News from the front in West Korea was not encouraging as the Eighth Army planned further withdrawals, for G-2 reports indicated that the advancing Chinese were about to launch a great new offensive shortly. Despite the persistent rumors that all Korea might be evacuated by UN forces, General MacArthur insisted in his special communique of 26 December that operations “were skilfully conducted without loss of cohesion and with all units remaining intact....
In its broad implications I consider that these operations, initiated on 24 November and carried through to this [Hungnam] redeployment, have served a very significant purpose—possibly in general result the most significant and fortunate of any conducted during the course of the Korean campaign.
The might of a major military nation was suddenly and without warning thrown against this relatively small United Nations Command but without attaining a decision.
Due to intervening circumstances beyond our power to control or even detect, we did not achieve the United Nations objective.
But at a casualty cost less than that experienced in a comparable period of defensive fighting on the Pusan perimeter, we exposed before too late secret political and military decisions of enormous scope and threw off balance enemy preparations aimed at surreptitiously massing the power capable of destroying our forces with one mighty extended blow.”[641]
[641] CinCFE Special Communique, 26 Dec 50.
Questions as to the proper evaluation of the Eighth Army withdrawal turned into a controversy during coming months with political as well as military implications. Press representatives, military critics and soldiers of other nations, while crediting MacArthur with a great victory at Inchon, were for the most part of the opinion that the Eighth Army withdrawal of November and December was a costly reverse.[642]
[642] General MacArthur’s comments are as follows: “This, again, is a non-professional estimate belied by the facts and the viewpoints of all senior commanders present.... It was the purpose of Red China to overwhelm and annihilate, through a ‘sneak’ attack, the Eighth Army and X Corps by the heavy assault of overwhelming forces of a new power, not heretofore committed to war, against which it knew or rightly surmised there would be no retaliation. This plan was foiled by our anticipatory advance which uncovered the enemy’s plot before he had assembled all of his forces, and by our prompt strategic withdrawal before he could inflict a crippling blow of a ‘Pearl Harbor’ nature.... This was undoubtedly one of the most successful strategic retreats in history, comparable with and markedly similar to Wellington’s great Peninsula withdrawal. Had the initiative action not been taken and an inert position of adequate defense assumed, I have no slightest doubt that the Eighth Army and the X Corps both would have been annihilated. As it was, both were preserved with practically undiminished potential for further action. I have always regarded this action, considering the apparently unsurmountable difficulties and overwhelming odds, as the most successful and satisfying I have ever commanded.” MacArthur ltr, 17 Oct 56.
Marine officers in Korea had no first-hand knowledge of EUSAK operations. It was obvious, however, that an Eighth Army retirement south of the 38th Parallel had made it desirable if not actually necessary for X Corps to withdraw from northeast Korea, even though General Almond held that a Hamhung-Hungnam perimeter could be defended throughout the winter.