Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  So he understood the connection between the behavior of the men and the strategic interests of the United States of America. But as for the strategic situation in Australia, Ride did not have the full picture. He knew that the increased numbers of Marines rotating through Darwin was important to the US, but he wanted to know more about the Australian point of view – why Americans would be appreciated at all.

  “Why is that?” he asked,

  “Because we know what’s coming with the Chinese,” she said, sincerely. “Sooner or later, this entire region is going to war and we’ll be right in the middle of it. And your lot are going to spill blood with us. Here. On this land,” she said, digging her hands into the earth where she sat, “in this sacred place - and a very long way from your loved ones back in America,” she concluded.

  After a long moment of silence, as he smelled the earthy odor of the soil she had disturbed, tasted the sharp bite of pitch in the air from the nearby gum trees and felt the warm air brushing his cheek. He understood her completely.

  I’ve got to make sure the boys understand what this is all about. This is no swan, no time to whoop it up. This is more like what the 1st Marine Division of X Corps faced in the Chosin Reservoir in ‘50, he thought, after kicking ass on the Chinese 42nd PVA, the 25,000 men of the 1st Marines, along with the 41st Royal Marine Commando and elements of the US 3rd and 7th Infantry Divisions, a combined force of only 30,000 men, suddenly faced off against 120,000 men of the Chinese 9th army, who had surrounded the UN force, he recalled of his studies of the terrible winter war in North Korea. Had it not been for the heroics of the Marines, and the support of 1st Marine Air Wing and the navy pilots from Task Force 77 in interdicting the influx of Chinese forces and in resupplying the Marines, we would have faced the same lack of provisions, fuel and ammunition that proved fatal to the Chinese. Ride shuddered at the thought of so many Chinese from the 59th PVA in particular, who had perished as much from starvation, frostbite and exposure as from the ferocious assault by the 1st battalion, 7th Marines at Hill 1419, and other battles in the desperate winter warfare that the Marines engaged in during the breakout from Yudam-ni.

  For Sergeant Rideout, the lesson learned was the essential role played by logistical support, ensuring that the front-line units have everything required to remain combat effective and not leaving units stranded and unsupported. That had been the take-home point. The winter war with the Chinese in North Korea had always been a particular fascination for him as a student of modern warfare. It provided so many great examples of how leadership and the actions individual soldiers could play a vital role in the larger campaign. He drew on these examples when coming up with training scenarios for his men, but had never before – not even in Iraq or Syria – been in a time and place where defeat of an American or allied force was comprehensible.

  But now, here in Australia, with only a small number of Marines to augment the modest Australian military, he had a profound sense of certainly at the core of his intuition that not only was war with China coming fast, but that how he personally prepared his men, motivated them, and shaped their character would make the difference between life and death for his men, and victory or defeat for these remarkable Australians.

  As he looked at his new friends, and felt a deep and growing bond with them and their unusual country, he knew that the coming struggle would be even more desperate than Korea.

  Marines will die here, with these fine people. This is truly sacred ground. And who knows how much time I’ve got to get my boys into the right frame of mind, to face off against overwhelming odds, with insufficient support, and where the actions, the life, and the sacrifice of each and every Marine could make or break the entire campaign. This is not the time or the place for fucking around, Top Sergeant Rideout decided.

  4 LITTLE DRAGONS

  Sea Port versus Aerial Port: Lieutenant David Lion made a mental note to bring up the difference in how things were being done at the Sea Port of Disembarkation, SPOD, versus the Aerial Port of Debarkation, APOD. The squids from the US Navy seemed to rely more on hard-copy paperwork that accompanied the freight through the SPOD, unlike the online records used by the Air Force APOD that he was used to in his normal work, managing intermediate logistics support to the Marine Aircraft Wing back at his home base in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. He knew not to complain, however, as Major Bantry had made it clear that a lot of things would be done differently in the Marine Air Ground Task Force Australia, MAGTFA.

