by Harold Coyle
While Team Yankee had been able to achieve complete surprise and scatter the Polish units directly to its front, those Poles who had been to the left and right of the penetration did not panic or flee. Instead, they attempted to close off the penetration as soon as Team Yankee and Team Bravo had passed through. Apparently C and D companies' lack of tanks encouraged the Poles to try. Their initial efforts were successful as they greeted the appearance of C company with a deadly crossfire. The garbled and fragmented reports given by Cravin over the battalion net betrayed his confusion and panic.
The battalion XO, who had been following C company, reported the situation and his actions to the colonel. D company was deployed into positions from which they could support C company. The XO was still in contact with the German battalion and was able to get them to add their support to the growing battle. Once a firm base of fire had been established and friendly artillery began to enter the fray, he moved forward to rally C company and reopen the breach.
His efforts, however, were rewarded with a direct hit on his track when it reached the place where C company had gone to ground. The D company commander reported the loss of the battalion XO to Reynolds. He then informed the battalion commander that he was taking over the battalion's rear battle and requested further orders. Unable to contact the C company commander and sensing that the entire operation was in jeopardy, Colonel Reynolds ordered Team Yankee to stop where it was, instructed Major Jordan to stay forward with Team Yankee, and then turned Team Bravo around and led them back to hit the Poles in the rear. The day that had begun so well appeared to be turning against the battalion.
The order to halt and take up hasty defensive positions threw Sergeant Polgar. For a minute he thought that the Team Commander had made a mistake. The 3rd Platoon leader thought the same, for no sooner had Bannon stopped talking, than Lieutenant Garger came back and asked him to repeat his last transmission. A little agitated at being so questioned, Bannon made it a point to repeat his instructions slowly, in such a way as to ensure that they would not be misunderstood. As each of the platoon leaders responded back to the Team Commander with an acknowledgement, Polgar noted the difference between the two tank platoon leaders. The 3rd Platoon leader was clearly upset with his commander for stopping the mad dash that the 3rd Platoon had been leading. Polgar wanted to get on with the attack himself, especially since they had such a clear advantage over the enemy. But he was an old soldier and realized that Bannon would not have stopped their forward movement unless there was a damned good reason to do so. The new platoon leader of the 2nd Platoon, on the other hand, sounded as if he were relieved to get the order halting their drive. Not that he could be blamed. The U.S. Army had a tradition of being rough on second lieutenants. It had to be hell on the new lieutenant, being assigned to a unit in the middle of a war and then going right into an attack like this. Polgar couldn't remember the new lieutenant's name, not that it really mattered. He definitely had not impressed anyone so far. The fact was, there was a lottery going around the Team among the enlisted men betting on how long the new lieutenant would last once they went into action. The big money was on two days. Some bet it would be hours. Polgar had been one of the more optimistic. He had his bet riding on three and a half days.
As the Team's tracks settled into positions along an east-west road and cut off their engines, the sun began to rise. Bannon watched the horizon change from black to a deep red. He was reminded of the old saying, "Red sun at night, sailor's delight. Red sun in the morning, sailor take warning." The sun that was greeting Team Yankee this morning was blood red. Watching the great red orb rise in the east, he silently prayed that this was not an ill omen.
Once the Team was set, Bannon turned his attention to Team Bravo and their progress as that unit retraced its steps. The colonel prepared to hit the Poles with everything he had available. He called the battalion's artillery fire-support officer and designated targets he wanted hit and when they were to be hit. He instructed the D company commander to get with the Germans and see if they would support the battalion's maneuver with fire. Finally, based on information provided by the D company commander, he gave Team Bravo and D company their orders.
His plan was simple. Hold the attention of the Poles to their front with D company and the Germans, pin the Poles with artillery, and hit them from behind with Team Bravo. D company and the Germans played the anvil, the artillery and Team Bravo played the hammer. The plan proved to be as effective as it was simple. The violence that had smashed their initial attack; their failure to destroy C company; the weight of the firepower of D company, the Germans, and 'the artillery; and the violence of Team Bravo's attack to their rear finally broke the Poles. One of the surviving Poles grimly observed that the Americans and Germans had used so much firepower that even the sun had been hit and was bleeding.
Forty kilometers east of Team Yankee's hastily assumed positions, a Soviet tank company commander was about to finish briefing his platoon leaders when he noticed how red the morning sun was. For a brief moment he reflected on its significance. Pointing to the solar orb, he told his gathered platoon leaders that the Great Motherland to the east was sending a red sun as an omen to them. The company commander promised his gathered leaders that if they performed their duties as they had been trained and adhered to the great truths that were the pillars of strength to true Communists, the red dawn that they were witnessing would be the end of the imperialist dreams in Europe and the beginning of a new socialist era. Dismissing them with a salute, the company commander turned away from his platoon leaders and headed for his tank.
