At thirty minutes after midnight Always had positioned himself astride the route into the attack position in the vicinity of CP 5. Straining his eyes to look into the darkness, he could pick out the units slowly making their way in. Alpha came first, silently disgorging its face-blackened infantrymen under the leadership of the three platoon leaders—two lieutenants and a sergeant first class. They quickly hoisted their packs and moved out, squad leaders counting their men by feel, checking for any equipment oversights as they did so.
Bravo followed, minus their infantrymen already in position down at Checkpoint 8. Lieutenant Franklin had brought up the Bradleys, Captain Baker making the decision to go with the dismounts. Always caught himself second-guessing the call. Certainly Baker was weighing the difficulty of the two missions—dismounted and mounted. The infantrymen had the longer haul to make, the more enemy to work their way through. It was certain to be a difficult chore, requiring strong leadership. But the Bradleys of Bravo were key to the protection of the tanks. Moreover, Franklin had not been forward with the commanders when they initially looked at the zone into which they would be attacking. Nor had he been present in the TOC when the order had been briefed. Of the two missions, the one more important to the battalion was the attack on FALCON by the infantry vehicles. For a moment Always was torn between the urge to dictate that the commander must go with the main attack and the desire to let his subordinates make key decisions affecting their own commands. Then he realized the issue was moot. Franklin was here and Baker had already committed himself to the night movement. Franklin would have to take in the Bradleys.
Always wished he knew the lieutenant a little better. He looked tough enough; a short, muscular man, he had been an outstanding college wrestler. The colonel decided to put himself behind Bravo in the attack.
Over the next hour and a half the remainder of the battalion closed, vehicles moving slowly to muffle the noises of their huge engines. One by one Always saw them come in and disperse. Despite the losses from the defense in sector the previous day, he had enough to mount the attack. Twenty Bradleys and nineteen Abrams tanks would be going in at dawn. It was a minor miracle pulled off by his executive officer and the maintenance crews. More than ten percent of the task force was committed to that effort, more than a hundred men. No group worked harder.
The smoke platoon leader was excited. He had never taken his generators into an attack of this nature before. The prospect of leading a heavy task force into an objective both thrilled and frightened him. Lieutenant Rizzo was a good officer, an ROTC graduate who had chosen the Chemical Corps based on his college studies as a chemist. He always wondered if he had made the right choice, somewhat envious of his combat arms friends. This morning he was sure he had.
The lieutenant and the colonel were staring off to the east, trying to pick out the shadow of Hill 876 against the sky. “Set your azimuth relative to that peak when you start,” Always was telling him, “and stick to it. Every time you can get a view of it, reset the azimuth. Your compass will be going crazy with the jolting and the pull of the metal on the vehicle, but it’s better than nothing. Go as fast as you can, and once you get to the wire, let these guys come by you. I’ll have infantrymen on the ground guiding them through with flares and green smoke. Keep that smoke coming—it’s not only your best protection, it’s the only cover I’ll have as we go in.”
“Yes, sir!” The butterflies were flapping in Rizzo’s stomach. Always looked at him and knew he would do the job. A thought crossed his mind. We raise a boy to manhood, give him an education that leads to a degree in chemistry, and then send him into the face of hell as a smoke screen. What a business.
He patted Rizzo on the shoulder. “Keep up your speed. We’ll be following the thickest part of the smoke, each vehicle racing after the one to its front, but we’ll keep up. If you get disoriented, keep driving on until you can pick up your direction again. Whatever you do, don’t back up or thirty-nine vehicles will run you over.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I won’t let you down.”
“I know. That’s why I picked you. Good luck, Tony.” Always made one of his rare uses of a first name. It seemed appropriate at the time.
The artillery belched, shattering the early morning tranquility. It was 0330. The TOC, having shifted position since midnight, ran through the radio net, quickly checking to see if all elements were in contact. That done, the radio frequency was shifted by prearranged signal, and a radio was left operating on the old net, chattering with a dummy station in the south.
