Combat Ineffective

by William Peter Grasso

  From the state of the chaos in the CP, Patchett came to a quick conclusion about 2nd Battalion. He pulled Jock aside so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Looks to me like they took reserve to mean at ease, sir.” Motioning toward the CP’s situation map, Patchett added, “This overlay looks a little too neat, if you ask me. The terrain around here don’t lend itself to no nice straight lines like they’ve got drawn. I reckon they don’t have a clue where most of their troopers really are.”

  Jock stepped over to Eliason and asked, “What’s your situation, Pete?”

  “The gooks are everywhere,” he replied, panic in his voice. “We’re surrounded. Every company’s in contact with them.”

  “It sounds pretty quiet right now, Pete. Any breakthroughs in your line?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, we’d better figure that one out real quick before we get some unwanted visitors here in your CP.”

  Sergeant Patchett had been studying the situation map closely. His fingertip began to trace two spots on the map along the gentle backslope the battalion occupied behind Hills 142 and 127. His finger stopping on one of the spots, he asked Colonel Eliason, “Y’all should have three Chaffees right about here, sir. That’s where Sergeant Moon says he positioned them. I don’t see them marked on this map anywhere. Did y’all move ’em?”

  The blank look on Eliason’s face was all the answer Patchett—or Jock—needed. He wasn’t sure where those three tanks were or what they were doing. His excuse: “My radios don’t even talk to the armor.”

  “Nobody’s does, sir,” Patchett replied. “But that ain’t no surprise. We should have a liaison working with the tanks. One of your guys with a radio on your command freq is all it takes.”

  Then Patchett moved his finger to the other spot on the map. “I’m guessing this artillery battery is what the gooks want to knock out most. Have y’all set up security for it?”

  Eliason replied, “Negative, Sergeant. The artillery can take care of themselves.”

  Jock took a dim view of that answer. “For cryin’ out loud, Pete, that battery is supposed to be inside your perimeter. Are you even talking to them?”

  Eliason’s silence was as good as a no.

  “Here’s the way it’s going to be, Colonel,” Jock said. “I want you out of this damn CP and out in the weeds leading your men. Make sure you have excellent radio communications while you’re doing it, too, because I want updates from you every ten minutes, starting ten minutes from right now.”

  Then he turned to Patchett and continued, “Top, make sure those tanks are doing Colonel Eliason some good. I’m heading over to the artillery battery.”

  *****

  Patchett found the three M24 Chaffee tanks right where Sean had positioned them, hull-down, within easy striking distance of the road. When the shooting started, they’d cranked their engines so they’d be ready to move immediately if necessary. The only problem was that once those engines were running, they couldn’t hear much of the fight supposedly raging nearby.

  Patchett told the tanker platoon sergeant, “Why don’t you save y’all’s gas and shut them noisemakers down now? You might hear what’s going on that way…which, at the moment, is not a damn thing.”

  There was still that problem of their radios being incompatible with the infantry’s. Patchett asked the tanker platoon sergeant, “Talk to any of the dogfaces from Second Battalion?”

  “Yeah, Top. Some lieutenant came down from the ridge to ask what we were doing here. When I told him, all he said was Good luck and went back up the ridge. So we figure we’re on our own keeping the gook infantry off our backs.”

  The tankers had set themselves up accordingly: they’d circled the wagons, orienting their tanks in a three-pointed star, the bows facing out.

  Patchett said, “Well, I can see what y’all done…and it’s good, for now. But it ain’t gonna help a lick when some T-34s get behind us and come up that road from the south and they’ve got infantry with them. Y’all won’t be able to handle both if you ain’t got some dogfaces of your own.”

  The platoon sergeant looked surprised. “You don’t really think we’re going to see gook tanks popping up on the back side of this perimeter, do you, Top?”

  “Let me put it this way,” Patchett replied. “A bunch came at us from the north a while back, a few got their asses handed to them, and they pulled back. They could be working their way around to our back side right now.”

