How Douglas MacArthur dominated the Inchon invasion of the Korean War
How Douglas MacArthur dominated the Inchon invasion of the Korean War
Late in the afternoon of June 25, 1950, the Secretary of State of the United States, Dean Acheson, was at his farm in Maryland reading when a call came to inform him of a serious situation in the Far East. That same Saturday night, he telephoned President Harry S Truman at the house in Independence, MO. President ... the North Koreans are attacking through the 38th parallel. "
Harry S. Truman responds to the Korean crisis
The next day, President Truman returned to Washington aboard his Independence aircraft for an emergency meeting of the high-level Security Council at Blair House, his temporary residence while the White House was in the process of being renovated.
The President heard and approved a triad of recommendations, namely, first, to evacuate all US civilian dependents from the capital of South Korea, Seoul; secondly, to drop supplies to the besieged forces of the Republic of Korea (ROK) under attack; and third, move the US fleet. UU based on Cavite in the Philippines to Korea. Another warning was that there would be no Chinese nationalist forces sent from Formosa to fight in South Korea.
Meanwhile, far from the nation's capital in Japan occupied by the allies, the Supreme Commander of the United States, the five-star Army General Douglas MacArthur, answered the phone next to his bed at the US embassy in Tokyo. He, too, was told that the North Koreans had hit with great force.
The North Koreans had formidable Soviet tanks
Familiar with all countries in Asia, MacArthur described Korea in his memoirs of 1964, Reminiscences: "Geographically, South Korea is a mountainous peninsula that juts out into Japan from the Manchurian continent between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. An unequal corridor from north to south crosses the rough heart of the country below the 38th parallel, and there are roads and rail links on both the eastern and western coastal plains. "I knew that the Republic of Korea's forces were very weak: four divisions along the parallel and, although well trained," organized as a police force, not the line troops. They had only light weapons, no air or naval forces, and no tanks, artillery and many other essential elements. The decision to equip and organize them in this way had been taken by the [U.S.] Department of State. "As for his opponents of the North Korean People's Army, MacArthur knew they had" a powerful attack army, fully equipped with heavy weapons, including the latest model of Soviet tanks, "the vaunted T-34 that had smashed the German Wehrmacht.
The mathematical equation of the rival forces in the terrain was simple and deadly: 100,000 ROKs against 200,000 NKPAs, more without modern weapons for the defenders instead of All modern weapons for attackers. The advance method similar to the North Korean steamroller was also quite basic: turn to the left and then to the right of the lines of your opponents in wide and flanking movements, so well practiced by the regiments of British infantry during the whole of the Wars Napoleonic of the previous century. , and then dive into any open breach in the enemy center.
"Shyness fuels conflict, and courage often avoids"
President Truman's dismissive term for Korea as a "police action," his man in Tokyo thought privately, "Now is the time to recognize what the history of the world has taught since the beginning of time: shyness generates conflict and value often prevents "Therefore, from the beginning, the general misunderstood the temper of his commander in chief, as the latter did.
However, in these first hours and days of extreme emergency, the Washington man addressed the man from Tokyo: "I was ordered to use the Navy and the Air Force to help the defenses of South Korea ... also to isolate the Island of the Nationalists, Formosa of the Chinese Continent The seventh fleet of the United States was delivered to my operational control. "
The British Asian Fleet was also placed under his command and, with his historic corn cob tube clenched between his teeth, MacArthur flew from Haneda Airport aboard his old warplane. Bataan will take a first-hand look, on the ground, at the fighting in Korea.
MacArthur comes to witness a tragic scene
Upon his arrival, he arrived almost immediately under enemy fire. He seized a jeep. "Seoul was already in the hands of the enemy," he wrote later. "It was a tragic scene. I watched the disaster I had inherited for an hour. In that brief interval on that hill soaked with blood, I formulated my plans. They were desperate plans, in fact, but I could not see any other way, except to accept a defeat that would include not only Korea, but all of continental Asia. "
How could that have been, this moment of genius in the midst of an overwhelming catastrophe and a seemingly hopeless defeat? He affirmed his later compatriot and eventual successor, Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway in 1986: "He was really one of the great captains of the war." Of the minor mortals, Douglas MacArthur was noble and serene in his genius, completely convinced of his purpose, and absolutely determined that he would complete all his plans or die in the process.
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