Evans had been making noise over by CP 8 for more than two hours now. He drew some artillery for his trouble, but no casualties. He didn’t like missing the fight, but knew that he had to play his role well. He was a professional. At the appointed time he started his platoons on their move to the east. The enemy saw him coming and passed the word over the radio net.
The infantrymen of Bravo Company had made their way quietly through the dark before going to ground about 800 meters short of the ridge line north of Hidden Valley. The point element had seen first one outpost and then another, and made its way back to Captain Baker, who wisely decided to hold up, not wishing to set off the attack prematurely. He positioned his men, and at 0355 moved in and quietly took out the two outposts. From here on in there would be no stealth. Baker’s attack went in against the enemy infantry dug in along the north side of the ridge. By 0359 Baker had suffered his first casualties.
In the north, Alpha’s infantrymen had found the wire. An enemy squad emplaced to overwatch it at the point of the breach had drifted off to sleep in the quiet of the night, blankets wrapped around their huddled forms. Quietly, Archer’s men closed in on them. Under the cover of the noise of the first artillery shells, they shot them where they lay. Instantly they set to work to breach the mine field and cut through the wire.
It took no order to get Lieutenant Rizzo moving. As Always’ wristwatch second hand swept over 0400, the smoke platoon pulled up out of its cover, smoke just beginning to rise from the back of the armored personnel carriers. In an instant the whole battalion was alive. An enormous din arose from Checkpoint 5. The earth shook from the almost forty steel monsters straining to accelerate to top speed from a standing start. Air defense, command and control, recovery, and maintenance vehicles mingled with the combatants, adding to the pandemonium. Somehow the units maintained their integrity, crowding together in the smoke, dust, and dark, racing the dawn’s first light to Objective OWL. Vehicle commanders’ faces were contorted with intensity, cool wind and searing sand biting into their skin, eyes shielded behind pitted goggles. Gunners forced their foreheads against their sights. Death was waiting. They had to see before they were seen. Life hung in the balance. Tank loaders braced themselves at their stations as best they could, whipping back and forth in the tumultuous ride. Any second they could swing into action, feeding the rounds into the smoke breeches. Drivers tried to keep sight of the vehicle to their front, appearing and disappearing from vision in the smoke, haze, and darkness.
Tony Rizzo was drawing fire. The smoke trailing behind him covered everyone else but left him naked to the enemy, shielded only by the weak light of predawn. He could see Hill 876 to his right front, checked his compass, and urged his driver to greater speeds. His young, strong eyes picked up the twin knobs of OWL and FALCON. Two thousand meters to go. Incoming rounds were kicking up the sand to his front. He swerved left, then right, then picked up his azimuth again, heading right at OWL.
It was working. It was working. Lieutenant Colonel Always felt the moment, saw the opportunity. Only a little luck. It would take only a little luck. He pressed up behind Bravo Company, switched its command net onto his second radio, and held on for dear life.
Rizzo saw the wire, turned slightly north, and picked out the flare. There was the breach. He had found the breach. The high explosive round tore through the side of his APC, sending spalding through his upper body. He slumped in his cupola, nothing left to hold his remains
rigid. The second vehicle, commanded by the platoon sergeant, took up the lead and dashed for the breach. The battalion followed.
Always’ artillery was pounding OWL and FALCON. It was enough to keep the defenders buttoned up, not enough to keep them from firing. Smoke rounds were mixed in with the high explosives. In a few minutes it would have to lift, but for a while longer it would help the attack.
The enemy was reporting the main attack to the south, causing the defenders there to brace themselves for the armor onslaught, and exaggerating their assessment of Bravo’s infantry attack. The commander there was calling for commitment of the reserve as he fired at Echo Company in the distance, still out of direct fire range. The enemy forces on HAWK, splitting the distance between the northern and southern efforts, was not sure which way to orient their weapons. Coolly, they waited for developments.
