The American occupation force was composed of 45,000 men from the
United States Army's
XXIV Corps. The first of the American forces to arrive in Korea was a small advanced party that landed at
Kimpo Airfield near
Seoul on September 4, 1945. Another small advanced party, consisting of fourteen men of the
7th Infantry Division, sailed into
Inchon on September 8, and the main landing began on the following day. According to author Paul M. Edwards, the United States government had little interest in Korea, and relied on
General Douglas MacArthur, who was in command of the
occupation of Japan, to make most of the
post-war decisions. MacArthur, however, was already "overloaded" with the work that needed to be done in Japan, so he ordered the commander of Operation Blacklist Forty,
Lieutenant General John R. Hodge, to maintain a "harsh" occupation of Korea. Hodge set up his headquarters at the Bando Hotel in Seoul, established a
military government, declared
English to be the official language of Korea, and began the process of building an independent Korean government that was friendly to the United States. Hodge was considered a great battlefield commander, but a poor diplomat. There is little doubt he disliked Koreans, and was ignorant of their culture and how it differed from that of the Japanese. As a result, Hodge made many mistakes, including issuing an order to his men to "treat the Koreans as enemies." Furthermore, due to a shortage of manpower, Hodge allowed the old Japanese police force to remain on duty for crowd control and similar work. He also retained the colonial Japanese government, at least initially, until he could find suitable American replacements. However, following a complaint from the Korean people, the American military government in
Tokyo officially had Korea removed from Japan's political and administrative control on October 2, 1945. Thus, the Japanese administrators were removed from power, although many were henceforth employed as advisors to their American replacements. Edwards says that General Hodge's most significant contribution to the occupation was the alignment of his military government with that of Korea's wealthy anti-Communist faction, and the promotion of men who had previously collaborated with the Japanese into positions of authority. Author E. Takemae says that the American forces were greeted as occupiers, and not as liberators. He also says that the Americans held the Japanese in higher regard than the Koreans, because of the former's military background, and appreciated Japanese knowledge and administrative skills, which they did not find among the Koreans. As it turned out, the Americans found that it was easier to deal with Japanese authorities in regards to the handling of Korea, instead of dealing directly with Korea's many different political factions. According to Takemae; "[I]n the eyes of many Koreans, the Americans were as bad as the Japanese." The American and Soviet occupations of Korea ended soon after, leaving the Korean peninsula divided. According to Edwards, most Americans were glad to be gone. By 1950, Korea, or Far Eastern affairs in general, had become of such a small importance to the Americans that on January 5, 1950, President
Harry Truman said that he would not intervene in the clash between the
Chinese Communists and the
Nationalists on
Taiwan, or on the Chinese mainland, and seven days later
Secretary of State Dean Acheson said that "Korea was now outside the American sphere of influence." Despite this, the United States and South Korea signed a military assistance pact on January 26, 1950, but only
$1,000 worth of signal wire had arrived in country by the time of the outbreak of the
Korean War on June 25, 1950. ==See also==