  “But they’ll need roads, and the only other roads run through the regiments on our flanks, Top. They’d have to get through them first.”

  “And they just might, bubba. They just might. I’m gonna go have me a little chat with that lieutenant. Maybe I can convince him that by saving your ass he just might be saving his own ass.”

  *****

  When Jock broached the question of battery defense to Captain Swanson, the artillery commander was stunned to realize that providing protection for his unit hadn’t been in Colonel Eliason’s plans. But he felt confident his own plan for the battery would be more than adequate. He offered Jock the sketch of his position’s defensive scheme.

  After studying the sketch for a few moments, Jock asked, “What are you planning on doing if you get hit from the south, Captain?”

  Swanson stammered his answer: “But, sir…the Koreans…they’re coming from the north, aren’t they?”

  “Generally speaking, Captain, you’re correct. But tactically speaking, they could be coming from any direction. I ask you again: what are you planning on doing if you get hit from the south?”

  Swanson looked dumbfounded, as if being asked to ponder the imponderable. He finally managed to say, “I suppose we could reorient the howitzers and use them in perimeter defense.”

  “Damn right you could,” Jock replied. “But let me ask you this: are your gun crews trained for that situation? And if they are, can they do it in the dark?”

  “Well, sir…I’m sure that…no, I suppose that they’ve had some—”

  “In other words, Captain, they wouldn’t have any idea what to do, would they?”

  There was no point trying to talk his way out of it anymore. Swanson replied, “No, sir. I don’t believe they would.”

  “Well, they don’t seem very busy right now. In fact, besides a couple of fire missions here and there, they haven’t been very busy all night. So this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to draw up a simple plan for all-around battery defense right now and have all your section chiefs briefed on that plan within thirty minutes. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  “Outstanding, Captain.”

  *****

  Sean Moon and his rocket teams had spent hours working their way back to the regiment. It had been slow going; the North Koreans always seemed to be blocking their path. They’d often been so close to the enemy that they could plainly hear them speaking, even laughing.

  Soldiers only laugh when they think they’re winning, Sean thought.

  The darkness was their only friend. Had it been daylight, the GIs would’ve never been able to eventually slip through the Korean lines and scale Hill 142.

  Assuming this even is Hill One-Four-Two, Sean told himself. We’ve been stumbling around in the dark for so long we might be someplace else.

  But if this really is the right damn hill, all we gotta do now is not get shot by our own guys.

  The higher they climbed, the less confidence he had that they wouldn’t attract friendly fire: Those GIs gotta be jumpy as all hell. And they’ll probably catch wind of us before we catch wind of them.

  But it actually worked the other way around. Sean spotted the dome-shaped silhouettes of GI helmets moving near the top of the hill. They hadn’t seen or heard his team’s approach. All he had to do now was call out the password.

  But before he did, he whispered to the man right behind him, “Everybody bury his fucking face in the dirt, just in case this don’t go right.
Pass it on.”

  When he felt certain his entire team was hugging earth, he called out, in his best Brooklynese, “Hey, youse guys, the Cleveland Indians stink on ice!”

  It seemed a safe bet: Cleveland was the password.

  The reply from the top of the hill was a hail of bullets.

  It lasted until the strident voice of someone—a sergeant, perhaps an officer—berated them to stop. As the last shot popped off, that voice said, “Did any of you fucking morons ever hear a fucking gook talk English like that?”

  Okay…definitely a sergeant.

  As they passed into the perimeter, Sean counted off his men.

  They were all there, safe and sound.

  Then he told the sergeant, “You guys better work on keeping your big heads down and your eyes open. I spotted your steel pots against the skyline way off. If I’d been a gook…”

  *****

  It was just after 0200 hours when Jock Miles walked into the regimental CP and saw Sean. He’d been briefing the S2—the regimental intelligence officer—on what they’d encountered in their travels among the North Koreans.

  After a recap for his benefit, Jock said, “So it looks like they’re trying to work their way around our position, correct?”

