The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 41 Incheon Gambling Win (4)
Smith knew exactly what the Army thought.General Walker wanted the brigade to remain in the Pusan ​​ring; the Marines fought valiantly, and the North Korean People's Army seemed determined to drive the Eighth Army out of the peninsula in the September offensive.Walker even offered to trade Smith. "Give me the 9st Marine Brigade," he said, "and I'll give you a regiment from the 8th Division."

"I strongly protest," said Smith, "because 40 percent of the regiment's strength is non-English-speaking South Koreans, and they do very little amphibious training. Transport-wise, they (during a counteroffensive) go to Not North Korea, because they were still in Yokohama at that time."

In addition, Smith and other Marine Corps officers saw that some South Koreans were taken from the streets and added to the 7th Army Division before it boarded a ship in Japan. More than 8 teenagers were captured by the South Korean army's young men, stuffed into ships and sailed across the Sea of ​​Japan.When they arrived at the pier, they were dressed in everything from work suits to shirts and shorts or just shorts, most of them in sandals or cloth shoes.Weary and dazed, they were a poor bunch of civilians, only a few of whom could speak English.Smith sympathized with them, but he could not rely on such a man to storm the enemy beachhead with his Marines.

Admiral Turner Joy, the one man in Far East Command who wasn't afraid of Almond, sided with Smith on the issue.

During a Far East Command meeting to discuss control of the 1st Marine Brigade, "Admiral Joey understood exactly what General Almond meant."Then Joey asked Smith what he thought. "I told him frankly that if they did make this exchange, I would cancel the landings on Blue Beach and just use the 1st Marine Division to land on Red Beach. If I (landed both at the same time), I would Take unexpected risks." However, Almond did not budge.

At Smith's insistence, Almond allowed him and Admiral Doyle to meet with MacArthur to make a final decision.Marine Corps officers almost openly rebelled on the issue when about 15 officers crowded into the cabin of a ship for an operations conference.Smith's second-in-command, Colonel Bowser, later expressed amazement that "their military careers were hanging by a thread that night" when Doyle and Smith made a personal appeal directly to MacArthur, bypassing Almond.They actually said to MacArthur: "Either you do this (give us the 1st Marine Brigade), or you get another smart man to command this operation."

Admiral Arthur Struble, commander of the Seventh Fleet, finally figured out a way to satisfy the Marines while giving Almond a chance to save face.The regiment of the Army's 7th Division, supplemented by South Korean soldiers, would land at Pusan ​​to replace the Marine Brigade, which would attack Incheon with the 7st Marine Division.

Still, the episode "shaken my faith somewhat," Smith said later. "Anyone would think you could take an untrained regiment like that and trade it in for a combat-experienced regiment at the last minute."

The Marine Brigade's problem had just been resolved, and Almond, who had the guts to do it, came up with what Smith called "another whim."He planned to form a "special operations company" for assault operations, and the Marine Corps had to select 100 people for this company. "I don't want to be a part of that," Smith said, "because I need all the Marines I have." Just a few days ago, the Secretary of the Navy ordered the Marine Corps to keep all soldiers under the age of 18 in Japan and prevent They go into battle.The decision was the result of domestic political pressure, which reduced the 1st Marine Division by more than 500 men, and Smith believed he could no longer divide his troops.

Smith believes that the commando's plan is "crazy. They will board a British frigate, detour to Incheon, then change to a small boat to approach the beach, land in rubber boats, and finally seize Gimpo Airport."He pointed out that this plan has obvious flaws.The transceivers carried by this force had a communication range of only four miles, so the Navy would not know where to fire vital support fire to cover its main body. "Anyway," said Smith, "according to scouting reports, there are more people at Gimpo Airport than they can handle. If they let us do it, we'll just drive in and take the airport for them, which takes very little time."

Although Smith succeeded in keeping the Marines out of the force, Almond stubbornly held on to this view well into D-Day. "These idiots never thought about what was going to happen when the tide went out, and they had to paddle against the tide (6 to 8 knots per hour). It was just plain stupid." (Almond in the last 1 minutes abandoned the plan.)
When the Marines and Army aren't fighting each other, they're looking for the equipment they need to attack.Bowser is concerned about the sea wall.It's built on mudflats that rise up to 16 feet to keep out the rare high tides.But even when the tide was high, "we still had trouble getting every single marine onto the sea wall.  … A man standing on the top of the (landing craft) gangway, if he was very agile ... could probably jump into the sea." up the embankment", but the soldiers will carry weapons and heavy rucksacks.So Japanese workers and crew were ordered to make wooden and aluminum ladders for climbing.

