The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 42 Incheon Gambling Win (5)
However, the Japanese with rich sailing experience warned the Americans: Experience has shown that in these waters, if a typhoon is followed by a turbulent white hat wave, another typhoon will come within 10 days.So, Admiral Doyle moved his plans forward by a day. On September 9, his flagship "McKinley Hill" followed the last transport ship out of Kobe Port and into the choppy and windy Sea of ​​Japan.

MacArthur sits on the flagship.A few days ago, he called in some reporters, many of whom had been with him since World War II in the Pacific.MacArthur welcomed the reporters as if he was going on a pleasant weekend trip rather than a dangerous military operation.With subordinates and visiting dignitaries, he can appear aloof and aloof.Yet with a group of press people he was almost always in high spirits and gags that were rarely heard by the staff officers who made jokes about him.

"I'm going to have a little fight, and I'd like you boys to come with me, if you'd like to," he said.

"I said it was a small battle, but it was actually a big battle." MacArthur and his party will fly south tomorrow morning. "I've got a new plane," he said, "and I'm going to follow you in it." He smiled and waved his black pipe at the reporters. "But you poor boys will fly in my old plane, the Bataan."

In Sasebo Port, which is the closest to the Korean Peninsula in Japan, MacArthur invited reporters to accompany him on board the "McKinley Hill" warship, and then listened to the briefing of Admiral Doyle, the commander of the task force, in the cabin.The aftermath of the typhoon still made the sea rough, and although the wind and waves made MacArthur exhausted, he still talked about the idea of ​​​​"Operation Chrome Iron".As Carl Maidens of Time magazine noted, MacArthur's rhetoric was largely a popularization of his August 8 rhetoric to the skeptical General Collins and Admiral Sherman at the Joint Chiefs of Staff Version.MacArthur's audience at this moment will describe his great achievements or his setbacks in their reports in the next few days.

MacArthur said: "The history of warfare proves that nine times out of ten an army is defeated because its supply lines have been cut. That is exactly what we are striving for." Seizing Seoul would cut off the supplies of the North Korean People's Army, which was fighting around Pusan, cause them to disintegrate.MacArthur concluded by saying:

We can put in 1.5 million Americans, but they can still put in 4 times as many Asians.I therefore decided that I would fight a war in which I would use not the enemy's strength, but our own.We have devised a plan to avoid the enemy's advantages and exploit our own. ...

Doyle acknowledged that landing was technically difficult.He called Incheon "the worst place for us to conduct an amphibious assault off the coast of North Korea, but ... it's probably the only place where our attack can be effective, and our purpose is to land, divide and destroy the enemy."

Someone asked MacArthur if he was worried about the CCP's involvement. "If the Chinese do intervene," MacArthur replied, "then our air force will make the Yalu River bloody like never before."

MacArthur "messenger" briefing
Lieutenant Colonel Lynn Smith spent a sleepless night on the sofa. He shaved and changed in a bathroom in Building E of the Pentagon, and then went to the deputy chief of staff in charge of military operations according to MacArthur's order.

The officer was rather surprised to find that their long-awaited "senior staff officer" from Tokyo was a junior field officer.Then he said dissatisfiedly, "I'll take you to Al's right away."

"Al" turned out to be Major General Alfred Grunther, Chief of the Joint Staff.Grunther seemed amused by this, too. "The chiefs of staff will meet at eleven," he told Smith. "It's an hour and a half from now. Will you be ready?"

Smith could only bite the bullet and agree.He looked at his watch and calculated the time in North Korea. Incheon time was 13 hours behind Washington time (calendar time was one day ahead of Washington time).There are only 8 hours left before the attack on Wolmido Island.

Smith called in draftsmen and art workers to help him furnish the wainscoting on the five walls of the briefing room.Smith was on edge, wondering what the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would do to him when he came in.He didn't want anyone else to suffer, to bear the wrath of MacArthur's little farce, but everyone was pleasant.

Just as Smith picked up the pointer and was about to introduce the situation, General Collins interjected, "Lieutenant Colonel, today is D-Day, right?"

"Yes, sir," Smith replied.

"When will the attack begin?"

Smith looked at a time-zone clock on the wall, then did some mental math. "In 6 hours and 20 minutes, that is, at 5:30 pm here time, the landing on Wolmido Island will begin." He replied.

"Thank you," said Collins, "you can begin your briefing."

