The Inchon Landing: An Example Of Brilliant Generalship

By Colonel Robert O. Brunson

The Inchon Landing’s success required a commander like General MacArthur who could gain the cooperation and coordination of the Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force commanders, despite their belief that the Inchon Landing operation was very nearly impossible. Only these commanders, with their men, had the necessary experience in amphibious attacks under General MacArthur in the Pacific during World War II. The speed at which the forces were built up, the timely and accurate intelligence information gathered, and the brave and valiant execution of the plan by the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who successfully fought not just the enemy forces but also the natural characteristics of the landing site with its tides, seawalls, mud flats and monsoons; changed the very nature of the Korean conflict. The landing at Inchon cut the North Korean lines of communication, allowed the breakout of the Pusan Perimeter, and totally routed Communist forces on the brink of apparent victory. The amphibious landing at Inchon on 15 September 1950, with its flanking movement using the indirect approach, is truly an example of brilliant generalship and military genius.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781782896586

Colonel Robert O. Brunson

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Text originally published in 2003 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE INCHON LANDING: AN EXAMPLE OF BRILLIANT GENERALSHIP

by

COLONEL ROBERT O. BRUNSON United States Army

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

THE INCHON LANDING 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

ABSTRACT 5

BACKGROUND 7

GEOGRAPHY OF KOREA 7

HISTORY OF KOREA—1905-1950 7

U.S.-KOREAN STRATEGIC SETTING 8

U.S. RESPONSE TO THE INVASION 9

THE COMMANDERS 10

GENERAL DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR 11

MACARTHUR’S BRILLIANT GENERALSHIP AND MILITARY GENIUS 11

OTHER COMMANDERS 13

AN AMPHIBIOUS FLANKING MOVEMENT USING THE INDIRECT APPROACH 15

CONCEPT: THE THREE PLANS 16

INCHON ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 18

Disadvantages 18

Advantages 19

MACARTHUR’S UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE ON INCHON 20

OPERATION CHROMITE—THE INCHON LANDING 21

BUILD-UP 21

INFORMATION GATHERING 23

THE LANDING ITSELF 24

SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION OF THE BATTLE 26

EVALUATION 27

WHAT WENT WRONG 27

WHAT WENT RIGHT 29

CONCLUSION 29

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 31

BIBLIOGRAPHY 32

ABSTRACT

The Inchon Landing’s success required a commander like General MacArthur who could gain the cooperation and coordination of the Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force commanders, despite their belief that the Inchon Landing operation was very nearly impossible. Only these commanders, with their men, had the necessary experience in amphibious attacks under General MacArthur in the Pacific during World War II. The speed at which the forces were built up, the timely and accurate intelligence information gathered, and the brave and valiant execution of the plan by the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who successfully fought not just the enemy forces but also the natural characteristics of the landing site with its tides, seawalls, mud flats and monsoons; changed the very nature of the Korean conflict. The landing at Inchon cut the North Korean lines of communication, allowed the breakout of the Pusan Perimeter, and totally routed Communist forces on the brink of apparent victory. The amphibious landing at Inchon on 15 September 1950, with its flanking movement using the indirect approach, is truly an example of brilliant generalship and military genius.

THE INCHON LANDING:

AN EXAMPLE OF BRILLIANT GENERALSHIP

We shall land at Inchon, and I shall crush them.—General of the Army Douglas A MacArthur

A military genius takes a situation which is not working, envisions a unique plan everyone else believes is impossible, and makes it a successful operation. A review of the Inchon Landing operation will show that General Douglas A. MacArthur had the qualities of military genius and brilliant generalship which resulted in the operation’s success. From start to finish it [the Inchon Landing operation] was his idea; he made it work, and probably only he could have done so.{1}

The United Nations (U.N.) forces were in danger of being pushed into