Combat- Parallel Lines

by William Peter Grasso

  “Really? Whose dumb idea was that?”

  “Mine, sir,” Patchett said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Let’s just say we were having a little morale problem when it was all colored. A lack of motivation to excel, plain and simple.”

  “And swapping out the first sergeant fixed the problem? You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No, I ain’t kidding you,” Patchett replied. Then he added, “In all fairness, it’s only been a week but…well…so far, so good.”

  *****

  As the sun set and the men of the 26th braced for another night of probable Chinese attacks, the ASO at the regimental CP received an unusual radio call. It came from an F-82 Twin Mustang pilot on night patrol, flying some twenty miles north of the Parallel.

  “Be advised, bandits in the air,” the pilot said. “I picked them up on radar near Chorwon but lost them right away in the ground clutter when they ducked into the Imjin valley. Couldn’t ID the type ships, but they’re pretty slow. Looks like they’re headed your way.”

  Sean Moon was the duty NCO at the CP. He asked the ASO, “What the hell is that flyboy talking about, sir? Did the chinks finally get themselves an air force?”

  “Not likely it’s the Chinese,” the ASO replied. “They’re probably remnants of the KPA Air Force.”

  “The North Koreans? I thought we’d seen the last of them.”

  “Maybe not, Sergeant.”

  “I’ll raise Colonel Miles on the horn,” Sean said. “He’s helping the new Third Battalion C.O. get settled in. Should be a piece of cake, considering they’re old buddies and all.”

  *****

  At 3rd Battalion CP, Jock scanned the darkening night sky. There would be no moon tonight; low clouds were gathering to dump more snow. It was a perfect night to bounce the powerful beams of the searchlight company off the cloud deck, illuminating the probable Chinese attack routes in the reflected glow. Jock would give the order shortly: Let there be light.

  He told Lee Grossman, “I just got the word that we might have some enemy planes headed our way, too.”

  “Do we see a lot of activity from enemy aircraft, sir?”

  “No. The most action we’ve seen—believe it or not—is from PO-2s, those old Russian biplanes. They’ll glide in with their engines off and dump some small bombs on you, then crank back up and vanish before you know what hit you. As low and thick as these clouds are getting, that’s going to be risky business for them tonight. Lots of high ground to smack into.”

  Grossman asked, “Should we hold off the illumination until we get rid of the planes? Those searchlights would be pretty easy targets when they’re all lit up.”

  “We can switch them off if planes actually do show up,” Jock replied. “But believe me…the chinks on the ground will be a lot more trouble than a couple of planes in the air.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Theo Papadakis was used to Japanese banzai charges. He’d seen plenty of those attacks, where an entire unit—be it a platoon, company, or battalion—would hurl itself at you like a suicidal herd of snarling animals.

  But once you cut enough of them down so they knew their attack was gonna fail, it’d be all over. The survivors would withdraw and start popping knee mortars at you, making it hard to chase them.

  But these fucking chinks don’t know when to quit. They just keep coming. I swear, half of them in the second rank didn’t even have weapons until they took them off the dead guys from the first rank.

  And those damn bugles…

  God, I hate that sound.

  Now where’s that fucking artillery I asked for?

  It had been almost a minute since he’d called in the fire mission. Ten seconds in combat was a lifetime. A minute was an eternity.

  The CCF had launched their attack that night undeterred by the floodlights that spoiled the cover of darkness. From Able Company’s perch on the ridge, the advancing Chinese became visible to Captain Pop and his men when they were still hundreds of yards away, exposed as they ran across the iced-over Imjin River and the frozen marshes on its banks. At that distance, in the soft, reflected light of the searchlights, they looked more like a viscous, flowing mass—something akin to a spreading oil spill—rather than individual human forms. He’d phoned in the fire mission to the artillery thinking, This is too easy, all those chinks in the open. Or maybe they’re just cutting me a break my first night on the line.

  More seconds ticked by, but there were still no rounds in the air. He spun the crank on the field telephone again.