Smith spoke for two hours, during which time no one from the Joint Chiefs of Staff interrupted him with a question of weight.MacArthur once told him that if someone among the chiefs of staff suggested that the gamble in Incheon was too big, he would throw out the argument of "insignificant insignificance", but Smith did not have the opportunity to use this argument.After the introduction, each chief of staff shook hands with him in thanks.

Smith glanced at the clock on the wall as they left.If all operations in Feiyu Gorge go according to plan, the attack will start in 4 hours.

MacArthur's game was a deliberate and blatant attempt to undermine the gentlemen's agreement on which officers lived and worked, but he got his way.By the time the young lieutenant colonel finished his briefing, the landing operation was in full swing and it was difficult to cancel it.

MacArthur won the round, but at a significant cost.The Joint Chiefs of Staff now had evidence of MacArthur's usual deceit and despicable tactics against Washington.However, it was not a political opponent or a diplomat that he hit by mistake this time, but his colleagues in the military.When Truman finally decided to fire MacArthur the following spring, no one in the Joint Chiefs of Staff defended him.

Marines rush to the beach

In the early morning of September 9th, the attacking fleet composed of 15 ships-led by the flagship "McKinley Hill", under the jurisdiction of cruisers, destroyers and 19 rocket launchers in full battle-under the cover of night, God did not know Unknowingly sailed into the channel leading to Feiyu Gorge.The cruiser moved into firing position and aimed its cannons at Moonmid Island and targets beyond.The destroyer also cautiously sailed into the main channel as it did two days ago, followed closely by the rocket launcher.MacArthur walked through a group of generals wearing steel helmets, life jackets, and dazzling costumes, and boarded the bridge of the "McKinley Hill" to watch the battle.As usual, MacArthur was wearing the old sweat-stained military cap.Out of respect for his high rank, he was seated in the admiral's chair on the bridge.

The "McKinley Hill" sailed rapidly through the darkness before dawn, and MacArthur pointed to the flickering buoy lights on Bawei Island and said: "That is a gift for us." He wrote in his memoirs: "We give the enemy Suddenly, they didn't even turn off the beacon light." Captain Clark's reconnaissance mission and the lighting of the beacon light were extremely confidential, and no one on the bridge could correct MacArthur.

海空军进行了令人生畏的最后火力准备。4艘巡洋舰停泊在离岸边13000至15000码的地方，较为灵活的驱逐舰则进至离滩头不足800码的地方。在登陆前的45分钟里，它们将把总共2845发炮弹倾泻到月尾岛和仁川，并在登陆前2分钟停止炮击。

Fifteen minutes before landing, the rocket-launching ship will also begin its deadly bombardment.Some in the attack fleet referred to these ships as "floating shotguns" (medium-range rockets that cover landing ships).During the ferocious 15-minute bombardment, each rocket ship would fire 13 1000-inch rockets at Moonmid Island at a distance of less than 1000 yards.The two rocket-launching ships would then stop firing and withdraw from the fight.The third would rush straight to the front of the first row of landing ships, drive parallel to the shoreline, and fire directly on the slope directly in front of the attacking force, delivering the final blow to the defenders.

Meanwhile, Marine and Navy planes would bombard Moonmido with cannon, rockets, and bombs.The plan called for close coordination of naval gunfire and aerial bombardment, with Marine and Navy artillery no more than 1100 feet high and aircraft no lower than 1500 feet.

At dawn, Incheon and Wolmido were indistinguishable from the shadows of the jagged black mountains.There were occasional flickers of fire from the previous day's bombing.But the waterfront seemed eerily quiet and eerie.At 5:45 a.m., Admiral Doyle gave the order: "Fire." The cruiser's 6-inch and 8-inch guns sent bursts of orange flame toward the gray shoreline.Then, the smaller caliber cannons on the destroyer also opened fire.After that, the planes of the Navy and Marine Corps roared in, and the bombs they dropped on Wolmido Island made a dull loud noise.Radio Heights, the most prominent headland on the island, had become an indistinct mass in the haze.

The devastation caused by the artillery fire was so great that naval pilots had difficulty finding specific targets.Capt. Edward Albright, from Herrington, Kansas (via a Navy press conference later in the day), said: "I happened to notice yesterday that there was a ramp leading to a small bay with a long It was full of green grass and shrubs. When I was ordered to fly to the area again today, the weeds were gone and there were only a few trees.” Another Navy pilot, Major Marvin Ramsey of Kansas City Said: "There is nothing left on the island." Lieutenant Sidney Fisher of Los Angeles exclaimed: "Man! That island is really shaking, I think it will turn over and sink."

