- marched through Inchon itself against no resistance. tance stiffened in both numbers and quality as the attack Initially, the Marines enjoyed a 10 to one numerical advan- moved inland toward Seoul.

Red Beach on board one of the division commander—came a- goes down in the situation report LSTs. He had with him Almond’s shore at Wolmi-do and, joining as “light to moderate.” Total Marine personal baggage and the where- Taplett’s 3d Battalion, established casualties for the first day’s fighting withal to establish a mobile com- an advance division command were 20 killed, 1 died of wounds, mand post including a van fitted post. Craig had brought his brigade 1 missing in action, and 174 out as sleeping quarters and an staff ashore intact to function as an wounded. office. In transit Haig had lost two interim division staff. Since his of the general’s five jeeps, swept arrival in the objective area, Craig Assault Continues over the side of the LST in the had had no opportunity to meet typhoon. When Haig met up with with O. P. Smith face-to-face. At about midnight Puller and his boss, Almond’s first question During the night, Taplett’s bat- Murray received the division’s was whether Haig had gotten his talion crossed the causeway from attack order for the next day. baggage ashore without getting it Wolmi-do and rejoined the main Murray was to bring the 5th wet. body of the 5th Marines on Red Marines up on line abreast of While the 5th Marines were Beach. Before morning the 1st Puller’s 1st Marines. The axis for assaulting Red Beach, Brigadier Marine Division had all its first the advance on Seoul would be General Craig—with his brigade day’s objectives. Resistance had the intertwined highway and rail- dissolved and now the assistant been scattered—of the sort that road. The Korean Marine regiment

43 On the ground, Roise’s 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, made solid contact with Sutter’s 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, on Hill 117. The two battalions continued the advance against nothing heavier than sniper fire. By 1100 elements of both bat- talions were just short of Kansong- ni where they could see the smoke still rising from the fires set by the battle of T-34s and Corsairs. Meanwhile, General Craig had moved his command group into Inchon itself. On the outskirts of the city, he found what he thought would be a good location for the division command post including a site close by where a landing strip could be bulldozed. He ordered Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348506 his temporary command post Once ashore at Inchon, the Marines see for themselves that naval gunfire had moved forward. destroyed much of the city. Once ashore, the rule-of-thumb was that each assault battalion would have a cruiser or destroyer available for on-call missions. Thirty “SCAJAP” LSTs, manned for the most part with Japanese was initially left behind in Inchon killing Simpson, but the tank attack crews, had been collected for the to mop up. was halted. One T-34 was engulfed Inchon landing. Those that were The day, 16 September, was in flames, a second had its tracks carrying troops did not beach, but clear and pleasant. The climate knocked off, and a third stood sent their passengers off in was about the same as our north- motionless on the road. A second amphibian tractors. After the eastern states at this time of year, flight of Corsairs came over to fin- assault waves had swept ahead warm during the day, a bit cool at ish off the disabled T-34s. The they did beach, when the tides night. pilots pulled away, thinking incor- permitted, for general unloading. Murray elected to advance in rectly that all six tanks were dead. Beach conditions and the mixed column of battalions, leading off with Roise’s 2d Battalion, followed The rubber-tired amphibious DUKW pulls a trailer about a mile outside of Inchon by the 1st and 3d Battalions in that on the first morning after the landing. These “ducks” were used primarily to move guns, ammunition, and supplies for the artillery. order. The 2d Battalion’s advance Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348502 through Inchon was strangely quiet. The enemy had vanished during the night. Corsairs Against T-34s

Five miles to Murray’s front, six of the vaunted Soviet-built T-34 tanks, without infantry escort, were rumbling down the Seoul highway toward him. Near the village of Kansong-ni, eight Corsairs from VMF-214 swept down on the advancing tanks with rockets and napalm. One Corsair, flown by Captain William F. Simpson, Jr., failed to come out of its dive,

44 Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348504 A curious Marine passes three knocked-out T-34 tanks. The a Corsair fighter-bomber’s rockets to the 3.5-inch rocket vaunted Soviet-built tank proved no match for the array of launchers in the rifle and weapons companies. weapons that the Marines could bring to bear, ranging from quality of the Japanese crews M-4A3 Shermans. Few of the mem- on board ship—not the best place threw the planned schedule for bers of Lieutenant Colonel Harry T. for tank training. unloading completely out of bal- Milne’s —except Major Vincent J. Gottschalk’s ance. for Company A, which had been VMO-6, the division’s observation The landing and employment of with the 5th Marines and had the squadron, began flying reconnais- tanks presented problems. The M-26 at Pusan—were familiar with sance missions at first light on D+1, Marines had just received M-26 the Pershing. The tankers received 16 September. VMO-6 possessed Pershings as replacements for their their instruction on the new tanks eight Sikorsky HO3S-1 helicopters

M-26 Pershing tanks emerge from the maws of beached LSTs were re-equipped with the Pershings literally while on their (“landing ships, tank”) at Inchon. Marine tankers, previ- way to the objective area. ously equipped with the obsolescent M-4 Sherman tank, Department of Defense Photo (USMC)

45 abreast with Company H following in reserve. Prisoners and materiel were taken, but there was almost no fighting. By noon the division held the 0-3 line, a front three miles long, secured on both flanks by water. Smith ordered Murray and Puller to move on forward and seize the Force Beachhead Line (FBHL) which would conclude the assault phase of the amphibious operation. Murray chose to advance in two prongs. Roise with the 2d Battalion would continue to advance with his right flank tied to the Seoul highway. Taplett, coming up from behind with the 3d Battalion was to swing wide to the left. Newton, with the 1st Battalion, would fol- low in reserve. Roise’s battalion, escorted by Lieutenant Sweet’s five M-26 Pershing tanks, moved up the road and at about 1330 rounded the bend into Kansong-ni. Two of Sweet’s tanks crawled up a knoll from which they could cover the advancing riflemen. From this van- tage point the Marine tankers saw three T-34 tanks, not dead as sup- posed, but ready for battle with hatches buttoned up and 85mm guns leveled on the bend in the road. Sweet’s tanks smacked the T- 34s with 20 rounds of armor-pierc- ing shells. The T-34s went up in flames. Company D led the advance past the three burning hulks. Nearby the Marines found Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A130235 the two tanks knocked out earlier Maj Vincent J. Gottschalk, commanding officer of VMO-6, prepares to take off in by the Corsairs. The sixth tank had an OY light observation aircraft. Among the varied missions of the squadron was vanished. spotting and adjusting artillery fire on the retreating North Koreans for the ground troops. Company D continued for another thousand yards and then and eight OY airplanes and had In the 1st Marines’ zone of climbed a high hill on the west been with the 1st Brigade at Pusan action Puller sent Ridge’s 3d side of the road. Company F joined where for the first time Marines Battalion to make a sweep of Company D on their left. They used helicopters in combat. That Munhang Peninsula. Ridge used were still two miles from the Force day, First Lieutenant Max Nebergall amphibian tractors as personnel Beachhead Line, but it looked like pulled a ditched Navy pilot out of carriers—a bold but dangerous a good time and place to dig in for Inchon harbor in the first of many practice—and advanced on a the night. rescue operations. broad front, Companies G and I On Roise’s left, Taplett’s 3d