  “What’s the holdup, dammit?” he said to the voice at the artillery battery.

  “We’re still checking the data. Stand by.” The sonorous tone of that voice left little doubt he was speaking to a colored man.

  “Hey, pal, I’ll be checking the goddamn data when I see the rounds land. Step on it, will ya? I need fire support on the double.”

  The first wave of Chinese was now just a hundred yards away, scaling the steep slope to the ridge. They were no longer an amorphous mass but hundreds of individual soldiers in silhouette. His men were already inflicting grave punishment on them with rifle and machine gun fire.

  But they kept coming.

  Another fifteen seconds passed before the voice on the line reported, “Shot, over.”

  Captain Pop figured the time of flight of those rounds should be about fifteen seconds.

  If those airbursts pop where they’re supposed to, this first wave of chinks will already be past ’em and right in our damn faces.

  He was right on both counts. The airbursts showered their steel rain right on target, cutting down a good number of the attackers in the second wave who hadn’t reached the slope yet. But as Papadakis feared, the first wave was well past that deadly downpour. It didn’t seem possible, but the numbers of Chinese seemed to be growing.

  “Captain,” his RTO said, “First Platoon says one of their thirty cals just went out of action. They say they can’t cover the highway and hold off the chinks at the same time without it.”

  “Tell them to pull back to the top of the ridge,” Papadakis replied.

  His first sergeant—an old hand named Grundy—shook his head and said, “If they pull all the way back up the ridge, Captain, that leaves the road wide open. The chinks will be behind us before we know it.”

  “Not if I can help it, Sarge. We’re going to shift the artillery left, putting it right on the road while First Platoon repositions. That’ll give us a coupla minutes until the tankers can move up and help us plug the gap.”

  First Sergeant Grundy replied, “I don’t know, sir…that sounds a little too complicated with all this shit flying. And you’re gonna depend on those nigger cannon-cockers to cover our asses?”

  “You got a better idea?”

  “Yeah. Tell First Platoon to move behind Second Platoon. Then when the chinks try to get up on the ridge, both platoons mass fire on them.”

  It was Papadakis’ turn to shake his head. “Negative, Sarge. That’s the best way I know to have our guys shooting each other. This illumination’s good, but it ain’t that good. Second Platoon won’t know First Platoon from the chinks. Everybody’s staying in their own sector. And we ain’t giving up this ridge to nobody.”

  Then he called in his corrections to the artillery: “New target. From last coordinates, shift left two hundred, drop one hundred...”

  When finished with the call for fire, he turned to Grundy and said, “Now get First Platoon up that ridge on the double, before that artillery lands so close it scares the shit outta them. Then get the tankers moving to Checkpoint One-Three.”

  And pray the radio and phones don’t crap out.

  It still took too long for the next volley of artillery airbursts to arrive, well over a minute this time. It did its job on the Chinese still on the road. But 1st Platoon was now in a point-blank fight with those who’d managed to scale the ridge.

  Grundy said, “We’ve got to shift that artillery farther up the ridge.”
>
  “No time,” The Mad Greek replied. “They’re taking too fucking long to get rounds in the air as it is.” He picked up the handset and told the artillery, “Repeat, over.”

  Grundy didn’t understand that request at all. “You want them to shoot the same damn thing again?”

  “You bet,” Papadakis replied. “No computation involved, so there shouldn’t be any delay. I’ll take rounds right now—even if they ain’t exactly on the money—over rounds that are too damn late.”

  He was right. Less than twenty seconds elapsed before the rounds burst along the road, erasing another wave of Chinese about to scale the ridge.

  He told the first sergeant, “Keep doing that until there’s no more chinks at the base of this ridge. In the meantime, I’m going over to First Platoon. If that fight turns hand-to-hand, I wanna be there.”

  Grundy said, “You real sure you want to do that, sir?”

  “Yep. I gotta know what kind of fighters I got here.”

  *****

  In the searchlights’ muted glow, hurrying over terrain he’d never set foot on before, Papadakis hadn’t found 1st Platoon yet.

