CHAPTER 11
See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.
September 14, 1950
How glorious the dash across the Han would have been. A bridge across the river would have allowed Eighth Army to sweep into Seoul before the North Koreans had time to fortify it. When the bridge was spotted, the NKPA had just been defeated in a costly battle for the Suwon airfield. With only a few trucks, and an unwillingness to move by day for fear of American bombers, the communists might have made it into the city before Eighth Army got there. General Keiser had been hoping to receive their surrender.
The 2nd Division’s march through the night had gone exactly to plan. The North Koreans were in full retreat, and seemed more inclined to use the direct Western routes into Seoul while Keiser’s tanks drove along the roundabout eastern road. A rearguard had been left at Kyongan-ni, but they lacked heavy equipment and were sent running in a matter of minutes, before surrendering as the trucks caught up with them. There had been no more resistance after that: either the Koreans had died, fled or were hiding out as bandits. Bandits would be a matter for the ROKs to deal with: their army seemed better at fighting them than it did conventional battles. Patton had fought bandits more than thirty years ago in Mexico, and knew it was much harder than fighting a visible enemy. He was impressed by the allied army. Syngman Rhee still wasn’t impressed by him. He wondered if the ingratitude would continue once he retook the bastard’s capital.
Then the tanks, Pershings and Theodores both, came up to… a ruined bridge. The Grasshopper pilot must have made a mistake. He had initially thought the North Koreans had blown it up, but a local Korean woman later explained that the Air Force had bombed it and the others in the area. As far as she knew, there weren’t any crossings over the Han still standing. That wasn’t quite true, one had been found and captured at Yoju, more than forty miles away, but that using it would have made an already bad logistics situation even worse. The detour simply wouldn’t be worth it.
Instead, the Engineers had been rushed north the following morning to throw up a bridge to get the Eighth Army across the Han before the Koreans could mount a defence on the river line. The crossing should have been unopposed, but the North Koreans were ready. It took the 2nd Division two whole days to force its way across. A second bridge had been built at Punwon-ni, ten miles to the east. The Han was crossed.
“General Keiser just called. He says he’s reached the outskirts of the city.” Colonel Landrum announced.
Patton flicked his cigar. “What’s holding him up?” he asked calmly. Seoul had been a slow battle for three and a half days. He wasn’t expecting something grand from it any more.
“Looks like the North Koreans have fortified the place.” Landrum said. “Kim Il-sung thinks it should be his capital too – it’s been the capital of a united Korea for close to forever. They’re not going to give it up easily.”
“No?” Patton asked. “Then we’ll just have to kill them all until they do. Get me a strength estimate both for the city itself and the surrounding area then.”
An hour later, Koch, Landrum and via the telephone Keiser, had all come up with what they thought to be a fair estimate. “We think we’re looking at ten or fifteen thousand men at a minimum, and more likely double that. Everyone we didn’t catch at Suwon or the Lump is thought to be there.” Landrum explained.
“We also think they might be pulling a couple of units from above the 38th to reinforce them.” Koch added. “By the looks of things, Inchon is completely empty. We haven’t heard anything about units west of the Han for forty-eight hours now.”
“Good.” Patton said, looking at the map again. “If they’ve got thirty, forty thousand men tied up in Seoul, that’s all the better.”
“Sir, didn’t you want to beat MacArthur into Seoul?” Landrum asked.
“I have.” Patton noted. “MacArthur’s not even landing until evening tomorrow, and he’ll need another day to get his troops up to our lines. If we don’t have Seoul by then, he might be able to spare a few men to help us finish the job. But I don’t want to waste time on another Metz.”
Metz. For six years people had said it was his worst battle. It hadn’t been very brilliant. After Ike gave his supplies to Monty and the Moselle River flooded, he hadn’t had any other option that would keep pressure on the Nazis except to strike Metz. MacArthur had reduced his supplies somewhat (Almond, another of Mac’s lackeys, would get whatever he wanted for X Corps and Patton only the leftovers), but without a couple of other Army Groups demanding gas and ammo and beans, Eighth Army was stocked well enough.
“You’re planning something, aren’t you, George?” Koch asked.
“We’re going north.” Patton said. “I need Keiser to encircle Seoul from the north. Dean can hold the south bank of the Han until MacArthur arrives. Those Korean divisions need to be trapped and forced to surrender, so they don’t raise hell further north. The rest of the army is to move north.”
“Sir, the 38th parallel is only thirty miles away. You’re not proposing to cross it?” Landrum sounded surprised. Truman had explicitly forbidden American troops from doing so.
“Not immediately, no.” Patton said. “Until I get authorisation from the President, we’re not going to cross. But I’d like to send him a message on the teletype tonight. We’ll be on the Imjin in three days. Any delay in crossing the parallel after that would only give the enemy time to regroup. Syngman Rhee also won’t stop at the border even if we tell him to, and he’ll be there early next week. We should be driving to the Yalu, not holding back because of some line on the map!”
“Sir, watch what you say to the President.” Sergeant Meeks cautioned. “FDR almost canned you twice, remember, and I don’t think Truman is quite so tolerant.”
