Journey to Incheon

The flight to Incheon was quite enjoyable given that we were transferred by Asiana Airlines ground crew to a Philippine Airline flight and was generously upgraded to Business Class. I haven't flown Business Class on a regional flight since...well, 1997 so it was a welcome development in an otherwise routine flight in Asia.

Incheon...now why was the name of the place so familiar? Was it because it was the relatively new international airport for South Korea that happened to be the topic of many presentations on major airport constructions? It was not the memory I had of a place called Incheon.

In 1950 or 1951 (I didn't bother to check the year.) the UN forces led by the US were reeling from a North Korean blitzkrieg that they along with the infant South Korean armed forces could simply not resist. The UN forces retreated to the tip of the peninsula facing a very humiliating defeat and the total collapse of a free Korea - certainly a big statement for the then aggressive and victorious Communists. China had fallen earlier in 1949 and the Soviet Union was openly supplying arms to the North, whose cadres and armies surprised the newly installed democracy in the South.

Then, in an unprecedented move...just when everyone was about to raise the white flag, a certain general by the name of Douglas Mcarthur led a daring naval landing operation in Incheon. This led to one of the most effective counter-offensives in military history...and the rest, as they say,is history.

I have fond memories of an uncle telling so many stories about the Korean War. He was with the 10th Battalion Combat Team, the first Philippine contingent to a UN sanctioned operation and the first Philippine unit sent to Korea. They landed in Incheon only a few days after the daring operation and fought the North Korean so fiercely that they were often far ahead of the allies in the offensive.

I can only imagine the conditions in Korea back then and how Korea looked like. It was also winter then and they were ill-equipped for the cold weather until the US finally supplied them with the winter gear after about a month. Yet they endured and raised the Philippine flag proudly alongside other UN forces.

Korea now, especially Seoul and Incheon (with its excellent airport), is so much different from what it looked like in 1950. We can only imagine from the photos and can only wish that something like that war never happens again.