Inch'on 1950: The last great amphibious assault

By Gordon Rottman

Osprey's study of Inch'on, which was probably the most significant campaign in the Korean War (1950-1953), as well as the last major amphibious assault of division-size conducted in the history of warfare. The odds were stacked against the US troops, with virtually no time for training and many of the divisions unprepared for the conflict. The success of the Inch'on campaign is a testament to the sheer initiative of the officers and NCOs conducted it. This book details the strategy and tactics that led to the operation's success, as well as narrating the experience of the battle in fascinating detail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781782005018

Gordon Rottman

Gordon Rottman lives outside of Houston, Texas, served in the Army for twenty-six years in a number of “exciting” units and wrote wargames for Green Berets for eleven years. He’s written over 130 military history books, but his interests have turned to adventurous young adult novels—influenced by a bunch of audacious kids, Westerns owing to his experiences on his wife’s family’s ranch in Mexico, and historical fiction focusing on how people lived and thought—history does not have to be boring. His first Western novel, The Hardest Ride, garnered three writing awards and was a USA Today and Amazon best seller.

Reviews for Inch'on 1950

[macdad-236140 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

To many observers in early September 1950, it appeared as though the Korean War was about to end in a victory for North Korean army. In just over two months they had driven both the South Korean forces and their American reinforcements to the southeastern corner of the Korean peninsula. Though the front lines had stabilized into the “Pusan Perimeter,” the rapid advance of the North Korean offensive had convinced many that it was only a matter of time before they would conquer the rest of the country, reuniting the peninsula under Kim Il Sung’s rule.On September 15, however, American forces seized the port of Inch’on, just outside of Seoul. In a matter of days, the course of the war shifted in favor of the UN coalition aiding South Korea, as the overextended North Korean forces soon fled northward. It was a remarkable turn of fortune, none the less so for the fact that, as Gordon Rottman describes in his short history of the operation, it was an improvised operation involving forces cobbled together from a shrunken military. Yet it was from such unpromising circumstances that one of the most amphibious assaults in military history was launched.Though Douglas MacArthur is often credited with devising the operation, Rottman explains that it was actually the brainchild of Donald McB. Curtis, a Pentagon staffer who devised the basic concept just days before the war began. Sensing its potential, MacArthur quickly adopted it and pushed it through using sheer force of personality. Hastily assembling units from the scattered parts of the postwar forces, the operation was planned and implemented in just two and a half months – a remarkable feat when compared to the amount of time devoted to planning similar amphibious assaults during the Second World War just five years before.Rottman writes of the preparations for the landing and the subsequent invasion itself with an ease that reflects his own extensive background as a former solider. While he is far less successful in providing the details of the North Korean forces and their defenses, this is understandable given the continuing inaccessibility of North Korean records and accounts of the event. Less excusable, though, is his slighting of the role played by the Navy in the operation, as their contribution is summarized as that of a shuttle service that also provided some bombardment support. This limits the value of Rottman’s account of the Inch’on operation, reducing it to a somewhat wooden overview of one of the most remarkable military operations ever attempted.

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To be honest, there's actually nothing wrong with this booklet, particularly from the basics of the operation, it's when you get to the bibliography that you realize that a lot of water has gone under the bridge. If this publication was going to be revised, works that would be now cited include "Forgotten Warriors" by T.X. Hammes and "Combat Ready?" by Thomas Hanson, which deal respectively with how the U.S. Marine Corps digested the lessons of World War II and U.S. 7th Army put their house in order in the year or so before August 1950.