  Did I miss them completely?

  He was about to tell his RTO to call the platoon leader for a status report when he heard a voice cry out, “GRENADE!”

  Four men were running in his direction—they hadn’t seen him yet in their panic—and after a few more steps threw themselves on the ground ten yards away. At least five seconds had passed since that initial cry of panic.

  Papadakis walked up to them and crouched above a man wearing sergeant’s stripes. Calmly, he asked, “Thanks for not shooting me. Now, what’s the problem over here, Sergeant?”

  The man raised his head hesitantly, as if afraid lifting it another inch off the ground would make it an easy target. There was no glimmer of recognition when he looked into Captain Pop’s eyes, only shock that this crazy captain he’d never seen before was making himself an even easier target.

  “I’m Papadakis, your new company commander. Call me Captain Pop. Now I believe you said something about a grenade?”

  The man pointed back in the direction from which they’d run. Breathlessly, he said, “One just fell into our hole, sir. We gotta get out of here. Joe Chink’s right behind us.”

  “Is that so?” Papadakis replied. Then he stood up and started walking toward the fighting hole they’d just abandoned, his rifle on his hip and ready to fire. With mock cordiality, he asked the four GIs, “Join me, won’t you?”

  But they didn’t move.

  He pressed on, anyway, until he saw the hole. When he heard the sizzling sound coming from it, he dropped to his belly and crawled to the rim.

  Shit, it’s a dud…like cheap Chinese fireworks.

  Sliding into the hole, he picked up the smoking grenade and hurled it down the slope.

  He saw long, faint shadows moving toward him. Ah, crap. Don’t tell me those are more of my guys straggling up here…

  Five of them…but five of who? Gotta hold my fire until I know for sure.

  Wouldn’t that be hot shit? First day with the outfit and I shoot my own men.

  I’m thinking they’re GIs because they look kinda tall. I thought all chinks were short.

  They were only ten yards away now.

  Still can’t see their faces…but I can hear them breathing real hard. I’d yell the challenge word, but I don’t remember what the hell it is.

  Say something, you bastards.

  The distance closed to ten feet, and he got the clue he needed:

  Ain’t no GIs wear snowman hats like that.

  Papadakis shot the closest four before the last man had a chance to raise his weapon. But he never got to fire that submachine gun. The Chinese soldier went down in a hail of gunfire, dealt by the four GIs who’d finally followed their new company commander back to the fighting hole.

  “Nice shot group,” Captain Pop said, his voice as cold as the air engulfing them. “Even if it did take you like a fucking year to get back here. You do understand that when somebody gives you an order, that means do it now, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied, “I understand. But we didn’t…that grenade…and our lieutenant got killed yesterday, so—”

  “No time for sob stories, Sergeant,” Papadakis said as he climbed from the hole. “Can I assume you’ve got your sector back under control now?”

  “Yes, sir, we’ve got it.”

  “Outstanding. Now all I gotta do is figure out why everything takes so damn long around here.”

  As he made his way back to his CP, he called Battalion on the radio, complaining to Major Harper about the slow response of their artillery support.

  “I know all about it,” the major replied. “Working with Regiment now to get it sorted out. Keep it together down there.”

  *****

  At Regiment, Sean Moon was concerned about slow responses, too, but not from the artillery. From the CP’s perch on high ground, he’d been the first to spot the aircraft loitering near 3rd Battalion’s sector, three PO-2 biplanes that were, most likely, being flown by North Koreans. They’d been hard to see, even with the searchlights working their magic, due to their slim silhouettes and being painted a dark green that blended into the shadows. When the biplanes first appeared, they seemed to be making a beeline for the source of that light on the backslope of Kamak-San. Several belated bursts from the quad 50s on that mountain’s front slope had driven them away, their streams of tracers pointing to the ships like angry fingers. But the quads hadn’t knocked any of them down.

  Even though the PO-2s made their escape by ducking low into the Imjin valley, Sean continued to track the planes, knowing that if he looked away, he’d never pick them up again. He watched as they passed in front of the regiment’s sector from west to east, probing for a target of opportunity on which to drop their meager bomb load.

