by James Rosone
“Colonel Eddy says they should be engaging the paratroopers within the next 30 minutes. His lead elements have already started to call in a series of artillery strikes. He did ask if there would be any air support available. What should I tell him?” asked the same operations officer.
Austin turned to his Air Force liaison officer (LNO) for an answer on the air situation. “We should have six F-16s on standby for air support operations within an hour. They will be in orbit over our current position for roughly 35 minutes before they need to return home for fuel. We also have six F-15s, which will stay in continuous orbit to provide fighter cover.”
“I thought we would have more aircraft than that for close air support,” said one of the other operations officers in response to what their air LNO just told them. They had been promised a lot more air support than what was apparently being provided.
“We have more aircraft in the area, but they are performing wild weasel missions, going after the SA-10s and SA-21s. We have to keep the Russian air defense suppressed or we won’t have any air support,” retorted the air LNO.
Holding up a hand to stop the back and forth, General Austin replied, “Send the F-16s to support Colonel Eddy’s brigade. We’ll use our aviation brigade to support Colonel Pippen’s brigade at the airport. Tell 1st Stryker brigade to be ready to roll to either position if additional troops are needed.”
General Austin’s division was expected to hold his ground for the next 96 hours. By then, a Danish infantry brigade, along with an Italian mechanized brigade, should arrive to support them. This would bolster his forces by another 7,000 soldiers. It was hoped by the time they arrived, the Russian 6th Tank Army would have either surrendered or been destroyed.
I Just Wanted the GI Bill
Camp Casey, South Korea
Sergeant Ian Slater had just made sergeant when the war in Russia started. He was thankful he was stationed in Korea, away from the fighting. All he wanted from the Army was the GI Bill to pay for college. He wanted to get his degree in automotive mechanical engineering like his brother Marcus had and get a decent paying job. Marcus had started working for Tesla two years ago, and all he talked about was how cool it was to be part of a design team that was helping to change the future of the automotive industry. Ian wanted to be like his brother, but he didn’t have the same stellar grades Marcus did in high school, so he was unable to get a full-ride scholarship to any of the colleges that specialized in his major.
His dad (who wanted to help pay for college, but was financially unable to do so) suggested that he look at the Army for help with paying for tuition. Their grandma had dementia and needed constant care, and that was costly; since his dad was an only child, all the financial responsibility fell on him. Ian knew that his father was making the right decision, but it didn’t make his own path any easier. Ian hated violence, and the last thing he wanted to do was be placed in a situation where he might have to kill someone.
When he spoke with the army recruiter, they told him that if he joined for four years, with two of them being in Korea, he could not only get the GI Bill, he could also get a $25,000 signing bonus. He immediately jumped at the opportunity. Two and a half years later, he was sitting in a Bradley fighting vehicle, slowly moving across the DMZ in the second Korean war.
The first day of the ground war had been horrific. The fighting was brutal, often devolving to hand-to-hand combat as they fought with their South Korean counterparts to penetrate the North’s defenses. The Air Force and their own artillery had hit the North’s positions hard, there was hardly a part of the North’s positions that were not bombed out or cratered; even still, the soldiers they encountered fought on like men possessed.
As Sergeant Slater sat in the vehicle, reloading an empty magazine for his M4, he saw one of the privates across from him drawing yet another dark line in his journal, denoting a kill. Slater told the private, “It’s a bit morbid to keep track of death like that.”
The young 19-year-old shrugged; he did not seem to care.
“I hope this guy doesn’t turn out to become some kind of serial killer when he leaves the Army,” reflected Slater as he placed the newly loaded magazine back into his front ammo pouch.
While their Bradley continued to move forward, an explosion rocked their vehicle slightly. It was probably a near-miss from an artillery round. They heard pieces of shrapnel slap against the armored walls.
“Dear God, I hate that sound,” thought Slater.
The Bradley’s gunner fired off a short burst from the turret’s 25mm chain gun, aimed at some unseen target. The vehicle commander then called out to the soldiers in the back, “Another enemy troop position has been identified--we are going to rush the position.”
The Bradley lurched forward as the tracks began to pick up speed. The gunner fired the chain gun a few more times as they got closer to the enemy positions. A series of bullets bounced loudly off their armored walls before the gunner managed to silence the attack.
“RPG!” screamed the gunner.
A second later, their vehicle was jolted by a forceful thud as the RPG slammed into their front right track, bringing the Bradley to an abrupt halt. Everyone inside grabbed onto something to steady themselves and keep from being thrown around like ragdolls.
“Gunner, give us some covering fire! Everyone else, dismount!” yelled the vehicle commander.
The vehicle commander and his driver also got out of the Bradley; he wanted to examine where they had been hit and see if they could repair it themselves, or if they would have to call for a wrecker vehicle to tow them back to the rear for maintenance.
“Fan out on the left side,” the vehicle commander directed. This would give him the space he needed to go and assess the full extent of the damage.
