Inchon 1950: Eugene Clark's Lighthouse, Wolmido and Red Beach Ladders

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By August 1950 North Korean forces using frontal assaults and double envelopments had pushed UN and South Korean troops into the Pusan Perimeter, where short supply lines finally favored the defenders and the Great Naktong Offensive of September 1 failed. General Douglas MacArthur proposed Operation Chromite, an amphibious landing far behind the lines at Inchon, a harbor Navy Commander Arlie G. Capps said had every natural and geographic handicap. The approach ran through narrow Flying Fish Channel with currents of three to eight knots, tides swung 29 to 36 feet over miles of mudflats, and stone seawalls rose up to 16 feet. At a Tokyo briefing MacArthur argued that Kunsan was too shallow a cut and that the very odds against Inchon guaranteed surprise, winning over Admiral Forrest Sherman.

With the press joking about Operation Common Knowledge, planners bombed around Kunsan, leaked details in Pusan bars and staged a noisy raid there. Lieutenant Eugene Clark's team spent two weeks on the harbor islands measuring mud, finding the channel unmined, confirming that old Japanese tide charts were accurate, and lighting the Palmido lighthouse on the night of September 15. After ships drew fire from Wolmido to map its guns, the 5th Marines took the island by noon with 14 casualties, then waited for the evening tide before the 5:24 p.m. assault on Red and Blue Beaches. Kimpo airfield fell, the Pusan breakout followed, yet about 30,000 North Korean troops escaped, and historian Russell Stolfi faults the 11 days it took to cover 20 miles to Seoul.

• Clark mounted a machine gun on a sampan and sank attacking junks sent to raid his island.
• Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez pulled a live grenade under his own body at Red Beach to shield his men.
• Marines climbed the seawalls on scaling ladders with grappling hooks under mortar and machine gun fire.
• 172 amphibious tractors crawled across flooded mudflats to secure the southern flank at Blue Beach.
• General Edward Almond declared Seoul liberated on September 25 while Marines fought building to building for three more days.