  The Major seemed quite content to let the stores pile up in the warehouses and dockyards while negotiations with the Australians dragged on, rather than to push the issue and get the gear moved onward. It was as if the Major was more concerned with process, making sure that a master list of the facilities needed for MAGTFA were included in the SOFA, before the backlog of incoming goods was addressed. Lieutenant Lion thought: it might be more appropriate to sort it out in execution, using contingency procedures, perhaps even damage-control center methodology. When the plan goes to shit, we have to use contingency operating procedures rather than to try to amend an already irrelevant master plan…

  The sheer quantity of equipment flowing into the port of Darwin and the air base, Tindal, was astonishing. It comprised not only the supplies for the in-coming rotation of Marines from Okinawa and Hawaii for the beefed up MAGTFA, but also a range of ‘contingency material’ that the planners at USPACOM were shoving down their throats – and much of that was not even earmarked for the Marines of MAGTFA.

  One element of the latest such shipment was a set of four sea containers loaded to the gills with ‘Flexible Solar Power Stations’. Lieutenant Lion had heard about these during his advanced logistics course at Quantico. He knew that the solar power rig had some advantages over power supplied by diesel generators. They would reduce need for supply convoys and they were quieter and more compact. This would theoretically help patrols’ mobility and save space for other supplies. But he also knew that there were drawbacks, such as the lack of power source when the sun was not shining and the long time required to recharge batteries. He had accepted his instructor’s conclusion that the flexible solar power units were not well-suited to Marines on the go, and not ‘recon friendly’, but they certainly could have some applications in the sun-baked outback of Australia. Whatever the case, he just had to make sure that all the components stayed together as the load was broken down. It would be impossible to track things down afterwards, and he knew that now, or later, it was his responsibility to un-fuck the logistical mess that was unfolding on a daily basis. Maybe the shipment of batteries for the 119F’s had been packed with the flexible solar rig, rather than with the accessory pallet for the Diesel unit, he thought as he read the papers.

  Lion made a mental note to ask the Logistics Officer from the Australian Army to send the four sea-cans to the assembly area in the ‘back 40’ of the sprawling Robertson Barracks, in the outskirts of Darwin, but he knew that that was only a temporary solution. Ultimately, the containers would have to find a better home. He put the paperwork back together and made the two-hole punches at the top of the bundled pages, and added them to yet another classified folder full of shipping papers.

  It was just one of a hundred decisions he made on a daily basis, attempting to impose a little USMC order on the chaos at the crowded port city. There just weren’t enough personnel in the Combat Logistics Company to handle the massive influx of equipment coming off the ship; what with supplies, rolling stock and other material for no less than a dozen different USMC units being deployed into the Northern Territory.

  Before returning to his log-plot, Lieutenant Lion thought about the classified folders he had been building up; folders that had come with each sea container, vehicle, tri-wall or other shipping container that arrived from San Diego or Joint Base Lewis McChord and other log bases in the immense USPACOM AOR. But basically, it was just paperwork; mountains and mountains of paperwork.

  Lieutenant Lion knew that a careful analysis of
the shipping paperwork would have revealed the scale of the pre-positioning scheme. Therefore every snippet of information about these war-fighting supplies was treated as Top Secret, even if, on their own, each individual shipping label was either Secret or merely Unclassified. As busy as he was, he did not fall into the trap of using his computer to track the material, as he had been specifically forbidden to use any networked computer for anything other than routine work. Major Blakely, the new Liaison Officer, had convinced Major Bantry, the S4 Log, that the USPACOM material must be treated as though it were not even there. With the Australians’ poor record of electronic security, using paper copies was the best way to keep the details from showing up in the local media or by being hacked by foreign intelligence operatives. It made sense to Lieutenant Lion, but it also made his life that much more complicated.

  It was already difficult enough. Not only was it impossible to simply establish their own USMC base in Australia, due to local political issues, but also, the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force – especially Marine Logistics Group – were stretched to the limit.

