Illustrations
Photographs
Sixteen-page sections of photographs follow pages [68] and [180].
Maps and Sketches
| Page | |
| NKPA Gains, 30 June-1 August 1950 | [29] |
| Plan for Inchon Assault | [68] |
| Movements to the Objective Area | [82] |
| Seizure of Wolmi-do | [89] |
| Plan for Inchon Assault | [99] |
| Seizure of Red Beach | [109] |
| Seizure of Blue Beach | [119] |
| Marine Attacks D + 1 | [137] |
| NK Counterattack Ascom City, 17 September | [149] |
| The Drive to Kimpo | [154] |
| NK Counterattack Kimpo Air Field, 18 September | [162] |
| Advance by 1st Marines, 17 September | [174] |
| Capture of Sosa by 1st Marines, 18 September | [179] |
| General Situation, 18 September | [182] |
| Han River Crossing and Seizure of Hill 125 | [189] |
| Action on 19 September | [207] |
| Action on 20 September | [218] |
| Assault on Yongdungpo | [224] |
| Dike Defense—Company A, 1st Marines | [230] |
| Approaching the Enemy MLR, 5th Marines, 21 September | [237] |
| Smashing the MLR, 5th Marines, 22–24 September | [242] |
| Seoul Assault Plan | [265] |
| The Battle of Seoul | [266] |
| Action North of Seoul, 7th Marines | [269] |
| Pursuit of the NKPA and Capture of Uijongbu | [288] |
CHAPTER I
The Communist Challenge
Authorization of Marine Brigade—First Conference on Inchon Landing—General Shepherd in Tokyo—Request for a Marine Division—America’s Force-in-Readiness—Planning for the Pohang Landing
No spot on earth could have seemed farther removed from war’s alarms than Yellowstone Park on the tranquil Sunday afternoon of 25 June 1950. Yet it was here that Lieutenant General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., Commanding General of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPac), had his first news of Communist armed aggression in Korea and the resulting threat to world peace.
Appointed to his new command only nine days before, he was motoring from the Marine Corps Schools at Quantico to the West Coast. From Yellowstone Park he advised Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Commander in Chief, U. S. Pacific Fleet, of his readiness to proceed to Hawaii and the Far East. His offer was accepted, and a Marine plane from El Toro transported him from Salt Lake City to San Francisco. There he boarded the first available plane to Pearl Harbor, arriving in the early morning hours of 2 July.[1]