Just as the first watch began on the evening of 11 July 1950, a team of four Marines and four Navy gunner’s mates, led by Commander William B. Porter, executive officer of the USS Juneau (CLAA-119), transferred to the destroyer USS Mansfield (DD-728). Under way, the tin can headed for a point off the coast of North Korea, near the village of Tanchon, well north of the 40th parallel. Shrouded by darkness, the Mansfield closed to within 1,000 yards of the beach and lowered her whaleboat, then packed with Porter’s ad hoc landing party and a load of high explosives. The whaleboat shoved off, and soon the sailors and Marines were ashore, traversing precipitous terrain in complete darkness to find their target, a railroad tunnel for a major rail line that was serving as a vital supply link to advancing enemy forces. The commandos rigged two 60-pound demolition charges in the tunnel and set them to detonate when the next train passed through. Making their way back to the waiting destroyer, they were safely on board when intercepted North Korean radio broadcasts indicated that their mission had succeeded.
Because the conflict in Korea occurred within just a few years of World War II, where great fleets had slugged it out in dramatic battles, there is the temptation to underestimate the significance of the less-spectacular but absolutely vital naval aspects of the Korean conflict. Yet Commander Porter and his men conducted this raid into enemy territory just two weeks after North Korean forces had surprised the world by launching a major invasion of South Korea. And they were not the first. Two days after the invasion began, the Juneau and four destroyers formed Task Group 96.5 whose assignment was “to oppose any attempted landings by hostile forces, provide fire support to friendly forces, engage any enemy vessels encountered, and escort friendly shipping involved in evacuation or resupply operations.”
Four days into the war, the Juneau engaged the enemy by conducting the first shore bombardment, striking Mukho about 30 miles south of the 38th parallel. Three days later, the Juneau, joined by two Royal Navy ships, engaged four North Korean torpedo boats and two motor gunboats, sinking five of the six enemy craft.
As the war progressed, naval-gunfire missions continued to interdict enemy supply lines and support troops ashore. Naval aviation carried out essential reconnaissance, interdiction, and close-air support missions. Submarines reconnoitered enemy positions and inserted more commandos ashore. And less than a year after General of the Army Omar Bradley had told a congressional committee, “I predict that large-scale amphibious operations will never occur again,” naval forces successfully carried out an amphibious landing at Inchon—a spectacular counterstroke that changed the course of the war in a matter of hours.
These instances of tactical power projection were accompanied by more strategic contributions as well. The 7th Fleet served as a deterrent to the temptation of widening the war elsewhere in the Pacific—most overtly in the waters separating Communist and Nationalist China. The evacuation at Wonsan served as an important corrective to misdirected strategy at a critical moment. And by far the most significant component of naval participation was that of keeping the sea lanes open. Without that sea control, the United Nations forces would have been unable to slow and eventually stop the communist invasion in the early days of the crisis, and sustaining the war would have been impossible without the vital logistics tail of the U.N. forces that stretched halfway around the world. The Korean War would have been a far different conflict—no doubt with a more problematic outcome—without the sea power of the U.S. Navy.