September 15, 1950: The Inchon Landing

Today in 1950 · Friday, September 15, 1950

Four LSTs unload men and equipment on Inchon's Red Beach at low tide, September 16, 1950

Four LSTs unload men and equipment on Inchon's Red Beach at low tide, September 16, 1950 · Official U.S. Navy photograph, National Archives, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1950, General Douglas MacArthur's forces landed at Inchon — the boldest stroke of the Korean War, executed in one of the least likely harbors on earth. Inchon's tidal range of roughly thirty feet, among the world's most extreme, left its mudflat approaches usable only about six hours in every twenty-four. The landings had to hit the morning and evening high tides exactly, or strand on the flats under enemy guns.

At 6:30 a.m., the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines went ashore on Green Beach at Wolmi-do, the fortified island softened by two days of 'sitting duck' bombardment; the island was secured by noon at a cost of 14 Marines wounded. On the evening tide, the main force of X Corps — the 1st Marine Division under Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith, with the Army's 7th Infantry Division to follow, all under Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond — went over the seawalls at Red and Blue beaches into Inchon proper. Some 230 ships of Vice Adm. Arthur D. Struble's Joint Task Force 7, drawn from seven navies, put nearly 70,000 men ashore.

The landing fell more than 150 miles behind the North Korean army besieging the Pusan Perimeter — and unhinged the entire front. Within two weeks Seoul was retaken and the invaders were streaming north in collapse. Military histories still argue about MacArthur, but almost none argue about Inchon: it reversed the course of a war in a single tide.

Also on this day

  • On the Pusan Perimeter, the Great Naktong Offensive was declared spent — the North Korean assault had failed everywhere.
  • UN forces at Pusan prepared the breakout that would begin the following day.

🎵 On the radio that week: America’s No. 1 song was “Goodnight Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers (Billboard best sellers) — its 13 straight weeks at No. 1 was the longest run of the 1950s. That sound never really left — we recreate 1950s doo-wop and slow-dance ballads every week: read the stories behind our songs or listen on the lovesong1950s channel.
🎬 At the movies: Betty Grable and Dan Dailey opened in “My Blue Heaven” — radio stars jumping to the brand-new medium of television, 1950's biggest showbiz anxiety set to music — and it shot straight to No. 1.
⚾ In sports: The Yankees took two of three at Detroit, 21-year-old rookie Whitey Ford running his record to 7-0 — while Phillies rookie Bubba Church was carried off after a line drive struck his face, deepening Philadelphia's pitching crisis.

Sources: US Navy: Operation Chromite · US Naval Institute: Target Inchon · Britannica: Inchon landing · Billboard best-seller charts, 1950 (issue scans) · Variety National Boxoffice Survey, 1950 (Lantern scans) · Retrosheet 1950 game logs and box scores. Every fact above is drawn from the records linked here — no dramatization, no invented details.

More from this series: Today in 1950 — the daily archive · every post from September 2026

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