Combat Ineffective

by William Peter Grasso

  Patchett was about to ask him how his leg felt, but then thought against it. Jock was showing no problems with mobility. He seemed to relish the chance to be on the ground among his troops.

  Maybe I’ll just keep my damn mouth shut, Patchett thought.

  There was only one more skirmish with the KPA. Mortar rounds began to rain down on the foot column, sending Jock’s troopers scurrying for cover in terrain that had little cover to offer. The FO in the spotter plane couldn’t immediately locate their firing position.

  “I’d bet my life those tubes are just behind that hill over yonder,” Patchett said.

  Jock had no reason to doubt his sergeant’s instincts. He called for Banjo Flight to strafe the back side of the hill.

  They did, and the mortar fire stopped.

  *****

  There’d been a point in the afternoon when critical radio traffic had died off. Sean took that opportunity to confirm who Banjo Leader really was.

  “Banjo Leader from Montana Four-Six,” he called, “need a geography check, over.”

  Tommy smiled; he knew who was doing the asking.

  “What’s on the northeast corner of Seaview and Remsen?” Sean asked.

  “That’s easy..the DeeDee. DiBennedetti’s Deli. I guess you’ve been to Canarsie, too.”

  Sean said, “You bet I have. But I thought I told you to stay out of trouble, little brother.”

  “And I thought I told you the same thing.”

  Chapter Eleven

  There was less than an hour of daylight left when the exhausted infantrymen of 26th Regiment dragged themselves across a bridge over the Kum River. Sean Moon was waiting for them; he’d been tasked by Lieutenant Colonel Lewis with leading the column to their designated sector in the division’s defense of Taejon.

  “These guys look like death warmed over,” Sean said to Patchett, who didn’t look tired in the least. “It was only a ten-mile march, for cryin’ out loud.”

  Patchett couldn’t agree more. “You should’ve heard some of the bellyaching about how they hadn’t slept much in a couple of weeks. I told them that in the last war, we didn’t sleep much for a couple of years. These boys got nothing but fat and stupid pulling occupation duty in Japan, that’s for damn sure.”

  Then he added, “We’re gonna have to sit on their fool heads all damn night to keep ’em awake so they don’t get themselves bayoneted in their sleep.”

  The Kum River formed a natural barrier to the north, east, and west of Taejon, nestling the city’s wooden sprawl in an inverted U that spanned forty miles at its widest point. The division would make its stand here, at the river’s edge, seeking to maximize the obstacle the deep water would present to the advancing KPA.

  Twenty-Sixth Regiment had been assigned the eastern flank of the defensive line, rugged country through which the river cut a meandering path, curving back on itself like a snake preparing to strike. Within those curves were numerous points which could be turned into dangerous salients by a determined attacker or bottlenecks by an equally determined defender.

  “You ain’t gonna think much of what Colonel Lewis got staked out for us, sir,” Sean told Jock and Patchett. “All these things he calls strongpoints ain’t nothing of the sort. They’re all on low ground, right up against the riverbank. The gooks’ll punch through ’em like tissue paper once they get across the river. And he’s completely ignoring the high ground right behind us. That’s where we should be.”

  Without even seeing the terrain Sean had described, they were inclined to agree. It was Patchett who replied, “I’ve got a hunch Colonel Lewis had a lot of help from Division thinking up this little gem, right?”

  “Can’t fool you infantry types, can I? But you’re right on the money. General Keane gave him a personal tour when we got here. Practically painted lines on the ground for him. Even told him where we should dig the latrines. A real hands-on kind of guy. Too bad that ain’t his job.”

  By the time they’d marched to their assigned area, there were only minutes of daylight left. Jock announced, “To hell with the darkness. We’ve got to get ourselves up into those hills right now. I’m not going to be stuck down on the low ground of that riverbank when the gooks start swimming across.”

  “I figured you might say that, sir,” Sean replied, “so I took the liberty of setting up guidelines into the hills so our guys can climb ’em in the dark without killing themselves. Some of it’s pretty treacherous even in broad daylight.”

