Combat Ineffective

by William Peter Grasso

  The challenge didn’t seem to daunt Appling. He replied, “We’ll do it if that’s what you need, sir.”

  “I needed it yesterday, Major, but fifteen minutes will have to do for now. Let’s hope that’s not too late. Now go and make it happen.”

  *****

  Jock liked the plan Colonel Lewis devised. It was just what he’d asked for, something real simple. Their reserve battalion—Major Appling’s 1st Battalion—would take positions on the low hills astride the main highway that ran straight into Taejon. Those positions were closer to the city than Jock would’ve liked—only two miles north of its outskirts—but by giving up distance to gain some time, he hoped it would give the trucks carrying Appling’s battalion the best chance of getting to that high ground before the KPA.

  Jock had a special mission for Sean Moon: “Take the napalm you’ve still got on that deuce to First Battalion’s new position on the highway. Put it to the best use you can find.”

  The best use would be one that stopped tanks, but when Sean reached the defensive line 1st Battalion was hastily cobbling together, Major Appling had a different take on how to use the napalm. “The pass through the hills is too broad to use the foo-gas, Sergeant,” he told Sean. “Those bombs won’t be able to throw the flames far enough to block even half its width. But I think my guys have found another place we can use the stuff.”

  He led Sean to the peak of what appeared to be a broad, smooth slope, steep but much easier to scale on foot than the craggy hills and gullies that flanked it. “If I was a gook infantry leader,” Appling said, “and I had to storm these hills, I’d do it right here. It’s an easy climb, especially if they can walk mortar or artillery rounds in front of them. This would be the place to penetrate…everywhere else looks like their forces will be canalized and easy to cut down.”

  “I see what you’re getting at, Major,” Sean replied. “But you realize we only got four barrels of the stuff left, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do. What’s your point, Sergeant?”

  “My point is that the napalm’s gonna be a one-shot deal, sir. We may torch the first wave coming up the hill, but the fire’s not gonna last forever.”

  “Who says we have to use it all at once, Sergeant? How about we set up two barrels near the base and the other two about halfway up?”

  That idea had promise: those who managed to get past the first shower of flames would climb straight into another one. But setting it up was easier said than done. “Getting those two barrels up the hill’s gonna be pretty tough, sir,” Sean replied. “The slope’s too steep for the deuce. We’re gonna have to manhandle them into position. Maybe there’s a way we could get the deuce on top of this hill and roll them down? That’d be a little easier.”

  “Doesn’t look like it, Sergeant,” Appling replied. “It’s pretty rugged around here.”

  “Well, we’ll give it a shot, Major. But we’d better set up the bottom two first, just in case we never get the top two where you want ’em.”

  *****

  Jock had given Patchett a special mission, too: “Now that Appling’s battalion isn’t right behind them anymore, make damn sure Second and Third Battalion are covering their own asses.”

  “Will do, sir,” Patchett replied. “But maybe while I’m doing that, I take a recon patrol through that gap between Major Appling’s boys and the rest of us? Might give us a better picture of what the hell we’re up against.”

  “Good idea, Patch. Go ahead and do it, but do me one favor, too.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “Try to make sure our own guys don’t start reporting your patrol as gooks in the gap. This night’s going to be confusing enough without throwing in some friendly fire incidents, too.”

  “Amen to that, sir.”

  *****

  Sean and his team of KATUSA had two napalm barrels emplaced at the bottom of the slope in a matter of minutes. Now they had to run the wires from the detonators to the peak. One of the KATUSA grabbed a reel and started sprinting uphill.

  Sean called him back. “Glad to see you’re so fucking eager,” he told the Korean, “but I’m here to tell you that you’ll be shot dead as soon as you get near the top. No offense or nothing, but you don’t look or sound even close to American. So hand that reel over to Smithers, okay? Let him take it up. He don’t look like no Asian.”

  Then Sean assembled his Koreans and said, “Did you guys ever hear the story about the idiot who rolled some big fucking rock up a hill over and over again because it kept rolling back down on him?”