As he walked back, he wondered if any of his platoon leaders had believed the line of horseshit he had just served them. He turned for a moment, looked at the red sun, then heaved a great sigh. It wasn't important if they did or not, he thought. The political commissar had been pleased with his outpouring of propaganda. Perhaps that miserable party hack would stay out of his way for the rest of the morning, leaving the serious business of killing Americans in the hands of the professional soldiers. The Soviet captain began to smile. The political commissar is happy, we are finally going to get a chance to kill some Americans, and, if we're lucky, some of those worthless Poles will get in the way, and we can run them down. This truly was shaping up to be a great day.
The end of the Poles did not signal an immediate resumption of the battalion's attack. This had been C company's first time under fire, and the experience had been shattering. The battalion commander informed Major Jordan that it would take anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour to sort out the tangled mess that the three companies had become. In the meantime, the divisional air cavalry troop was going to recon forward to find out what the Soviets were up to. That suited Bannon just fine. He was becoming tired of stumbling around like a blind man waiting for the Soviets to hit the Team. Let the cavalry earn their pay.
As it was now obvious that the Team would be here awhile, he began to scrutinize the lay of the land and the Team's dispositions. Ahead, across the road along which they were deployed was a long valley about ten kilometers wide. Wooded hills rose sharply on either side. Immediately to the Team's left was a small town named Issel. As he looked at the town through his binoculars, Bannon could see no sign that it was occupied. There was the possibility that the Soviets had cleared the village prior to the attack in order to maintain operational security. There also was the possibility that they had left someone behind to observe the area and report on the American advance. It was this second possibility that worried him.
After a quick consultation with Major Jordan on the battalion radio net, Bannon ordered the 2nd Platoon to get into a position from which they could place effective fire onto the town. As they were preparing to do so, he dismounted and walked over to Polgar's track to give him his instructions. With the tanks overwatching his move, Polgar was to take his platoon into the town and check it out. The Mech Platoon really didn't have the manpower to do a thorough job. But at least they could check ou
t the more obvious places and keep anyone who was there busy for awhile. Besides, at least this way some of the Team would be doing something useful. This last point was most appealing to Polgar, who did not like the idea of sitting out in the open waiting for some hotshot Russian pilot to come along and fire up his platoon.
Since there was no chance for surprise, Polgar stormed into the town mounted and with the pedal to the floor. The four PCs rolled into the center of the town square where the infantry dismounted and began to conduct a systematic search of the buildings. The dismounted infantry worked in three-man groups, one group on each side of a street with their PC following down the middle ready to support them with machine-gun fire if they ran into trouble.
The teams conducting the search all followed the same pattern when they entered a building. One of the soldiers would peep into a window to see if there were any obvious signs of occupants. Once they had done so, the three would converge on the door that they would use for entry. One man would continue to watch the street and the house across the street lest they become so involved in the building they were about to enter that an unseen enemy came up from behind and surprised them. The other two men, one on either side of the door, would prepare themselves for forced entry if necessary. At first, all the teams tried kicking the doors in. They soon found, however, that this could be a painful experience.
Besides, many of the doors had been left unlocked. After bouncing off of a few doors that refused to be kicked in, they all began to try the doorknobs first. This routine had been going on for thirty minutes when there was the muffled report of a Soviet AK followed by the detonation of a grenade. Polgar ran up to the house where the shots and explosion had originated. He was greeted by two men coming out of the front dragging a third. The PC that had been overwatching this team roared up to the front of the house and began to fire its M2 machine gun at the windows along the second floor. Polgar covered the three men as they made for the rear of the PC, then followed.
Once safely behind the PC, the two men watched for a moment as the medic ripped open their wounded comrade's chemical protective suit and tore away the T-shirt to get at the wound. A quick check showed that the wounded man had taken two rounds in his left shoulder. The wound was painful and bloody, but wouldn't be fatal.
When they were satisfied that their friend was in good hands, they reported to Polgar. The soldier who had been wounded was the point man for the group. They had cleared out the ground floor of this particular house and found nothing. It was when the point man had started up the stairs to check out the second floor that the shooting had started. The first volley hit the point man, sending him tumbling back down the stairs. The two men ran up to help him, one man dragging away the wounded point man, the other throwing a grenade onto the second floor to cover their withdrawal. None of the men had seen anyone or anything.
By this time a squad leader and two other teams had gathered around the PC. Polgar directed the squad leader and one of the teams to circle around back and cover the rear of the house in case someone tried to slip out. He ordered another team to stay with the PC to cover the front of the building. They were also to be prepared to reinforce the team that would clear the house. He would personally lead the two men who had first entered the house back in to deal with the unseen enemy.
After getting a rundown on the layout of the ground floor, the three-man assault party moved back to the front door. As before, two men, one of them Polgar, stationed themselves on either side of the door. This time, however, the third man leaned over and threw a grenade into the opened door. As soon as the grenade went off, Polgar and the man across from him went charging into the house, guns leveled and blazing away. Once inside, the men sought the nearest cover available and waited to see what happened. When nothing happened, Polgar signaled for the third man to enter and cover him as he approached the stairs. He slowly began to climb the stairs, always peering up to see over onto the second floor. When he was halfway up the stairs, Polgar halted, took a grenade off of his web gear, pulled the pin, and threw it into the room at the head of the stairs. As soon as this grenade detonated, he charged to the top of the stairs, taking two steps at a time and firing as he went. Once he reached the head of the stairs, he threw himself into the room where he had thrown the grenade and, as before, sought cover.
