Combat Ineffective

by William Peter Grasso

  But right before noon, General Keane arrived at Jock’s CP. It was no surprise the general would be bearing bad news; right behind his jeep were vehicles transporting that same ROK captain from earlier with his squad of MPs.

  “You’ve gotten my ass in a sling with Tokyo again, Miles,” the general said. “MacArthur’s HQ has directed that we are not—repeat not—to interfere in the political workings of the South Korean government. Any Korean civilians you’re harboring are to be turned over to ROK authorities immediately.”

  As if those words weren’t hard enough for Jock and his staff to swallow, the smirk on the ROK captain’s face made them furious.

  “This is bullshit, sir,” Jock said. “These men are working their asses off to help us. They’re no more dissidents then you and me. They’re just on some government bigwig’s shitlist.”

  Keane shrugged. “It’s out of my hands, Colonel, and most definitely out of yours. Those are your orders. Don’t let me hear of this again.” Then he returned to his jeep and drove off.

  Jock was sure he’d never forget the looks of betrayal leveled his way as the Korean dissidents were marched out of the CP by the ROK MPs. They weren’t even loaded onto the truck waiting to transport them but marched down the street and around a corner.

  Within moments, one volley of shots rang out, followed by a sickening silence. A disgusted Patchett broke that silence when he said, “If y’all never heard a firing squad before, I’m here to tell you that you just did.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was near midnight, but there’d been no attack on Taejon. Despite the welcome quiet that blessed them this night, the defenders of that city knew that they’d only been granted a temporary reprieve. By all accounts, the day’s airstrikes against the KPA supply depots had been successful. But nothing was ever one hundred percent effective, and fuel was portable. Unless USAF strategic bombers could pinpoint and destroy that fuel at its source deep within North Korea—a daunting and dangerous undertaking for the handful of B-29s in the Far East—it would quickly find its way south again.

  And when the North Koreans reestablished depots in the vicinity of Taejon, the Americans probably wouldn’t be lucky enough to have captured intelligence as to their location again.

  In the years he and Patchett had served together, Jock had rarely seen Patchett sleep when their unit was in the field. This tour was proving no different. Having just risen from the one-hour nap he’d allowed himself on a cot in the CP, he found the sergeant at the regimental switchboard, checking in with critical emplacements throughout the regiment.

  “Gotta let them know somebody’s awake and on their ass, sir,” he told his groggy commander, who took it for the good-natured ribbing it was intended to be. Then he added, “I’ve got Sergeant Moon paying surprise visits to the outposts, too. If that big Yankee sumbitch doesn’t scare them awake, I don’t know what will. He should be back real soon.”

  “It’s all quiet, then, Top?”

  “Pretty much, sir. Just one little personnel ripple over in Second Battalion. After Major Harper had to shuffle some people around, a few of the good ol’ boys weren’t too crazy about being teamed up with coloreds.”

  “What’d Major Harper do about it?”

  “Followed your policy, sir. Read his NCOs the riot act. Reminded them that if they wanted to keep their stripes, they’d make damn sure their people were working together.”

  “Did that do the trick, Top?”

  “About as good as anything else is right now, sir.”

  Patchett poured some coffee into his canteen cup and then settled onto a camp stool. In the harsh shadows of the lantern’s light, his weathered face suddenly looked every bit of his fifty years.

  “We’re gonna lose this round, you know,” he said to Jock.

  “Looks that way, Top.”

  The weariness obvious in his voice, Patchett asked, “What the hell happened to this Army of ours, sir? It’s like the brass don’t remember a damn thing they learned beating the Japs and Krauts.”

  “You’d sure think that, wouldn’t you? But this mess we’re in right now is the result of one colossal high-level snafu after another, going all the way back to Forty-Five.”

  “So you’re saying it’s MacArthur’s fault, sir?”