  When he got nothing but blank looks, he said, “Well, after this fucking exercise, my friends, you’ll know that story by heart, because you will have lived it.”

  Undaunted, the six KATUSA began to roll another barrel of napalm down the long wooden planks from the bed of the deuce. This would be the ninth one they’d taken off the truck that night.

  It was, however, the first one that toppled from the planks. Every man there was sure the resounding THUD the barrel made as it struck the ground was the last sound they’d ever hear before the inferno consumed them.

  But seconds passed and there was no flame, just the echo from that impact of metal with earth. The Koreans and GIs in attendance could do nothing but stare, open-mouthed, at the barrel as it lay on its side, fixated on the cremation from which they’d apparently been granted a reprieve.

  They kept staring as Sean sauntered right up to the barrel and began inspecting it for leaks. Surprisingly, he even rolled the two-hundred-pound barrel a few inches—a one-armed push that seemed effortless—to check the complete circumference of the lid.

  “The bastard’s leaking a little,” he announced, “so don’t get none of this shit on you while you’re pushing it up that hill. Even if it don’t catch fire, it’ll eat your skin right off.”

  Pointing to a large rock, he told the smallest KATUSA, “You…you just volunteered to be the chock master. When they gotta stop and change horses, stick that rock under the barrel so it don’t roll away on you.”

  The Herculean task began. Slowly up the hill they went, five Koreans and one GI in two alternating teams, grunting from the extreme effort, rolling that leaking barrel. In its wake, it painted a thin, glistening ribbon of napalm along the slope.

  Watching the team begin their ascent, Sean told the deuce’s driver, “Move your truck a hundred yards forward.”

  “How come, Sarge?”

  “Because, numbnuts, if that son of a bitching barrel comes rolling back down, it just might hit this fucking vehicle. And we might not be so lucky that it don’t blow this time.”

  “But there’s still one more barrel to unload,” the driver said.

  “So what? You can drive in reverse, can’t you? When I give you three blinks of the flashlight, get your ass back here.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Patchett kept his recon patrol light: four men plus himself, with the heaviest weapon a BAR. “Remember,” he told his GIs, “this is a recon patrol. Who’s gonna tell me what that means?”

  The first GI to raise his hand was a Negro corporal named Potts, who replied, “It means we’re just supposed to observe and report. We’re not supposed to engage the enemy unless we have no choice.”

  “Very good, Corporal Potts,” Patchett said. “That’s exactly right. Any of y’all got a question about what the corporal just explained to you so well?”

  When no hands went up, Patchett added, “So I can rest easy that no one’s gonna start popping off rounds for no damn good reason and get us all dead, then, right?”

  He didn’t get any answers. He hadn’t expected any.

  Then he said, “I’ve gotta go check in with your battalion commander for a minute. Corporal Potts, you’re top dog while I’m gone. Fill that time by doing a final check on every man’s equipment before we head out.”

  As Patchett made his way back several minutes later, he was waylaid by one of the patrol’s men, a PFC named Redfield, who asked, “Ho
w come you put that nigger Pott-hole in charge of us, Sarge? You and me both come from places where that just ain’t right.”

  Locking him in a steely gaze, Patchett replied, “Oh, excuse me, Private, but I don’t recollect you being the one who decides what’s right in this man’s army.”

  Redfield looked offended, as if Patchett had just spoken sacrilege. “I never figured you for a nigger lover, Sarge,” he said.

  “I’m gonna cut you just a little bit of slack, Private, since you don’t seem to know shit about nothing. But I’ll give you a little insight into this sergeant standing here: love don’t never come into it, because I ain’t too fond of none of you whipdicks. Truth be known, I dislike you all, but since I pride myself on being a fair man, I dislike you all exactly the same. You’d better get one thing through your head, though, and damn quick: Uncle Sam put two stripes on that man’s sleeve, and that’s one more than you got, son. So if Corporal Potts tells you to lick shit, you’d best hop to it. Is that clear?”