  Patchett said, “Pretty good idea, coming from a tanker.”

  Sean ignored him and continued, “Had to do a hell of a lot of haggling with the locals to come up with the rope, but it didn’t end up costing much.”

  “What’d you have to give them for it?” Jock asked.

  “Nothing we can’t live without, sir—a couple cases of fruit juice and a whole lotta cigarettes.”

  Jock asked, “What did Colonel Lewis have to say about it, by the way?”

  Sean just shrugged and replied, “He pitched a fit, but he didn’t try to stop me. Probably figured it was safer to pass the buck to you. Oh, and by the way, sir, General Keane wants to see you ASAP. I’ll take you to his CP whenever you’re ready.”

  “Sure,” Jock said, “but give us a couple of minutes to get the lay of the land first. Once we’ve done that, I’ll ask you, Sergeant Patchett, to dole out the assignments to the battalion commanders.”

  “Are you thinking two up and one back in reserve again, sir?” Patchett asked.

  “You read my mind, Sergeant.”

  “That’s my job, sir.”

  *****

  General Keane’s CP was in the terminal building of the Taejon railroad station. As they pulled up in front, Sean relinquished the wheel, telling Jock, “She’s all yours, sir. I’ve got something I need to check out over at the airfield.”

  “Won’t you need a vehicle for that, Sergeant? It’s quite a walk, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it would be, but I’m taking that deuce over there. I need the cargo capacity.”

  That brought a smile to Jock’s face. “Oh? What are you looking to appropriate now?”

  “Napalm, sir.”

  “What are we going to do with it?”

  “Tank traps, sir. You’ve heard of foo-gas, right?”

  Jock looked skeptical. “Yeah, I have. But have you ever used anything like that before?”

  “No, but I’ve watched the engineers do it plenty. It’s no big deal. And believe me, sir, the only thing a tanker hates worse than a round breeching his hull is his tank sitting in a pool of fire.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Sergeant.”

  Inside the CP, Jock had expected to find a beehive of frantic activity. Instead, he found just a few officers, their faces grim masks of defeat, pacing sullenly in front of large-scale maps hung on a wall. They were struggling to put some order to the hodgepodge of red and black lines sketched in grease pencil on the acetate overlays. A bank of GI radio and switchboard operators lined the wall opposite the maps; morose and beyond frustration, they repeated the same calls over and over again, seeking persons or units that would never reply. When one finally did get a response, he called with great urgency to the officers at the map, as if something thought hopelessly lost had miraculously been found.

  Jock summed up the scene before him: They’re not sure where the hell most of their units are. And they don’t know where the North Koreans are, either.

  No wonder this whole damn division’s got bug-out fever.

  General Keane was seated at a desk in a corner of the room, looking very much the portrait of a man showing a brave face to the certainty of disaster. “Miles,” he called out, “glad you’re finally here. Are all your men across the river?”

  “Yes, sir, they are.”

  “Good.”

  Keane summoned one of the officers at the map, telling him, “The Twenty-Sixth is across. Blow the bridges.” That began a new flurry of activity for the radio and telephone operator
s.

  The general turned his attention back to Jock, asking, “I assume you agree that our situation here at Taejon is bleak, Colonel?”

  “It would seem so, sir,” Jock replied. He wanted to say more but didn’t. Maybe it showed.

  “You hedge, Colonel. What is it you want to say?”

  “I realize I’m the new guy here, sir, but a couple of things are painfully obvious. The KPA has us outgunned at the moment. Nobody’s disputing that. But we’re being routed repeatedly, even though we still have the capability to conduct an orderly delaying action. I think my regiment proved that last night.”

  Keane blew out a sigh of frustration. “We’ve already been through this, Miles. Your unit was subject to a much lighter attack than my other two regiments.”

