Incheon marks 75 years since pivotal landing with veterans and naval tribute

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Incheon marks 75 years since pivotal landing with veterans and naval tribute

Published: 15 Sep. 2025, 20:01

MICHAEL LEE
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

South Korean Marines aboard amphibious assault vehicles reenact Operation Chromite off the docks of Incheon's inner harbor on Sept. 15. [YONHAP]

INCHEON — At the edge of Incheon's inner harbor, beneath sunny skies and the hum of helicopters, veterans and dignitaries gathered on Monday to mark an event that once seemed improbable: the amphibious landing that turned the tide of the Korean War.

Seventy-five years ago to the day, United Nations Command (UNC) forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur executed Operation Chromite, a high-risk assault on Incheon’s treacherous tidal flats.

The daring counteroffensive, involving 75,000 troops and more than 260 warships, cut the invading North Korean army’s supply lines and led to the recapture of Seoul within weeks. It was a decisive maneuver that transformed the course of the conflict and cemented Incheon’s place in military history.

“The victory at Incheon was a miracle born from Gen. MacArthur’s insight and the noble sacrifices of service members,” Incheon Mayor, Yoo Jeong-bok, told the crowd at the waterfront ceremony. He vowed the city would pass down the memory of sacrifice to Korea’s youth and contribute to “peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

The Korean War had begun only months earlier, in June 1950, when North Korean troops swept across the 38th parallel, capturing most of the South in weeks. South Korean and UN forces, led by the United States, were cornered into a shrinking perimeter around Busan. The Incheon landing, against long odds, broke that siege and allowed the allies to advance northward.

In an address read by Kim Sung-joon, the Defense Ministry’s director general of personnel and welfare, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-baek described the landing as “a victory of mankind to defend freedom and democracy.” Despite the desperate situation, he said, soldiers “advanced through the dark waters and jumped into the fire. They turned the tide of history here at the waters off Incheon.”

Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok, right, stands next to Korean War veteran Reg Sharpe and South Korean military officials at a dockside ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of Operation Chromite in Incheon on Sept. 15. Navy personnel behind them hold the flags of 22 countries that contributed troops to South Korea's defense during the 1950-53 Korean War. [YONHAP]

Attendees at Monday’s commemoration included more than 20 South Korean veterans, two surviving foreign veterans of the war, descendants of UNC soldiers and military attaches from several of the 22 nations that contributed forces to the conflict.

In all, more than two million foreign troops and medical personnel served during the three-year war that left the peninsula divided along a heavily fortified border that remains today.

In his speech at the ceremony, UNC Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson said modern South Korea itself stood as the landing’s most enduring monument.

“The South Korea that we see today — strong, prosperous and democratic — is living proof of what can be accomplished when allies and partners stand together,” he said. The legacy of Incheon, he added, was “not only one of victory, but also of unity, sacrifice and enduring partnership.”

Other officials offered similar reflections, including Adm. Kang Dong-gil, South Korea’s chief of naval operations and Lt. Gen. Ju Il-seok, the Marine Corps commandant. Canada’s veterans affairs minister, Jill McKnight, also contributed a video message.

Officials from the Incheon Metropolitan Government, Navy and Marine Corps lay wreaths at a monument to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Jung District, Incheon, on Sept. 15. [YONHAP]

The ceremony concluded with a military reenactment of Operation Chromite, during which helicopters and amphibious vehicles maneuvered in the harbor before the watching crowd. The spectacle recalled the drama of 1950, when three UNC assault groups braved extreme tides, narrow channels and fortified positions to seize the port.

For many, the event was both a commemoration and a reminder that the war that began in 1950 never formally ended, as the 1953 armistice only halted active hostilities. The unresolved conflict between South and North Korea, underscored by Pyongyang’s continued weapons programs and growing military ties with Moscow, lent Monday’s ceremony a contemporary resonance.

The defense minister pledged the South Korean government would “honor veterans and their desire for permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula” by continuing to “maintain a robust defense posture to ensure the sorrows of war are never repeated again.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [[email protected]]