September
15, 1950
North
Korea Pushed Back
At 6:33 a.m., the 3rd
Battalion of the 5th U.S. Marines, commanded by Lt. Col. Raymond B. Murray,
became the first invaders at Inchon Harbor, going ashore on Wolmido Island and
quickly overwhelming the North Korean People's Army soldiers there.
By midnight, there were
13,000 Marines on the west coast of the Korean peninsula, with a loss of only
21 Americans dead, compared to hundreds of NKPA soldiers. The city of Inchon would
be liberated the next day and the Marines would proceed to the South Korean
capital, Seoul. Masterminded by U.S.
Army General Douglas MacArthur, the Inchon landing was the beginning of the
retaking of South Korea from its North Korean conquerors.
The attack, combined with
the UN forces' breakout from the Pusan Perimeter three days later, suddenly
trapped the NKPA forces, concentrated in the south, behind enemy lines. The
straits between the island and the mainland were dangerous, and navigation
depended on predicting the time for high and low tides; one historian would
write later, "As MacArthur had assumed, no one expected a landing
there."
Six hours before the Inchon
landing, General MacArthur, along with U.S. Navy Vice-Admiral Arthur D.
Struble, U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. Lemuel C. Shepherd, and U.S. Army Major Gen.
Edward C. Almond rode in an unarmed boat to Woimi Island to observe the tides;
a reporter would write the next day that "The North Koreans had a chance
to kill Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the rest of the top commnaders of the United
Nations invasion forces with one well-placed artillery shell. But they muffed
it. They didn't fire a single shot."
Born in 1950?
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