War: For God, For Country, But Not...

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With the Inchon assault wave was TIME Correspondent James Bell.* His report:

DAWN came up with a maddening slowness Sept. 15th. Aboard our APA (attack transport) we prayed for a clear, bright day. But it was dark and overcast. Most of the marines were asleep. After tossing for hours through the night, they had dropped off as morning neared.

All around us lay the invasion fleet. It felt good to see the APAs and LSTs and other craft spread far across the sea. Ashore, our third battalion was already assaulting Wolmi Island (see above). Rumors flew about that the Wolmi assault was a bloody one. That made us all quite nervous. Then we heard that the assault was easy, and casualties light. That made us feel better about going after Inchon that afternoon.

In the ward room, over & over again, they kept playing a recording: They'd Better Have Seven League Boots and Invisible Gabardines When They're Foolin' With the Marines . . . Wiry Captain Sam Jaskilka, 30, from Ansonia, Conn., a onetime University of Connecticut basketball star, a Marine veteran who fought through World War II's Pacific campaign, laughed nervously at the song. "I hope the enemy believes that," he said as he sipped a cup of coffee.

Down in the troop compartment housing Sam Jaskilka's Easy Company, the gunnery sergeant, big, bearded Bob Barnett, 29, was sounding off with final instructions: "You people are the leading company for the main assault of this operation . . ."

Loading Time. No one ate very much lunch (a cold salad of macaroni and ham). At 2:45 p.m. the boat teams prepared to go over the side. I joined Captain Jaskilka's people. We stood there waiting for our wave to load into the landing craft. Ours was the third. The first wave was to hit the 9½ ft. sea wall at Inchon at 5:30 p.m. The second wave would be three minutes later. The third wave was to land at 5:40. These first three waves on Red Beach, a tiny plot of ground 300 yards wide, were made up of Sam Jaskilka's company.

Sam watched the first two waves load. Just before our turn, he turned and said, "Oh God, I almost forgot!"

"What did you forget, Sam?" I asked in panic, thinking he'd neglected to issue ammo to his machine-gun section.

"I almost forgot that tomorrow's the opening day of football season and we're probably going to play Yale,"* he said very seriously.

Toward Red Beach. The dirty yellow waters of Inchon harbor bore a tremendous array of boats. As far as the eye could see there were LSVPs in groups of five making endless circles before the great grey assault ships. Ahead were the cruisers, destroyers and rocket ships. Overhead, Navy and Marine planes streaked for targets ashore. The big guns boomed like tremendous bass drums. The smaller 40-mm. guns hammered away with the incessant roll of snare drums.

A pall of purple smoke hung over Inchon. Our boat passed Wolmi, seized by our third battalion earlier in the day; it seemed battered and beaten, and great beige scars lay on its green hillside.