To many observers in early September 1950, it appeared as though the Korean War was about to end in a victory for North Korean army. In just over two months they had driven both the South Korean forces and their American reinforcements to the southeastern corner of the Korean peninsula. Though the front lines had stabilized into the “Pusan Perimeter,” the rapid advance of the North Korean offensive had convinced many that it was only a matter of time before they would conquer the rest of the country, reuniting the peninsula under Kim Il Sung’s rule.

On September 15, however, American forces seized the port of Inch’on, just outside of Seoul. In a matter of days, the course of the war shifted in favor of the UN coalition aiding South Korea, as the overextended North Korean forces soon fled northward. It was a remarkable turn of fortune, none the less so for the fact that, as Gordon Rottman describes in his short history of the operation, it was an improvised operation involving forces cobbled together from a shrunken military. Yet it was from such unpromising circumstances that one of the most amphibious assaults in military history was launched.

Though Douglas MacArthur is often credited with devising the operation, Rottman explains that it was actually the brainchild of Donald McB. Curtis, a Pentagon staffer who devised the basic concept just days before the war began. Sensing its potential, MacArthur quickly adopted it and pushed it through using sheer force of personality. Hastily assembling units from the scattered parts of the postwar forces, the operation was planned and implemented in just two and a half months – a remarkable feat when compared to the amount of time devoted to planning similar amphibious assaults during the Second World War just five years before.

Rottman writes of the preparations for the landing and the subsequent invasion itself with an ease that reflects his own extensive background as a former solider. While he is far less successful in providing the details of the North Korean forces and their defenses, this is understandable given the continuing inaccessibility of North Korean records and accounts of the event. Less excusable, though, is his slighting of the role played by the Navy in the operation, as their contribution is summarized as that of a shuttle service that also provided some bombardment support. This limits the value of Rottman’s account of the Inch’on operation, reducing it to a somewhat wooden overview of one of the most remarkable military operations ever attempted. ( )

To be honest, there's actually nothing wrong with this booklet, particularly from the basics of the operation, it's when you get to the bibliography that you realize that a lot of water has gone under the bridge. If this publication was going to be revised, works that would be now cited include "Forgotten Warriors" by T.X. Hammes and "Combat Ready?" by Thomas Hanson, which deal respectively with how the U.S. Marine Corps digested the lessons of World War II and U.S. 7th Army put their house in order in the year or so before August 1950. ( )