  “You bet it is. He was so busy playing king in Japan he let the Army around him turn to shit. I was horrified by what I was seeing those months I was with KMAG. The entire Eighth Army became a nice, safe place to pick up some command time and get your ticket punched for promotion. So many of the light colonels and colonels around here are too old, too slow, and too locked in the past to move up in the real world. But in MacArthur’s little fantasy kingdom, where all the usual standards got scattered to the winds, they got themselves a second chance.”

  Jock paused to rub his aching leg. Then he added, “And nobody, and I mean nobody, from the top on down, ever thought they’d actually have to fight here. Once again, MacArthur underestimated his Asian enemy.”

  Raising his canteen cup as if making a toast, Patchett replied, “Amen to that, sir.”

  But he’d watched Jock minister to his leg.

  “How’s it doing, that leg of yours?”

  “It’s okay, Top. Just the usual stiffness.”

  Patchett wasn’t sure he believed him, but he let it go at that.

  *****

  The sunrise found Banjo Flight back at full strength. Captain Pete Sublette, whose Banjo Four had been forced down yesterday, was back with them, flying an F-51 whose regular pilot had been stricken with dysentery. Sublette hadn’t quite made it to an emergency landing at Taejon Airfield yesterday; the overheating engine seized while still three miles out. After belly-landing in a marsh, he’d slogged the half mile on foot to the airfield’s perimeter, barely avoiding being shot by jumpy ROK soldiers defending the place. Hitching a ride on a courier flight back to K-9, he hadn’t even missed supper.

  Banjo Flight was ten minutes from Taejon when the call for air support spilled from their headphones. The airfield there was under attack.

  “Here’s the thing, Banjo Leader,” the FAC radioed. “It’s not an armored attack, just infantry, near as I can tell. We’re going to have a hell of a time figuring out who’s who on the ground.”

  Tommy knew what he meant. Few things were harder than sorting out the players in a ground combat action from a speeding aircraft. Everyone looks alike from the air. If your targets weren’t clearly marked somehow, you were bound to hurt friendly troops.

  When they arrived over the airfield, the opposing infantry forces—ROK and KPA—looked like several roughly parallel lines of ants all moving in the same direction, sweeping across the airfield from west to east. The FAC said, “I figure the easternmost group is the ROKs running away. It looks like a safe bet that the westernmost line—maybe a few of the western lines—are the KPA. Everybody in between, who knows?”

  Tommy asked, “Any chance of the ROKs identifying themselves with smoke?”

  “I’ve got pretty crummy commo with them,” the FAC replied, “but I’ll give it a try.”

  He asked the ROK elements to pop red smoke. Within ten seconds, every element on the ground had popped red smoke.

  “Clever bastards, those KPA,” the FAC said. “They’re monitoring us, and they’ve probably captured more of our smoke grenades than we’ve still got on hand. Switch frequency to tac six. I’ll try again.”

  It didn’t help. Within seconds of his new request for yellow smoke, all ground elements, friend and foe alike, complied.

  “Your call, Banjo Leader,” the FAC said. “How do you want to handle this?”

  Tommy had been watching the flow of the battle intently. If he was interpreting it correctly, only the ROKs seemed to be using tracers in their machine guns. Those glowing rounds pointed like arrows to the KPA lines.

  And those lines are the ones we’ll attack.

  I just pray this fight hasn’t gotten so chaotic that anyone could be anywher
e on that battlefield.

  “Follow my lead, guys,” he told his flight, “and give them the works.”

  *****

  A little over a mile away, in the northwest outskirts of Taejon, Sean Moon watched the F-51s trying to stop the attack on the airfield. He’d been checking on a quad 50 in the regiment’s perimeter when the planes arrived, first orbiting, and then the four ships streaming down in column, firing their machine guns and rockets. The last plane to attack had even dropped both its five-hundred-pound bombs into the fray.

  One of the gunners commented, “Looks like those B-2s are doing some good work over there.”

  “What do you mean, B-2s?” Sean asked. “They’re P-51s. Oh, excuse me…we call ’em F-51s in this war.”

  “We know that, Sarge,” the gunner replied. “It’s just a joke around here. All the planes overhead have been friendlies, so when we see them, we say, B-2 bad if they weren’t ours.”

