Almond was in an enormous hurry to capture Seoul by September 25, exactly three months after the North Korean assault across the 38th Parallel. On September 22, the Marines entered Seoul to find it fortified. Casualties mounted as the forces engaged in house-to-house fighting. On September 26, the Hotel Bando (which had served as the US Embassy) was cleared by E Company of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. During this fight several Marines were wounded. Almond declared Seoul liberated the evening of September 25, a claim repeated by MacArthur the following day. However, at the time of Almond's declaration, US Marines were still engaged in house-to-house combat as the KPA remained in most of the city. It was not until September 28 that the last of the KPA elements were driven out or destroyed. Pusan Perimeter breakout While the 5th Marines came ashore at Incheon, the last KPA troops in South Korea still fighting were defeated when Walton H. Walker's Eighth Army breakout from the Pusan Perimeter started on 16 September, joining the Army's X Corps in a coordinated attack on KPA forces. By 22 September the KPA forces around the Perimeter were in full retreat and the Eighth Army and ROK forces began a full counteroffensive to pursue the KPA on 23 September. Of the 70,000 KPA troops around Pusan, in the aftermath of the Pusan Perimeter battle, KPA casualties from September 1 to September 15 ranged from 36,000 to 41,000 killed and captured, with an unknown total number of wounded. However, because UN forces had concentrated on taking Seoul rather than cutting off the KPA's withdrawal north, the remaining 30,000 KPA soldiers escaped to the north, where they were soon reconstituted as a cadre for the formation of new KPA divisions hastily re-equipped by the Soviet Union. The UN assault continued into North Korea on 30 September. Analysis Most military scholars consider the battle one of the most decisive military operations in modern warfare. Spencer C. Tucker, the American military historian, described the Incheon landings as "a brilliant success, almost flawlessly executed," which remained "the only unambiguously successful, large-scale US combat operation" for the next 40 years. Commentators have described the Incheon operation as MacArthur's "greatest success" and "an example of brilliant generalship and military genius." However, Russell Stolfi argues that the landing itself was a strategic masterpiece but it was followed by an advance to Seoul in ground