by James Rosone
In the distance, he could see friendly artillery fire reaching out to hit the Chinese artillery positions that had been pounding them mercilessly for the past hour.
“Lord, I hope that counterbattery fire can silence some of those guns, or they’re going to pound us into the dirt,” he thought before returning his focus back to the enemy in front of him.
Looking down at the maze of concertina wire and other obstacles the engineers had built, he saw waves of enemy soldiers rushing towards it. When the engineers reached the impediments, they began to attach the Bangalore torpedoes together into long tubes and slid them through the lines of concertina wire, landmines and other obstacles, blowing them up and creating holes large enough for the infantry soldiers to follow through.
“Take out those Bangalore troops!” yelled Slater to his machine gunners. “We can’t let them breach our defenses.”
One of the M2 gunners shifted his fire away from several infantry fighting vehicles that had just arrived at the edge of the river to the enemy engineers attempting to breach their defenses. The soldier fired off a series of three-to-five round bursts, decimating an entire squad of enemy soldiers as they were attaching and then sliding the ever longer torpedo through the concertina wire. Seconds later, a loud explosion rocked the bunker, throwing Ian to the ground as some debris from above fell on top of him.
Slater slowly regained consciousness, pushing the blackness from his mind as he fought to reclaim control of his body. He looked to his left and saw one of the original guys from his platoon from before the war, lying on the ground not more than a few feet away with blood coming out of his nose and mouth. He coughed, which only caused more blood to flow out of his mouth. As he struggled to breathe, little foamy blood bubbles escaped from his lips and he looked at Ian, terrified and pleading for help.
Slater shoved aside the debris that was on top of him and crawled over to his friend. “Hang in there, Joe! You’ll be OK. Let me roll you over onto your side,” he said as tears started to stream down his face.
He rolled his comrade onto his side, so the blood wouldn’t just collect in his lungs and drown him. To his horror, the lower part of his body didn’t turn, but just separated from the rest of him. Ian saw some of his intestines fall out of his friend’s stomach and he convulsed for a second before looking at him, a single tear running down from his face. The light in his eyes showed briefly for the last time. Ian knew his friend had just died, and it made him furious and immensely sad that there was nothing he could do for him except try to kill more of the enemy that had just robbed him of a great friend.
In that instant, Slater got up and surveyed the damage to the bunker. They must have taken a tank round or some other projectile, because nearly everyone in his line of sight was either dead or injured. One of the wounded soldiers, his right arm nearly severed, had resumed his post at the M240 machine gun and was pouring fire down into the enemy soldiers that were now rushing through a breach in their concertina wire.
Ian grabbed the field phone and got out an urgent request for medics and more soldiers to help him in the bunker. Then he ran over to one of the M2 heavy machine guns and took aim at a wave of enemy soldiers that was rushing across the ice.
Sergeant Slater squeezed the trigger, firing a ten-round burst into the cluster of enemy soldiers. He was glad to see most of them get shredded by the .50-caliber slugs as they ripped through the gaggle. There were just so many enemy soldiers charging across the river, it was nearly impossible to miss them. All he had to do was point his weapon in their direction and he was all but assured of hitting one of them. Because of the high velocity of the M2, a single round could often hit two or three enemy soldiers, making it an ideal weapon to use at a charging human wave.
A minute after Ian had started firing into the Chinese soldiers, eight soldiers from his company’s QRF arrived and immediately went to work on getting the other machine guns back up and running. While Slater’s machine gun bunker had only been out of commission for maybe two or three minutes, the enemy had made it count. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand enemy soldiers had made it across the frozen river and were now at the base of the ridge. As more and more of the obstacles were breached, an increasing number of enemy soldiers were now racing up the ridge towards the troops in the trench.
Across the river, not more than 2,000 meters away from the American positions, dozens upon dozens of Chinese T-99 main battle tanks appeared through the swirling snow, their shapes barely discernable, but there. At 58 tons, they were too heavy to cross the frozen river right now, but they could provide excellent direct fire support to their infantry counterparts. Once Slater spotted the tanks, he knew that must have been what had hit them the last time.
“I can’t let us get nailed like that again,” he thought.
Just then, Ian saw two of the tanks fire in his direction. The rounds looked like they were coming right for him, but they impacted on his trench line, sending part of the wooden roof, sandbags and body parts flying into the air. Slater ducked from the explosion, nearly losing his footing as his feet slipped on the brass casings that carpeted the floor around him. As soon as the shrapnel stopped flying, a wave of Chinese soldiers jumped to their feet and charged into the hole the tanks had just created.
Not manning a machine gun anymore now that another soldier had taken over for him, Ian jumped up, raised his M4 to his shoulder and took aim at the enemy, hitting one soldier after another as they charged towards the opening in the defenses. While he was firing away, he heard the whistling sound of more artillery fire overhead — only these rounds were bound for the enemy tanks. Dozens of explosions lit up the entire area around the tanks, a few even scored direct hits. One tank exploded in spectacular fashion, contrasting starkly with the near blizzard-like conditions; Slater lifted his arm involuntarily to shield his eyes.