Just as Polgar began to get up, a yell to halt came from his men outside. This was followed by the sound of two M 16s firing in the rear of the building. In an instant he realized that the people they were looking for in the house had tried to slip out through the rear and had been caught by the team sent to the back of the house. As the other two men with him came up the stairs and began to check out the other rooms on the second floor, Polgar went to a window overlooking the rear of the house and peered out.
In the small yard, two of his men were standing over the body of a young German boy, sprawled in a small flower bed, bleeding from several wounds. An AK rifle was still in his lifeless hand. For a moment it reminded Polgar of a similar scene in Vietnam some fifteen years earlier. One of his first fire fights had involved a VC unit that consisted mainly of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys. That experience had been a rude introduction to war, one that often haunted his dreams. He knew what his men were experiencing. "Is he dead?"
One of the soldiers standing over the body looked up and saw Polgar looking down. "Yeah.
He wouldn't stop when I yelled to him to halt. Kind of young to be running around shooting at people, Sarge."
"Just remember, Patterson, that sorry piece of trash was old enough to put two holes in McGill and would have done the same to you if he had had the chance."
Patterson looked at his platoon sergeant for a moment, then down at the dead German boy.
After another moment of reflection, he reached down, picked up the AK, and went around to the front to continue the house-by-house search.
Polgarfs report on the Mech Platoon's contact didn't really surprise Bannon. His only regret was the discovery that the town was populated by a lone fanatic who couldn't have hurt the Team. The price of a casualty hadn't been worth the results.
Impatient and anxious to find out how much longer they were going to sit there, Bannon dismounted and walked over to the battalion S-3's track to find out what Jordan's best guess was. His PC was nestled in a large hedgerow that separated two fields. The troop door on the back ramp was open as was the cargo hatch on top. Bannon stopped at the door and saw Major Jordan seated across from his radios, arms folded and chin resting on his chest. He appeared to be sleeping.
"Must be nice to have a cushy staff job where you can take a nap three times a day."
Without moving a muscle or opening his eyes, Jordan replied, "Bannon, someday when you grow up, and I trust you will, you'll appreciate the fact that we old folks need to conserve our energy."
"Oh, is that what you call it? Conserving energy? Back home we call it sleep. "
"Shit, don't they teach you treadheads anything at Fort Knox?" "Sure they do, Major. And someday, when Infantry Branch clears you to use words with more than one syllable, I'll tell you all about it." "I'm sure there's a reason you came over here other than to harass me, Bannon. Hopefully, it has to do with that shooting in the town you haven't reported to me yet."
"That was a small affair. Some hyped-up commie highschool kid wanted to play Rambo. He wounded one of Sergeant Polgar's men and got his ass blown away. So far, that's all we've come across. What I really came over here for is to find out when we're going to get this circus moving again. If it's going to be awhile, I want permission to move up onto the high ground to the northeast where we can get under some cover. I'm not thrilled about sitting out here trying to hide my tanks behind these damned bushes." "I expect we'll be moving soon.
The brigade commander just got off the radio with Colonel Reynolds. Colonel Brunn was all over the Old Man. Told him that if he couldn't get this battalion moving, brigade was prepared to pass the I st of the 4th through us to cont
inue the attack." "Sir, pardon me if I seem like an underachiever, but, if the brigade commander wants to let the I st of the 4th take the lead, that's fine by me. I could get into playing second team for awhile." "You don't understand, Bannon. Colonel Brunn damned near relieved Reynolds after the Hill 214 debacle. The only reason he didn't was because there didn't happen to be any spare lieutenant colonels lying around at the time. If the battalion screws the pooch on this operation, the Old Man is gone. The battalion has to succeed."
"Well, sir, between you, me, and that dumb bush your track is trying to hide in, even if what you say is true, I have no intention of taking any undue risks simply to save someone's reputation. Colonel Reynolds is a good officer and a great guy, but his reputation isn't worth a single unnecessary casualty in Team Yankee."
"I don't think we need to worry about that. The colonel is too much of a professional to do anything dumb simply to save face."
"God, I hope you're right, sir."
They turned to covering the next move. The air cavalry had come across some trucks and reconnaissance vehicles as they roamed out to the front. They scattered the trucks and destroyed the recon vehicles. Unfortunately, the cavalry scouts could not tell if they were Polish or belonged to someone else. A scout helicopter had tried to land near one of the destroyed vehicles to check this out but had drawn fire from an unseen enemy. Not being able to obtain this information and confident that the front would be clear for awhile, Major Jordan requested that the air cav troop shift over to the east and cover the battalion's right flank. The brigade S-3 replied that he would look into that.