  “With all due respect, General, I disagree. You saw the battlefield. There were at least two hundred KPA casualties around our position, and that’s not counting the ones they were able to drag off. We destroyed nearly a dozen of their tanks, without having any capable tanks of our own. In my book, that indicates we absorbed—and beat back—a major assault.”

  “That’s not the way Tokyo sees it, Miles.”

  “Then Tokyo better open its eyes, sir.”

  Keane paused, shuffling through a stack of dispatches on his desk. Finding the one he wanted, he said, “Well, maybe they have, Colonel. Let me share with you what they have in mind so you’ll fully understand what we’ve been ordered to do here at Taejon.”

  Keane went on to describe MacArthur’s plan to create a deep perimeter anchored around the port city of Pusan in the southeast corner of Korea, some 120 miles to the south of Taejon. Through that port—half a day’s sail across the strait separating it from Japan—would flow the reinforcements to check the KPA onslaught. Holding that perimeter would prevent the American and ROK forces currently facing the KPA from being pushed into the sea. Ultimately, the perimeter would serve as a base for their counterattack.

  “To ensure that the North Koreans don’t get to Pusan before our reinforcements,” Keane concluded, “we’ve been ordered to hold the line here at Taejon.”

  Jock didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.

  “Hold the line, General? For how long?”

  “As long as it takes, Colonel Miles.”

  That sounds suspiciously like “at all costs,” Jock told himself. He’d worked for MacArthur too long in the last war not to see the same denials of reality that made the early campaigns in Papua a living hell—and often a death sentence—for those serving under him. It was happening all over again here in Korea: the refusal to recognize an enemy’s capabilities, especially if that enemy was Asian and thereby inferior in the minds of MacArthur and his sycophants; the careless throwing of his own poorly prepared troops into battle; the tactical plans based on political fantasies rather than situations on the ground; the refusal to take responsibility for the defeats that inevitably resulted.

  Jock said, “I was in the fight for Buna, sir, back in the last war. It was a MacArthur fuckup just like his operation here in Korea. I still remember what he told the general in command: Take Buna or don’t come back alive. Nobody doubted he meant it literally, either. So my question is this, sir: Are we being asked to make a last stand here at Taejon? Because if we try to hang on to this city to the last man, that man will be dead in less than a week and Pusan will be in the hands of the KPA before any reinforcements can step off the boat.”

  Keane was obviously rattled by the question. Jock thought he knew why: It’s not that I had the temerity to speak my mind. It’s that General Keane never realized what the message between the lines of MacArthur’s order was…

  Until just now.

  But the general regained his composure quickly. “I’ve read your file, Colonel. I know how experienced you are. So I ask you, how do you propose we prevent a collapse like you describe from happening?”

  “I think we need to employ mobile blocking forces, sir,” Jock replied, “that can ward off attacks from any direction. The KPA has proved adept at getting behind our static positions time and time again. If each regiment uses its mobile reserve like I did with mine back at Chongju, we have flexibility to counter KPA breakthroughs, meeting force with force, and cover our own ass at the same time. We’ll give ground for sure, but we’ll do it at a more measured pace, one over which we have at least some control, and give Tokyo the weeks they need to build up Pusan.”

  “But mobility requires good radio communications,” Keane replied, “and our commo capabilities are getting worse by the hour.”

  “Maybe so, sir, but if we keep the majority of the working sets with the mobile reserves and emphasize landline commo for the dug-in positions, we’ve got a chance to stay in touch with all our units across the board. Your RTOs and switchboard people won’t waste so much time trying to contact units that have been knocked off the air or haven’t been wired in yet.”

  “I see your point, Colonel,” Keane said. “It’s worth a try. But there’s a few more things we need to talk about.” Then the general lowered his voice, leaned in close, and asked, “This Colonel Eliason you’ve cut loose. As short of officers as you are, is that really what you want to do?”

  “Affirmative, sir. He’s not cut out to command a fighting battalion.”

  “Well, I’m assigning him to a staff slot in another regiment.”

  “I wish them all the luck in the world, sir.”