Captain Archer rolled his Bradleys through the breach and dashed for the north side of OWL. He was untouched as yet by the enemy fire. As he sped by he flashed a thumbs-up sign to his infantrymen. They had done a hell of a job, but their morning’s work had just begun. The diesel fumes filled his nose and pumped a load of adrenaline into his veins. A BMP opened fire on him, and he triggered his smoke grenades and lunged his fully loaded Bradley into a depression 200 meters short of the objective. As the BMP inched up to get a shot, it was drilled by the platoon sergeant of 1st Platoon. Archer dashed the last 200 meters, splashing diesel across his engine, adding to the smoke screen under which his company advanced. At 0412 ten Bradleys of A Company were in on OWL. The infantrymen were sprinting in to link up.
Lieutenant Franklin sped past the second burning armored personnel carrier. A decapitated corpse stood in the commander’s hatch as smoke continued to bellow from the generators in the rear. The sight shook him a little. Why was it standing? It had no head. It shouldn’t be standing.
Always saw Franklin’s track waver a bit, then bust through the breach beside the destroyed platoon sergeant’s smoke track. Eight Bradleys went through with him and Always followed. He thought he saw Archer’s company hugging the north slope of OWL. That was a good sign.
Franklin continued to drive to the east.
“Turn! Turn! Turn right!” It was Always yelling to Franklin over B Company’s command net. Damn, what was wrong with that lieutenant?
Franklin heard the call and wheeled his company to the right. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw FALCON, his objective. “Let’s go!” he yelled over the radio. He was heading straight at Hill 876.
“Oh, my God. No!” It was Always talking into the intercom. “He’s missed FALCON.”
“Franklin. To your right! To your right! FALCON’S to your right!” No call signs. It was Always yelling into Franklin’s net.
“Right. I got it.” Franklin didn’t know who was talking to him. His eyes were fixed on HAWK, driving straight at it at forty miles per hour.
The enemy forces on the back side of FALCON had a perfect flanking position on Bravo. Under steady fire direction from their platoon leader they chewed up Franklin’s column. Always turned his own vehicle into FALCON, spitting 25mm rounds from his main gun, trying to distract the murderous fire. “Franklin! Turn your company, turn your company, or you’re done for.” It was too late. Franklin was gone, and with him six of his vehicles. The seventh spotted Always and turned with him into FALCON.
The task force commander was now fighting for his life. He wanted to get a call to Charlie Company, to give a warning that FALCON was unsecure, but he would not live to complete the call if he did not get to cover. And the only cover available was straight into FALCON at the BMP trying to take him out. “Spivey, bob and weave. Kick up some dust!” Always yelled into the intercom.
His driver responded instantly while Always yelled into Bravo’s radio net to its sole survivor, “Come with me at the BMP. We’ve got to get his cover.”
The buck sergeant commanding the vehicle understood the urgency of the command and opened up on the BMP as it was drawing a bead on Always. Like a well-drilled fire team the two Bradleys dashed into the small box canyon where the enemy lay, confusing him with their sporadic rushes, keeping him hull down. In a minute they closed the distance, and the Bravo vehicle put four rounds through the BMP. The two Bradleys went to the wall of the cliff at either end of the tiny canyon, huddled against the earth, seeking whatever protection it offered.
As he spoke into his mouthpiece to alert Captain Carter, Always saw Charlie Company turn the corner around OWL and head into HAWK. The attack could not be stopped. Direct fire opened up from FALCON and HAWK as Carter made a dash for cover. He was picked apart in the cross fire. Within a minute and a half his entire company of tanks was peppered. Two limped into the north face of Hill 876. The rest were burning on the desert floor, crews scrambling for cover from a few, the rest ominously silent.
The task force commander had watched two companies destroyed in the space of a few minutes. With FALCON unsecured, the movement onto HAWK had been suicidal. The breakthrough at OWL had gone smoothly. The plan had unraveled with Franklin’s misorientation. Always now had less than a minute to decide whether to call the whole thing off or to press ahead with what he could salvage from the original plan. In less than two minutes Captain Dilger would be breaking into the open around OWL.