46 Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC349015 For much of the advance up the axis of the Inchon-Seoul tected along the way by M-26 tanks. The North Koreans, in highway, and even sometimes traveling cross-country, turn, tried to choke off these advances with ambushes and Marines used amphibian tractors as personnel carriers pro- antitank mines. Battalion advanced uneventfully once the village of Taejong-ni and pation—to his front. The sea was and now held high ground over- now the remnants of a huge ser- to his left. looking the FBHL. His patrols vice command that had been used South of the 5th Marines, reached the edge of Ascom City— by the U.S. Army during the occu- Puller’s 1st Marines, having spent A Korean civilian eager to assist the advancing forces, shows one of the division’s most of the day pulling together its reconnaissance Marines a large cache of dynamite and ammunition hidden in scattered parts, did not jump off in a storage cave. It was one of several caches uncovered by Capt Kenneth the new attack until about 1600. Houghton’s Marines on the division’s right flank. Sutter’s 2d Battalion went forward Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A2821 on the right of the road past Kansong-ni for a thousand yards and then tied in with Roise’s bat- talion for the night. Hawkins’ 1st Battalion filled in between Sutter and Ridge. Ridge’s 3d Battalion had done more hiking than fight- ing and at the end of the day was relieved by the Division Recon- naissance Company, under pugna- cious Captain Kenneth J. Houghton, attached to the 1st Marines as the division’s right flank element. Ridge’s Marines went into regimental reserve. Houghton’s reconnaissance Marines engaged no enemy but found huge caches of arms and ammunition.

47 O. P. Smith Opens His Command Post

General Craig had just gotten back from his search for a site for the division command post, when he learned that O. P. Smith, accom- panied by Admiral Struble and General Shepherd, had landed. Smith was satisfied with Craig’s recommended site. Craig then took him for a quick tour of the troop dispositions and at 1800 Smith offi- cially assumed command ashore. During the day, General Almond visited Red Beach and the 5th Marines. Smith was joined later that evening by Major General Frank E. Lowe, an Army Reserve officer and President Truman’s personal Photo by Frank Noel, Associated Press observer, who had arrived unan- Front-line Marines found that stripping a prisoner bare took all the fight out of nounced. Lowe moved into the him and also eliminated the possibility of hidden weapons. Rear-echelon author- division command post. He and ities found the practice distasteful and ordered the Marines to desist. Smith got along famously. “His rocket launchers attached, all yards he killed the first T-34 and frank and disarming manner made under Second Lieutenant Lee R. damaged the second. The remain- him welcome throughout the divi- Howard, for that purpose. ing four tanks continued to plow sion,” remembered Smith. During the night the North forward to be met by a cacophony More Enemy T-34 Tanks Koreans formed up a tank-infantry of 90mm fire from Pomeroy’s M-26 column—six T-34s from the 42d tanks at 600 yards range, 75mm The night of 16-17 September NKPA Mechanized Regiment and recoilless rifle fire at 500 yards, and was quiet, so quiet, the official his- about 200 infantry from the 18th more rockets, some coming from tory remarks, that a truck coming NKPA Division in Seoul—some Sutter’s battalion on the other side down the highway from Seoul miles east of Ascom City. Howard of the road. Private First Class drove unimpeded through the saw the lead tank at about dawn, Walter C. Monegan, Jr., from Marine front lines, until finally reported its approach to “Hog Jaw” Company F, 1st Marines, fired his stopped by a line of M-26 tanks Smith, who reported it to Roise, 3.5-inch rocket launcher at point- several hundred yards to the rear. who could not quite believe it. blank range. Just which weapons The tankers, the 1st Platoon, Obviously the North Koreans did killed which tanks would be Company A, under First Lieutenant not know the Marines were wait- argued, but the essentials were that William D. Pomeroy, took a sur- ing for them. Howard let the col- all six T-34s were knocked out and prised NKPA officer and four umn come abreast of his knoll-top their crews killed. enlisted men prisoner. position and then opened up. Lieutenant “Hog Jaw” Smith, Official historians Montross and MacArthur Comes Ashore commander of Company D, 5th Canzona say: “The Red infantry Marines, from his observation post went down under the hail of lead MacArthur, instantly recogniz- overlooking the highway was suffi- like wheat under the sickle.” able in his braided cap, sunglasses, ciently apprehensive, however, Corporal Oley J. Douglas, still well-worn khakis, and leather about a sharp bend in the road to armed with the 2.36-inch rocket flight jacket, came grandly ashore the left front of his position to out- launcher and not the new 3.5-inch, that same morning, 17 September. post it. He dispatched his 2d slid down the hill to get a better His large accompanying party Platoon with machine guns and shot at the tanks. At a range of 75 included Struble, Almond,

48 just as the Marines knocked out five tanks.” Shepherd replied, “Well, Ned, we’re just doing our job, that’s all.” MacArthur climbed back into his jeep and the star-studded party drove on. Seven dazed North Korean soldiers crawled out from the culvert over which MacArthur’s jeep had parked and meekly sur- rendered. Next stop for MacArthur was the 5th Marines command post. MacArthur went to award Silver Stars to General Craig and Colonel Murray only to learn that his sup- ply of medals was exhausted. “Make a note,” he told his aide. The medals were delivered later. MacArthur finished his tour with a visit to Green Beach at Wolmi- do, where unloading from the LSTs was progressing, and to see the occupants of the prisoner of war stockade—671 of them under guard of the 1st Marine Division’s military police. Ashore at Wolmi-do, MacArthur found evidence, to his great satis- At a temporary aid station at Pier No. 2, designated Yellow Beach, a wound- ed Marine is given whole blood by a Navy corpsman. From this station, the wounded were evacuated to hospital ships off shore. National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC349024

Shepherd, Whitney, Wright, and two great actors shook hands. Fox; a bodyguard bristling with MacArthur gave Puller a Silver Star. weapons; and a large number of MacArthur’s cavalcade next the press corps. A train of jeeps drove to the site of the still-smok- was hastily assembled and the ing hulls of the dreaded North party proceeded to the 1st Marine Korean T-34 tanks that had coun- Division headquarters in a dirt- terattacked at dawn. Shepherd, floored Quonset hut where Smith looking at the still-burning T-34s, joined the party. MacArthur pre- commented to Almond that they sented him a Silver Star medal. proved that “bazookas” could MacArthur and his entourage destroy tanks. then visited Puller at the 1st “You damned Marines!” snort- Marines’ observation post. ed Almond. “You always seem to MacArthur climbed the hill. Puller be in the right spot at the right put down his binoculars and the time . . . . MacArthur would arrive

49 Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348526 On the morning of 17 September, Gen MacArthur, sur- Jr., on the left, is in his usual khakis and carrying his trade- rounded by subordinates, bodyguards, and photographers, mark cocomacaque, or Haitian walking stick. MajGen O. P. made a grand and much publicized tour of the Inchon Smith, in khaki fore-n-aft cap and canvas leggings, trudges beachhead. MacArthur is unmistakable in his crushed cap, along behind Shepherd. sunglasses, and leather jacket. LtGen Lemuel C. Shepherd,

Almost obscured by the jeep’s windshield, a photographer MajGen O. P. Smith sits smiling in the middle of the rear peers through his lens at the command echelons of the seat, flanked on his right by MajGen Edward M. Almond Inchon landing during the 17 September visit. Gen and on his left by VAdm Arthur D. Struble. The unidentified MacArthur in hawk-like profile stares straight ahead. Marine driver awaits instructions. Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348522