As soon as they exited the vehicle, however, they came under immediate ground fire from several enemy positions. Bullets started whipping through the air, kicking up dirt and rocks near his soldiers, and ricocheting off the armored body of their Bradley. His men began to scatter, looking for cover and praying they wouldn’t get hit by one of the hot pieces of lead flying through the air.
As sergeant Slater ran to a bomb crater for cover, the smell of cordite and death hung in the air all around them. Then as he looked down below his feet, he saw several dead and rotting enemy soldiers and it startled him just a little bit. Many of the deceased remains were missing limbs.
He pushed the horrific sight out of his mind and looked up over the edge of the crater. Ian spotted several enemy soldiers popping up and down from two foxholes, firing at his squad, probably no more than 100 yards from their position. He squinted and rubbed his eyes…
“Ugh, I was right,” Ian realized. “That is a machine gun bunker about 200 yards away, spitting out hundreds of rounds a minute at us.”
Just as he was trying to figure out how they were going to deal with the machine gun bunker, the 25mm gun from the Bradley fired a string of rounds into it, silencing it quickly. Then the Bradley’s gunner fired two rounds at the enemy soldiers in the foxholes before Slater heard the gun jam.
“Alpha team, lay down covering fire! Bravo team advance!” he yelled to his soldiers as he jumped up from the edge of the bomb crater he was leaning against. He raised his M4 to his shoulder and began to fire single round shots at the group of enemy soldiers who were firing at his team, attempting to shoot at his soldiers. As he and the rest of Bravo team made it to their next set of covering positions, Alpha team bounded beyond their position while it was Bravo team’s turn to lay down covering fire.
As they got closer to the enemy positions, several of the soldiers in his squad began to throw some hand grenades at the enemy soldiers. A couple of booms shook the earth in the distance, and then there was silence. His two fire teams began to advance towards the enemy positions cautiously, making sure they had their weapons trained on where the North Korean soldiers had been. When they approached the foxholes, they discovered six dead enemy soldiers. One of his me
n poked at each of the bodies with the barrel of his rifle, just to make sure they were dead. Then they moved on towards the enemy machine gun bunker, which had remained silent since the Bradley lit it up.
As they made it over the lip of the bunker, they encountered the remains of five dead enemy soldiers before them. Before moving on, they made sure to spike the barrel of the gun, so it couldn’t be used again.
Slater turned to look back at the Bradley. There was a wrecker vehicle, maybe a mile back, and it was very slowly making its way towards their disabled vehicle. It looked like his squad would be moving forward on foot for a while.
Now that they had disabled the machine gun bunker and neutralized the threats, several columns of light infantry soldiers steadily began to move towards them. Sergeant Slater reached for his radio and let his platoon sergeant know about their situation and told him that they would link up with the rest of the platoon when they could. For the time being, his eleven-man squad would continue to move forward on foot to the company’s main objective and hope to meet up with the rest of their comrades there.
A Marine War
Seoul, South Korea
Yongsan Garrison
The Second Korean War was now four days old, and just as bloody as everyone had imagined it would be. The casualties continued to pour in by the hour, but progress was being made as US and ROK Forces continued to force the Korean People’s Army to retreat.
The Allies were now at the outskirts of what was once Pyongyang, when suddenly, large swaths of the KPA simply began to surrender. With no political or military leader in charge, the local commanders began to take matters into their own hands and started to capitulate in mass. Most of these units were running low on ammunition, water, food, and other essential supplies. They had also been mercilessly bombed by aircraft and artillery for four days straight. For them to fight on at this point meant certain death, and they knew it.
*******
General Bennet walked over to the digital map displayed on the wall of a 72-inch LED touch screen, and looked at the overview of the entire war. There was an interactive, high-resolution image of the Korean Peninsula on screen, which several operations staff members kept updated with various allied unit positions, special forces team whereabouts, and enemy troop locations. If he wanted greater detail or information on a particular area of the map, he just needed to touch that area and it zoomed in, providing an additional layer of information. He could see all the way down to the battalion level if he chose to look that deeply.
As he studied the map, the area that concerned him the most was the northern part of the country that butted up to China. The Chinese had moved tens of thousands of soldiers across the northern border on the second day of the war and now they were moving those forces down the peninsula towards his troops.
The frontlines were continuing to move forward at a decent clip now that the US and ROK forces pushed through the first ten kilometers of the KPA’s defensive line. It certainly helped that the further they moved into enemy territory, the more enemy soldiers were surrendering (especially once they learned that Pyongyang had been destroyed).
The landing force of 65,000 US and ROK Marines that had been scheduled to invade near Pyongyang was being moved around the Korean peninsula and would conduct an amphibious assault at Hamhung, on the Sea of Japan. It was hoped these forces would catch the remnants of the KPA off guard and potentially force the remainder of the Korean soldiers there to surrender. It would also provide the allies with a strategic strongpoint as the main Chinese force continued to advance down the peninsula. The US Air Force had been pounding the living daylights out of the Chinese ground forces as they made their way down the Peninsula, destroying vast numbers of tanks and other armored vehicles. By the time they would reach the Allied forces, they were going to be thoroughly demoralized, or so it was hoped.