  “You’ve got two bandits about a mile due north of your position, low and orbiting,” he told 3rd Battalion’s CP over the landline. “A coupla good squirts of fifty cal from an ace gunner should put ’em out of their misery.”

  “We can’t see them yet,” the voice at 3rd Battalion replied. “They must be blending into the background real well from this angle. Do you still have eyes on them?”

  “Affirmative. I’m looking down on them, actually, with a pretty good view. I’ll tell you when and where they turn into you.”

  “Roger. Standing by.”

  It didn’t take long; in less than a minute, Sean reported, “Okay, they’ve turned south, directly toward the junction of Highways One-One and One-Xray. I can be your spotter if you still can’t see ’em.”

  “Negative. The XO says we’ll handle it.”

  But they didn’t seem to be handling anything. The PO-2s roamed at will over 3rd Battalion’s sector for several minutes, searching, apparently, for a choice target to bomb. Lee Grossman had been busy checking on his emplaced companies, roving his defensive line in a jeep; he hadn’t heard any of the landline conversations about the intruding aircraft. But when one of the planes passed directly over his head—seemingly close enough to touch—he headed directly to his quad 50 section.

  He found the gunners in a relaxed state of readiness, keeping tabs on the PO-2s without bothering to engage them. When Grossman asked why they hadn’t knocked the planes out of the sky yet, the section’s sergeant seemed amused. “Those little pieces of shit ain’t gonna hurt us, Major,” the sergeant said. “No sense aggravating them.”

  “I don’t want you to aggravate them, Sergeant. I want you to kill them.”

  “It don’t work that way, sir. Didn’t you get the word? If we don’t bother them, they won’t bother us.”

  Grossman relieved him on the spot. He’d take two of the man’s stripes as soon as there was time to process the paperwork.

  Then he told the next ranking GI in the section, “Corporal, you’re in charge now. Shoot down those aircraft.”

  The gun cre
ws stayed idle, shuffling and smirking, like this wasn’t to be taken seriously. Their eyes shifted back and forth from their ex-chief to their new battalion commander, waiting indifferently for the next move in a negotiation they’d eventually win, like all those they’d had with their officers before. Colonel Beemon might’ve been gone, but the culture of indiscipline he’d allowed to fester in 3rd Battalion was still alive and well.

  As a few seconds passed in ominous silence, another thought began to cross their minds: This new guy—this Major Grossman—just one look at him and you can tell he’s a tough son of a bitch who’d just as soon coldcock you than play nice. He doesn’t seem to care if he makes waves. And he sure as hell doesn’t care whether you like him or not, unlike that apple-polisher Beemon.

  “I mean now, Corporal,” Grossman reminded the man he’d just put in charge, “unless you’re ready to get busted, too.”

  No one took it as an idle threat.

  “But…but they’re out of range, Major,” the corporal said.

  “The hell they are. You ever fire this thing at a fucking aircraft before?”

  The corporal didn’t answer, but his body language left no doubt he hadn’t. Though the quad 50 was conceived as an anti-aircraft weapon, there had been few enemy aircraft to shoot at in Korea.

  If this crew was even trained as anti-aircraft gunners at all, the only thing they ever engaged was a target sleeve that didn’t shoot back, Grossman felt sure.

  “There…the leader’s turning left,” Grossman told the gunner. “He’s giving you a perfect broadside shot. Just lead him and walk the tracers back onto him.”

  “I can barely see him in this crappy light, Major.”

  “All you’ve gotta see is the movement, Corporal, and those planes are the only things moving in the sky. Let her rip. Those flimsy things will come apart like wet paper bags.”

  *****

  Major Harper’s call to the regimental CP about the late artillery came as no surprise to Sergeant Patchett. He’d been following the requests for fire on all the commo nets, radio and telephone; he already knew the response time of Baker Battery—the Negro 105-millimeter battery—was much too slow.