What if MacArthur was killed in Korea after Inchon commenced, but before major Chinese offensive in 1950?

[raharris1973]

What if MacArthur was killed in Korea after Inchon commenced, but before major Chinese offensive in 1950?

There were at least two occasions in this timeframe when he was somewhat close to personal danger in Korea within the time constraints I've set, according to wiki:

Douglas MacArthur - Wikipedia​

"Visiting the battlefield on 17 September, MacArthur surveyed six T-34 tanks that had been knocked out by Marines, ignoring sniper fire around him, except to note that the North Korean marksmen were poorly trained."
"On 20 October MacArthur flew to the Sukchon-Sunchon area of North Korea, north of Pyongyang, to supervise and observe an airborne operation by the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. This was the first of two airborne operations done by UN forces during the Korean War. MacArthur's unarmed airplane was subject to attack by enemy aircraft known to be based at Sinuiju."

Placing those non-incidents in the timeline of the war, 17 September was two days before the conclusion of the Inchon battle. 20 October was the day after UN capture of Pyongyang, and five days before the sharp Chinese 10-day "First Phase" *small* campaign that did not reveal full Chinese strength and failed to completely stop UN advances.

Oct 5- Nov 5 was that 10-day Chinese attack that was a sharp, nasty surprise, but which OTL the UN command misperceived as a small intervention force that was all the Chinese could and would throw in, letting them think they could continue to advance to finish off North Korea and start sending boys home by Christmas.​

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Nov 25-Dec 24 - was the truly massive and broad front Chinese Second Phase offensive which drove the UN forces entirely out of North Korea, to be followed at the opening of the new year by a Third Phase that pushed into South Korea once more and captured Seoul on 3 January, occupying it for 10 weeks before UN-ROK liberated the city again.​

--So, MacArthur getting killed, and thus removed instantly from the command chain allows us to see what happens in his absence and what his immediate and medium term substitutes do on the battlefield first, and then in the medium term there are going to be clear political effects I will get to later.
One thing I would note, is there is no guarantee that all the US-UN advance stops the moment of MacArthur's death, or that any or all US-UN vs. China clashing would be averted. Per wiki again, regarding US political authorization of crossing the 38th parallel into North Korea.

On 11 September, Truman issued an order, NSC 81/1, to MacArthur and UN forces for an advance beyond the 38th parallel into North Korea. Truman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Secretary of Defense George Marshall, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Warren R. Austin, and the British and French governments all agreed on the decision to invade and occupy all of North Korea. MacArthur, busy with the Pusan Perimeter defense and the upcoming Inchon landings, had nothing to do with this decision.

Marshall ordered MacArthur on 30 September to feel "unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of 38th parallel." This ambiguity was finally resolved by the UN General Assembly greenlighting MacArthur to advance northward on 4 October with Resolution 376(V), which authorized him and UN forces to cross the 38th parallel and to unify all of Korea under the Republic of Korea. The Joint Chiefs of Staff on 7 October further clarified to MacArthur that the official mandate for UN forces was the unification of a democratic Korea.

On politics, I do not anticipate a toxic fallout between the succeeding commander and Truman, a dramatic firing, or any fired commander to get Congressional support for hearings on the war and war and Far East policy as a whole, which is huge for US politics. Truman should be under less political strain although he likely has a low political 'ceiling' by now, and any military setbacks or disappointments will not wear well. MacArthur himself will die with a more heroic reputation in the minds of historians, and not be seen by many as the madman who almost started WWIII. He will still justifiably have his critics for aspects of his WWII record and the bonus march, but the Japan occupation and Korean War, especially if it is both shortened and with an improved territorial result will be seen as decent capstones to his life. Lack of the the Truman-MacArthur struggle and firing may make later Generals and Admirals less timid in voicing concerns over administration war strategies.

So MacArthur is a man with many unlikeable and undesirable characteristics, and *super* unpopular among folks in the AN genre, so we should have a chance for things to go much, much better than OTL, right? I've devised a scenario to get rid of him, but only after he's served his purpose of pushing through the brilliant operational insight of hitting the Norks at Inchon.

So I've given Dugout Doug's haters a chance to put up or shut up. Let's have at it, shall we?

 

[GBW]

It's possible that MacArthur's replacement if he died at that point would be the current commander of the US Eighth Army, Walton "Johnnie Walker" and "Bulldog" Walker, who's actually slated to die himself in December 1950 in a traffic accident in Seoul, and ended up being the namesake of the M41 Walker Bulldog tank. He was a competent commander who helped establish the Pusan Perimeter against the North Korean assault that held until UN reinforcements arrived, then saved the Eight Army from the Chinese counterattack. He knew how to take advantage of his edge in mobility, intelligence, artillery and airpower, and was a lot more practical than MacArthur when it came to preserving his forces, reluctantly following MacArthur's "Not one step back!" order under the initial North Korean onslaught with a speech to his subordinates but continued a fighting retreat anyway, and saving the Eighth Army after he was assured by MacArthur the Chinese wouldn't do anything as they approached the Yalu River and was caught flat footed by their attack. He also served with distinction in Europe under Patton in WW2.

