Secrets of Inchon: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Covert Mission of the Korean War FROM OUR EDITORS
It was the kind of discovery that most historians can only dream about. After publishing an article about the Inchon Korean War campaign, author Thomas Fleming was contacted by the widow of Eugene Franklin Clark, who had led a crucial but little-known covert mission before the battle. Instead of offering a few secondhand memories, Mrs. Clark offered Fleming an original manuscript, a first-person chronicle that Clark had written and then placed in a safe-deposit box. Clark's account of his compromised foray behind enemy lines pulses with excitement. It justifies a WWII colleague's admiring description of him: "He had the nerves of a burglar and the flair of a Barbary Coast pirate."
FROM THE PUBLISHER
W. E. B. Griffin calls it "a modern classic of military history." Douglas Brinkley says it reads "like a John le Carre thriller." Stephen Coonts finds it a "first-person account of heroism, resolve, and ultimate triumph that will touch every American." It is all of that, and more. The Secrets of Inchon is a remarkable story of heroism and courage, only now come to light after fifty years: the true account of Navy Commander (then Lieutenant) Eugene Franklin Clark -- a man, according to his colleagues, with "the nerves of a burglar and the flair of a Barbary Coast pirate" -- and the daring covert mission that helped change the course of the Korean War. In the year 2000, historian Thomas Fleming published an article about a crucial but little-known mission of the Korean War, led by a thirty-nine-year-old Navy lieutenant named Eugene Clark. After it appeared, Clark's widow told Fleming that her husband had written up his own account, which was now in a safe-deposit box. Would he like to read it? Fleming would -- and when he did, he 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, General Douglas 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, beaches, seawalls, and fortifications. It was suicide, they said. MacArthur convinced them, barely, and then brought in Clark, because they were right: they did know too little. Clark had to find the answers -- and do it in only two weeks, because that was all the time there was.
With two South Korean officers, Clark landed on a harbor island and set to work, 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 to guide the allied fleet in. Clark's is a stunning account, rich with both adventure and humanity, infused by his growing brotherhood with his newfound allies -- indeed, "a modern classic of military history."
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Prolific historian Fleming (The Officers' Wives, etc.) was researching an
article on Inchon when he interviewed the widow of Clark, a naval officer on
General MacArthur's intelligence staff who died in 1998, about his role in
intelligence gathering for the amphibious landing at Inchon Harbor an
operation that turned the tide of the Korean War. She in turn produced the
manuscript of this book from a safe deposit box, and the result is this
workmanlike yet compelling memoir, written in the early '50s, soon after
Clark's return. Clark volunteered for a mission that eventually included a
naval skirmish between Korean junks, a commando raid on a communist-held
island to capture prisoners and free imprisoned civilians, an infantry
engagement with communist infiltrators, and Clark's takeover of a harbor
lighthouse to light the fleet's way for the eventual invasion. Sympathetic
observations on Korean culture are augmented by misconceptions, and
extensive descriptions of tactics and reconstructed dialogue can be wearing.
Yet this is a self-effacing account that openly acknowledges mistakes and
misgivings, and Clark, who studied law at Princeton, learned Japanese and
was eventually awarded the Silver Star, an oak leaf cluster and the Navy
Cross, has considerable powers of observation that are apparent throughout.
The use of "covert" in the subtitle is a bit puzzling, since the North
Koreans were aware of Clark's presence in Inchon Harbor the entire time he
was there, but this is a solid memoir of an important Korean War battle.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Chicago Sun Times
exceedingly engaging...
Library Journal
In 1950, as the North Koreans overwhelmed South Korea, American Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered an amphibious landing at the port city of Inchon and then a march to Seoul, the South Korean capital. Before the invasion, he needed information on enemy troop movements, weapons placement, and local residents' attitudes toward UN forces. He assigned Lieutenant Clark the task of intelligence gathering. With two South Korean army officers, Clark landed on an island near Inchon harbor and organized a makeshift guerrilla force with anti-Communist fishermen and local villagers. For two weeks, he and his men gathered intelligence, conducted night raids, and prepared the way for the invasion. Clark, who was later awarded the Silver Star for his part in the campaign, wrote this account shortly after the war as a testimony for his family. Novelist and historian Thomas Fleming (The New Dealer's War), who wrote the introduction and epilog, was given the manuscript when he met Clark's family while researching the battle. Clark's account, which had sat in a safe deposit box for nearly half a century, reads like a novel and holds the reader right to the end. This firsthand account of a crucial yet unsung operation of the war is highly recommended for public and academic libraries. Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Rip-roaring first-person narrative of an espionage mission that may well have saved 100,000 American lives during the Korean War. Driven to a salient on the southern coast of Korea following a 1950 invasion of Communist forces from the north, Douglas MacArthur's army was in imminent danger of encirclement and annihilation. MacArthur proposed a daring campaign by which American forces would land at Inchon, a coastal city west of Seoul, and relieve the captured capital. When his generals protested that the chances for success were appallingly small, MacArthur calmly replied that if the Americans thought it was impossible, so would the North Koreans. "That gave us the key element in any attack, large or small-surprise," writes Clark, who in 1950 was a naval lieutenant. Problem was, very little was known about the tides, islands, and underwater obstacles of the thin channel that led to the projected landing zone. It was up to Clark and a team of Korean intelligence experts to infiltrate the area, gather this information, and convey it to MacArthur. So they did, against all odds and with thousands of North Koreans breathing down their necks. Having recruited the support of the locals, they were even able to employ a lighthouse to show the American armada the way. The military-memoir genre is often overstuffed with poorly written, self-serving accounts, but Clark's is neither; he tells his story exceedingly well and with uncommon modesty, reserving praise for his comrades. Clark, who died in 1998, wrote this account for his family, and the unpublished manuscript lay in a safe-deposit box for half a century until it came to the attention of historian Thomas Fleming, who shepherded it topublication and provides an introduction. A solid work of military history by an authentic hero who illuminates the opening days of a now little-remembered conflict.
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