50 faction, that the enemy had begun an intensive fortification of the island. Later he pontificated: “Had I listened to those who wanted to delay the landing until the next high tides, nearly a month later, Wolmi-do would have been an impregnable fortress.” Almond, just before leaving with his boss to return to the Mount McKinley, informed Smith that Barr’s 7th Infantry Division would begin landing the next day, com- ing in on the 1st Marine Division’s right flank. Smith, returning to his command post, learned that Major General James M. Gavin, USA, of World War II airborne fame, had arrived to study the Marine Corps’ use of close air support. An airstrip was set up next to Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348516 the division command post that FMFPac commander LtGen Lemuel C. Shepherd, VMI 1917, on the right, points same day, 17 September. After that, out something significant to the X Corps commander, MajGen Edward M. Gottschalk’s VMO-6 flew a full Almond, VMI 1915, as they move by motor launch from the Mount McKinley to schedule of observation, evacua- the beach. Shepherd, although relegated to the position of observer instead of tion, liaison, and reconnaissance corps commander, held no grudge against Almond. flights.

Marine helicopters, fragile and few in number, were found suitable helicopters arrived and the practice became stan- useful in evacuating severely wounded Marines to hospital dard. facilities to the rear or at sea. As the war progressed, more Photo by Frank Noel, Associated Press

51 found Taplett’s 3d Battalion. Eventually, Pomeroy reached the 2d Battalion and a road that would lead to Kimpo Airfield now about five miles away. He was joined by his company commander, Captain Gearl M. English, and another pla- toon of tanks. Meanwhile, Roise advanced to two high hills some 4,000 yards south of Kimpo. He launched his attack against the airfield with Companies D and E in the assault. They moved rapidly against noth- ing but light small arms fire. Captain English brought up his tanks to help, assigning a tank pla- toon to support each of the assault companies. By 1800, Roise’s Marines were at the southern end of the main runway. Each of his three rifle companies curled into separate perimeters for the night. Lieutenant Deptula’s 1st Platoon, Company E, was positioned well out to the front in the hamlet of Soryu-li as an outpost. During the afternoon, Newton and the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, had moved up on Roise’s right against no resistance. Taplett’s 3d Battalion, having eased the situa- tion for the Korean Marines, was two miles to the rear, again in reg- Infantry Advances of the densely built-up area of lit- imental reserve. tle pockets of resistance. Roise The battle with the T-34s found that the road on the map With 1st Marines delayed for an hour the jump-off that was supposed to lead to his for the day’s attacks. The next next objective, four miles distant, Throughout the day, 17 phase line was 19 miles long and was nonexistent on the ground. September, Puller’s 1st Marines had Murray’s 5th Marines had two- The renewed advance did not get continued its advance. On the left thirds of it. At 0700, the Korean off until mid-afternoon. flank Sutter, with the 2d Battalion, Marines’ 3d Battalion had passed The inexperienced 3d Battalion straddled the highway and moved through Roise’s 2d Battalion to of the Korean Marines ran into forward behind an intermittent clean up the outskirts of Ascom trouble on the other side of Ascom curtain of howitzer fire delivered City. Roise himself jumped off two City. Taplett’s 3d Battalion, 5th by the 11th Marines. Essentially, hours later, Captain Jaskilka’s Marines, in regimental reserve, Sutter was attacking due east from Company E in the lead. The moved in to help and efficiently Mahang-ri to Sosa, two fair-sized advance was to be in column and knocked out the moderate resis- villages. He deployed Company E then a left turn into Ascom City. tance. Pomeroy came up with his on the left of the road, Company F Company E, joined by 2d platoon of M-26 tanks. Looking for on the right, and kept Company D Platoon, Company F, spent the Roise’s 2d Battalion and, not find- in reserve. As the 5th Marines morning in a methodical clearing ing the mythical road, he instead moved to the northeast toward

52 had come ashore to observe the operations of the Korean Marine Regiment. (He also received a MacArthur Silver Star.) Sohn picked a temporary mayor who was installed on the morning of 18 September by authority of a 1st Marine Division proclamation. 5th Marines Takes Kimpo

The night of 17-18 September was tense for the 5th Marines. Murray was certain that the North Koreans would not give up Kimpo, the best airfield in Korea, without a fight, and he was right. The airfield was under the apparent command Department of Defense Photo (USMC) of a Chinese-trained brigadier gen- When not moving from hill to hill, the Marines frequently found themselves eral, Wan Yong. The garrison, attacking across flat rice paddies. Ironically, Kimpo, in addition to having the nominally the NKPA 1st Air Force best airfield in Korea, was also known for growing the best rice. Division, was in truth a patchwork Kimpo, a considerable gap widen- shambles. Most of the city officials of bits and pieces of several regi- ed between the two regiments. had fled before the North Korean ments, with not more than a few North Korean resistance thick- capture of the city. Fortunately, hundred effectives. ened as Sutter neared Sosa. Puller Admiral Sohn Won Yil, the chief of The North Koreans went against ordered Ridge to move the 3d naval operations of the ROK Navy, Roise’s well dug-in battalion in Battalion up on Sutter’s right flank. Ridge decided again to use Shore party operations followed close behind the assault waves and within a few days, stocks of ammunition, rations, and other supplies had reached the level amphibian tractors as personnel needed for the drive to Seoul and its capture. carriers. Westover’s Company G Photo by Frank Noel, Associated Press clanked up the road behind the 2d Platoon, Company B tanks, under Second Lieutenant Brian J. Cummings. In a defile, some brave North Koreans tried to stop Cummings’ M-26s with grenades. The advance on the road stalled. Company G got up on the high side of the defile to the right of the road. With Sutter’s battalion on the left, the Marines had a converging “turkey shoot” and broke up the North Korean attack. Sutter and Ridge dug in for the night, each battalion on its own side of the defile. To their south, Hawkins’ 1st Battalion and Houghton’s Reconnaissance Company had cleared up Namdong Peninsula. The night would pass quietly for the 1st Marines. To the rear, Inchon was in a

53 oners and had counted about 100 enemy dead. 1st Marines Advances

In the 1st Marines’ zone of action, Ridge, with the 3d Battalion outside of Sosa, decided that the center of North Korean resistance must be on Hill 123. During the night he called for naval gunfire. HMS Kenya, Captain P. W. Brock commanding, delivered some 300 rounds of 6-inch shells somewhere between Sosa and Hill 123. Ridge’s naval gunfire spotter was not sure where they impacted, but Ridge, in the interest of inter-allied cordiali- ty, sent Captain Brock a “well done.” At dawn Sutter charged ahead astride the Seoul highway, Comp- Department of Defense Photo (USN) 420271 any E on the left of the road and Fumigation and bath platoons would arrive later, but during the assault phase Company D on the right. Pre- of the Inchon operation Marines seized the opportunity to clean up when and mature airbursts on the part of his where they could. Helmets made convenient washbasins. artillery preparatory fires cost him three badly coordinated attacks. Correspondents and photographers examine a Russian-built Yak fighter in a The first hit Deptula’s outpost at destroyed hanger at Kimpo Airfield. Captured by the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, about 0300 in the morning, the Marine engineers quickly made the airfield operative and ready to receive ele- Communists using rifles and ments of MAG-33. National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC349036 machine pistols, backed by a T-34 tank. Deptula skillfully fought off four half-hearted assaults and by 0500 had withdrawn successfully to Company E’s main line of resis- tance. The second attack came from both the west and east against Jaskilka’s Company E. The third attack hit Harrell’s Company F fur- ther to the south. Both attacks were easily contained. The routed enemy fled toward the Han River. At daylight Roise jumped off in pursuit. His Marines swept across the airfield, securing it and its sur- rounding villages by 1000. Companies E and F mopped up and Company D went on to take Hill 131 overlooking the Han. In 24 hours of fighting, Roise had lost four Marines killed and 19 wound- ed. His Marines had taken 10 pris-

