The secrets of Inchon : the untold story of the most daring covert mission of the Korean War

Synopsis

In 2000, as historian Thomas Fleming prepared an article about a crucial but little-known, covert mission of the Korean War, led by a thirty-nine-year-old naval lieutenant named Eugene Clark, Clark's widow noted that her husband had written up his own account, then put it in a safe-deposit box. Would he like to read it? Fleming would -and discovered an extraordinary document: a vividly written first-person chronicle filled with color, detail, and event, as honest and revealing a wartime narrative as he'd read in many years. In late August 1950, with North Korea on the attack, MacArthur battled his own colleagues over his plan to invade Inchon, behind enemy lines. They simply knew too little about the dangerous tides and miles of mudflats, the beaches, seawalls, and fortifications. It was suicide. MacArthur convinced them, barely, and then brought in Clark, because they did know too little. Clark had to find the answers -and in just two weeks. That was all the time there was. With two South Korean officers, Clark landed on a harbor island, but the North Koreans discovered him, and soon his intelligence-gathering became filled with firefights, night raids, hand-to-hand combat, even a miniature naval battle involving armed junks. It all culminated on the night of the invasion itself -when he and his men took over a lighthouse and lit it to guide the allied fleet. The Secrets of Inchon is a stunning account, rich with courage and humanity, infused by Clark's growing brotherhood with his newfound allies -a new classic of military history.