Evening star., 1950-09-17
Macarthur Advised
On lnchon Landings
By Collins, Sherman

The amphibiouS landings at
1nchon, which presented more diff
ficultieS and required more plan
ming than almost any similar un-
dertaking during the last war,
were mapped nearly a month ago
at high level conferences in Tokyo.
Gen. Macarthur went ", er the
details with Gen. ]. Lawton Col
Inns, Army Chief of Staff, and Ad-
miral Forrest P. Sherman, Chief
Of Naval Operations, August 1925
during the visit to the Far East of
the latter two officials. In that
connection, Gen. Collins and Ad-
miral Sherman denied in Joint
statement yesterday that they op-
posed the Inchon landing and sug-
gested landings farther south.
Landings at other points were
considered but Inchon-the port
Of Seoul, the Red-held capital of
South Korea which is situated 20
miles inland-was selected, despite
its handicaps, for strategic and
psychological reasons. East coast
landings in such force were not
feasible because of high cliffs.
Had All Handicaps.
A high Navy spokesman, who
accompanied the Army and Navy
chieftains to Tokyo for the plan
ming conference, said the Navy
drew up a list of all possible nat
ural handicaps to amphibiouS
operations "and Inchon had them
ALL"
The principal difticulty-aside
from the enormous task of as
sembling men, transports. cargo
ships and warShipS from distant
points and having them meet at
the proper place and proper hour
for such an invasion-was the
enormous Yellow Sea tides and
the deep mud conditions at
Inchon.
There was some question at
first as to whether these condi-
tions would permit the risk of a
large scale landing there. The
Navy found similar conditions at
point further south on the west
coast Of Korea and last month
conducted test operations. There,
sand was found below the mud
and Inchon also proved to have
that condition. Landing craft
therefore were operable despite
the high tides.
At Inchon the mean high water
interval-allowing men and equip
ment to be landed-is four hours
and "a minutes every IL hours.
But the Navy figured that more
than an hour of this allotted time
would be taken up by the move
ment Of ships in and out. Thus,
the first Marines put ashore had
to operate with the equipment
they took with them during the
small amount of time allotted,
without further help until tidal
conditions allowed further land
ingS.
Tide Is Sometimes 28 Feet.
The mean rise of the tide at
1nchon is 20.7 feet, but the Navy
spokesman said it sometimes rises
to % feet.
THE entire operation was very
tricky" he commented.
Good railroad facilities connect
Inchon and Seoul. J The harbor
itself consists of an outer harbor
and an inner harbef fronted by
two islands and a wet dock, par
TALLY completed by the Japanese,
within the inner harbor. The
outer harbor is the anchorage for
vessels of very deep draft. The
wet dock is designed for vessels of
limited size and. during the land
ings, was of no value. The greater
part of the inner harbor dries
at low water. leaving only the
dredged channel to the wet dock.
The ice free port is we'll protected |
Because of the extreme range
Of tide, accommodation for ocean,
going vessels of the type used in
the landings are virtually nom
existent. Close in, there also are
numerous shoals and strong cur
rents.
The Navy officer who accom-
panied Gen. Collins and Admiral
Sherman said Intelligence re-
ported that the Reds were begin
ming to dig in deeply near Inchon
and were in the process of con-
structing deep, cave-like gun en-
placements such as the japanese
developed in the last war. How
ever, intense naval and air bonn
bardment knocked these out.
The immediate objective of the
Marine assault troops was to Sc
cure a beachhead sufficient to per-
NIT the landing of supporting
Army troops and heavy equip
ment. These landings may be
completed this week end.
= T0TTNyn Tan,o1o hIooI- ,-hIEo ov@d