54 were with the red-orange scars of shell holes and trench lines, was over. The war was getting serious. Sutter’s 2d Battalion, meanwhile, went straight ahead, left flank on the railroad tracks, into a defensive position about a mile beyond Sosa. A barrage of mortar shells cost him 14 casualties. Hawkins’ 1st Battalion continued advancing on the right and for the third straight day encountered nothing but a few rifle shots. Kimpo Airfield Becomes Operational

Murray displaced his command post forward from Ascom City to Kimpo. His regiment spent a quiet day sending patrols around the air- field. The field was in relatively good shape. A North Korean Soviet-built Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter and two Ilyushin “Shturmovik” attack aircraft were found in near- flyable condition. The first aircraft to land at Kimpo was a Marine H03S-1 heli- copter. It arrived at 1000 that morning, 18 September, piloted by Captain Victor A. Armstrong of VMO-6 and with General Shepherd and Colonel Krulak as passengers. General Craig who had just arrived by jeep met them. Captain George W. King’s Company A, 1st Engineer Battal- ion, made the field operational two killed and three wounded. tance, including an antitank road- with temporary repairs. Generals Behind the 2d Battalion, Ridge block. By noon Ridge had cleared Harris and Cushman came in by mounted up the 3d Battalion in a the town. His battalion then swung helicopter that afternoon. On their motorized column made up of a to the left off the road and moved advice, General Almond autho- mixture of jeeps, amphibian trac- up Hill 123 while his naval gunfire rized the establishment of Marine tors (LVTs), and amphibious trucks spotter continued to look for some Aircraft Group 33 (MAG-33) on the (DUKWs). Corsairs from VMF-214 evidence as to where the Kenya’s field. worked over Sosa, sighted six T- shells might have hit. The 3d Corsairs began to arrive the next 34s beyond the town, and Battalion was barely on the hill day. Harris set up the headquarters knocked out two of them. Ridge and not yet dug in when a barrage of his Tactical Air Command. Two thundered ahead in a cloud of dust of North Korean 120mm mortar Corsair squadrons, VMF-312 and behind the tanks of Company B, shells drenched their position VMF-212, came in. Night fighter 1st Tank Battalion. Together they causing 30 casualties. The romp squadron VMF(N)-542, under brushed aside some light resis- over the green hills, marred as they Lieutenant Colonel Max J.

55 ate assumption of what had been the 1st Marines’ zone of action south of the Inchon-Seoul high- way. The 31st Infantry had begun landing. The 32d Infantry would be detached from the 1st Marine Division at 1800. With these two regiments Barr was to begin oper- ations. Smith would then be able to side-slip Puller’s regiment fully to the left of the Seoul highway. Almond’s aide, Lieutenant Haig, who was a fly on the tent wall at these meetings, observed that “the Marines’ respect for the 7th Division at this stage of the war was ostentatiously low.” National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A3727 1stLt John V. Hanes flew in first Marine Corsair to land at Kimpo Airfield. Advancing to the Han Having taken hits while on a bombing mission, Hanes was grateful that there was a friendly airfield on which to land. BGen Thomas J. Cushman, Assistant After that meeting, the peripatet- Wing Commander of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, greets him. ic Almond went on to visit the Volcansek, Jr., arrived from Japan. must take over its zone of action command posts of both the 32d There was a paper shuffle of and free his right flank so he could Infantry and the 1st Marines. He squadrons between Marine Aircraft concentrate his forces to cross the then proceeded to the 5th Marines Groups 12 and 33. Marine Aircraft river. Smith already had it in his command post on Kimpo Airfield Group 33 under Brigadier General mind that the 5th Marines would to discuss with Murray the crossing Thomas J. Cushman was now in go over first to be followed by the of the Han that was scheduled for business ashore. MAG-12 picked 1st Marines. His 7th Marines was the following day. Murray told him up the squadrons afloat. VMFs 214 still at sea. He went forward to that he planned to cross in column and 323 continued to operate from Kimpo to discuss the matter with of battalions using amphibian trac- the Sicily and Badoeng Strait, and Murray. tors, amphibious trucks, and pon- the night-fighters of VMF(N)-513 The first unit of the 7th Division, toon floats at a ferry crossing site from their base at Itazuke in Japan. the 32d Infantry, landed, as northeast of Kimpo. promised on the 18th, was A significant range of hills sepa- Reinforcements Arrive attached temporarily to the 1st rated the 5th Marines on Kimpo Marine Division. Smith relayed from Yongdung-po and the Han. On Murray’s left the 2d KMC Almond’s orders to the 32d to During the night of 18-19 Battalion joined the 1st KMC relieve the 1st Marines on the right September, Murray had ordered Battalion. The ROK Army’s 17th flank and then to operate in the Newton forward with the 1st Regiment landed at Inchon and, zone of action assigned to the 7th Battalion to seize Hill 118 and then temporarily under 1st Marine Division. Hills 80 and 85, overlooking the Division control was given an ini- Kalchon River near where it joined tial mission of completing the 7th Division Becomes Operational the Han. clean-up of the unswept area At dawn, before Newton could between Ascom City and the sea. On the morning of 19 move out, a company-sized North Almond, pressing forward, con- September, General Barr estab- Korean force attacked Company C ferred with Smith on the morning lished his 7th Division’s command behind a shower of mortar shells. of 18 September concerning the post ashore. Almond called Barr While Company C slaughtered the readiness of the 1st Marine and Smith together at the 1st North Koreans, “Ike” Fenton’s Division to cross the Han. Smith Marine Division command post to Company B moved against Hill pointed out that the 7th Division discuss the 7th Division’s immedi- 118. There was the usual air and

