Two of Clark's men were Korean officers: a bilingual Navy Lieutenant, Youn Joung; and a former Korean counterintelligence officer, Colonel Ke In-Ju. Both had served on General MacArthur's staff. Youn and Ke used the aliases of "Yong Chi Ho" and "Kim Nam Sun" and were nominally on detached duty from ROK forces, to try and mask the intelligence nature of the covert mission. Youn is standing at center with the pistol at his belt.
Clark and his men conducted bloody raids on land and sea, gathered vital information on the approaches and seawalls at the Inchon landing "beaches," and turned on the Palmi-do light-house to help the invasion fleet navigate. Clark brought Youn and Ke out to the McKinley with him, but most of the men in the above photo were probably caught and killed by the North Koreans, who also murdered 50 civilians at Yonghung-do who had helped the mission succeed.
Clark later took about 150 South Korean Guerillas, including Youn, on island-hopping forays all the way up to the Yalu. In October, Clark was able to notify Tokyo Headquarters that his agents had reported large numbers of Chinese were crossing the Yalu into North Korea.
High Command evidently discounted this information. The belief that China would not intervene permeated Eighth Army leadership right down to the Battalion level and lower. The Cav discounted firm Intel that large columns of infantry were advancing to attack them at Unsan. The entire Army was ill-prepared psychologically, and ill-deployed tactically when China's veteran Infantry finally launched their Phase One and Phase Two Attacks. The Army was smashed, almost surrounded, routed, and soon fled from them in the longest retreat in US history.