  “What about your Colonel Bryant? Heart attack, was it?”

  “Yes, sir. He never should’ve been here in the first place. Wasn’t fit enough.”

  There was a challenge in Keane’s voice as he asked, “What about you, Colonel? That leg of yours?”

  “My leg’s fine, sir.”

  “All right, then…I’m counting on that to be true. Now one more thing…we’ve picked up some replacement troops. My adjutant has already assigned a contingent to your Colonel Lewis.”

  “Replacements, sir? Where’d they come from?”

  “They come from Korea, Colonel. They’re KATUSA.”

  Jock knew what KATUSA meant: Korean Augmentation to the United States Army. A few might be ROKs from a disintegrated unit, but most were untrained draftees. Supposedly, they all spoke enough English to be integrated into an American outfit. Without training, though, their immediate usefulness to that unit was about nil.

  Even with training, Jock envisioned a host of problems absorbing them into American units, problems MacArthur refused to consider, no doubt, when he hatched this scheme.

  Sensing Jock’s resistance to the idea, Keane said, “They’re warm bodies, Colonel, and right now, beggars can’t be choosers. Any more questions?”

  When Jock shook his head, Keane added, “Then I’ve got another one for you, Jock Miles. How do you rate the North Koreans as soldiers?”

  “I rate them highly, sir. They’re tough and highly disciplined. The Soviets taught them well, and so many of them have combat experience with the Japanese Army in the last war as well as the Red Chinese in their war against the Nationalists.”

  “General MacArthur would disagree with your assessment, Miles.”

  “I’m not surprised, sir. But with all due respect, our main problem is we’re being led by a man who’s never set foot on the Asian mainland yet considers himself the leading authority on all things Asian.”

  Jock paused, expecting a rebuke.

  But he didn’t get one, so he continued, “Getting back to the KPA, sir, from what I can see, they have all the same command and control problems as the Russians.”

  “What do you mean, Colonel?”

  “Their coordination in the attack looks pretty poor, sir. If the battle doesn’t go exactly according to plan for them, cohesion between units falls apart quickly, as if subordinate commanders can’t—or won’t—take the initiative. Once we’ve got those units fighting individually, without mutual support, they can be defeated piecemeal…provided our troops don’t give them a break by running away.”<
br />
  “Are you saying our men are cowards, Miles?”

  “No, sir. I’m saying they lack combat discipline. It’s never been trained into those GIs who joined postwar. Occupation duty in Japan was more a bunch of guys in green on a sightseeing tour than an army maintaining its readiness.”

  He paused, wondering if he’d gone too far; if occupation duty in Japan was a sightseeing tour, that would make General Keane one of the tour guides. Again, he waited for a rebuke that never came, so he added, “But now that they’re stuck in the middle of this fight, they’ll develop that discipline pretty damn quick…if we can keep them from bugging out at the mere sight of the enemy, that is.”

  *****

  It took Jock longer than he thought to drive back to his regimental CP. It was pitch black and the route was still new to him. He’d crept along in the jeep, its blackout lights providing just enough light to see a few feet of the dirt road in front of him. He cursed himself for not taking a driver; having to be both driver and navigator was forcing him to stop frequently so he could check the map. The process was eating up too much time.

  And I haven’t seen the first guidepost along the road pointing to the CP. Surely Patchett would’ve made sure they were set out properly. Nobody will find anything in a new position in the dark without them.

  Have I not driven far enough yet?

  Or did I miss the turn already?

  After he’d driven another hundred yards or so, he was convinced he’d missed it. He was about to reverse direction when, just ahead, he saw the outline of something moving on the road, something big and boxy, visible only because its edges were just slightly darker than the envelope of night.

  It’s a truck…completely blacked out…moving real slow toward me.

  Is it one of mine?

  Is it even GI?

  Taking the jeep out of low gear and letting it roll, he pulled his carbine from the floorboard and cradled it in his left arm, ready to fire if necessary.