War: Operation Chromite

Early last week in Tokyo, General Douglas MacArthur summoned a handful of newsmen who had been with him in World War II's campaigns. Among them was LIFE Photographer-Correspondent Carl Mydans, a veteran of Japanese prison camps in China and the Philippines. Mydans' report:

THE general greeted us with: "I'm going on a little operation, and I'd like to have you boys with me if you'd like to go. I say a little operation—it's a big operation. You will leave Haneda [the airport between Tokyo and Yokohama] at 6:30 Wednesday morning. I've got a new plane," he continued, "and I'll follow you in that." Then, pointing his black pipe at us, he said with his quiet laugh: "But you bums will go in my old plane, the Bataan."

The Bataan, followed by MacArthur's new C-54, named Scap, flew on Wednesday to Itazuke on Kyushu Island. There a motor vehicle convoy picked up the general's party and carried us 86 miles to the naval base at Sasebo.

MacArthur had intended to fly into Fukuoka and there board his ship. The sudden change of plans because of a typhoon gave the general his first long ride overland in Japan since his arrival more than five years ago. One of the strangest facts about this great and strange man is that he has seen almost nothing of the country under his rule. His travels have been largely limited to occasional drives between Tokyo and the Haneda airbase eight miles away.

Briefing. At Sasebo, we waited 2½ hours for MacArthur's command ship; typhoon seas had delayed it. As soon as it docked we put to sea. Next day MacArthur invited the correspondents to the cabin of the task force commander, Rear Admiral James Doyle. The general seemed somewhat worn by the buffeting the ship was taking from the rough waters. In a low voice he explained the strategy behind the coming operation.

"The history of war," he said, "proves that nine times out of ten an army has been destroyed because its supply lines have been cut off. That's what we are trying to do.

"Everything the enemy shoots, and all the additional replenishment he needs, have to come down through Seoul. We are going to try to seize that distributing area, so that it will be impossible for the North Koreans to get any additional men or more than a trickle of supplies into the present combat area."

Between the U.N. anvil at Seoul and the U.N. hammer at Pusan the bulk of the enemy's strength would be pounded. "By employing [our] two great advantages," predicted MacArthur, "we are going to wrest the ground initiative from him . . . If that can be accomplished, these [Communist] forces will sooner or later disintegrate . . ."

Hazards. Technically, at least, the landing would be the toughest MacArthur had ever attempted. Inchon's tide, said Admiral Doyle, is one of the world's greatest. The highwater mark comes only three days each month, and the Inchon basin can be worked only at the crest of the tide. This would give the landing force but four to eight hours out of 24 for movements of men and supplies.