Edward L. Rowny
Q ..
I'm getting ahead a bit, but by the time Walker was killed in a jeep accident on
Christmas Eve, had MacArthur lost
in Walker's ability?
A
I'm not certain. But the fact that MacArthur backed Almond was undoubtedly a
blow to Walker's morale. MacArthur obviously believed that Almond was on the
right track. He approved Almond's ideas that we had better get the U.S. out of
being occupation troops and begin training them for combat. Our troops in Japan
were in unbelievably bad shape physically, mentally, and morally. Many U.S.
soldiers had Japanese live-in girlfriends and there were thousands of
Japanese-American babies. The troops had become lazy and fat. Pulling them
back into training camps was long overdue.
But to get back to Walker, if MacArthur had lost complete confidence in him, he
would have relieved him. You will recall that MacArthur was a man of strong
loyalties and believed that Walker was loyal to him. Still, a gulf opened up
between Walker and Almond, and when push came to shove, MacArthur backed
Almond.
Engineer, X Corps, Eighth Army, Inchon, Korea
Q ..
Let's get back to the planning for the Inchon invasion. When did you learn that
you were going to be the engineer for the landing?
A
I learned I would be the engineer for the Inchon landing the day after MacArthur
got final approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the plan. I was notified that
I would be the corps engineer of the X Corps operation. Although still a lieutenant
colonel, I would have all the privileges and authority of a brigadier general.
There were many problems involved in getting the troops together, putting them
on ships, and getting them moving in a short period of time. The first favorable
date for a landing was September 15th. If we failed to meet that date we would
have to wait 60 days for the next favorable set of tides. By then the weather would
be freezing and the troops in the south of Korea overrun. We had to make the 15
September date.
Another problem we had to resolve was whether to have the troops hit the beach
from small assault boats or from LSTs [landing ships, tank]. The troop ships
would have to stay several miles away because of the tides. This meant that small
boats would have a long way to come-two or three miles-and the troops would
be subject to enemy fire. On the other hand, if we landed troops by beaching
LSTs, they would be vulnerable to North Korean counterattacks until the next high
tide. We spent a lot of time and effort trying to figure out from aerial photographs
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