56 artillery preparation before the Captain Richard M. Taylor’s more work by the engineers was jump-off, and Company B took the Company C tanks and had gone lit- needed. At 1900, Sutter ordered his peak of Hill 118 without suffering tle more than a quarter-mile when battalion to dig in. His Marines had a single casualty. The trapped the lead M-26 hit a box mine that advanced nearly three miles at a attacking North Koreans lost per- blew off a track and two road cost of four killed and 18 wound- haps 300 dead (there is always wheels. The antitank barrier of ed. Yongdung-po was still more optimism in the count of enemy mines was formidable. The whole than two miles in front of him. dead) and 100 prisoners. Company column came to a stop. Small-arms Smith moved his command post C lost two killed and six wounded. fire smashed in from neighboring forward the afternoon of 19 To the 5th Marines’ right, Ridge’s Hill 72. The 11th Marines, the divi- September to a site Craig selected 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, with sion’s artillery regiment, took Hill about a mile and a half southeast Companies H and I in the assault, 72 under howitzer fire. Corsairs of Kimpo; it had been used for U.S. moved off Hill 123 toward Lookout from ever-ready VMF-214 came to dependents housing during the Hill, so-called because it gave a help. A platoon of engineers under occupation. From here Smith was good view of the Kalchon and the First Lieutenant George A. Babe within easy jeep or helicopter dis- town of Yongdung-po beyond. blew up the box mines with tance of his front-line units. The Official historians Montross and “snowball” charges of C-3 plastic abandoned Quonset huts were Canzona called the attack, which explosive. Sutter used all three of near ideal except for occasional cost two killed and 15 wounded, his rifle companies to uncover the harassment apparently by a single “too successful,” because it put minefield and force his way NKPA gun. The backbone for the Ridge’s battalion well out in front through. His infantry went forward perimeter defense around the com- of the 5th Marines on his left and a mile into heavy fighting around mand post was provided by a sec- Sutter’s 2d Battalion on his right. Hill 146 while the tanks waited on tion of the Division Band trained Sutter’s battalion was advancing the side of the road. A second as a machine gun platoon. along the Seoul highway behind minefield was encountered, and The 32d Infantry, now detached

57 from the division, was somewhere Captain Robert H. Barrow’s when Hawkins reached him. to Sutter’s right rear. The Army bat- Company A, 1st Marines, was the Company C, 1st Marines, under talion that relieved Hawkins’ bat- first to reach Hill 118 and relieve Captain Robert P. Wray, had not talion had spent the day mopping Fenton’s Company B, 5th Marines. yet arrived. up rather than continuing the Company C, 1st Marines, was to Barrow, a tall Louisianian and a attack. replace Company C, 5th Marines, future Marine Commandant, real- Hawkins’ 1st Battalion, 1st on Hills 80 and 85. Newton was ized the tactical importance of Hills Marines, was on its way to relieve anxious to pull back his 1st 80 and 85 and radioed for permis- Newton’s 1st Battalion, 5th Battalion, 5th Marines, to Kimpo to sion to move Company A forward Marines, an 11-mile motor march get ready for the river crossing the to the two hills. Permission was from the division’s right flank. next day, and it was almost dark denied. Newton made it known that he would pull Company C off the hills no later than 2100. Wray’s Company C did not reach Hill 118 until 2200; Hills 80 and 85 were left empty. Confused Day

Before dawn the next day, 20 September, Hawkins’ Marines on Hill 118 heard the North Koreans assault the empty hills. Then they came on in company-sized strength in a futile attack against the entrenched Marines on Hill 118. Meanwhile, shortly before dawn a battalion-sized North Korean force, led by five T-34 tanks fol- lowed by an ammunition truck, came down the Seoul highway against Sutter’s 2d Battalion, 1st Marines. Companies D and E held positions on each side of the road. The column roared through the gap between them and hit head-on against Company F’s support posi- tion. The North Koreans were caught in a sleeve. Companies D and E poured fire into their flanks. Howitzer fire by the 2d and 4th Battalions, 11th Marines, sealed in the entrapped North Korean col- umn. “A fortunate grenade was dropped in the enemy ammunition truck and offered some illumina- tion,” noted the 2d Battalion’s Special Action Report, “enabling two tanks to be destroyed by 3.5” rocket fire.” The rocket gunner was Private First Class Monegan, the tank-killer

58 Private First Class Walter C. Monegan, Jr. ineteen-year-old Walter Monegan in five days of action fought two battles against North Korean T- N34 tanks, won them both, and lost his own life. Born on Christmas Day 1930, he could not wait until his 17th birthday, enlisting in the Army in November 1947. The Army discovered he was underage and promptly sent him home. He tried again on 22 March 1948, enlisting in the Marine Corps. After recruit training at Parris Island in June he was sent to China to join the 3d Marines at Tsingtao. After a year in China he came home, was stationed at Camp Pendleton for a year, and then was sent to Marine Barracks, Naval Air Station, Seattle. He had barely re-enlisted in July 1950 when he was ordered to return to Camp Pendleton to join the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, then being formed. His remains, buried temporarily at Inchon, were returned home and re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery on 19 July 1951. His wife, Elizabeth C. Monegan, holding their infant child, Walter III, received his posthumous Medal of Honor from Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball, on 8 February 1952. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Rocket Gunner attached to Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A45432 Company F, Second Battalion, First Marines, First talion Command Post during the early morning of Marine Division (Reinforced), in action against September 20, he seized his rocket launcher and, in enemy aggressor forces near Sosa-ri, Korea, on 17 total darkness, charged down the slope of the hill and 20 September 1950. Dug in a hill overlooking where the tanks had broken through. Quick to act the main Seoul highway when six enemy tanks when an illuminating shell hit the area, he scored a threatened to break through the Battalion position direct hit on one of the tanks as hostile rifle and during a pre- dawn attack on 17 September, Private automatic weapons fire raked the area at close First Class Monegan promptly moved forward with range. Again exposing himself he fired another his bazooka under heavy hostile automatic round to destroy a second tank and, as the rear weapons fire and engaged the lead tank at a range tank turned to retreat, stood upright to fire and was of less than 50 yards. After scoring a direct hit and fatally struck down by hostile machine-gun fire killing the sole surviving tankman with his carbine when another illuminating shell silhouetted him as he came through the escape hatch, he boldly against the sky. Private First Class Monegan’s dar- fired two more rounds of ammunition at the ing initiative, gallant fighting spirit and courageous oncoming tanks, disorganizing the attack and devotion to duty were contributing factors in the enabling our tank crews to continue blasting with success of his company in repelling the enemy and their 90-mm guns. With his own and an adjacent his self-sacrificing efforts throughout sustain and company’s position threatened by annihilation enhance the highest traditions of the United States when an overwhelming enemy tank-infantry force Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his by-passed the area and proceeded toward the bat- country. of Soryu-li. He slid down the slope Honor. A third T-34 was captured that day with shell-fire. Puller from Company F with his 3.5-inch intact. Sutter’s battalion claimed moved to align his regiment for rocket launcher and knocked out 300 enemy dead. Half an hour the assault of the town. Hawkins the first and second tanks. Machine after breaking up the North Korean was to take Hills 80 and 85. gun fire killed him as he took aim attack, the 2d Battalion moved for- Sutter was to advance to the first on the third T-34. His family would ward in its own attack. of two highway bridges crossing receive a posthumous Medal of Yongdung-po was drenched the Kalchon. Ridge was to stay in

59 reserve on Lookout Hill. 80 and 85, that had been free for Browning water-cooled machine Hawkins sent out Captain Wray the taking, the day before. Wray, guns of Major William L. Bates, Jr.’s with Company C to capture Hills covered by the 81mm mortars and Weapons Company, made a text-

