Battle of Inchon : Memory
[454] [read-inchon-7-54] Battle of Inchon is the record of under “Memory.” The figure to read with it is 15. Do not arrange states in a league. Fix who moved what, and where, to that year. Do not add a later war into the same total. Oct 1950: KPA collapse in the south; UN goes north. Named as historical geography of Battle of Inchon, not as a targeting list.
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.
Say Battle of Inchon with , “Memory,” and 15. The figure is not a national score.15
Figures to keep
- Year of the action
- 15
- Figure in the record
- 15
- Action
- Battle of Inchon
- Line of the front
- Memory
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