For God, For Country, But Not...

With the Inchon assault wave was TIME Correspondent James Bell.* His report:

DAWN came up with a maddening slowness Sept. 15th. Aboard our APA (attack transport) we prayed for a clear, bright day. But it was dark and overcast. Most of the marines were asleep. After tossing for hours through the night, they had dropped off as morning neared.

All around us lay the invasion fleet. It felt good to see the APAs and LSTs and other craft spread far across the sea. Ashore, our third battalion was already assaulting Wolmi Island (see above). Rumors flew about that the Wolmi assault was a bloody one. That made us all quite nervous. Then we heard that the assault was easy, and casualties light. That made us feel better about going after Inchon that afternoon.

In the ward room, over & over again, they kept playing a recording: They'd Better Have Seven League Boots and Invisible Gabardines When They're Foolin' With the Marines . . . Wiry Captain Sam Jaskilka, 30, from Ansonia, Conn., a onetime University of Connecticut basketball star, a Marine veteran who fought through World War II's Pacific campaign, laughed nervously at the song. "I hope the enemy believes that," he said as he sipped a cup of coffee.

Down in the troop compartment housing Sam Jaskilka's Easy Company, the gunnery sergeant, big, bearded Bob Barnett, 29, was sounding off with final instructions: "You people are the leading company for the main assault of this operation . . ."

Loading Time. No one ate very much lunch (a cold salad of macaroni and ham). At 2:45 p.m. the boat teams prepared to go over the side. I joined Captain Jaskilka's people. We stood there waiting for our wave to load into the landing craft. Ours was the third. The first wave was to hit the 9 1/2 ft. sea wall at Inchon at 5:30 p.m. The second wave would be three minutes later. The third wave was to land at 5:40. These first three waves on Red Beach, a tiny plot of ground 300 yards wide, were made up of Sam Jaskilka's company.

Sam watched the first two waves load. Just before our turn, he turned and said, "Oh God, I almost forgot!"

"What did you forget, Sam?" I asked in panic, thinking he'd neglected to issue ammo to his machine-gun section.

"I almost forgot that tomorrow's the opening day of football season and we're probably going to play Yale,"* he said very seriously.

Toward Red Beach. The dirty yellow waters of Inchon harbor bore a tremendous array of boats. As far as the eye could see there were LSVPs in groups of five making endless circles before the great grey assault ships. Ahead were the cruisers, destroyers and rocket ships. Overhead, Navy and Marine planes streaked for targets ashore. The big guns boomed like tremendous bass drums. The smaller 40-mm. guns hammered away with the incessant roll of snare drums.

A pall of purple smoke hung over Inchon. Our boat passed Wolmi, seized by our third battalion earlier in the day; it seemed battered and beaten, and great beige scars lay on its green hillside.

We could see the causeway from Wolmi to Inchon now. Our marines on the little island were spitting tracers at the sea wall on which we were so soon to land. We stopped dead in the water and waited. The rocket ships cut loose, their missiles tearing into Red Beach, turning it into a whistling, howling hell. The sea wall seemed as high as the RCA Building.

Then, so suddenly it was frightening, the deep roll of naval gunfire, the swooshing rockets, the chatter of the 40-mm. guns, the crump of bombs, died down.

"Heads Down!" "Get 'em ready, gunner," said Captain Jaskilka to Gunnery Sergeant Barnett. His voice was very quiet and calm. Ahead we could see the first and second waves dashing for that forbidding sea wall.

"All right," bawled Barnett, "lock and load. The runners go out first. You people know what to do. Keep your goddamn heads down."

"There's a ditch on the other side of the wall," said Jaskilka. "Roll over the wall into the ditch, then get up fast and make for the right side of the beach. Good luck to all of you."

In the bow of each LSVP were two long ladders, one of aluminum and the other of wood. Each had long hooks at the top. These were the assault ladders to be thrown against the sea wall. As we ran for it, the ladders were up in the bows, making the LSVPs look like huge water bugs with antennae outstretched.

As we neared the sea wall the sound of small arms intensified. My hands, my armpits and my face were covered with sweat. Sam Jaskilka looked at me.

"Something's been worrying me," he said.

"What, Sam?"

"I wonder if we're strong enough to give Yale a good game."

Up the Sea Wall. I didn't have time to express an opinion because the boat rammed sharply into the sea wall. The ladders went up and the 20 marines in our boat began scrambling up. The ladders were very shaky. The hooks were not wide enough for the wall. But one by one our men disappeared over the sea wall. It came my turn and I climbed the ladder and hit the top of the wall. I threw one leg over it and rolled. I landed with a thud in the ditch Sam had said would be there.