There's the good possibility he'll make at least as decent a commander as MacArthur, and with less backtalk to Truman. However, he'll also probably not become the martyr for South Korea and the 1950s era US Armed Forces that he was in OTL, with the M41 Tank probably becing called the MacArthur instead and MacArthur taking up all the honors that Walker had in OTL - Camp Walker, Walker Hill in Seoul, his memorial in Seoul at the site of his death, and an intermediate school at Fort Knox, all probably named after MacArthur instead in this ATL.

 

[raharris1973]

It's possible that MacArthur's replacement if he died at that point would be the current commander of the US Eighth Army, Walton "Johnnie Walker" and "Bulldog" Walker, who's actually slated to die himself in December 1950 in a traffic accident in Seoul, and ended up being the namesake of the M41 Walker Bulldog tank. He was a competent commander who helped establish the Pusan Perimeter against the North Korean assault that held until UN reinforcements arrived, then saved the Eight Army from the Chinese counterattack. He knew how to take advantage of his edge in mobility, intelligence, artillery and airpower, and was a lot more practical than MacArthur when it came to preserving his forces, reluctantly following MacArthur's "Not one step back!" order under the initial North Korean onslaught with a speech to his subordinates but continued a fighting retreat anyway, and saving the Eighth Army after he was assured by MacArthur the Chinese wouldn't do anything as they approached the Yalu River and was caught flat footed by their attack. He also served with distinction in Europe under Patton in WW2.

There's the good possibility he'll make at least as decent a commander as MacArthur, and with less backtalk to Truman. However, he'll also probably not become the martyr for South Korea and the 1950s era US Armed Forces that he was in OTL, with the M41 Tank probably becing called the MacArthur instead and MacArthur taking up all the honors that Walker had in OTL - Camp Walker, Walker Hill in Seoul, his memorial in Seoul at the site of his death, and an intermediate school at Fort Knox, all probably named after MacArthur instead in this ATL.

Very interesting, wasn't aware of Walker's legacy on systems and bases.

While I think the UK-US-ROK forces will venture north of the 38th parallel to pursue the North Koreans and FAFO [eff around and find out] in the 17 September MacArthur death scenario, and in the 20 October MacArthur death scenario, they've already done it and seized Pyongyang, the course of the campaign may change in its particulars under Walton Walker's senior strategic direction rather than MacArthur's.

Walker may start to get a feel that there's something building in the northern Korean hills and try to slow down and consolidate, or guard/control mountain passes.

Or he could try to rush for the Yalu as much as OTL and get caught flat-footed.

But even then, I'd expect him to be a good soldier, do a fighting retreat, eventually stabilize when he could, and not panic or whine to the President to change his strategic parameters like demanding air strikes on mainland China or nuclear munitions.

Regardless, the historiography and myth making of the Korean War will be very different, even if its military course is almost exactly the same. MacArthur goes out a military hero, Truman is the strategic miscalculator who overreached, to historians he's not the guy who put a blowhard general in his place, to the contemporary public he's not the jerk who held back the victor of WWII from doing it again, but he is still the jerk who got us into and is messing up the war. And if the military course diverges significantly, resulting in an earlier ended to the war, especially with the Chinese doing no damage or less damage or substantial North Korean real estate left in US-UN-ROK hands at the conclusion of the war, then the surrounding interpretations of the war diverge even more.

 

[GBW]

The Chinese had made no attempt to hide their military buildup in Manchuria and Moscow and Beijing openly warned that they would take a grave view of US-UN forces crossing the 38th Parallel into DPRK territory. The CIA had been warning for months about a possible Chinese intervention, but were under the mistaken impression that it would depend on a Soviet decision, and US Secretary of State Dean Acheson disregarded the warnings and told the press that Chinese intervention would be "sheer madness".

As in OTL, Walton Walker's superiors would be telling him that the Chinese aren't going to do anything. However, with full command and the Pusan Perimeter in the recent past, I could see Walker working to secure his logistics as he heads north across the 38th Parallel, but he'd still move at a fast pace - in WW2 he moved from the Buchenwald concentration camp in Thuringia to Linz in Austria in just under a month, through mountainous terrain somewhat similar to Korea. Again though, his headlong aggression could be tempered by his experience withstanding the North Korean attack - he thought of defending Pyongyang when he fell back to it in OTL following the Chinese attack and absent any orders from MacArthur, but realized it couldn't be held with how much the Eighth Army had been battered and withdrew past the 38th Parallel. Seems to me he became a general with an eye for defensive positions after his initial Korean War experience. Approaching massed Chinese forces might make him wary despite the civilian leadership feeling assured that nothing would happen. It could be that he'll have fallback positions ready when the Chinese do launch their attack, ready to bleed them as much as possible if he has to retreat south. The Taedong River that runs through Pyongyang is deep and would probably be an optimum defensive line to fall back to, along with the Nangnim Mountains to the east.