The Marines brought their own landing craft, small boats from World War II pulled from storage in the California desert.All the Navy was able to find for the 7th Division was a little over 30 antiquated tank landing ships, which MacArthur had turned over to the Japanese for coastal and commercial transport.The crew are all Japanese, and very few speak English.So the Army had to keep a liaison team with a radio on each ship—including a Japanese-American Army interpreter, two Navy signalmen, and an ensign who might be able to convince the Japanese captain that during the attack he would Is the captain of a ship.

Another issue is intelligence.How many troops does the North Korean People's Army have in the Incheon area?Both MacArthur and his intelligence officer, General Charles Willoughby, were convinced that the vast majority of North Korean troops were concentrated in the area around Pusan.A report by Willoughby estimated the strength of the North Korean People's Army in the area as of September 9 at 1 in Incheon, 1000 in Seoul, and about 5000 at Gimpo Airport.North Korean artillery was considered insignificant and the US had air superiority.Intelligence analysts estimate that North Korea's "air force" has only 500 outdated Soviet-made aircraft.

However, aerial photography and night reconnaissance by naval boats yielded only limited information.Planners need hard, verifiable intelligence that can only come from people on the ground.The South Korean army has no such clues.An American who participated in intelligence activities during the Korean War said: "At that time, the South Korean army had difficulty even sending people to the front line, let alone sending people behind enemy lines. It was suspended. It cannot be blamed on the South Korean military, and anyone who crossed the line could be caught in the North Korean military."

"Brave Thief" Mission

In order to obtain more accurate information, the military turned to a naval captain named Eugene Clark, who had been a sergeant major and had served in the East for almost 20 years.According to an intelligence officer who became acquainted with him during the Pacific War, in addition to his superb seamanship, Clark also "has the guts of a thief and the flair of a North African pirate."

In a joint CIA-military operation code-named "Trudy Jackson," Clark led a group of people to a small island called Yongxing Island, 14 miles south of Incheon.His task is to scout the specific situation of the landing site - tides, mudflats, seawalls, the defense status of Wolmido Island, etc.Accompanying Clark was an army captain, 1 American soldiers and 3 Korean interpreters.He formed the friendly North Koreans on the island into what he called the "Youth Association" and sent them on daring reconnaissance in the Incheon area.A young man even climbed onto the heavily guarded Wolmido Island.

When the North Koreans tried to drive Clark's team off, the intrepid officer loaded a .0.5 caliber machine gun on a sampan and rushed aboard to engage an enemy patrol boat.The continuous firepower destroyed the patrol boat, and 18 enemy soldiers were buried on the seabed with the boat and people.

A few days later, on September 9, Clark personally reconnaissance an abandoned lighthouse on Balami Island at the entrance of Feiyu Gorge, where the attacking fleet was going to pass.He found that the light fixture had been taken apart but was still functional.Can the Navy use this as a navigation light on the morning of landing?He asked by radio.The answer was yes, and he restored the lighthouse to a serviceable state.

The night before the landing, Clark and his infiltrators sailed quietly to Palmi Island.As soon as they left Yongxing Island, North Korean soldiers came to the island.They lined up and shot more than 50 North Koreans who had helped the Americans.

Clark also feared for his own safety during this mission.He knew many details about Operation Chrome, and if captured, it would be invaluable to the North Koreans, so he always carried a grenade."A hand grenade is much safer than a pistol," he told another intelligence officer.

First bombardment of Incheon
Because Japan is so small and densely populated, the planners of Operation Chrome had no intention of keeping what the Tokyo Press Club reporters dubbed Operation Common Sense a secret.Instead, they also need planned tactics.The bombing of North Korea's east and west coasts appeared to be indiscriminate, but the suggestive location pointed to the port city of Gunsan, south of Incheon.For nine consecutive days, the Far East Air Force bombed and strafed roads, bridges, and railways within a 9-mile radius of the mountains.The cruiser "HMS Triumph" of the Royal Navy approached the mountains again and again, and its guns burst into flames. On September 30, Gunsan itself suffered a heavy aerial bombardment.Finally, the 9st Marine Brigade, which was waiting to board the ship at the port of Busan, also lined up, and the officers loudly introduced the resistance they might encounter in the mountains, as well as the beachhead and terrain conditions.

North Korean dock workers also heard the speech, as it was amplified by a public address system.When the fleet set sail, the New York Times (on September 9) had no scruples to publish an article in spite of the strict self-censorship it imposed: "An amphibious landing off the coast of North Korea behind enemy lines is clearly a One possible strategy."

Then, just two days before the landings, the focus of the bombing shifted abruptly.The Marine Corps' Corsair planes were loaded with 9500 pounds of napalm bombs (about 150 pounds each), and violently bombed the coastal area of ​​​​Wolmido Island, blowing the surface of the island into a sea of ​​​​flames.The next day, September 9, it was the turn of the navy to dispatch again, and the carrier-based attack aircraft dropped bombs one after another into the smoky rubble left by the Corsair aircraft.