Second Lieutenant Henry A. Commiskey

ieutenant Commiskey was no stranger to war. As an enlisted Marine he had been wounded at Iwo Jima Land received a letter of commendation for “exhibit- ing high qualities of leadership and courage in the face of a stubborn and fanatical enemy.” Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1927, he had joined the Marine Corps two days after his 17th birthday. He served more than five years as an enlisted man and was a staff sergeant drill instructor at Parris Island when he was selected for officer training in 1949. He complet- ed this training in June 1950. Two months later he was with the 1st Marines and on his way to Korea. He came from a family of fighters. His father had been a machine gun instructor in World War I. One brother had been with the in World War II. Another brother was badly wounded while with the 187th Airborne Infantry in Korea. In the action on 20 September, that gained Henry Commiskey the nation’s highest award for valor, he escaped unscathed, but a week later he was slightly wounded in the fight for Seoul and on 8 December seri- ously wounded in the knee at the Chosin Reservoir. Sent home for hospitalization, he recovered and went to Pensacola in September 1951 for flight training, receiving his wings in June 1953 and then qualifying as a jet pilot. He returned to Korea in April 1954 as a pilot with VMA-212. Coming home in September, he returned to line duty at his own request and was assigned once more to the 1st Marine Division. Next assignment was in 1956 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A43766 to Jackson, Mississippi, close to his birthplace, for three his platoon and was the first man to reach the crest years duty as a recruiter. In 1959, now a major, he went of the objective. Armed only with a pistol, he to the Amphibious Warfare School, Junior Course, at jumped into a hostile machine-gun emplacement Quantico, and stayed on as an instructor at the Basic occupied by five enemy troops and quickly dis- School. He retired from active duty in 1966 to Meridian, posed of four of the soldiers with his automatic pis- Mississippi, and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound tol. Grappling with the fifth, First Lieutenant on 15 August 1971. Commiskey knocked him to the ground and held Citation: him until he could obtain a weapon from another For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the member of his platoon and kill the last of the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty enemy gun crew. Countinuing his bold assault, he while serving as a Platoon Leader in Company C, moved to the next emplacement, killed two or First Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division more of the enemy and then led his platoon toward (Reinforced), in action against enemy aggressor the rear nose of the hill to rout the remainder of the forces near Yongdungp’o, Korea, on 20 September hostile troops and destroy them as they fled from 1950. Directed to attack hostile forces well dug in their positions. His valiant leadership and coura- on Hill 85, First Lieutenant Commiskey, then geous fighting spirit served to inspire the men of Second Lieutenant, spearheaded the assault, charg- his company to heroic endeavor in seizing the ing up the steep slopes on the run. Coolly disre- objective and reflect the highest credit upon First garding the heavy enemy machine-gun and small- Lieutenant Commiskey and the United States Naval arms fire, he plunged on well forward of the rest of Service.

60 Department of Defense Photo (USN) 80-G-426159 On 20 September, as the loading continues, an LST, beached The small landing craft to the right are a 36-foot LCVP and until the next high tide comes in, has discharged its cargo. two 50-foot LCMs. book double envelopment of Hill Lieutenant Henry A. Commiskey repeating his double envelopment. 80 against stubborn resistance. The came in on the right with the 3d Craven set up a base of fire with 1st Platoon, under Second Platoon. Together they took Hill his platoon on the northern slope Lieutenant William A. Craven, 80. The day was almost done but of Hill 80. Second Lieutenant John came in on the left. Second Wray went on against Hill 85, N. Guild went forward on the left Amphibious trucks, “ducks” to Marines, are readied at 1st Amphibian Truck Company, an element of the 1st Motor Inchon to be moved up for use in crossing the Han River. Transport Battalion. The division was well supported by the versatile trucks of the National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC348700

61 engineers got away; one, Private First Class Clayton O. Edwards, was captured. (He would later escape from a train taking prison- ers into .) Meanwhile, Sutter’s 2d Battalion, having begun the day by breaking up the T-34 tank-led North Korean attack, had moved forward uneventfully, except for harassing fire from their open right flank. They reached their day’s objective, the highway bridge over the Kalchon, shortly after noon. The bridge was a long concrete span. The engineers inspected it and cer- tified it strong enough to bear M-26 Pershing tanks for next day’s attack into Yongdung-po itself. The sec- ond bridge, crossing a tributary of the Kalchon, lay 2,000 yards ahead. A high ridge, seemingly teeming with North Korean defenders, to the right of the road dominated the bridge. Sutter’s neighbor on his right was Lieutenant Colonel Charles M. Mount, USA, with the 2d Battalion, 32d Infantry. The ridge command- ing the second bridge was techni- cally in Mount’s zone of action. At 1300, Sutter asked Mount for per- mission to fire against the ridge. Mount readily agreed, but it took seven hours to get the fire mission cleared through the layers of regi- mental and division staffs and approved by X Corps. It was dark before Colonel Brower’s 11th Marines was allowed to fire. with his 2d Platoon and got almost Signal Battalion hit a mine on the During the day, General Almond to the top of the hill before being approach to a bridge across the visited Colonel Puller at the 1st mortally wounded. Commiskey Kalchon near where it joined the Marines’ command post. Almond went out in front of his 3d Platoon Han. In full sight of Hill 118, two admired Puller’s aggressive tactics in a one-man assault that earned Marine wiremen were taken pris- and there was also a Virginia him a Medal of Honor. oner. A truck from Company A, 1st Military Institute connection. While Wray worked at capturing Engineers, with a driver and three Puller, saying he could not reach Hills 80 and 85, Hawkins’ com- passengers, unaware of the fate of Smith either by wire or radio, mand group and Barrow’s Marines the communicators, now came asked permission to burn watched as spectators from Hill along the road. Barrow tried to Yongdung-po before committing 118. They saw to their left front, to catch their attention with rifle fire his troops to its capture. Almond their horror, a tracked “Weasel” over their heads, but the truck con- authorized its burning. with a wire party from the 1st tinued into the ambush. Three Almond’s habit of visiting the

62 Marine regiments and issuing The 1st Battalion on the left would Hill, had grown impatient and had orders directly to subordinate com- attack across country and the 3d come forward prematurely, getting manders had become a serious Battalion, occupying Lookout Hill, out in front of both the 1st and 2d aggravation to Smith. A division would initially stay in reserve. Battalions. Its prospective assault order went out that any direct During the previous day, companies, Companies G and I, order received from Almond Captain Richard L. Bland had occu- reached and huddled behind the would be immediately relayed to pied Hill 55 overlooking the Han dike on the western bank of the division headquarters for ratifica- with Company B, 1st Marines. Kalchon close to a water gate tion. Now, shortly after dawn, he took where a tributary entered into the his company across the bridge that main stream. This put them in Ready to Cross the Han had been the site of the ambush of good position to watch the the Marine communicators and approach march of Barrow’s The shelling of Yongdung-po, engineers. In late afternoon, Company A to the Kalchon. now blazing with fires, continued Hawkins sent Company C and With Bland’s Company B stalled throughout the night. Puller’s plan Weapons Company across the on the opposite bank of the of attack for the 1st Marines on 21 bridge to join with Company B to Kalchon, Hawkins had committed September was to have the 2d form a perimeter for the night. Company A to an attack from its Battalion continue its advance During the day, Ridge’s 3d positions on Hill 80 across a mile astride the Inchon-Seoul highway. Battalion, in reserve on Lookout of rice paddies to the river. Barrow

Following a burst of sniper fire, Marines quickly take cover suffered only light casualties, while the North Koreans had along a dike near the Han River. So far, the Marines had lost heavily. National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC349026

