_Marines Arrive at New Assembly Area_ While the remaining X Corps units completed outloading at Hungnam, the Marines were landing at Pusan and proceeding by motor march to their new assembly area in the vicinity of Masan. General Craig, the ADC, had gone ahead with the advance party from Hungnam and made arrangements for the reception of the Division.[640] [640] Smith, _Notes_, 1126. A detailed account of the arrival of the 1st Marine Division at Pusan and Masan will be found in the first chapter of Volume IV of this series. News from the front in West Korea was not encouraging as the Eighth Army planned further withdrawals, for G-2 reports indicated that the advancing Chinese were about to launch a great new offensive shortly. Despite the persistent rumors that all Korea might be evacuated by UN forces, General MacArthur insisted in his special communique of 26 December that operations “were skilfully conducted without loss of cohesion and with all units remaining intact.... In its broad implications I consider that these operations, initiated on 24 November and carried through to this [Hungnam] redeployment, have served a very significant purpose--possibly in general result the most significant and fortunate of any conducted during the course of the Korean campaign. The might of a major military nation was suddenly and without warning thrown against this relatively small United Nations Command but without attaining a decision. Due to intervening circumstances beyond our power to control or even detect, we did not achieve the United Nations objective. But at a casualty cost less than that experienced in a comparable period of defensive fighting on the Pusan perimeter, we exposed before too late secret political and military decisions of enormous scope and threw off balance enemy preparations aimed at surreptitiously massing the power capable of destroying our forces with one mighty extended blow.”[641] [641] CinCFE Special Communique, 26 Dec 50. Questions as to the proper evaluation of the Eighth Army withdrawal turned into a controversy during coming months with political as well as military implications. Press representatives, military critics and soldiers of other nations, while crediting MacArthur with a great victory at Inchon, were for the most part of the opinion that the Eighth Army withdrawal of November and December was a costly reverse.[642]