  “Sure looks that way, sir,” Sean replied.

  “I’m not surprised,” Jock said. “We’ve already had some activity on the back side of the perimeter. But let me ask you something, Sergeant Moon…did you see any evidence of friendly units on our flank while you were making your way back?”

  “Negative, sir. Not a damn bit of evidence.”

  Jock fell silent for a few moments, deep in thought. Then he said, “As if it’s not bad enough trying to lead an outfit that’s forgotten how to fight, I’ve got a nasty suspicion we’re about to be a cut-off outfit that’s forgotten how to fight.”

  Sean replied, “I’m wondering if forgotten is the right word, sir. It seems like most of these clowns never knew how in the first place.”

  “You could be right, Sergeant. But we’ve got to change all that, and quickly. By the way, you did a great job handling those T-34s. I take it those three point fives worked as advertised?”

  “Affirmative, sir. Guys who never even saw one before tonight killed two tanks right off the bat.”

  “Two? I thought you got three.”

  “Yeah, we did, sir, but I shot the third one myself, and I ain’t no virgin. We gotta get a resupply of rockets like yesterday, though. Looks like we’re fresh out now.”

  “Well, I’m damn glad you all made it back okay, Sergeant. We were really worried about you.”

  “We were pretty worried ourselves, sir. But if that damn radio hadn’t crapped out, I could’ve given you a heads-up what was going on with them gooks a hell of a lot sooner.”

  “Scrounge yourself a new set, and then go have a look at those Chaffees. Sergeant Patchett’s doing the best he can trying to integrate them into Second Battalion’s perimeter, but we could sure use your armor expertise. Once you get there, tell him that I need him coordinating the mutual support between our units on the hills.”

  *****

  At 0315 hours, the shrill din of dozens of police whistles announced the start of the attack: North Korean pincers struck the 26th Regiment from the north and south. The force from the north attacked with infantry and heavy mortars. A sharp-eyed GI on Hill 142 spotted the dim flashes of the mortars firing from over a mile away across the rice paddies. Two volleys from the American 105-millimeter howitzers silenced them before they could inflict much damage.

  Without mortar, artillery, or tank support, the Koreans attempting to scale Hill 142 faced withering fire from the troopers of 1st Battalion. Some GIs, however, still panicked and abandoned their dug-in positions at the first hint of pressure. When several squads broke and ran, the breach was only sealed when Patchett commandeered a quad 50—four .50-caliber machine guns mounted together and meant as an anti-aircraft weapon—and ordered its reluctant crew to tow it to the collapsing sector.

  As bullets whizzed around them, the terrified gunner screamed to Patchett, “I CAN’T SEE WHERE THE HELL THEY ARE.”

  Patchett replied, “YOU DON’T GOTTA SEE NOTHING, SON. JUST LEVEL THEM GUNS AND PULL THAT FUCKING TRIGGER.”

  Once the quad 50 began spitting its industrial death into the Koreans swarming over the hilltop, Patchett yelled, “NOW JUST KEEP SWEEPING THAT BASTARD BACK AND FORTH LIKE CLOCKWORK. THERE YOU GO, JUST LIKE THAT.”

  But enough Koreans reached the top of the hill to ensure a series of confused and deadly skirmishes would continue until one side found itself with no one left to fight.

  *****

  Across the highway, the North Korean attack on Hill 127—defended by 3rd Battalion—was far weaker, though as far as the GIs on that hill were concerned, they were up against the entire KPA. The battle quickly devolved into a confused melee of point-blank firing and hand-to-hand combat. Mortars and artillery would no longer play a part; bullets, bayonets, and sometimes fists would decide the outcome.

  Fleeing wasn’t much of an option when the enemy was right in their midst. A fight like this either quickly turned a man into a soldier or he quickly died.

  Neither side could tell who had the upper hand. But after about five minutes of mortal struggle between shadowy adversaries barely visible to each other, the shrill sound of whistles pierced the night once again, this time long blasts quite different from the rapid staccato pattern that had begun the attack. The fight slackened and then stopped.