63 National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A3610 Marines of Capt Robert H. Barrow’s Company A, 1st each building and side street but failed to uncover a flicker Battalion, 1st Marines, move into Yongdung-po. Although of enemy resistance. the town seemed empty and dead, they carefully searched deployed his platoons in a classic line on the near side of the dike did the rifle company commanders two-up one-back formation. As close to the water gate. At his fully understand their capabilities. they came forward through the whistle signal they started across. Consequently they were pulled waist-high rice straw, a 3d As they came out of the defilade back to company control and Battalion officer, watching from his provided by the dike, Maxim employed in battery for overhead position behind the dike, was heavy machine guns on the oppo- fire in the attack. Now, in this situ- reminded of the stories he had site dike, perhaps 50 yards distant, ation so much like the Western been told of the Marines advancing opened up. Jarnagin fell back Front, they would come into their through the wheat into Belleau dead. His platoon recoiled, some own. Wood. Without a shot being fired, of them wounded. Denied artillery With their barrels just clearing Company A waded the stream and support and with his 81mm mor- the top of the dike, the Brownings marched into Yongdung-po. tars lacking ammunition, the battal- engaged the Maxims, just as they Barrow radioed Hawkins for ion’s Weapons Company comman- had done in 1918, and it was the instructions. Hawkins told him to der called up his platoon of six Brownings that won. The 3d keep on going. water-cooled Browning machine Battalion then crossed the Kalchon The crossing of the Kalchon by guns. at the water gate, Westover’s Ridge’s 3d Battalion was less easy. During the rapid cross-country Company G to the left of the tribu- Going over the dike was eerily like movement toward Seoul the heavy tary, First Lieutenant Joseph going “over the top” of the trench- machine guns were initially Fisher’s Company I to the right. es in the First World War. Second attached by section to the rifle Early that morning Sutter’s bat- Lieutenant Spencer H. Jarnagin of companies. They could not keep talion crossed the second bridge Company G formed his platoon in up with the light machine guns nor without incident except for fire

64 that continued to come in from Shepherd, Smith, Barr, Harris, and from Admiral Struble to General across the boundary separating the Lowe—had gathered at Kimpo Almond. 1st Marine Division from the 7th Airfield to see him off. Mutual con- By midnight, five infantry Infantry Division. Frustrated by the gratulations were exchanged, and assaults against Barrow’s position lack of artillery support, Sutter MacArthur flew to Tokyo. “He was, had followed the attack by the T- seized the bit in his teeth and in my opinion, the greatest military 34s. All were beaten back, the shelled the offending ridge with leader of our century,” mused heaviest fighting being in front of his attached 4.2-inch mortars General Shepherd, the Virginia Second Lieutenant John J. Swords’ before sending up Companies E gentleman, in 1967. 3d Platoon. and F to take the high ground. Later that day, in a ceremony at While they were so engaged, X Corps headquarters in Inchon Pause in the Fighting Captain Welby W. Cronk took and in accordance with established Company D along the highway amphibious doctrine, overall com- When the morning of 22 Sep- and ran into another section of mand of the operation passed tember came, Barrow’s Marines heavily fortified dike. Heavy fight- ing, supported by the ever-willing Gen Douglas MacArthur and MajGen Edward M. Almond examine a map at Kimpo Airfield shortly before the general’s departure for Japan. MacArthur Corsairs of VMF-214, continued in would tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff that “his forces were pounding at the gates of Sutter’s zone until late in the Seoul.” National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC349084 evening, when Sutter recalled Companies E and F to tuck them into a battalion perimeter for the night. In Yongdung-po, Barrow could hear the furious firefight being waged by Sutter’s battalion some- where to his right. Crossing the town against scattered opposition Barrow reached yet another dike. Beyond it was a sandy flat reach- ing about a mile to the Han. To his left rear was Bland’s Company B. Barrow dug in on the dike in a sausage-shaped perimeter. At nightfall, the Marines of Company A heard the characteristic chug- ging clatter of advancing tanks. Five T-34s, without infantry escort, came up the Inchon-Seoul high- way and pumped steel into the western face of Company A’s posi- tion. Barrow’s 3.5-inch rocket gun- ners knocked out one and dam- aged two others. Almond had been returning each evening to the Mount McKinley, but on the morning of 21 September he moved the head- quarters of X Corps ashore and opened his command post in Inchon. MacArthur came ashore again that afternoon enroute to Japan. A pride of generals—Almond,

65 National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC349054 Navy Hospital Corpsmen Richard E. Rosegoom and Frank J. were available to treat prisoners of war and Korean civil- Yasso, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, give first aid to a ians; the latter were second in number only to the Marines wounded North Korean while another prisoner is marched themselves. to the rear. While always there for Marines, corpsmen also were able to count 275 enemy Almond, continuing his critique from Inchon rejoined its parent dead. The four remaining T-34s, of the Marines’ performance, regiment. Now, with one battalion two damaged, two intact, were expressed his concern over Smith’s to be left behind to cover the found abandoned nearby. The 1st “open” left flank. Smith explained northwest flank, the KMC regiment and 3d Battalions renewed their to Almond his use of the 1st prepared to follow the 5th Marines attack and converged on Barrow’s Korean Marine Corps Regiment, across the Han. position against negligible resis- also that he had formed a Kimpo Smith’s third organic infantry tance. Airfield defense force, using com- regiment, the 7th Marines, includ- Sutter was not the only com- bat support and service units. ing the battalion that had come mander to complain about the fire Almond appeared somewhat mol- from the Mediterranean by way of control problems along the bound- lified. the Suez Canal, had arrived in the ary between the two divisions. The The Korean Marines, leaving harbor. Colonel Homer Litzenberg 7th Division reported Marine Corps one battalion behind in Inchon, asked General Smith what element fire falling in its zone. Almond met had followed the 5th Marines to he wanted landed first. “An with Barr and Smith and then told Kimpo Airfield, and made its first infantry battalion,” said Smith. his aide, Lieutenant Haig, to tele- attack northwest of the airfield on “And what next?” “Another infantry phone Corps headquarters and 19 September against light resis- battalion.” straighten out the situation. tance. That same day the battalion Litzenberg opened his command

66 post two miles south of Kimpo. His Coordination between the 1st in the assault. His grimy Marines 3d Battalion, under Major Maurice Marine Division and the 7th gathered together in a bivouac E. Roach, moved into an assembly Division continued to be poor. An area where they could wash and area nearby. The 1st Battalion, extensive minefield delayed the rest. The 22 September entry in under Lieutenant Colonel Thorn- 32d Infantry as it attacked along Almond’s war diary, dutifully kept ton M. Hinkle, reached Hill 131 a the Seoul-Suwon highway on 20 by Haig, noted that Sutter’s battal- mile north of the airfield sometime September, but on that same day ion had taken 116 casualties as after midnight. The 1st Battalion, the 32d did take T’ongdok moun- “the result of aggressive forward under Lieutenant Colonel Ray- tain and a part of Copper Mine movement without the required mond G. Davis, stayed in the har- Hill. The rest of Copper Mine Hill artillery preparation.” That bor to unload the ships that had was taken the next day and, as evening, Almond, after a busy day, brought in the regiment. night fell, the Army regiment held entertained Admiral Doyle and Smith made a note in his journal a line two miles south of Anyang- selected staff officers at dinner at that Almond’s concerns over open ni. The big event of 22 September his newly established mess in flanks had increased now that X for the 32d Infantry was the cap- Inchon. Corps’ command post was ashore. ture of Suwon Airfield and open- With the arrival of the 7th Marines, ing it to friendly traffic. Almond and Smith Disagree Smith himself could rest more eas- Sutter’s 2d Battalion reverted to ily concerning the security of his regimental reserve the afternoon By 23 September, the 32d northwest flank. of 22 September after seven days Infantry had secured its objectives

