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thedrifter
04-23-03, 04:09 PM
Significant Quotations Pertaining to the Marine Corps
in the Korean War
"Request immediate assignment Marine Regimental Combat Team and supporting Air Group for duty this command. . ."

On July 2, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur requested Marines to augment U.S. forces in Korea.

". . . these Marines have the swagger, confidence, and hardness that must have been in Stonewall Jackson's Army of the Shenandoah. They remind me of the Coldstreams at Dunkerque."

A British military officer, visiting U.S. Marines in Korea included the above statement in his daily report to the British command in Tokyo August 16, 1950.

"The amphibious landing is the most powerful tool we have."

General Douglas MacArthur, USA, Planning Conference for the Battle of Inchon, 1950.

"I can almost hear the ticking of the second hand of destiny. We must act now or we will die. . . . We shall land at Inchon, and I shall crush them."

General Douglas MacArthur, USA, at a meeting with his commanders, Tokyo, August 23, 1950.

"I know that this operation will be sort of helter-skelter. But the 1st Marine Division is going to win the war by landing at Inchon."

General Douglas MacArthur, USA, in conversation with Major General 0. P. Smith, USMC, August 1950.

"The amphibious landing of U.S. Marines on September 1950 at Inchon, on the west coast of Korea, was one of the most audacious and spectacularly successful amphibious landings in all naval history."

Bernard Brodie, A Guide to Naval Strategy, p. 238,

"Our tactical air arm should spend a few months with the Marines. I don't know what causes the difference, but it is there. The Marine pilots give us the impression that they are breaking their hearts to help us out."

By an Army captain in Korea: Quoted from Combat Forces Journal; Geer, The New Breed; Heinl, Soldiers of the Sea, p. 570,

"Retreat Hell! We're just attacking in another direction."

Attributed to Major General Oliver P. Smith, CG of the 1st Marine Division in Korea (1950), regarding his order for Marines to move southeast to the Hamhung area from the Hagaru perimeter.

"We've been looking for the enemy for several days now, We've finally found them. We're surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them."

Attributed to Colonel Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller during the Chosin Reservoir campaign in Korea, November 1950. Quoted in Marine! The Life of LtGen Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller, USMC (Ret.)

"The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight. The Reds told us they were afraid to tangle with the Marines and avoided them when they could be located."

Major General Frank E. Lowe, USA, Presidential observer on Korean War, in the Washington Daily News 26 Jan 1952.

Reference Section
History and Museums Division.

Sempers,

Roger