  As much as Lieutenant Lion found the confusion and inefficiencies created by the non-standard practices to be annoying, he understood why it had to be this way. Everybody in the Corps knew that the strategy for the Western Pacific and South Asian region was to maximize the number of areas where the USMC and the American military in general had local knowledge, by basing or rotating numerous small units, negotiating ‘Status of Forces Agreements’, SOFA, and by steadily habituating the locals to a persistent, non-problematic American presence.

  As one of only a few dozen personnel who were actually stationed in Australia, living in Married Quarters with their dependents unlike the bulk of the MAGTFA who rotated in on a short term basis to Darwin from their permanent stations in Okinawa and Hawaii, Lieutenant Lion knew that his job had a strategic role. Perhaps it was not as much of a strategic role as the USMC LnO, Major Blakely, who was in direct liaison roles with the Australian military units and their high command. However, just by virtue of being in place for the next three years, the young logistics officer had to take a long view on his task. For the bulk of the MAGTFA, on the other hand, the focus was the deployment - force generation - force employment - recovery - redeployment cycle that Marines were so well known for. Their battle-rhythm was all about showing up unannounced, kicking ass in combat or masterfully demonstrating their combat arts in hair-raising exercises and maneuvers, and then sorting out their kit and making themselves scarce.

  In the two-week pause between deployments, the rotating-in Marines were passing through either the ‘Sea Port of Disembarkation’, SPOD at the Darwin dockside, or if they travelled by air, through the ‘Aerial Port of Disembarkation’, APOD, at the Tindal RAAF air base farther inland, directly south of Darwin. The out-going Marines passed through the very same dockyard and airstrip on their ‘Embarkation’, through the SPOE and APOE. It was easy to tell the men apart, as the in-coming men typically had a bewildered look about them, not knowing which way was up in their new Area of Operational Responsibility, AOR; whereas the out-rotating men seemed to be much more comfortable with their surroundings. Both groups were always spic-and-span, their kit properly squared away in USMC tradition.

  Lieutenant Lion’s job, as the resident ‘movements’ subject matter expert in MAGTFA, was to sort their logistics out, making sure that the right kit, fuel, food, water, ammunition, weapons systems, combat service support, telecommunications equipment, office supplies, transportation support and, most importantly, personal kit, pay and mail arrived where it was expected, at the appointed time.

  Lion’s job was difficult enough on a routine deployment, where the entire operation was self-contained and largely planned and executed from a supporting base, such as his own home unit, Combat Logistics Element, 1st Btn, 3rd Marines, out of Camp Courtney, Hawaii. But with MAGTFA, having to use the constellation of warehouses, storage facilities and aircraft hangars loaned to the Marines by the Host Nation, Australia, and to comply with the Robertson Barracks Post Orders somehow wrapping around the 3rd Marines own Standing Operational Procedures, the red tape and problems were greatly magnified.

  Were it not for the help of the two long-term SNCOs from 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, out of Camp Hansen, Okinawa, Lieutenant Lion would have been overwhelmed. But Master Gunns Gannon and Top Sergeant Rideout had time and time again helped the young logistics officer, mostly by steering him toward the right contacts within the Royal Australian Army, RAA, in the Darwin area, and the Royal Australian Air Force, RAAF, at the air base a few hundred miles to the south. He was on his own with the squids, but the compact nature of the sole Royal Australian Navy dockyard in Darwin made it easy to figure out who was who in the zoo.

  The one thing Lion found strange about the two SNCOs was that they had none of the “in-and-out” mentality that reflected the rapidly changing world of typical Marine deployments. Rather, they seemed committed to settling in and making long-term friendships, close bonds, and something strangely like ‘fitting in’ to the Australian military community. It was almost as if Master Gunns and the Top Sergeant were planning to stay here for a significant period of time. Perhaps the rest of their lives, he thought, and then shook his head.

