MacArthur's Victory at Inchon: Defeating the British Empire by Don ...

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PLA Daily/Lin Min MacArthur asked Truman for permission to cut off the Chinese from supplying the North Koreans by bombing the bridges across the Yalu River, which bordered China and North Korea. Truman ordered that MacArthur could bomb only the bridges on the North Korean side. MacArthur replied that he couldn’t bomb half a bridge. In December 1950, the Chinese entered North Korea in force, with over 200,000 troops, as seen in this photo. “it had been the President who had threatened to interfere and overrule. . . .” On the night of Sept. 14, 262 ships of seven nations entered the narrow inlet to land at Inchon. The landing was successful and Inchon was captured. MacArthur went on and defeated 30-40,000 North Korean troops at a cost of 536 allied killed and 2,500 wounded. Adm. William Halsey, Commander of the South Pacific fleet, called it “the most masterly and audacious strategic course in all history.” The Chinese Enter the War In the months that followed, the UN passed a resolution calling for the unification of Korea. Truman gave MacArthur permission to move his troops through North Korea. MacArthur succeeded in capturing all of North, as well as South Korea. At the same time, Chinese leader Mao Zedong was sending warnings that the UN troops, under MacArthur’s command, would face a response by the Chinese Communists. MacArthur asked Truman for permission to cut off the Chinese from supplying the North Koreans by bombing the bridges across the Yalu River, which bordered China and North Korea. Truman’s response was equivocal: He gave MacArthur orders that he could bomb the bridges, but only on the North Korean side of the border, not the Chinese side. MacArthur replied that he couldn’t bomb half a bridge. China then entered the war, reinforcing the North Koreans. When MacArthur was criticized for wanting to counterattack and expand the war into China. He wrote that he wanted to end the war, not spread it. He stated publicly, a number of times, “Anyone in favor of sending American ground troops to fight on Chinese soil should have his head examined.” His plan to retake Korea, however, was stopped by the British. While MacArthur did not want to send ground troops into China, he did believe that Truman was ready to abandon all of China, including the Republic of China on Formosa, to the Communists. MacArthur formed alliances to fight against Truman’s policies, which were controlled by the British. One of his allies was a young Congressman from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. In Reminiscences, MacArthur quotes from a 1945 speech that Kennedy gave in Salem, Mass., criticizing Truman’s policy toward China: “During the postwar period began the great split of the minds of our diplomats over whether to support the Government of Chiang Kai-shek or force Chiang Kaishek out as a price of our assistance, to bring Chinese Communists into his government to form a coalition. . . .” MacArthur writes, “What our young men have saved, our diplomats and our President have frittered away.” “This is a tragic story of China whose freedom we once fought to preserve.” Later, after being fired by President Truman as Supreme Commander of the United States in the Korean War, in 1951, he repeated this in an address to Congress. Backstory: New Guinea Inchon was not first time that MacArthur used the strategy of hitting the enemy by surprise behind his April 12, 2013 EIR Feature 41
lines. It was a strategy he had used in defeating the Japanese in World War II. Soon after attacking Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese proceeded to take over the South Pacific, taking over the Philippines and the Dutch Islands around New Guinea, sources of key war resources, such as oil, tin, bauxite, and rubber. The Japanese plan was to then seize Australia. MacArthur planned to stop them by upsetting their takeover of New Guinea. MacArthur’s chief of the Air Force, General Kenney, writes that “Lacking naval forces and amphibious equipment to dislodge the Japanese . . . he made the first air envelopment in history. There was no precedent for his seizure by air of landing areas within a few miles of the enemy positions. There was nothing in the books that advocated or even suggested flying two divisions of infantry with their light artillery . . . and landing them on the flank and in the rear of the enemy positions.” His soldiers would have to depend for ammunition, food, evacuation and replacements solely on the Air Force. MacArthur’s own staff was against the operation and recommended withdrawal, as they did not believe that the air resupply would work. Kenney said it was called “MacArthur’s gamble.” But the gamble paid off. Kenney writes that MacArthur’s “spirit and leadership carried his forces along the long road back to the Philippines and placed him finally in Tokyo. . . .” Truman Fires MacArthur After MacArthur’s success at Inchon, and the U.S. capture of North Korea, Truman asked to meet with MacArthur. They met on Wake Island in the Pacific on Oct. 15, 1950. MacArthur wrote about his impression of Truman after this meeting: “He seemed to take great pride in his historical knowledge, but it seemed to me that in spite of his having read much, it was of a superficial character, encompassing facts without the logic and reasoning dictating those facts. Of the Far East he knew little, presenting a strange combination of distorted history and vague hopes that somehow, some way, we could do something to help those struggling against Communism.” In December 1950, the Chinese entered North Korea in force, with over 200,000 troops. MacArthur MacArthur held Truman responsible for the Korean War. He wrote that, after the death of FDR, the nation’s leadership was “in the short space of five years . . . frittered away.” The two are shown here at their (strained) meeting on Wake Island in October 1950. called for a naval blockade of mainland China and a bombing of Manchurian bases. On Dec. 1, 1950, MacArthur gave an interview to U.S. News and World Report, which was picked up and published in many U.S. and European papers. In it, the general criticized Washington for its refusal to allow him to pursue the Chinese forces. He stated that those limitations were an enormous handicap, and without precedent in military history. Acheson said that MacArthur, by going public with his views, “had perpetrated a major act of sabotage of a Government operation.” Truman responded, saying that MacArthur “was ready to start general war. I was not.” MacArthur, in his autobiography, wrote that Red China was already fully at war with the U.S. The ostensible reason that Truman fired MacArthur, was that the general had disobeyed Truman’s order that no one was to make a public statement on Korea without it first being approved by Washington. Author Courtney Whitney wrote that Acheson’s State Department was following British orders to have MacArthur fired, that MacArthur’s message had run afoul “of plans being hatched in the State Department to succumb to British pressure. . . .” Behind Truman was British Prime Minister Clement Atlee, who had just written a “position paper” on reaching a ceasefire on the basis of the 38th parallel. Immediately after Truman’s response to MacArthur, 42 Feature EIR April 12, 2013
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