Patton made an effort to calm down. That was some good advice. He made sure to remember it as he planned out his meeting with MacArthur that would follow the Inchon landings.
***
September 15, 1950
Douglas MacArthur looked through his field glasses at the burning battlefield of Inchon. In the morning, the Marines had taken the island of Wolmi-do (someone had told him that it was properly called Wolmi, ‘do’ being Korean for island). Losses had been light, which was a good sign, but there was no guarantee Inchon itself would be so unprepared. The operation relied on surprise, but days of shore bombardment meant the Koreans likely suspected something was up. Chromite was supposed to involve feints against a number of other coastal locations to distract the NKPA from the real target. One against Chumunjin was still going ahead. Patton had taken Kunsan back before the landings had even been approved. If he had wanted to he probably would have taken Inchon as well.
MacArthur was furious with Patton. Apparently Eighth Army was knee-deep in Seoul already. Chromite was supposed to be his great operation that would bring about a decisive, victorious end to the war. Now that Patton had bypassed Inchon, there was hardly any glory left in taking it. The whole operation had been made redundant. Only by that point, cancelling it altogether would have forced him to explain himself to the Joint Chiefs, merely three weeks after boasting it was the only way to win. He had worried before that Inchon could be the risk that ended his long career. If he was made to look foolish in front of Washington, he was sure it would be, even though Washington barely had a clue what went on out here. So Chromite went ahead.
“First wave is ashore on Blue Beach.” General Lem Shepherd announced.
Except for a brief “thank you”, the deck of the Mount McKinley fell silent. Back in Japan, Willoughby had predicted there would be minimal opposition to the landings. Patton’s G2 had also predicted that the NKPA would not be in the Inchon area in strength. Intelligence, MacArthur knew, was rarely entirely correct. He knew the consequences of it being wrong this time could be disastrous. Five minutes passed, Shepherd having disappeared somewhere else to receive reports from the front. Then ten. Then fifteen.
Finally, Shepherd returned. “We’re all clear.” he said. “They’re gone.”
MacArthur clapped his hands together in triumph, feeling a sense of relief. The daring invasion had been pulled off.
Once everyone had shaken hands and given their congratulations to each other, MacArthur had only to wait for an LST to become available to take him ashore. A camera crew should have landed already, with orders to be ready for his arrival at Inchon.
“Say, where is General Patton, sir?” Ned Almond asked. “I’d have thought he would be here by now, telling us that he took the city three days ago or something.”
“A curious question, that is.” MacArthur said. He didn’t want to say so to Almond, but he had fully expected Patton to show up on one of the landing beaches precisely at 1730, possibly with a parade or something of the sort. For all of his claims that he wanted nothing to do with the press, the General’s antics often seemed to be designed for headlines.
“Sir, the boat is ready for you.” Someone from the Marines called.
MacArthur filmed three takes of him and the staff disembarking on the so-called beach south of Inchon. Whichever was decided to be the best one would soon be added to newsreels across the globe. It wasn’t as impressive as the Leyte shot, but this invasion wasn’t as impressive as Leyte either. Patton had robbed it of all its glory. It was a success, and very nearly a bloodless one. He made sure to emphasise that last point when the reporters interviewed him.
Patton drove up to Inchon at around 2100, with just his jeep and another one in front of it with four MPs, presumably in case there were any communists on the road. The press, with the exception of the guys from Life magazine, had retired for the night. That was fortunate: Life had been a strong supporter of his for years. They’d make a good story for him. Bad press could ruin his career as easily as a failed invasion would have.
“General, I thought I gave you explicit orders to hold the line at Yesan.” MacArthur called out.
“I’ve followed them, sir. We still have control over our former positions north of the Kum.” Patton replied. Even in the lamplight, his grin was unmistakable. “You ordered me to attack on the fifteenth, I’ve done that too. I see your landing at Inchon has been a great success.”
“It has, George. Thank you.” MacArthur said. “As, by all accounts, has been your march on Seoul.”
“The march, yes, sir.” Patton said. “I’ve got the city surrounded except for a few roads out west. A couple of divisions trapped there. We’ve captured about a fifth of the city so far.”
“I presume then, that you have come to ask for X Corps as reinforcements?” MacArthur asked.
“Sir, I don’t see the purpose of a divided command.” Patton said. “I’m sure they would do an honourable job retaking the city.”
“I’ll see to it that they are transferred to Eighth Army command tomorrow morning.” MacArthur said. There wasn’t much point keeping X Corps separate any more: another amphibious landing wasn’t likely, not after this debacle. The corps would have to go to someone other than Almond – Patton would fire Ned the moment he had the authority to do so.
As they shook hands and then went their separate ways (Patton back to his jeep and presumably Taejon, MacArthur to the ship on board which he would spend one more night), MacArthur reflected upon the meeting with Patton. To his credit, Patton had at least made an effort to be gracious about the Inchon situation, and seemed to be trying to please his superior. His combat record was exemplary, and if those two divisions weren’t bottled up in Seoul they could have easily turned Inchon into a disaster. That didn’t change the fact that he was a political catastrophe and got into arguments with every second man he spoke with. What ever am I supposed to do with him now? MacArthur wondered.
- BNC