  Redfield grumbled his acquiescence.

  Cocking an ear, Patchett said, “I didn’t hear you, son.”

  “I said yeah, that’s clear.”

  “That’s clear, what?”

  “That’s clear, Sergeant.”

  “Outstanding. I think you and me gonna get along just fine, Private Redfield. Now let’s knock off the chitchat and get our asses back to work.”

  *****

  Patchett’s patrol didn’t have to walk very far to find the North Koreans; they could hear the idling tank engines from half a mile away. The GIs crept closer, concealing their approach by duck-walking along a shallow ditch. They stopped when they heard voices shouting in Korean over the rumble of the tanks. A stand of scrawny trees was all that separated them from a massed force of KPA that didn’t seem to be moving.

  Alone among those trees, two Koreans were engaged in a heated argument. Even though he couldn’t see their uniforms or understand a word they were saying, Patchett surmised they were officers.

  Corporal Potts had crawled next to Patchett. He whispered, “What do you reckon they’re arguing about, Sarge?”

  “Don’t rightly know. Maybe tactics, maybe a woman. But one thing’s for damn sure: when the officers are arguing, it’s a real good sign they’re fucked up. And that just might be in our favor.”

  Potts asked, “How many KPA do you think are out there?”

  Never taking his eyes off the silhouettes of the arguing men, Patchett replied, “I’m hearing a lot of tanks, so I’m guessing there’s more than one company of armor. If that’s true, there’ll be at least two battalions of infantry, maybe a whole damn regiment. Funny thing, though…they’re probably not real sure how many men they’ve got at the moment, neither. Moving fast in the dark does that to you.”

  “Maybe that’s what they’re arguing about,” Potts offered.

  “Could be.”

  There was no mistaking the body language now; one of the men was dismissing the other, sending him back toward the sound of the tank engines. But the superior officer didn’t follow. Instead, he began to walk in the opposite direction, one that would bring him closer to Patchett and his men.

  With a brisk hand signal, Patchett ordered his men to stay down, don’t move.

  Now clear of the trees, the Korean was standing at the edge of the ditch some ten yards from the nearest GI but oblivious to their presence. He opened his trousers and began to urinate.

  He never heard Patchett crawling up behind him.

  The mortal wound was administered quickly and silently. As he hitched his pants, he was seized from behind; a hand over his mouth jerked his head back.

  Then a bayonet sliced through his throat.

  The Korean’s strength ebbed as the blood gushed from the severed vessels in his neck. Patchett had little trouble forcing him down into the ditch.

  He was dead in less than a minute.

  Patchett released his grip and motioned his patrol to come closer. As they did, he could make out the horrified looks on their faces. They’d seen plenty of death in their short time in Korea, but this had been much different. Before, the killing had seemed so impersonal, random slaughter indifferently administered by a faceless adversary at a great distance.

  But there was nothing random, indifferent, or impersonal in what Patchett had just done. They’d witnessed every moment of it, death as a cataclysm delivered by hand, not bullets, grenades, or shells.

  And for some inexplicable reason, death was far more disturbing served up that way. In their minds, what they’d just witnessed wasn’t combat; it was murder, plain and simple, in all its cold, primal fury.

  “What are you touch-holes gawking at?” Patchett asked. “Hope y’all were paying attention, because that’s how it’s done when you gotta keep it quiet. Any old hand will tell you that. Corporal Potts, clean out this man’s pockets. Treat any documents you find like they’re hundred-dollar bills.”

  Then he took the handset from the RTO and called for artillery on the KPA units assembled beyond the tree line.

  *****

  They were emplacing the last barrel of napalm on the slope when the first rounds of GI artillery whistled over their heads. “I hope to hell they know what they’re shooting at,” Sean said, looking up into the night sky. “They ain’t got rounds to waste.”

