[Opinion] Incheon, 56 Years Later

06:00, September 15, 1950, at a beach on Wolmi Island. As the sun rose, the roar of guns shook heaven and earth. The U.S. 1st Marine Division, the U.S. 7th Infantry Division and four South Korean Marine battalions recovered Incheon two hours after a naval bombardment. Operation Chromite or the Incheon Landing is recorded as the most successful landing operation in history.

Seoul was soon after recovered and the Taegeukgi, the national flag of South Korea, once again fluttered in front of the Capitol building in Seoul. The tide of the war turned against the communist North whose lines of communications and logistics were severed.

70-year-old U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the U.N. troops, led the landing. He insisted on advancing up to Amnok River and bombarding Manchuria. However, President Harry Truman, who opposed his plan, dismissed MacArthur in April 1951. MacArthur’s farewell speech made before a joint session of the U.S. Congress still touches our hearts even today. The speech exceeds over 10,000 words when translated into Korean. "Old soldiers never die, they just fade way." He ended his 52 years of military service with a quote from the refrain of a war song he sung when he was a West Point cadet.

The bronze statue of MacArthur standing tall at the Incheon Freedom Park overlooks the shore of Wolmi Island. On September 13, two days before the 56 anniversary of the landing, five Korean marine veterans came to the park and raise their hand in salute to the statue and the Freedom Monument. Although they are now over 70 years old, their eyes were still sharp as if they were in their 20s. 200 U.S. marine veterans who participated in the Korean War will come to the park on Friday, invited by the Korean Veterans Association

Anti-U.S. groups created a great stir, trying to remove the statue several times. They absurdly claim that Korea would have been unified if the landing was not carried out. What is their true identity? This must have upset many people. U.S. congressman Henry Hyde, the chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, even asked Korea to return the statue if it wants to dismantle it. He paid a visit last month to the MacArthur statue in a wheelchair. “If a new friend is silver, the old friend is gold. What MacArthur achieved is pure gold,” Henry said. His remark makes us embarrassed. Had it not been for contributions by MacArthur, Korea would not have protected democracy from communist threat and accomplished its prosperity.

Yook Jeong-soo, Editorial Writer, sooya@donga.com