Sealift was another significant hurdle. While the U.S. Navy had large numbers of specialized amphibious vessels left over from World War II, most were in mothballs, without crews and without the benefit of regular maintenance. To satisfy MacArthur’s requirements the Navy hastily recommissioned ships with scratch crews, including reservists, civilian merchant sailors and even locally recruited Japanese. Of the 47 LSTs (landing ships, tank) that departed Kobe, Japan, on September 10 to support the operation, 37 were manned by Japanese crews. On many of the invasion ships essential equipment and machinery had been stripped out, including radios, electrical systems, pumps, hydraulics and even galleys.

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Along with all the other deficiencies facing the Far East Command, no headquarters existed that was capable of commanding the landing force. On August 21, MacArthur requested and received permission to activate the X Corps from among existing assets in the theater. He selected his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, to command the corps and Maj. Gen. Ruffner, from JSPOG, to serve as the corps chief of staff. The X Corps staff was formed out of the Far East Command staff and proved notably competent once on the ground in Korea.

While MacArthur was determined to execute the Inchon operation from early July 1950, he faced considerable opposition and dissension in Washington and from among his own staff and commanders in Tokyo and Korea. The JCS was skeptical about the operation’s viability, partly over the choice of Inchon and the short timetable, but mostly due to the operation’s voracious appetite for scarce resources and forces. During a long late-afternoon meeting at MacArthur’s Tokyo headquarters on July 23, he tentatively prevailed over the concerns of Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Forrest Sherman, sent out by the JCS to ascertain the state of affairs. While supporting the concept in principle, they pressed for a landing at Kunsan, much farther south on the west coast.

The next day MacArthur confronted the unanimous objections of his Navy and Marine commanders, who were anxious about the extreme tides at Inchon, mudbanks along the approach, shipping inadequacies, the short timeline to train and prepare, the hazards of conducting an amphibious assault into an urban area and the paucity of personnel to conduct the assault. Once again MacArthur prevailed, partly due to a strong show of support for his subordinates’ needs and concerns. That evening, in a teleconference with Washington, MacArthur gained JCS approval for a two-regiment Marine division, and the 1st Marine Division was alerted to deploy from the American West Coast.

MacArthur’s problems with selling the operation’s viability and obtaining full authorization were far from over, however. On August 6, Averell Harriman arrived in Tokyo as the personal envoy of President Truman, accompanied by Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, the Army deputy chief of staff for operations, and General Lauris Norstad, Air Force vice chief of staff, expressing further doubts from Washington. On August 23, General Collins and Admiral Sherman returned to get yet another update. The next day Sherman met with Navy and Marine commanders to hear their continuing concerns. Lieutenant General Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr., senior Marine in the Far East, then led them into a meeting with MacArthur to appeal for an alternate landing site. When MacArthur would not waiver, his Navy and Marine commanders fully committed themselves to the Inchon landing.

On August 26, MacArthur assigned the name Chromite to the operation, and on the 28th he received JCS approval to proceed — or so he thought. On September 7, the JCS balked again in reaction to further deterioration in the situation around Pusan and the possible necessity to reinforce Walker. They reminded MacArthur that Chromite required all his reserves, that it would be another four months before recently activated National Guard divisions could arrive and that the dreaded Korean winter loomed. After a suspenseful night, Truman finally approved the operation on the 8th, and the JCS concurred.

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