Seconds later, Ian turned his gaze back to the enemy soldiers charging up the ridge. To his horror, he saw even more enemy soldiers than before. As all seemed lost, Slater saw additional American reinforcements starting to show up all along the trench line, and then five more soldiers filtered into his bunker as well.
A lieutenant walked into the bunker and yelled out, “Who’s in charge in here?” as he tried to be heard over the roar of the machine guns.
Sergeant Slater walked over to the lieutenant and leaned in closer to his face. “I’m in charge. What can I do for you?” he barked angrily, annoyed that he had to stop shooting at the enemy so that he could deal with this officer.
The lieutenant looked at Slater and smiled. “I’ve got an A-10 on the radio. He wants to know if we want a gun run on the enemy troops at the base of our ridge or if we want him to focus on taking out those tanks,” he said, pointing to the opposite side of the river, where the remaining tanks were continuing to fire rounds into the Allied positions.
“LT, have him focus on taking out those tanks. If we don’t stop them from wrecking our lines, we won’t be able to hold our positions here,” Slater said.
The lieutenant nodded and spoke into the handset of the radio he was carrying.
A minute later, Ian saw several flashes of light that were magnified by the bright white of the snow falling and realized those must have been antitank missiles. They flew at lightning speed towards the enemy tanks, obliterating six of them outright. Ian still couldn’t see where the Warthog was coming in from as the snow continued to swirl all around them. Visibility had gone from roughly three kilometers to maybe a kilometer at best.
Then everyone heard the familiar sound of the Warthog’s 30mm chain guns firing, which sounded like strips of linen being ripped over and over. The 30mm anti-armor rounds tore through the remaining three tanks on the ridge, exploding them in spectacular fashion.
Strings of enemy anti-aircraft fire reached up into the snow-filled clouds, searching for the A-10 that had just destroyed the tanks they were supposed to be protecting. A few more burps from the Warthog’s tank-busting gun blared over all of the othe
r noise, and a couple more secondary explosions blasted on the enemy lines.
The lieutenant gave Ian a thumbs-up and yelled, “We should have some more artillery fire shortly! The Paladins should be arriving at their next firing position!”
Sergeant Slater nodded and yelled back, “Try and see if you can get some more reinforcements up to the trenches!”
Then Slater resumed firing at the gaggle of enemy soldiers still trying to advance up their hill. The ground was covered in dead Chinese soldiers. Just as Ian thought they might repel this assault after all, he heard the unmistakable sound of jet engines flying low and fast overhead.
Looking up instinctively, Ian saw a series of objects fall from the sky and headed right for their positions. One scored a direct hit on the other bunker that Ian’s platoon was manning, roughly 100 meters away. The bunker exploded into a million pieces as shrapnel and debris flew in all directions. Then a second bomb exploded on top of the roof of the trench not more than 50 meters away from Ian’s bunker, throwing not just wood planks from the roof and walls of the trench, but sandbags, bodies and parts of bodies in all directions.
A third bomb hit deadly close to Ian’s bunker, throwing him and nearly everyone else inside to the ground. The flames from the explosion briefly entered the bunker, lighting those soldiers who had not gotten out of the way fast enough on fire. The entire structure of the bunker shifted from the explosion, causing part of the ceiling to collapse, and destroying one of the M2 heavy machine gun positions.
Ian was suddenly surrounded by agonizing screams from the wounded, men and women crying out for their mothers, loved ones, or anyone who could help them. As Ian pulled himself up to his knees, he saw the lieutenant who had been calling in support for them on the radio, his entire face missing. A chunk of something had smashed into his head, and all that was left was a gaping four-inch hole where his mouth and nose had once been, with blood and brain matter oozing out of it. The man’s fingers were still twitching and so was his leg. Ian had to snap out of it and turn away before he threw up.
The roar of thousands of enemy soldiers suddenly boomed above all the other noises going on around him. Ian pushed aside part of the collapsed ceiling so that he could see out of the partially destroyed bunker. What he saw horrified him more than the lieutenant’s gruesome dead body. The ground below their positions near the river bank was suddenly moving. It had come alive with enemy soldiers. While the visibility had continued to deteriorate from the swirling snow, the Chinese had moved thousands of additional soldiers across the river.
“I don’t see how we’re going to make it out of this alive,” Ian thought.
He brought his rifle to bear, taking aim at the enemy soldiers and quickly firing off one three-round burst after another at the men who were desperately trying to kill him and his comrades. Soldier after soldier dropped to the ground, but more just kept taking their place. In a matter of minutes, Ian had gone through four full magazines of ammo and was down to just three left.
He desperately called out, “I need more ammo! Can anyone bring me more ammo?” He hoped someone might hear him above all the racket of the shooting.
When Ian was changing out to his last full magazine, a soldier threw him a bandolier that contained ten more magazines. While Ian was not in the trench, his little position in the blown-out bunker provided him with an exceptional spot to pour fire into the charging enemy soldiers. The Chinese infantry were focused on the Americans in the trench in front of them, but they seemed to have no idea that a single soldier to their right was picking them off one at a time.
