Because of the time our Navy needed to clear 3,000 mines, the landing was delayed two weeks while the Marines sailed around in what they derisively called "Operation Yo-Yo"
They would have been glad to get back aboard again, soon enough ...
The ROKs had already taken Wonsan and were headed for the Yalu, the USO had already landed, and the amtracs seemed anticlimactic ... but when the Chinese heard of it, they decided to enter the war in force by destroying 8th Army and all of X Corps. Nearly three years of bloody fighting lay ahead.
An explanatory comment by Mike Sheehan (The Chosin Few)
There were 2 kinds of amtracs, and we Trackers always want to be certain about the distinction between us. The above picture off the Wonsan beaches is of the 1st type, the troop carriers. The 2d type was mine, an amphibious tank with a 75 howitzer on the front.
My group was attached to the Amtracs - and was known as Armored Amphib Trac Bn. If you find Hungnam pics of armored amphibs with the 75 on top, that was us.
The amtracs that did all the work after the Chosin fighting, coming out of Hungnam, were the troop carriers, who worked extremely long hours to get the men off the beaches. Us amtrac tankers were assigned road-blocks with infantry ground cover, and then just sailed out to LSDs and loaded.