  He gathered his team and told them, “Remember the leaking barrel? That son of a bitch left a trail all the way up from the base of this damn hill. We gotta break up that trail. Otherwise, when the bottom barrels blow, it’s gonna burn like a fuse to these upper barrels and they’ll blow too soon, while the gooks are still dancing around the fire down by the base. All your hard work getting these two up the slope’s gonna be for nothing. Take the shovels and get to it, on the double.”

  Sean headed for the top of the hill. No sooner had his team started breaking up the napalm trail, the KPA attack began. All but two of Sean’s men dropped their shovels and began a panicky sprint up the hill. The two who remained were KATUSA.

  They continued their task, wielding their shovels with seeming indifference to the bullets flying around them. They didn’t hear Sean calling them back; the sound of his voice was lost in the tumult of gunfire.

  “I gotta go get those dumbasses, sir,” Sean told Major Appling.

  “The hell you will, Sergeant,” Appling replied. “I’m not trading you for two useless gooks.”

  The rest of Sean’s men—two GIs and four KATUSA—made it safely to the top of the hill just as illum rounds from 1st Battalion’s mortars began to light the battlefield. KPA infantrymen were racing toward the base of the hill, firing their rifles and submachine guns as they ran. They didn’t bother freezing in their tracks in the harsh glare of the flares, as well-trained soldiers normally would. They were too close now to their objective to worry about their movement giving them away; the GIs already knew they were there.

  “Hit the foo-gas,” Appling ordered.

  With a quick twist of a detonator handle, the two barrels at the base of the hill flung their liquid fire across the path of the unsuspecting KPA soldiers, setting about a dozen of them ablaze. The rest—a number far too large to count—came to a halt.

  “They don’t know whether to shit or go blind,” Sean said. “But they ain’t running away, so I’m guessing they’re figuring out a path through them flames.”

  The trail of napalm from the leaking barrel ignited at the base of the hill just as Sean thought it would. The two KATUSA had done their work well, though; the stream of fire stopped well short of the higher barrels.

  But before they could start their escape up the hill, both men dropped from sight.

  “Did they just get hit?” Appling asked.

  Sean replied, “Who the hell knows, sir.”

  “We’ve got to blow those other two barrels in a couple of seconds,” Appling said. “If those KATUSA are still alive, they’re going to be right in the shit.”

  “I know it, sir. Fucking shame either
way.”

  Then Appling said, “We’ve got this covered here, Sergeant. I need you to get over to the highway and keep my anti-tank crews straight.”

  As Sean started to leave, Appling added, “I don’t know how you motivated those Korean boys, Sergeant, but what we just saw them do was the greatest act of courage I’ve seen since I set foot in this shithole.”

  “Don’t pin no medal on me, sir,” Sean muttered. “All I did was get the poor bastards killed.”

  For all the world, he wished that wasn’t true. But he knew better.

  *****

  Sean met up with Jock Miles on one of the peaks overlooking the highway. “How the hell did you get here, sir?” he asked. “There must be a couple thousand gooks between here and the other two battalions now.”

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question, Sergeant. All I can say is, it’s a damn good thing we made it before the sky got lit up like Christmas with illum rounds. Talk about being a sitting duck. But we’ve got a problem. A big one. Look over there…”

  He was pointing to a tree line on the plateau well behind Major Appling’s defensive positions along the high ground. “There are four or five T-34s hidden in there. With accompanying infantry.”

  Sean could see nothing but shadows. He asked, “How the hell did they get there, sir?”

  “They drove right down the highway, right through the gap in the ridge. The KPA infantry managed to suppress our anti-tank teams. Our guys were only able to knock out one tank.”

  Sean could see that tank, partially hidden in shadow where it had fallen off the roadway. Abandoned, with one track mired in a roadside ditch and its turret askew, it looked forlorn, like a wounded animal trying, yet failing, to hide.

  “How bad did the anti-tank boys get hit, sir?”

  “Pretty bad, I’m told. Most of the three point five teams got out okay, but we can pretty much kiss off the recoilless rifles. They got shellacked.”