  “Okay, I get it,” Sean said. But then he pointed out two more aircraft, much higher in the sky. “What do you figure they are? They don’t look like no friendly aircraft to me.”

  None of the gunners could identify those ships. But Sean could; he’d seen them before, when the Russians flew them over Europe.

  Big round engine, pointy wings, cockpit way back…they’re Lavochkins, LA-7s.

  I wonder if it’s Russians or gooks in the cockpit?

  *****

  The FAC had seen the LA-7s high overhead, too. He warned Banjo Flight of their presence.

  In the middle of another strafing pass, a preoccupied Tommy asked, “Are they coming downstairs?”

  “Not yet,” the FAC replied. “But they did go into a half-assed orbit. Almost looks like they’re trying to set up a Lufbery.”

  A Lufbery: named for the WW1 ace Raoul Lufbery, it was a maneuver in which two or more aircraft flew around the circumference of a circle so each could protect the tail of the plane ahead.

  Tommy asked, “Do we have any interceptors in the area?”

  “Negative,” the FAC replied.

  “How about an ETA on the flights coming to help out here?”

  “Closest one’s at least ten minutes out.”

  “Do we have any damn word from the ROKs if we’re doing them some good here?”

  “Not yet,” the FAC said. “But from what I can tell playing flak-bait down here on the deck, you’re hitting the KPA real good, but they’re still coming.”

  Pulling out of the strafing pass, Tommy turned his ship hard left so he could observe the rest of his flight behind him. He could see the LA-7s above, too. They weren’t in a Lufbery circle anymore. One ship had rolled over to begin her attack dive.

  “Split into pairs,” he told his flight. “Ted, you’re with me.”

  Ted: First Lieutenant Ted Waleska, flying Banjo Two. He raced to Tommy’s right wingtip as they flew east, staying low and building speed.

  Banjo Three and Four broke in the opposite direction as they came out of their strafing run, completing the split Tommy had ordered. Both ships were flown by pilots who’d been in Mustang interceptors during the last war. They knew the aircraft’s air-to-air combat capabilities better than Tommy or Waleska. Pete Sublette, flying Banjo Four, had three kills in P-51s against the Luftwaffe. Captain Al DeLuca, flying Banjo Three, had two.

  Tommy told Sublette, “Pete, you and Al take the Lavs. Ted and I will keep up the ground attack.”

  “Roger,” Sublette replied. “You sure you don’t want one of them for yourself, boss? It’ll get you one closer to ace.”

  “Negative. You guys have the experience. Ted and I will stay here and do what we do best.”

  “Roger,” Sublette replied. “And thanks. We appreciate the opportunity.”

  Banjo Three and Four jettisoned the hanging ordnance still beneath their wings. They turned sharply so their flight paths were actually beneath the diving LA-7s and not viewable from their adversaries’ cockpits. Then they began a brisk climb to gain height superiority.

  “We’re going to turn hard inside them,” Tommy radioed. “They won’t get a bead on us.”

  “Good plan,” Sublette replied. “We’ll be joining y’all down there before you know it.”

  Banjo Three and Four had gone over the top, reversing their direction of flight with a half loop. Once they rolled upright, it didn’t take much of an adjustment to get on the tail of the trailing LA-7.

  Tommy and Waleska went in for another strafing pass on the airfield. They no longer needed to elude the LA-7s, who now had big problems right behind them. The trailing ship—bracketed by rounds from Sublette’s .50 calibers—dove for the deck. The lead ship broke left.

  “These guys fight like Russians,” DeLuca said. “At the first hint of trouble, it’s every man for himself. Which one do you want, Pete?”

  “I’ll take the leader.”

  But the LA-7s had no interest in dogfighting. They opened their throttles wide—probably boosting their engines’ parameters well past safe operating limits—and streaked away to the north.

  “Banjo Leader from Four, should we chase?”

  “Negative,” Tommy replied. “Save whatever rounds you’ve got left to help out the ROKs.”

