Always Faithful – Part II: Soldiers from the Sea

Always Faithful series: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3

Inchon was a terrible place to launch an amphibious assault. The port sat more than a hundred miles behind the North Korean lines at the end of a long, narrow channel that twisted between islands and exposed mud flats before reaching the city. The tides made everything worse. Twice a day, the Yellow Sea rose more than thirty feet against the seawalls and then disappeared again, leaving miles of thick mud between the landing force and the shore. Ships that entered the harbor at high tide could find themselves stranded when the water receded. Landing craft had only a few hours to get Marines ashore, unload their equipment, and get back to sea before the ocean simply went away.

The terrain offered few better options once they reached the city. Inchon had almost no beaches. Concrete seawalls protected much of the waterfront, forcing Marines to bring ladders with them just to get off the landing craft. Behind the walls sat a dense city occupied by the North Korean Army. The narrow approaches made the ships vulnerable, the tides dictated the schedule, and the seawalls gave the enemy a ready-made defensive position. Almost everything about Inchon favored the defenders.

That was precisely why the North Koreans did not expect anyone to attack there.

Before dawn on September 15, 1950, Marines from the 1st Marine Division slipped out of the darkness toward Wolmi-do, a fortified island that dominated the approaches to Inchon. Smoke still hung over the island from the incessant naval gunfire that preceded the amphibious assault. Fires burned along the rocky hills above the beach, illuminating the shattered remains of North Korean fighting positions as the landing craft churned through the dark water toward shore.

The ramps dropped shortly after sunrise. Marines poured onto the landing site and immediately started climbing into the broken terrain above them. North Korean soldiers sprayed the beach with machine gun fire from fighting positions scattered across the hillside. Behind them, the Yellow Sea was already beginning its retreat, slowly exposing the mud flats and leaving the landing craft stranded along the shore.

The Marines pushed through the fire and climbed toward the high ground, using tanks and flamethrowers to reduce the fortified positions blocking their advance. Small groups worked their way through trenches and bunkers while North Korean soldiers continued to fight from the shattered slopes above them. The battle moved quickly across the small island as the Marines overwhelmed one position after another and drove the surviving defenders toward the far shore.

By midmorning, the fighting was largely over. The Marines had taken Wolmi-do and opened the approaches to Inchon, but the same tide that had carried them ashore had disappeared into the Yellow Sea. Miles of mud now separated the Marines from the next phase of the assault.

They would have to wait for the ocean to come back.

The landing craft finally turned toward Red and Blue Beach as the tide returned and daylight began to fade. Marines packed the narrow boats shoulder to shoulder, the boats heavy with sweat and fear as the city slowly grew larger in front of them. The seawalls rose out of the water ahead, dark against the fading light, until they seemed to fill the entire horizon. Machine guns opened from the shoreline, sending rounds skipping across the water and cracking against the steel hulls of the landing craft.

The boats slammed against the seawall and the Marines threw their scaling ladders against the concrete. Men climbed through the gunfire while mortar rounds crashed into the waterfront behind them, filling the landing site with smoke and debris. More boats emerged through the haze and pushed toward shore as the fighting spilled over the seawall.

The Marines scratched their way into the city, clawing the North Korean defenders out of trenches, bunkers, and the darkened buildings overlooking the harbor. Rifle fire echoed through the narrow streets as grenades flashed through the smoke and automatic weapons hammered away in the gathering darkness. Slowly, the sounds of the fighting moved away from the seawall as the Marines forced the North Koreans deeper into the city and widened the narrow strip of ground they had taken from the sea.

By nightfall, the Marines held the beaches and enough of Inchon to bring the rest of the division ashore.

Seoul lay twenty miles to the east.

The landing at Inchon changed the war almost overnight. The North Korean Army had spent the summer driving relentlessly south, but now Marines threatened the roads and railways that fed the army from behind while American and South Korean forces broke out of the Pusan Perimeter. The North Koreans turned north, abandoning equipment and positions as they raced to escape the trap closing around them.

The Marines turned towards Seoul.

The North Koreans fought desperately to keep them out. Marines crossed the Han River and pushed into the city from the west, fighting through barricaded streets and shattered buildings as the North Koreans gave ground one block at a time. Tanks moved through streets littered with rubble while Marines cleared buildings and fighting positions that had been prepared to slow their advance.

Seoul had been under North Korean control for almost three months. Much of the population had fled during the invasion, but thousands of civilians remained trapped inside the city. They emerged slowly as the fighting moved past them, stepping from damaged buildings and watching the Marines continue east.

The battle lasted for days.

By the end of September, the North Korean Army had been driven from the city. The same streets that had filled with refugees fleeing south only months earlier now carried Marines and South Korean soldiers moving in the opposite direction.

Only three months had passed since North Korea seized Seoul. The South Korean government had fled, its army had been driven almost to the sea, and the country itself had come dangerously close to disappearing.

Now the Korean flag flew over Seoul again.

Continue the series → Always Faithful: Part III

Full series: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3

Byron Owen is a Reconnaissance Marine with tours as both a platoon commander and commanding officer at the elite 1st Force Reconnaissance Company. He also had the honor of commanding several intelligence and cyber units to include Cyberspace Warfare Task Group 1, and 3d Radio Battalion. He writes about leadership at www.rucksackleadership.com, information warfare at keyterraincyber.com, and is the author of the upcoming book Bury my Heart in Baghdad.