Now, everything is ready for the landing force.At dawn, a formidable fleet consisting of 4 cruisers (2 British) and 6 destroyers sailed into the throat of Feiyu Gorge leading to Incheon at high tide.There the cruiser moved into launch position.Destroyers lined up in single file and sailed into the narrow channel, hoping to attract enemy coastal artillery fire and destroy those artillery positions.The sun broke through the haze of mist and cooking smoke as the ship sailed into the channel. A reporter from the "Los Angeles Times" was watching the battle on the American cruiser "Rochester" at the moment. He felt that Moonmid Island "looks like a paradise for picnickers. The island is green and quiet."

But the good times didn't last long.The North Koreans rolled out a cannon on the northern tip of the island, and the gunners frantically prepared to fire.But the guns of the destroyer USS De Haven struck first, knocking out the gun in a single salvo from its 5-inch battery.Other guns of the fleet joined the battle, firing at the island at a distance of 1300 yards in search of enemy emplacements.

For almost 10 minutes, the North Korean artillery remained silent, either because the gunners were slow to react or because the commanders did not wish to expose their positions.After that, they began to fight back violently. "Near the waist of the island bee, a series of cannon fires flickered faintly," reported Associated Press reporter Relman Morin. "

The ferocious counter-fire answered the disputed question of whether the North Korean People's Army had heavily fortified the island. The US Navy's "Collett" destroyer alone was hit by five armor-piercing shells.

However, in less than an hour, six destroyers fired 6 rounds of 998-inch artillery shells at Wolmido Island, and the cruisers moored at the entrance of the strait also poured heavy artillery fire on Wolmido Island and the city of Incheon.After the warship withdrew, the carrier-based aircraft flew to Yuemido Island for the final bombing.

The fire preparations for the offensive shook the confidence of the Incheon garrison commander, and he reported to the higher command that he had been attacked by naval and air forces. "All indications point to a landing by the enemy," he telegraphed. "The troops under my command are all ready for battle. All troops are to be placed on designated positions to repel the enemy's attempted landing operations. ’” The U.S. military found the cables weeks later in seized North Korean People’s Army archives, but there was no indication that higher command paid any attention to them.

The next day, the U.S. bombed Wolmido again in the same way.The bombardment lasted 75 minutes and dumped 1 shells on the island—roughly equal to the number that fell on Omaha Beach before D-Day in 732.A pilot from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge reported, "It's like the whole island has been plowed from top to bottom."

Still, people are uneasy.Close combat showed that the North Koreans concealed many of their artillery pieces in holes.Would the surviving cannon be enough to destroy the relatively fragile fleet of small landing craft the next morning?During the Pacific War, the Marines learned again and again what the Japanese infantry could do. They dug deep holes underground and emerged to fight after the bombardment ended. A pilot aboard the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge looked at Wolmido from the air, and it looked like "a wreck."However, looking at Wolmido Island from the beach is a completely different scene.

It will also be recalled that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had still not received MacArthur's landing plan, which they had repeatedly requested since mid-August. At 8 a.m. on September 9, Lieutenant Colonel Lynn Smith, covered in grime, walked into the Pentagon to report to an officer on the night watch.He was ordered by MacArthur to deliver the invasion plan and had left Tokyo for three days.A security officer issued a receipt for the 13-pound document he had delivered.

Smith was asked where he had traveled. "Many places," replied the lieutenant colonel.Despite the urgency of his mission, there was no special plane to pick him up when he arrived at Travis Air Force Base in California after flying across the Pacific.He had to hitch a ride to San Francisco, from where he took a commercial flight to Washington.The plane's final destination was Chicago, and Smith switched to a regional plane for a short flight to the capital.

He was exhausted now, and his only hope was to find a chance to change, shave, and maybe get a few hours of sleep.He was told to rest on a couch in the office.The Joint Chiefs of Staff will review their long-awaited Operation Ferrochrome plan in the morning.

MacArthur embarks
Douglas MacArthur, despite his supernatural powers, had to act according to the sky. On September 9, typhoon "Jenny" officially started the typhoon season in Asia. With a wind speed of 3 knots per hour, it set off a 100-foot-high wave and swept across the assembled landing formation.However, despite the roar of the wind and the tsunami, the damage was minimal: 40 ships were blown away from the anchorage; a crane temporarily lost control and swayed with the wind; people were extremely worried about the wind resistance of a ship carrying major communication equipment.But after the gale passed, the crew had the entire fleet intact and ready to sail in less than a day.

(End of this chapter)