Engineer Memoirs
The chief of Naval Operations was next. "A 31-foot tide," he said, "made an
amphibious landing infeasible. We could not get sufficient troops in before the tide
turned, he said, "and the troops ashore would be driven back into the sea.
Besides, he said, "the area is heavily protected with powerful sea mines and
underwater obstacles.
The Army chief of staff thought we were planning to land where the enemy would
defend most strongly-Seoul.
The chairman of the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff], General Lawton Collins, was
quiet. He knew MacArthur well and hesitated to take him on.
Then General MacArthur took the floor. Crisply and elegantly, often citing
examples from the Peloponnesian Wars and other classic battles, MacArthur began
to charm the Chiefs. His lecture to them was a tour de force. After he finished,
General Collins said, "Ithink we all approve, don't we?" The other Chiefs were
too intimidated to object.
The next day, General MacArthur called us into his office, one at a time. When
it came my turn MacArthur placed his arm around my shoulders and said, `Colonel
Rowny, Inchon shall go down in history as the 22d Great Battle of the World."
From my West Point studies I knew there had been 18. My mind wandered for a
second-where were the other three? But I soon came back to earth as MacArthur
pumped my hand.
Feeling about eight feet tall, I went home and told my wife what MacArthur had
said. "I believe he can put on his trousers two legs at a time," I said. "I really
believe he can walk on water."
Q ..
To go back a bit, Task Force Smith was the first U.S. group to meet the enemy.
They came up just about to Osan where we later had K-55 and Fifth Air Force
Headquarters. Did you follow that operation from Tokyo?
A
Other officers, perhaps the operational side of the G-3 staff followed it while the
three of us worked on the landing up the coast. I know I was personally quite busy
because I had to brief the press every day. I probably briefed them on Task Force
Smith, but don't recall it.
Q ..
Did you have any real problems with the press?
Previous Page