Loaded in amphibious tractors and trucks, Korean Marines followed the 5th Marines to Kimpo Airfield, made its first prepare to follow the 5th Marines across the Han River. A attack northwest of the field, and were now poised to liber- major portion of the 1st Korean Marine Corps Regiment had ate the Korean capital. National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC348702

67 overlooking the Han, south and self received a Silver Star from died of wounds, 5 Marines still southeast of Yongdung-po. The 3d MacArthur as had Barr and Admiral missing in action, and 988 men Battalion of the Army’s highly Doyle. MacArthur was even more wounded. In turn the division had regarded 187th Airborne Regiment, generous to Admiral Struble, giving taken, by fairly accurate count, with Almond’s “GHQ Raider him the Army’s Distinguished 1,873 prisoners, and claimed 6,500 Group” attached, arrived at Kimpo Service Cross. enemy casualties. and temporarily came under 1st The 5th Marines was now firmly During the day, 23 September, Marine Division control. Smith across the Han but was having dif- Smith visited the observation post gave it the mission of covering his ficulty in expanding its bridge- of the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, northwest flank, freeing the 7th head. Mid-morning on the 23d, which had just taken Hill 108 over- Marines for a crossing of the Han. Almond met with Smith and urged looking the rail and highway Almond ordered his command him to put the 1st Marines across bridges, their spans broken, into post displaced forward from the river. He again complained that Seoul. A Marine major, who knew Inchon to Ascom City. During the the Marines were not pressing the of O. P. Smith’s study of the Civil day he visited Barr’s command attack vigorously enough. Almond War, presumed to remark that the post and passed out a liberal num- suggested that Smith cross the Han position was similar to that of ber of Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, southeast of Seoul with the 1st Burnside at Falmouth on the north and Purple Hearts. Smith found Marines and then attack frontally bank of the Rappahannock across Almond’s practice of presenting into the city. Smith countered with from Fredericksburg in December on-the-spot awards disruptive and a less-rash plan to have the 1st 1862. General Smith looked with a cause for hurt feelings and mis- Marines cross at the 5th Marines’ amusement at the major and understandings. He thought bridgehead. Almond reluctantly patiently explained that he would Almond was inspired by concurred. not make the same mistake as Napoleon, but MacArthur was a From 15 through 23 September, Burnside. There would be no more immediate practitioner. Smith the 1st Marine Division had suf- frontal assault across the river into had, it will be remembered, him- fered 165 men killed in action or Seoul.

68 About the Author

dwin Howard Simmons, a Eretired Marine brigadier gen- eral, was, as a major, the com- manding officer of Weapons Company, 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, in the landing across Blue Beach Two at Inchon. His THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in active service spanned 30 the Korean War era, is published for the education and training of years—1942 to 1972—and Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine included combat in World War II Corps, Washington, D.C., as part of the U.S. Department of Defense and Vietnam as well as Korea. A observance of the 50th anniversary of that war. Editorial costs have been defrayed in part by contributions from members of the Marine Corps writer and historian all his adult Heritage Foundation. life, he was the Director of Marine Corps History and Museums from 1972 until 1996 and is now the Director KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES Emeritus. DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS He was born in Billingsport, New Jersey, the site of a Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC (RET) battle along the Delaware River in the American GENERAL EDITOR, Revolution, and received his commission in the Marine KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES Corps through the Army ROTC at Lehigh University. He Charles R. Smith also has a master’s degree from Ohio State University EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION and is a graduate of the National War College. A one- Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor time managing editor of the Marine Corps Gazette, he W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information Specialist has been published widely, including more than 300 arti- Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician cles and essays. His most recent books are The United Marine Corps Historical Center States Marines: A History (1998), The Marines (1998), and Building 58, Washington Navy Yard Dog Company Six (2000). Washington, D.C. 20374-5040 He is married, has four grown children, and lives with 2000 his wife, Frances, at their residence, “Dunmarchin,” two miles up the Potomac from Mount Vernon. PCN 190 00315 100

Among the other useful sec- which examined the operation Sources ondary sources were Alexander from the viewpoint of its principal The official history, The Haig, Jr., Inner Circles (New York: commanders, using their reports, Inchon-Seoul Operation by Lynn Warner Books, 1992); Clay Blair, writings, and memoirs. Among the Montross and Capt Nicholas A. The Forgotten War: America in primary sources used, the most Canzona, Volume II in the series, Korea, 1950-1953 (New York: important were the unit files and U.S. Marine Operations in Korea, Times Books, 1987); Gen Douglas records held by MCHC of the 1st 1950-1953 (Washington, D.C.: MacArthur, Reminiscences (New Marine Division and its subordi- Historical Branch, G-3 Division, York: McGraw Hill, 1964); Gen nate regiments and battalions. HQMC, 1955), provided a center- Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A Also important were the biograph- line for this account. General’s Life: An Autobiography ic files held by Reference Section. Other official histories of great (New York: Simon and Schuster, Other primary sources of great use were Roy E. Appleman, South 1983); Donald Knox, The Korean use were the oral histories, to the Naktong, North to the Yalu War: Pusan to Chosin (San Diego: diaries, and memoirs of many of (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985); the participants. The most impor- Chief of Military History, Depart- Marguerite Higgins, War in Korea: tant of these were those of ment of the Army, 1961); James A. The Report of a Women Combat Generals Stratemeyer, Almond, Field, Jr., History of United States Correspondent (Garden City: Cates, Shepherd, O. P. Smith, Naval Operations: Korea (Wash- Doubleday & Company, 1951); Craig, V. H. Krulak, and Bowser, ington, D.C.: Government Printing Gen J. Lawton Collins, Lightning and Admirals Burke and Doyle. A Office, 1962); and James F. Joe: An Autobiography (Baton fully annotated draft of the text is Schnabel, Policy and Direction: Rouge: Louisiana State University on file at the Marine Corps The First Year (Washington: Office Press, 1979); and Cdr Malcolm W. Historical Center. As is their tradi- of the Chief of Military History, Cagle and Cdr Frank A. Manson, tion, the members of the staff at Department of the Army, 1972). The Sea War in Korea (Annapolis: the Center were fully supportive Victory at High Tide (Philadel- U.S. Naval Institute, 1957). in the production of this anniver- phia: Lippincott, 1968) by Col Valuable insights were provid- sary pamphlet. Photographs by Robert D. Heinl, Jr., remains the ed by an Inchon war game devel- Frank Noel are used with the per- best single-volume account of oped at the Marine Corps mission of Associated Press/World Inchon. Historical Center (MCHC) in 1987, Wide Photos. OVER THE SEAWALL U.S. Marines at Inchon by Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

Marines in the Korean War Commemorative Series