The Battle of Inchon

The Korean War is over! Korea will remain divided into two separate countries, the North and the South. The irony is that the fighting stopped at the 38th parallel, the exact point where Korea was divided before the war. We are still waiting for the armistice to be signed to officially end the war, but the ceasefire has been signed. Only three short years ago, the North was within reach of taking over all of South Korea, which it planned to transform to communism. Their plan would have worked, if it wasn’t for UN Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur’s plan to attack the west coast of the Peninsula at Inchon. Inchon is located on the west coast of South Korea near the boarder of North and South Korea. At first no one would even consider attacking Inchon because the channel is very narrow and has a large sea wall, making it easy to defend. These were the exact reasons MacArthur picked this location, because no one would expect an attack from this vantage point. Attacking at Inchon would also give them the ability to cut off North Korea’s supplies. U.S. Marines lead the attack. On September 15,1950 at about 6:30 AM, they landed at “Green Beach” on Wolmi-do Island. They were able to land on Wolmi-do’s “Green Beach”, because for two days Inchon and Wolmi-do had been heavily bombed with Napalm from the North Korean defenses and blasted by British and American war ships. “Smoke was boiling out of Inchon. The entire beach area simply disappeared in an enormous cloud of dust and smoke with only the occasional glare of rocket flares showing through” as reported by 2nd Lt. Frank Muetzel. Later that night the second wave of Marines scaled the twelve foot high sea wall under enemy fire at “Red Beach”. They decreased the number of NKPA, and the Marines who were waiting at “Green Beach” were able to enter the fight. The Marines were able to take over the Island of Wolmi-do in just two hours, simply because they met with very little resistance. After “Green” and “Red” Beach had been taken over, they were able to begin the final push into Inchon.

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars1900s/p/Inchon.htm