Edward L. Rowny
It is interesting that when we developed our plans, all of us had the same idea of
landing on the west coast behind the enemy's front lines. One of my fellow
planners, I think it was Smith, thought we should land at the "hinge," the front line
itself. The other, Landrum, thought we should land farther up, about 10 kilometers
behind the front line. My idea was to penetrate deep, about 25 kilometers beyond
the front line. Colonel Armstrong decided not to make the decision himself, but
had us present our plans directly to General MacArthur.
General MacArthur listened carefully to the first plan of hitting at the hinge. It
was the classic solution. He then listened to the plan of landing f rther up the
a
coast. By the time he got to me, I was trembling. I thought MacArthur might not
consider me bold but simply foolish for recommending we land so deep.
MacArthur, however, surprised us all. He went to the charts, picked up a grease
pencil, and drew a big arrow more than 100 kilometers up the west coast opposite
Seoul. "One should land as close as possible to the objective, and the objective is
the capital," he said. " Y o u ' r e all too timid. You're pusillanimous. You should
think boldly and decisively? He said he had learned from the Pacific War that the
best way to produce results was by island-hopping. So why not terrain-hop?
"Land at Inchon," he said, "have you considered that?"
" Y e s , General, we thought of it briefly," I said. "But we decided there were
several good reasons against it. First, it is very close to Seoul and the enemy
would certainly be defending the capital in great force. Second, it was the most
difficult of all areas for a landing because the tides are so great. Inchon has a
31-foot tide-the second largest tidal area in the world. We would have difficulty
getting a force on land, and it would be hard to support them once they got there."
MacArthur simply said: "Go for the throat, Seoul is the objective. And as for the
tides, he said, "don't take counsel of your fears. Physical obstacles can be
overcome by good planning, strong nerves, and will power." We went back to our
office and developed the plan to land at Inchon.
But the plan was far from having the approval of Washington. In the first place,
the Pentagon thought it might be better to evacuate our troops from Pusan. They
thought a Dunkirk back to Japan was the best solution. However, if there was to
be an amphibious landing, they thought that the worst place to land was Inchon.
General MacArthur invited the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Tokyo to discuss the plan.
After we had presented it to the chiefs, the Air Force chief spoke first. He thought
it was unnecessary to land troops amphibiously. "Given sufficient priority," he
said, "the enemy's supply lines could be so heavily bombarded that he would have
to pull back."
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