War: Liberation

“It’s just like old times,” said Douglas MacArthur to the assembled big wheels at Kimpo airfield. The Supreme Commander’s silvery new Constellation SCAP had just flown him in from Tokyo for another historic ceremony of liberation.

In a five-starred Chevrolet sedan, trailed by four other staff cars, 40 jeep-loads of newsmen and lesser brass, MacArthur rolled over the dusty road to Seoul. Along the capital’s Mapo Boulevard, where the rubble of siege and street fighting had been hastily swept up, the general took the salute of South Korean troopers, the polite applause of white-garbed civilians.

The cavalcade pulled up at the Capitol, a fire-blackened, bullet-pocked shell of masonry, its rooms and offices still strewn with the enemy’s litter—Russian-made helmets and burp guns, half-consumed bottles of beer and wine. There MacArthur met his friend and ally, South Korea’s President Syngman Rhee, who had winged up from Pusan in the general’s old plane Bataan.

Grim Backdrop. Promptly at noon the two leaders, arm in arm, walked down the marble steps of the high-vaulted National Assembly Chamber to a lectern decked with the flags of the Korean Republic, the U.S. and the U.N. Through gaping windows blew the strong, sickly sweet smell of corpses lying in shattered buildings outside. Now & then wisps of ash drifted in, and tinkling splinters of glass fell from the broken skylight above.

The audience was almost wholly military. Among U.S. and South Korean officers in fatigue suntans and olive drabs were a few British navy men in white shorts, long white stockings and white shoes. Almost everyone carried a .45 at his hip, a sight that prompted one irreverent old Korea hand to crack: “There haven’t been so many gats in this place since the last time the Korean legislature sat.”

“Personal Dignity.” At times as he spoke, MacArthur seemed on the verge of tears. He said:

“By the grace of merciful Providence, our forces fighting under the standard of that greatest hope and inspiration of mankind, the United Nations, have liberated this ancient capital city of Korea. It has been freed from the despotism of Communist rule and its citizens once more have the opportunity for that immutable concept of life which holds invincibly to the primacy of individual liberty and personal dignity . . .”

The Supreme Commander called on all to recite with him the Lord’s Prayer. After the “Amen,” he turned to Syngman Rhee: “Mr. President, my officers and I will now resume our military duties and leave you and your government to the discharge of civil responsibility.”

Rhee clasped MacArthur’s hand. “We admire you,” he exclaimed. “We love you as the savior of our race.” Then, in a formal address, Rhee gave Korea’s thanks to the U.N.

The ceremony over, MacArthur drove back to Kimpo, flew back to Tokyo.