Ian swapped out yet another magazine for a new one and continued to fire. The Chinese had reached the trench at that point, and many of the men simply jumped in when they got near it, tackling the American soldiers to the ground so more of their comrades could jump in.
As one enemy soldier crested the top of the trench, Ian shot him three times in the chest; he collapsed, only to be replaced by two more of his comrades who made it into the trench. Despite his best efforts, Ian just couldn’t kill enough of them to stop them from getting into their lines. Slowly at first, then very quickly, dozens upon dozens of enemy soldiers were getting into the trenches and silencing its defenders. Ian knew it was only a matter of minutes before they reached his bunker and he had nowhere to go.
“I’m either going to die, right here and now, or I’m going to be taken prisoner,” he realized.
A couple of the soldiers still left alive in the bunker with Ian turned to him, almost pleading with him to tell them what to do. They were now trapped, and it was only a matter of time before the Chinese made their way to their bunker.
In a moment of courage, he yelled to his comrades, “Listen up, guys, we’re going to kill any enemy soldier who tries to come through that door! You hear me?”
They all nodded. The frightened looks on their faces turned to anger and determination. If they were going to die in this bunker, then they were going to take as many of their adversaries with them as possible.
Outside the bunker, they suddenly heard voices and a lot of yelling. A couple of machine guns opened fire and a few explosions shook the air. A few bullets and shrapnel suddenly hit the bunker door. The men knew it wouldn’t be long now. The enemy was about to burst right through that door and try to kill them all.
There was more yelling in Chinese, and then a thunderous explosion burst into the bunker. Seconds later, two loud blasts rang out inside the bunker, punctuated by screams in English and Chinese, and even more rifle fire.
Ian was lying on his back at this point, his rifle having skittered across the floor not more than five feet away from him when he had been knocked to the ground from the most recent explosion. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get to his rifle before more enemy soldiers busted through the doorway, so he reached down and grabbed his SIG Sauer P320 pistol and aimed it at the door. He fired three rounds, hitting the first enemy soldier who came through the door.
Slater fired another two more rounds at the next soldier before something hit him multiple times in his front armor plate and his world went fuzzy. Suddenly Ian couldn’t feel much or move anything, but he heard more screams in both Chinese and English, along with a few desperate struggles and a plea for mercy by one of his soldiers.
Just as he began to regain feeling in his arms and legs and the ability to move, a figure was standing over Ian looking down at him. An older-looking Chinese man smiled briefly, saying in broken English, “You are coming with us.”
Then he hit Ian in the head with the butt of his rifle, knocking him out cold.
From the Authors
Miranda and I would like to thank you for reading Battlefield Taiwan. We sincerely hope you have been enjoying the Red Storm Series thus far.
If you are thrilled by the action of this series and looking forward to our next release, we ask that you kindly consider leaving a review for us on Amazon and Goodreads. Just a moment of your time goes a long way for us being able to continue to excite new readers, and it really does mean the world to us as authors.
Let’s face it; life happens. In order to keep up the quality of the books in this series, we are going to have to slow our pace down at least a little bit. So, at least at the time of the initial release, the link for the preorder of Battlefield Pacific will not be available. We anticipate that the link will be available sometime in April, but if you would like to be notified as soon as we put the preorder on Amazon, simply join our mailing list at http://www.author-james-rosone.com and we will send out an email to you to keep you informed.
We want to be connected to our readers. We encourage you to join the conversation on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/JamesRosone/ and let us know what you liked (and feel free to message us with improvements that you would like to see as well). You can also follow us on Twitter @jamesrosone and @AuthorMirandaW.
Please find a full list of our published works below:
World War III Series:
> Prelude to World War III: The Rise of the Islamic Republic and the Rebirth of America (Free if you join our mailing list)
Operation Red Dragon and the Unthinkable
Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe
Cyber Warfare and the New World Order
Thriller/Action:
Traitors Within: A Michael Stone Series Novel
Nonfiction:
Interview with a Terrorist
Red Storm Series:
1. Battlefield Ukraine
2. Battlefield Korea
3. Battlefield Taiwan
4. Battlefield Pacific (Tentative release date: July 20, 2018
5. Battlefield Russia (Tentative release date: October 30, 2018)
6. Battlefield China (Tentative release date: February 1, 2019)
Acronym Key
ASAP — As Soon As Possible
ASW — Anti-Submarine Warfare
BND — German Federal Intelligence Service
C3 — Command, Control and Communications
CG — Commanding General
CIC — Command Information Center
CIWS — Close-in Weapons System
CMC — Central Military Commission
CW4 — Chief Warrant Officer Four
DIA — Defense Intelligence Agency
DPRK — Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
FO — Forward Observer
FSB — Modern Russian KGB
G2 — Intelligence Chief
G3 — Operations Officer
HE — High-Explosive
HEAT — High-Explosive Anti-Tank
HVI — High-Value Individual
J3 — Operations Officer
JDF — Japanese Defense Force
LNO — Liaison Officer