  The GIs still held the hill. The only Koreans there with them were dead or badly wounded. The rest had heeded that primitive signal; they broke off their attack and retreated.

  *****

  From the top of Hill 142, the sound of another battle raged behind them. The attack from the south possessed two things the one from the north had lacked: the growling of tank engines; the boom of their heavy guns. T-34s had entered the fight once again. Whether they were the same ones Sean had fought off hours ago or a different group, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that they’d gotten around and behind 26th Regiment’s position.

  That meant there was no friendly unit protecting one—or maybe both—of their flanks.

  The GIs who had fled the line on Hill 142 realized there was no safe place to go. A group of senior NCOs found most of them huddled near the battalion CP. When one of the NCOs began bellowing a promise of a court-martial to every yellow-bellied coward who quit his post, Patchett pulled the man away so they wouldn’t be overheard. Then he told him, “If we court-martial every swinging dick who gets hisself a case of the chickenshits, you and me gonna be standing on this hill by our damn selves in no time flat. Let’s just do the jobs Uncle Sugar’s paying us for and get them back into their fighting holes, maybe even firing their weapons.”

  As they walked back to the group of anxious GIs, a thunderclap of heavy weaponry from the south echoed through the night air.

  “Besides,” Patchett added, “sounds like we just might be surrounded, so there ain’t no place to mosey off to, anyhow.”

  Chapter Seven

  The attack from the south—straight up the highway from the opposite direction into 2nd Battalion’s area—was the strongest of the night.

  Sean had made only one change to the Chaffees’ positioning, moving one of the tanks to a hull-down position a few hundred yards farther up the gentle backslope. “With her up a little higher,” he told the tank platoon sergeant, “all three of your tanks have unrestricted fields of fire. You can shoot in any direction without being in each other’s way, even if you have to shoot over each other’s heads.”

  But Colonel Eliason didn’t like it. Face to face, he told Sean, “I want those tanks spread out more, Sergeant…much more, dammit, so they can cover the entire west side of my position.”

  But there was no time to argue about it, however compelling Sean’s reasoning might have been to keep the armor consolidated. The attack had begun…

 
; And Colonel Eliason looked like a man racked with anxiety.

  “We need illumination rounds right away,” he said to his radioman.

  Sean interjected, “Maybe we hold off on that, sir? The gooks are in the open, no shadows or nothing for them to hide in. Plenty of moonlight. Why ruin our night vision?”

  Eliason fumbled for a good answer but couldn’t come up with one.

  “Besides,” Sean continued, “your machine guns got great fields of fire on this easy slope. Hell, it’s practically flat. Those guns interlock every which way. If you’re gonna use artillery, let’s have some HE airbursts. That oughta thin the gooks out real quick.”

  The colonel latched onto that suggestion, if for no other reason than it made him look decisive. Summoning his best command voice, he called the fire mission over the radio himself.

  No sooner was he done than a mortar round landed less than twenty yards away, mercifully showering them with nothing but dirt. But it was enough to send Eliason scurrying back up Hill 142.

  The noise of battle was constant now, with GI machine guns spraying bullets along their fixed fields of fire, creating a fence of invisible steel a man could only penetrate flat on his stomach. Over the machine gunners’ objections, Patchett had insisted they perform the onerous task of removing the tracers from their weapons’ ammo belts and replacing them with standard ball rounds. “Your gun’s already fixed where it needs to shoot,” he’d told them. “You don’t need no tracers pointing a big, bright finger right back at you.”

  Sean thought the battlefield seemed eerie without tracers. He’d always felt that firing tracers brought a certain level of satisfaction—a confirmation of your efforts and your lethality—to a night fight. But I’m looking at it as a tanker, he told himself. It ain’t no secret where a tank is once she fires, and bullets don’t bother her none, anyway. I guess a dogface sees it different. Once the bad guys figure out where he is, he’s in a world of trouble.