General Bennet was done surveying the map. There was no substitute in his mind to one-on-one human interaction. He eyed the group around him and walked over towards his Special Forces LNO to see if he had spoken with any of the units directly about their progress on reaching the DPRK capital. “How close are our forces to the outskirts of what’s left of Pyongyang?” he asked.
Colonel Franklin, who had taken over as General Bennet’s operations officer, replied, “A brigade from the 2nd Infantry Division is starting to approach the outskirts now. They have been told to not get too close to the epicenter of the blast until it has been determined by the chemical warfare guys as being OK to approach. That should happen before the end of the day.”
The general and others in the room nodded at that. Very little of the city was left standing after the US dropped a 340-kiloton nuclear warhead on it. What was left were burnt out hulks of buildings. Until they could confirm the level of radiation still left in the blast area, they were not going to have any US or ROK units operate near or in it.
“How close are the Chinese?” Bennet asked his Special Forces LNO. 1st Special Forces Group (1st Group) had inserted several SF teams near the Chinese border to begin observing troop movements and to call in air and cruise missile attacks as targets presented themselves.
“The last team reported in a couple of hours ago letting us know the Chinese Army is roughly sixty miles from our most forward units. As you know, I’ve moved SF teams to a number of locations along the most likely routes they will use to engage our troops. When an aircraft comes available to provide an airstrike, they hit them hard. I reckon we’ve probably cost the PLA close to 5% to 10% casualty rate since they crossed the border,” the SF colonel said with a satisfied grin on his face.
General smiled at that knowledge. He only wished they had more aircraft from which to launch airstrikes. With the war still raging in Europe, the amount of aircraft the US could send to Korea was extremely limited. Bennet turned to his Air Force LNO, a Colonel Sutherbee, and asked, “How are we doing suppressing the enemy’s air defense units?”
Colonel Sutherbee had been a fighter pilot in charge of his own fighter wing in Germany when he had been injured during the surprise cruise missile attack, catching a piece of flying shrapnel in his left eye. He was lucky that he had not lost his eye or his sight, but he did have to fly back to Bethesda Hospital to have the shrapnel removed. After a couple of weeks of recovery, he was sent to Korea to become General Bennet’s Air Force LNO. He couldn’t fly anymore, but the Air Force deemed him as more than qualified to be the senior Air Force LNO to Allied Forces Korea.
“Better than we were yesterday,” Sutherbee answered. “We flew 67 weasel missions yesterday and lost nine aircraft. We thinned out the enemy air defense in this sector here,” he said, pointing on the map to an area near what was left of Pyongyang. “Right now, we are focusing our efforts on these two sectors, where the Marines are getting ready to land their forces. It’s also the last place where intelligence showed a sizable North Korean military element remaining.”
Sutherbee pointed at several places inside China next. “The issue we are running into now is along these areas in China. The PLA Air Force is starting to make a concerted effort there to intercept our aircraft in the Yellow Sea and in Northern parts of Korea. Our F-15s and F-22s are starting to tangle it up more and more over this section of the DPRK,” he explained.
“Are you going to be able to contain and defeat the Chinese Air Force going forward? I have a feeling the Chinese are only just getting started here in Korea,” said General Bennet.
Colonel Sutherbee sighed before answering, “It’s going to be tough, General. I won’t lie. Right now, it looks like the brunt of the Chinese air force is down south, beating the tar out of Taiwan. The Taiwanese are faring better than I thought they would, but that will only last for so long. Once they’ve secured Taiwan, those aircraft are going to shift North, and when that happens, we are going to be heavily outnumbered.”
“So much for ending this war quickly, this war is going to drag on for a long time…” Bennet thought to himself.
“What additional aircraft do we have coming from the States?” he asked.
“We have one squadron of F-22s and two additional squadrons of F-16s, due to arrive within the next week. Those are unfortunately only going to replace our losses, not increase our actual force. We lost a lot of good people and aircraft when Kunson was lost. The additional aircraft we were hoping to get from Australia are having to beef up our defenses in Guam, so we can’t rely on any additional help from the Aussies on this one,” the Colonel said glumly.
Another Captain walked up to the General. “Sir, the SecDef is on the video conference for you,” he said pointing to a computer monitor.
Bennet walked over to the desk and sat down in front of it. “It’s good to see you, Sir. What can I do for you?”
Jim Castle leaned in, which made his face appear larger on the computer screen. “I’ll get right down to it John. How soon can you mop up operations in Korea?”
General Bennet sat there, not sure what to say for just a moment--that question had kind of caught him off guard. “That is hard to say right now. I have over 80,000 Chinese soldiers moving down the Peninsula, and we still haven’t finished off the North Koreans yet,” he replied, knowing that wasn’t exactly the answer the SecDef was looking for.
“How many prisoners have you taken in the last five days?” Jim asked.
“Last count was somewhere around 162,000. I can’t tell you for certain how many of them are left. We wiped a lot of them out during the ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign, and then a lot more when we nuked them. The Japanese are moving 65,000 ground forces to our new beachhead at Hamhung once its established. That will strengthen our position there as we move to sever the country in half.”