  *****

  Jock wasn’t surprised when he heard General Keane’s jeep pull up to his CP. There was little doubt what the general had on his mind: the radio traffic had made clear that the fight for the airfield was going poorly. The reason why, though, was not encouraging.

  “The ROKs say our planes are attacking them,” the general said. “They’re refusing to stay on the airfield. They claim it’s too dangerous. It’s a damn shame, too, because, by all accounts, our planes have driven the KPA back across the Kap Ch’on River.”

  Jock and his staff had watched the fight for the airfield from the roof of the building housing their CP. There’d been no shortage of American airpower. That first group of fighter-bombers had not only made pass after pass against the North Korean ground forces, they’d even chased away some enemy aircraft. After them had come more fighter-bombers—mostly F-51s but some F-80 jets—as well as what must’ve been a squadron of B-26 attack bombers. It wouldn’t be uncommon to have some of that ordnance accidentally land on the heads of the ROKs.

  As a result, Jock fully expected his regiment was about to be ordered to fill the gap created by the withdrawing South Koreans.

  Patchett asked, “Are we sure that airfield’s even worth holding anymore? With all the bombs our flyboys dropped, I wonder if they didn’t chew the shit out of that runway. I thought the point was to keep the damn place open for business.”

  Keane replied, “Not to worry, Sergeant. The FACs report the runway received minimal damage.”

  Patchett tried not to smirk. He knew that what generals considered minimal damage often made the lives of ordinary soldiers a living hell. He remembered back to the last war, when the loss of landing craft during the amphibious assault at Hollandia, New Guinea, had been described as minimal. Unfortunately, most of one regiment’s artillery had been on those craft that were sunk. The GIs denied that fire support certainly hadn’t considered the loss of those guns minimal.

  He imagined that a minimal number of bomb craters, properly placed, could render the entire runway unusable. But Keane was insistent: “The airfield will remain open. And I need you, Colonel Miles, to keep it that way for at least another forty-eight hours.”

  Then, as if twisting the knife, the general added, “You wanted that airfield, Colonel, and now you’re going to have it.”

  “Fine, sir,” Jock replied. “But I’ll need an artillery battery attached to my regiment immediately.”

  “Impossible, Colonel,” Keane replied. “You know how short of guns we are. Divarty will continue to prioritize requests for fire. But maybe I can give you something that’ll be a big help. Two Bofors vehicles are on the road to us right now. They were intended for anti-aircraft defense around Pusan, but quite frankly, they don’t see much use for them ther
e at the moment. So they’re coming to us.”

  Jock asked, “Bofors vehicles…you mean M19s, sir?”

  “Affirmative, Miles. They’ll give you a big boost in firepower.”

  The vehicle in question—M19 MGMC, for Multiple Gun Motor Carriage—was a Chaffee light tank chassis with the turret and its armament replaced by two quick-firing 40-millimeter Bofors anti-aircraft guns. Deployed to Europe late in the last war, M19s hadn’t been needed against the crippled Luftwaffe but had proved very effective against soft ground targets. Jock would welcome their addition to his arsenal…

  But they weren’t tanks and they wouldn’t stop an armored assault.

  “I’ll need your units in position by midday, Colonel,” General Keane said. Then he stepped to the map and asked, “Show me how you propose to deploy your forces.”

  “There’s not much choice there, sir,” Jock replied. “Our only viable defense is to keep the KPA on the other side of the river. The Kap Ch’on is fordable along almost all of our western flank, and there are two bridges across it in that sector still standing. If they can put a strong force of tanks across, there’s not going to be much we can do to stop them, I’m afraid, even with the M19s.”

  “Just do your best, Miles,” General Keane said. “That’s all I can ask. Now, are you ready for more good news?”

  Jock wasn’t sure he could stand any more good news. But he replied, “Of course, sir.”

  First Cav and Twenty-Fifth Division are offloading at Pusan as we speak. A Marine Corps regiment, too. They’ll be out here with us in just a few days.”