Battle of Inchon (1950): City landings · 463

Inchon was a harbour problem, a political deadline (retake Seoul), and a strategic temptation to go north. A landing at Kunsan or closer to Pusan would have been orthodox. Inchon promised to cut the Seoul-Pusan axis and collapse the KPA from the rear. The price was hydrography. Admiral Doyle's staff turned tide tables into a two-pulse landing (morning Wolmi, evening city).

Naval gunfire and carrier air prepared Wolmi-do. Marines climbed seawalls. The city fight was short compared with Seoul's street week. Almond's X Corps -- Marines and 7th Infantry, with ROK units -- was a MacArthur instrument as much as a joint team. Syngman Rhee and MacArthur's ceremony in the damaged capital was political theatre on a clock. The KPA in the south was already breaking toward the parallel.

Atrocities and civilian harm in the recapture week belong in the ledger -- a Korean city, not an empty stage. Success licensed the UN crossing of the 38th. China's warning was discounted. Inchon's afterlife is the Yalu as much as the seawall. Truman would fire MacArthur in April 1951 for a different argument -- but Chromite made the general politically almost untouchable for a season.