Secrets of Inchon: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Covert Mission of the Korean War, The

Sea Power, Aug 2003 by Gardner, Sherry L

THE SECRETS OF INCHON: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Covert Mission of the Korean War, by Eugene Franklin Clark, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Publishing, May 2003. 326 pp. $14.95. ISBN: 0-425-19000-5. Gene Clark wrote this narrative of his two weeks in Korea as a memorial to his Korean comrades who shared the risks of his mission with him.

The manuscript sat in a safe-deposit box for decades, until his family retrieved it after his death in 1998. Clark landed in Korea with two South Korean officers to gather intelligence for the U.N. amphibious landings at Inchon. The North Koreans quickly discovered them, and the mission became one filled with firefights, night raids, and even a miniature naval battle involving junks. The culminating event came on the night of the invasion, when Clark and his men took over a lighthouse and helped guide the U.N. fleet to the invasion point. This book is a firsthand account of a little-known covert mission of the Korean War. With 15 black-and-white photographs and two maps.