The movement to Pusan was completed by the morning of 7 September, and the Brigade troops found themselves back at the docks where they had landed a little more than a month before. In fact, the docks were to be their bivouac area during the next 6 days; the men slept in the open and took their meals on board the transports in which they would soon be sailing around the peninsula.
The survivors of the Naktong fights—even the latecomers who had joined the Brigade at the Bean Patch—felt old and worn when they saw the large draft of shiny new Marines just landed as third rifle companies organized with their own NCO’s and platoons. The veterans had forgotten how young and untroubled a Marine could look; how neat and clean he could appear in a recently issued utility jacket.
The new companies were immediately assigned to their battalions. It was another job for officers and NCO’s who had the responsibility of replacing equipment lost in action as well as servicing ordnance, motor transport and other heavy equipment which had been sent from the Bean Patch to Pusan late in August.[348]
[348] Col J. L. Stewart, interv with author, 10 Jun 54.
General Craig and his staff had their headquarters in one of the Pusan University buildings. There was no opportunity for planning, let alone rehearsals, for the forthcoming amphibious assault at Inchon. Craig and his officers had all they could do to get the Brigade ready for embarkation.
Among the tasks to be accomplished in less than a week, it remained to give some weapons training to the 3,000 troops of the 1st Korean Marine Regiment. This newly raised unit, attached to the Brigade for embarkation, was to make a name for itself within the next year and become the fourth rifle regiment of the 1st Marine Division. But in September 1950 there were great gaps in the training of the KMC’s. The men kept their rifles scrupulously clean, and they could strip an M-1 expertly, but few of them had ever fired a shot.
Marine NCO’s had the hazardous duty of giving the eager and excited KMC’s their first target practice after eight rounds of ammunition for each man had been acquired. No Marine casualties resulted, fortunately, but puffed and bruised cheeks were the rule among Koreans having their first experience with an M-1’s recoil.
There was, of course, no end of “scuttlebutt” going the rounds of the Marines as to their destination. One day the troops were lined up in formation and read a long lecture on the hydrographic aspects of the west coast port of Kunsan. It is to be hoped that this red herring made some impression upon the Koreans who were listening, since Pusan was a headquarters of enemy spies. As for the Marines, most of them concluded that at least Kunsan could be eliminated from the list of possible objectives.
The secret was well kept by Brigade officers in the higher echelons. Two engineer officers, First Lieutenant Ernest P. Skelt and Commissioned Warrant Officer Willard C. Downs, were given the secret mission of constructing wooden scaling ladders for the next operation. This project gave rise to more rumors, but it is safe to say that few men in the ranks knew the answer when the Brigade was deactivated at 0001 on 13 September 1950. The components immediately resumed their old unit designations in the 1st Marine Division and sailed to take part in the amphibious assault on Inchon scheduled for the 15th.[349]
[349] The Inchon-Seoul operation of the 1st Marine Division and 1st Marine Air Wing from 15 September to 7 October 1950 is to be the subject of Volume II of this historical series devoted to Marine operations in Korea.