He devised a bold plan for an amphibious operation to land thousands of troops at Incheon - 150 miles behind enemy lines. Douglas MacArthur, the famed American general in charge of UN forces in Korea, knew the pressure needed to be taken off the Pusan Perimeter. MacArthur and other officers observe the shelling of Incheon from the USS Mount McKinley, September 15, 1950. The first American soldiers arrived in early July, but due to equipment and supply shortages as a result of the downsizing of the US military after World War II, they were unable to reverse North Korea's gains.īy August, communist forces held all but a 100-mile by 50-mile area around the port city of Busan that was known as the " Pusan Perimeter," where UN and South Korean forces desperately held off repeated KPA attacks. It was the Cold War's first hot conflict. Ultimately, 21 countries contributed to the US-led effort. Resolution 84, passed on July 7, designated the US as the leader of military operations to save South Korea. On June 27, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 83, which condemned the North Korean action as a "breach of the peace" and called for the world to assist South Korea. The North Korean offensive launched on June 25 was too strong for South Korea's military to fight off alone, and Seoul was captured in just three days. The situation in South Korea in September 1950 was perilous. US soldiers fire at North Korean positions along the Pusan Perimeter, September 4, 1950. Nothing less than the fate of South Korea was at stake. It was the largest amphibious invasion since D-Day, and like that operation, it would turn the tide of the war. The Marines landing at the port of Incheon were part of a 40,000-strong landing force with a critical objective: liberate the city and open a second front. The North Korean invasion three months earlier had devastated the South Korea army, pushing it into a last bastion in the southeastern corner of the peninsula. On the morning of September 15, 1950, as US and Royal Navy warships fired at targets ashore, US Marines boarded landing craft and assaulted Wolmido, a small fortified island at the mouth of Incheon harbor.
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