Post-WWII Amphibious Landings

MacCaulay

Banned
I listen to audiobooks sometimes on my way to work and BBC World Service on my way back. For the last few weeks, it's been Max Hasting's book on the Korean War.

The chapter on the Inchon landing got me thinking...just how many large scale amphibious operations have there been after WWII?

We've got Inchon, obviously. A sizeable contingent of Turkish forces landed on Cyprus in 1972. There's the Falklands ten years after that...and...I'm kind of at a loss. Did the Indians ever land troops anywhere? What about the Australians? Or the Indonesians or Brits during the Confrontation?
 
Probably some amphibious stuff going on when the ChiComs took Hainan, though I wouldn't be able to tell you to what extent.

Also, ran into this on the Genocide. With 10,000 soldiers involved, it seems pretty legit.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
*novice* Did the French do any in Algeria?

I don't think so. They were already inside the country by the time that whole thing started.

Oh! There was the US and France in Lebanon in the 80s. And in the 50s or whatever when they actually went there the first time.
 
At least three in the Falklands;

One by the Argentines at the start of the war, coming ashore near Port Staney in their Amtraks after the Buzo Tacticos raid to try and grab the Falklands' Governor ran into trouble. Covered in the fairly accurate and two-sided film An Ungentlemanly Act. See it on youtube :)

Two by the British - the first beng Royal Marines at San Carlos settlement, which pushed ahead under sporadic ground fire and heavy air attack, and another later on at Bluff Cove by Welsh Guards, which was a bit of a balls-up and ended up in the Bluff Cove bombing.

Edit: Sorry, didn't see you already had the Faklands on there. Did you Ninja me? (
 
Indonesia on West Papua in 1975 I think must count, too. I also seem to recall Britain landing the Royal Marines in what was British East Africa in 1964......
 

Sachyriel

Banned
The Bay of Pigs...

Oh, sorry Mac, you meant successful landings...with professional soldiers... silly me. :rolleyes:
 
The Bay of Pigs...

Oh, sorry Mac, you meant successful landings...with professional soldiers... silly me. :rolleyes:

Well, that does count as an amphibious landing......perhaps the most incompetent fuckup in military history, but it was an attempt at a landing......
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Indonesia on West Papua in 1975 I think must count, too. I also seem to recall Britain landing the Royal Marines in what was British East Africa in 1964......


You either mean West Papua in '61 (which had a couple of small scale amphibious landings) or East Timor in '75 which I don't know much about.

There were also a couple of small scale amphibious landings during the Police Actions in the DEI but they weren't opposed actions as far as I know.
 
Code:
Probably some amphibious stuff going on when the ChiComs took Hainan, though I wouldn't be able to tell you to what extent.

Also, ran into this on the Genocide. With 10,000 soldiers involved, it seems pretty legit.

They were on a real streak, taking islands from the ROC left and right, but in the middle of it the US decided that it was going to stop putting up with it, so to speak. (Vast oversimplification)
 
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I believe that there were landings in Iraq before the British forces went north to Basra. Not big, but adequate.

On the Al-Faw, you mean? Ah yes. They were fairly big... I have Mike Rossiter's book, Target Basra, about it. Not gotten far into it as yet though.
 
Two by the British - the first beng Royal Marines at San Carlos settlement, which pushed ahead under sporadic ground fire and heavy air attack, and another later on at Bluff Cove by Welsh Guards, which was a bit of a balls-up and ended up in the Bluff Cove bombing.
(

If you include the landing at Bluff Cove; the LSLs were bombed at Fitzroy Settlement; then you have to include Teal Inlet which takes the numbers up to three for the British.
 

Cook

Banned
On December 7th, 1975 Indonesian invaded East Timor. It was the largest military operation ever carried out by the TNI. It commenced with a naval bombardment of the city of Dili, followed by an amphibious landing and simultaneous paratroop landing. More then 10,000 Indonesian troops were involved. Dili did not contain significant opposition forces and only 35 Indonesian troops were killed. 122 FALINTIL militia are reported to have been killed in the operation.

The Bishop of Dili at the time, Martinho de Costa Lopes reported later that; “The soldiers who landed started killing everyone they could find. There were many dead bodies in the streets – all we could see were the soldiers killing, killing, killing.” In one incident fifty civilians, including Australian journalist Roger East, were lined up on a cliff outside of town and shot.

Three days later a second landing took place further up the coast at Baucau.

On 5 April 1955 Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik said in an interview to the Sydney Morning Herald that during the first two years of occupation perhaps 50,000 to 80,000 civilians had been killed.

On 20 September 1999, following a vote for independence by the people of East Timor, the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) began deploying to Dili, the Task Force led by nine warships. Troops began landing at Dili airport the same day.

So the Indonesian occupation of East Timor lasted twenty-two years and both began and ended with a large maritime landing, but landings significantly different in nature.
 
What he said. I firmly believe that the 1999 intervention is probably the best (and maybe the only) example of an attempted crime against humanity being stopped dead in it's tracks. It's really far more under-appreciated than it should be. And it was a fairly good sized amphibious landing (several, in fact), so it should qualify.
 
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