The ground behind the sea wall was literally torn apart. Dust still hung from the last rocket explosions and air and ground reeked with cordite fumes. Marines were running in every direction. After a moment I caught sight of Captain Jaskilka standing straight and calmly surveying the situation. He trotted on 150 yards to a small, gutted building near the Wolmi causeway. There he met his executive officer, 1st Lieut. Gilbert R. Hershey (son of Draft Director Lewis B. Hershey). "They all got ashore fine, skipper," reported Hershey.

The enemy had thoroughly prepared Red Beach for defense. There were fine, newly dug trenches and well-placed pillboxes. But all were unoccupied. We crossed a road strewn with hunks of shrapnel and reached the side of a five-story building once occupied by the Jinsen Milling Co. It was riddled with gunfire, a fire roared in the top two stories and black smoke billowed from its roof. Further on, in a shattered, deserted street, we saw a large cartoon snowing a powerfully muscled arm holding a spindly little guy labeled "USA" while another strong arm hit him over the head with a gigantic hammer. "Some propaganda, huh?" said Sergeant Barnett.

A young marine ran up the road from the shore herding two scared North Korean soldiers before him. When he saw Jaskilka, he yelled: "Halt, you bastards!" Then he reported: "I find 'em in a solo skipper. What do I do with them?" Jaskilka told him to take them to the beach and turn them over to the shore party.

Silting Tight. We reached the burning British consulate and established a CP in a house on the hill just below it. The smoke and dust were beginning to lift from Inchon's waterfront area. The fighting was sporadic. One patrol brought in a rather staggering prize: a whole platoon, led by its lieutenant, from the third battalion of the 26th North Korean regiment, the outfit defending Inchon. The patrol had moved in on the platoon, which gave up without a fight. The Korean lieutenant, eager to be cooperative, told Jaskilka that much of his battalion had been killed in the two-day shelling of Inchon. Those who survived had retreated in the direction of Seoul.

Easy Company's orders were to sit tight near the British consulate until morning. A drizzling rain had begun to fall. We wrapped ourselves in ponchos and tried to get some sleep but it was hard to sleep. The sky was alight with the red glare from half a dozen fires in the harbor area. Naval guns thundered intermittently. Now & then we heard bursts of small-arms fire and the flat, deadly sound of mortars.

Early next morning, with Marine tanks alongside, Easy Company moved through the remainder of Inchon. Civilians were moving back into the town they had fled the day before. We met them along the road which skirts the city's southern flank. They lined the streets and intersections, cheered and clapped their hands. Marine veterans, who started out with rifles at high port, eyes scanning the buildings ahead and watching for mines, became a bit flustered at this demonstration of public affection. Soon they brought their rifles down from the ready and slung them over their shoulders.

The Koreans seemed to want to do anything to please. Old men ran out with South Korean flags. Women came forward with their hands up and smiling. The civilians of Inchon combed the city for known Communists, led U.S. troops to their hideouts, pointed out enemy soldiers who tried to sneak away with civilian clothes over their uniforms.

The city became clogged with prisoners. South Koreans jeered and laughed as the Communists were led away. They ripped down Communist billboards and slogans.

As always, the kids liked it best. Wherever the marines paused, the kids got ration candy and chewing gum. We moved on through the town without hearing a shot fired in anger. Within an hour we reached a point where we could see other marines, who had started on Blue Beach, standing against the ridge line.

Objective Taken. We left the road and moved out into the hills, securing the high ground east of the city. On these hills we found elaborately prepared defense positions, trenches and gun pits. But still there was no sign that the enemy had recently occupied the positions. We came across a factory with a quantity of Russian rifles, still in Cosmoline. Crates of hand grenades, which apparently were manufactured at this place, lay everywhere. Our patrols reached out across the neck of land which forms the eastern boundary of the city. By 11 a.m. we had reached the bay north of the city. Inchon was securely ours.

In order to file copy, I had to leave Easy Company. I said I'd be back in the morning.

"Find out how we came out against Yale," Sam shouted as I went down the road. "And check up on how the Yankees are doing."

Sometimes I wonder what worries Sam the most--Yale, the Detroit Tigers, or the North Koreans.

* This week Correspondent Bell became the 26th Korean war casualty among newsmen. Injured in a jeep accident (fractured arm and chest injuries) near Inchon, he was sent back to Japan. * Understandably, Captain Jaskilka was out of touch with schedules back home. Yale and Connecticut play this week.

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