  Lion thought about the way Gunns Gannon was putting so much time and effort into working out all the little snags which came along, taking care to resolve each and every issue into a good long-term solution rather than simply overcoming some particular obstacle before moving on to bigger things. Top Sergeant Rideout, similarly, was all over any Marine, at any rank level, who crossed the line and made any sort of trouble with the Aussie military personnel and, even more so, their civilians.

  Likely from the influence of the two SNCOs, Lion had noticed, there was a subtle but notable tightening of the behavior of the Marines rotating in from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force and elsewhere. Once indoctrinated by the briefings and seemingly omnipresent SNCOs, the men were behaving at their best, and with an air of seriousness that he could only put down to the rumor that Gannon and Rideout were preparing the men for war – real war, where men died, and never saw home and family again; where every hour off-duty, every safe day or quiet night of sleep, was one of your last.

  As he followed the thread in his own mind, Lion started to wonder, who will the enemy be? China? Indonesia? India? He had no idea. I’ve got to take more time to read the daily INTSUM, he thought, suddenly more concerned with his own poor understanding of the regional threats. If war is coming, I better get my act together, especially on the caches – Major Bantry is wrong to put those off. If we go to war suddenly, here in Australia, we’ll need fuel, food, ammunition and spares to be safely tucked away farther inland. Leaving it all stockpiled at the Darwin dockyard and hangars at Tindal is a single point of failure. I gotta get working on moving that stuff out to the notional dispersal sites, farther inland. Like those solar-power generators, they shouldn’t be sitting in the sea-can graveyard at Robertson Barracks. They should be forward deployed to the dispersal sites from the get-go. Maybe I should go around Major Bantry, and talk to Major Blakely about getting some log support from Australian 1St Brigade, and their Combat Service Support Battalion. Cut through the red tape, and get the trucks moving.

  At just that moment, Major Blakely and Major Bantry were having a heated discussion about the very same thing. At first, Bantry had tried to show his strategic grasp by laying out all the problems with the as-yet unfinished revisions to the Status of Forces Agreement, SOFA, that was supposed to spell out in great detail all of the support, facilities and freedom of movement that Australia was going to give the MAGTFA. However, Major Blakely was pressing him to get on with the job of moving the USPACOM contingency supplies onward, despite the incomplete SOFA.

  “Look Bantry, it’s your fucking job to get those convoys on the road,” Blakely snapped. “It’s my job to work with the Aussies to get you whatever square footage you need in whatever bum-fuck little town
s the S5 planners have identified as suitable dispersal sites. And I’m telling you for the Nth time that the high command of the R-double-A-F and the R-double-A are responding promptly to each and every request we have made. They are with us on this. They want the stuff tucked away in the outback, and they don’t care if it’s the 3rd Marines, the 7th Marines, the US Army or their own militia who end up using this stuff when the time comes. They just want it out of sight and secure. Your dog-fuck of an assembly area out behind Robertson Barracks, and that colossal pile of stuff in the hangars at Tindal are definitely not secure, nor are they invisible. I’m surprised the local media are not all over this – it’s only a matter of time before we have protesters at the gate, and international press asking us what all the material is really for, for Christ’s sake!”

  Major Bantry understood what Blakely was talking about. As much as he wanted a perfect SOFA to get signed off, even he had to admit that the incoming material was becoming a circus. And he knew that it was his fault that it had not been forwarded onward to the dispersal sites. He understood that the idea was that this would ensure that America had an easily expandable footprint which they could mobilize follow-on forces into when the strategic situation required. In the case of the Northern Territory of Australia, this meant pre-positioning sufficient war-fighting stocks of ammunition, equipment and material to support a Division of US Marines, nineteen thousand men, which would be drawn from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, the 3rd Marine Regiment in Hawaii, and if needed, reinforcements from 7th Marines, in San Diego and attachments from the other units of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Twentynine Palms, California.

  But the lack of American bases meant that the equipment had to be squirreled away at existing locations in Australia where there already was an American presence, or in warehouse space ‘loaned’ to the Marines by the Australian Army.