Cross-cultural communication （133）　

133) Incheon Then and Now
Everyone, do you know Incheon（仁川）? It is a port city located in the northwest of South Korea, 40 kilometers west of Seoul. In the morning of February 11, 2023, which was a national holiday celebrating the founding of the country, I happened to be watching a TV talk show and saw a Korean woman who was fluent in Japanese giving a tour of Incheon. It was an attractive city with skyscrapers, natural parks, and stylish restaurants.

However, at that moment, I recalled a black male patient I had treated in Brooklyn in the early 1980s. He was a former U.S. soldier who had served in the Korean War, which broke out in 1950. One day, after I had examined him several times in my outpatient clinic, he asked me, “Since you're Japanese, you must know about Incheon, right?” To my embarrassment, I could only guess that he was referring to some part of South Korea, based on his mention of the Korean War. He explained that the Incheon Landing Operation was the decisive turning point in the war, which had initially been overwhelmingly disadvantageous for the Korean side. Incheon Port was small with a significant tidal range, making it unsuitable for a large-scale military operation involving many ships. Both the North Korean side and the United Nations forces, which were primarily composed of U.S. troops stationed in Japan, opposed the operation. However, General MacArthur decided that the only way to counter the North's overwhelming surprise attack was with a surprise attack of their own, and gave the go-ahead for the Incheon Landing Operation.

I had completely forgotten about Incheon, but after watching this talk show, I suddenly remembered the events of 40 years ago and became eager to learn more about the landing operation. The operation had a name: Operation Chromite. I discovered that a movie had been made using the operation's name as its title and was able to watch it for free on Amazon Prime. Since it was a holiday, I watched the movie from 10 AM to noon, which took 1 hour and 50 minutes. The main characters are South Korean intelligence agents who infiltrated North Korea, and while there is some fiction, I believe the overall story is historically accurate. It was an information war and lightning-fast operation involving massive troop numbers, akin to the Normandy landings, and the result was the recapture of Seoul on the third day of the landing.

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