One minute to decide. One minute to decide. It all comes down to this. The success or failure of a mission—the lives of hundreds of men, the worth of the sacrifices of those already lost—is not debated with the best minds of the battalion present, with those whose lives are at stake, not considered with calm reflection and a coherent, logical analysis. Instead, it comes down to a moment’s decision in the heat of battle, by a scarred and scared commander, personally fighting for his own life, carrying the burden of young lives already spent, trying to do his best by his men and his mission.
The thoughts crowded into Always’ mind. There’s no turning back now. Turning back is certain defeat. It’s certain death. Delta is committed. They could stay at OWL with Alpha, but that sets everybody up for later defeat. The enemy will counterattack and throw us off our toehold. Rizzo will have died for nothing. Bravo will have been spent for naught. Charlie as well. Winning means taking EAGLE; beating back any counterattacks; giving Alpha time to work the enemy out of OWL, FALCON, and HAWK. The only chance lies in going for EAGLE.
“Dilger, watch your right flank. FALCON and HAWK are uncovered. Stay in my smoke. Take EAGLE!” Again the violation of radio procedure. But seconds counted, and Dilger got the message.
Always signaled to the Bravo Bradley with him to smoke and follow him. He then called the TOC to shift artillery into the north and west of 876, and launched his vehicle at EAGLE. Smoke trailed from the two Bradleys, leaving a screen behind which Dilger could hide the head of his column. Delta opened up with their smoke as well, elongating the screen. The wind whipped it to the north and east, uncovering the trailing platoon. At forty miles per hour the two Bradleys and ten Abrams careened across the desert.
The wild ride took four minutes. When it was over, seven tanks and one infantry vehicle held EAGLE. Three tanks and the Bradley from Bravo were burning along the route from OWL. A few surviving crewmen were crawling for cover in whatever depressions they could find in the soft sand.
The crux of the fight was over. It was 0426. For four more hours the opponents would fight, Archer slowly and deliberately working his company around OWL, reducing enemy positions one by one, then moving on to FALCON, repeating the process before finally taking HAWK. The enemy deduced that the main effort was in the north and tried to move his forces from the south, only to have them stopped in Hidden Valley by artillery-delivered mines on Checkpoint 4 and withering fire from Dilger on EAGLE. A feeble counterattack from the east was stopped dead by the EAGLE force. Captain Baker kept the forces on the 955 ridge line pinned. Artillery sought, and found, infantrymen on either side. But the attrition was gradual. Eventually, Evans could enter the fight in the south, thickening Ba
ker’s fixing fire on the enemy. By 1030, the defenders pulled out what forces they could recover and withdrew south of Hill 955. The rest either surrendered or died in place.
Always had his victory, but it was an expensive one. The better part of two companies had been destroyed. The others had suffered casualties as well. Enemy air had entered the battle around 0900, and although they had been picked off by the air defenses that had closed in to OWL behind Archer, they had knocked out a couple of the remaining vehicles. Casualty treatment and evacuation had been extremely difficult, given the contesting of the terrain and the inability by either side to move freely around the battlefield. It was a victory all right, but a Pyrrhic one. Always was not content. It should have come cheaper.
The after-action review made the right points. The task force knew where the mistakes had been made. It had been a closely run thing, had turned on the missing of FALCON. The plan had been bold. It had almost paid off. Human error, always so common in warfare, had depreciated the success. This time Always found himself reflecting on those things that had gone right; he did not want to throw out the good with the bad:
Win the reconnaissance battle and you are well on the way to winning the fight. It doesn’t take much, a few good men in the right place at the right time, with the presence of mind to know what to look for.
A deception, no matter how simple, pays off. Over great distances, in the confusion of battle, on the raw nerves of humans exposed to the terror of steel and fire, the obvious gets noticed and leads to hasty conclusions. Play the enemy against himself. Make him think what you want him to think.
Mass pays off. As expensive as the breakthrough had been, it would never have worked without the critical mass to continue to drive through. The combination that fixes parts of the enemy, screens out another, and pulverizes a third is a winner.
Defense of Hill 781 Page 13