At 6:5, the uneasy young marines of the 3rd Battalion of the 457th Marine Regiment squatted on the deck of the 18-foot-long dock landing ship, watching the continuous artillery fire pouring on Yuewei Island in silence and surprise.Most of the soldiers were 21- to [-]-year-olds, some of whom seemed to wish they were elsewhere."I couldn't have been happier three months ago," one of them told Time magazine reporter Frank Gibney. But when they saw the destroyer between them and the beach at Moonmido, and the huge hull of the rocket launcher, , It is indeed a sigh of relief.

A harsh voice over the PA system said, "Lower the stern gate." The next order was for the Marines to transfer to the smaller utility landing craft, the 120-foot boats that would take them to the beach.They all crouched between tanks and cargo.

The dock landing ship stopped in the water, and the deck barriers used to block the sea water were lowered.The utility landing craft slid backwards down the slide into the calm sea, made an awkward U-turn, and headed straight for the beach.

At this point, the rocket launcher has already loaded the shells.Chunky rocket-launching ships juxtapose elegant destroyers and aircraft carriers, which, just a few hundred yards from the beach, look like barges off the tug.Then the order to fire was given.Clusters of rockets rose from the launch boat, shot straight into the sky in an arc trajectory, and then poured down on the remaining guardians of Yuewei Island.

Just as the general-purpose landing craft bumped towards the beach, the Marine Corps' Corsair fighter jets swooped down and dropped bombs on the island again.The general landing craft was now only a few hundred yards from the beachhead, and a Marine shouted, "Leave us a little of the island." The last bomb was dropped on the island at 6:29 a.m., four minutes later, Seven landing craft scrambled to beach Green Beach at the northern tip of the island.The boat shuddered as they hit the sand, then steadied itself.The bow door was lowered, the tanks filed down, and the marines ran after them.

The first batch of soldiers who landed were worried about encountering resistance, so they lay down on the beach as soon as they disembarked, raised their guns and prepared to shoot, but they did not encounter any resistance, because the place where they landed was completely destroyed.The Marines rushed across the beachhead and came under only sporadic rifle fire as they reached the northern tip of the island.The close-range air support was still going on, and the F4U aircraft used machine guns to sweep the area in front of the shock troops like water, and the bullets splashed smoke and dust less than 50 yards in front of the marines.

The Marines' primary objective was the northern slope of the island's highest point, Radio Heights.The scattered and insensitive North Korean soldiers encountered along the way had no intention of fighting, preferring to surrender.At 6:55 a.m., just 25 minutes after the first Marines landed, Sergeant Alvin Smith tied an American flag to a gunfire-ravaged tree atop Radio Heights.

MacArthur, who was pointing his telescope at the island, nodded in satisfaction. "Okay," he said, standing up, "let's have coffee."

When Colonel Alpha Bowser of the Marine Corps later described the attack on Wolmido Island, he attributed the easy landing of the attacking force to the bombing of the navy and air force. "Many people (soldiers of the North Korean People's Army) came out of the bunkers and bunker holes staggering and in a state of complete bewilderment. ... Even if they were not dead or seriously injured, they were all delirious and stumbling around go."

When TIME reporter Frank Gibney went ashore, he witnessed the collapse of the defenders:

Three or four half-naked North Korean soldiers, emaciated and terrified, with their hands stiffly held high, walked into one of their former shallow trenches at the behest of a marine.I talk to them in Japanese. "Are you going to kill us?" one of them stammered.I said we wouldn't kill them, and he said a few words to the others, and the look of fear in their eyes eased a little.

Unexpectedly, the third batch of landing marines encountered the most tenacious resistance.H Company of the battalion was the first attack wave, and they were thought to have cleared the northern tip of the island.However, I Company of the third attack wave was hit by a rain of grenades.After the company calmed down, it saw a flanking artillery emplacement built at the bottom of the cliff.From time to time, the North Koreans leaned out to throw grenades, and then crouched down for cover.

Company I decided to give the twenty-odd defenders a chance to give up their hopeless resistance.An interpreter climbed to the edge of the cliff, told the soldiers that their situation was hopeless, and asked them to surrender.Their answer was to throw more grenades.

Captain Robert McMullen, the company commander, called in the tanks that had followed the Marines up the hill, and one of them—actually a converted bulldozer—rumbled into the tricky spot, using broken Shi sealed off the artillery emplacement and wiped out the North Koreans.

(End of this chapter)