If the first whoosh of a 3.5 firing at the tank in an enclosed space hadn’t deafened the GIs, the second one firing at the wall finished the job. They were blind now, too; the multi-layered veil of darkness, smoke, and dust saw to that. They made their way out of this black void by feel alone.
The rocket had punched a hole in the brick wall big enough to drive a jeep through. Choking, gasping for air, they stumbled into the alley. Although his throat felt like he’d just swallowed a sackful of sand, Sean managed to speak a hoarse command: “This way, dammit. Follow me.”
The wild revving of the T-34’s engine was replaced by the steady rumble of lower rpm, as if she was finally finding it easier to back out of the alley.
Sean’s plan was to move around the building, positioning his teams to kill the crippled tank from behind. In a matter of seconds, they’d left the alley, crossed the street, and had the rear end of the tank in their sights.
But neither of the 3.5s had had a chance to reload. Frantic hands shoved rockets into each tube while struggling to hook up the ignition wires.
“Take it easy, boys,” Sean said, “but hurry the fuck up.”
Team Able was loaded first. Just as the gunner was about to pull the trigger, the silhouette of a man appeared in the alley right behind the tank, running slowly toward them. He wasn’t alone; he was carrying someone on his back.
“Shit, I think that’s Mendoza,” Sean said.
The man on his back had to be Culp.
Then three more men appeared in the alley, running around the tank.
Sean yelled to Mendoza, “GET THE HELL DOWN.”
Mendoza did as he was told. He took cover behind the corner of the building, shielding the wounded Culp with his body.
Just as the other three men got to the rear of the tank, it lurched backward, knocking down all three. Two of them slipped beneath the tracks and were crushed.
Sean told his gunner, “Fire, goddammit. NOW.”
He did.
His rocket was still in flight when Team Baker fired, too.
Within seconds, the T-34 was ablaze from within.
Mendoza picked up his wounded buddy again and struggled across the street to rejoin the rest of the GIs.
Culp was conscious but hit in the leg, the wound bleeding badly. Sean took him from the winded Mendoza and hoisted him onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“Party’s over, boys,” Sean said. “Time to get the hell outta here.”
He told Mendoza, “See if you can get a tourniquet on his leg while we’re on the move. If we stop, we might all get dead.”
Using his GI belt, Mendoza managed to get the job done, but he worried it wasn’t good enough. He said, “It ain’t perfect, you know.”
Sean replied, “Nothing ever is, pal.”
On the way out of Taejon, they heard a few more vehicles but only caught a glimpse of one—yet another T-34—several streets away. Thirty minutes later, they crossed the American line at LP Charlie. They’d radioed ahead; the medics were waiting to take care of Culp. Barely conscious, he’d lost a lot of blood during the escape. That didn’t stop him from saying, with the faintest of smiles, “At least I didn’t get run over by my own tank like those gook bastards.”
As the GIs flopped to the ground trying to catch their breath, Sean had one lament: “We had six rockets left, dammit.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
As he watched the morning’s aerial attack on Taejon from his hilltop CP, Jock Miles knew that further nighttime raids by his armor sergeant weren’t worth the risk. While they’d done an amazing job last night, killing what amounted to more than a platoon of KPA tanks, the pickings would be slim in the city from here on out. The Air Force was systematically reducing it to a gigantic pile of charred lumber. Soon there wouldn’t be many North Korean troops or tanks left in the city, just enough to guard against the Americans slipping through it to get behind the main body of their forces. That main body, he was sure, was already taking to the hills east and west of Taejon to continue their relentless march south to Pusan. Once KPA tanks and infantry were hidden in those hills, air power wouldn’t be much help rooting them out.
Jock wasn’t kidding himself: I can delay them another day or two, but there are just too many of them. They’ve probably still got plenty of armor…
And we’ve got zip.
Maybe once First Cav moves up here, we’ve got a little bit of a chance.
But I’m not going to hold my breath.
Patchett emerged from the CP tent with some dispatches in his hand. He told Jock, “Says here that aerial recon counts about a company’s worth of gook tanks killed inside Taejon itself, sir. Looks like the credit for about a quarter of that goes to our own Bubba Moon. The rest goes to the flyboys.”
“That’s all the armor they said was in the city? Just a company—about twenty tanks?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
Jock turned his binoculars to the hills that flanked the city. “That means there are probably still a couple of battalions of T-34s out there somewhere,” he said.
“Affirmative again, sir. But as I live and breathe, ol’ Bubba needs to get decorated for what he did last night. I mean, what does a man gotta do to get a medal around here?”
“I hear you, Top. Draw up the paperwork. Put him in for another bunch of oak leaves on that Silver Star of his.”
“Roger, sir. Now, one more thing. Got a dispatch from Eighth Army saying General Walker just might be dropping in on us this morning. I reckon we ain’t gonna like what he has to say.”
“Why’s that, Top?”
“It’s simple, sir. Bad news comes over the horn. Real bad news gets delivered in person.”
Jock was about to counter with Maybe it’s good news…
But he knew better.
*****
The air attacks on Taejon had swelled the flow of civilian refugees heading south from the city. A lieutenant at LP Charlie—the American roadblock on the Taejon-Pusan highway—noticed something strange about a particular column of approaching refugees; dispersed among the old men, women, children, and animal-drawn carts were men of military age. True, they were dressed in civilian clothes and carried no visible weapons…
But something isn’t right, the lieutenant told himself. There are just too damn many of them, even though they’re trying to string themselves out.
He ordered his men at the roadblock to detain the first group of young men trying to pass. Then he got on the landline to 3rd Battalion CP.
“I need the gook interpreter down here, right fucking now,” he told the CP. “Better send another platoon for prisoner duty, too. We might have ourselves a bunch of infiltrators.”
Third Battalion reported the lieutenant’s suspicion to Regiment. Jock told Patchett, “Go down there and check it out.”
“Okay, sir,” Patchett replied, “but what if the ROKs want to start executing gooks they don’t like again?”
“We’re not supposed to stop them, remember? Just make damn sure that none of our men are on that firing squad. I don’t want our boys to have that hanging around their necks.”
“Amen to that, sir.”
Patchett arrived at LP Charlie just moments after the ROK interpreter. The extra platoon the lieutenant requested had a dozen of the young “civilian” men in custody. They were seated together on the ground alongside the road as if enjoying a summer picnic.
“Better separate those prisoners, Lieutenant,” Patchett said. “Spread ’em out so they can’t whisper to each other like they’re doing.”
“But the interpreter says they’re okay, Sergeant,” the lieutenant replied.
“You gonna bet your life on that, Lieutenant? Take a real good look at what’s going on over there.”
He pointed to the interpreter, a ROK captain. He was talking to three young men at the roadblock.
“Watch their hands real close, Lieutenant,” Patchett said.
Quick as a flash, one of the young men sl
ipped something into the ROK captain’s hand. Whatever it was in his hand, the ROK captain pocketed it in the blink of an eye.
Patchett asked, “You saw that, didn’t you, Lieutenant? I reckon they’re bribing him. And he’s taking it, too, the gook son of a bitch.”
He walked up behind the ROK and ripped the pockets out of his fatigue trousers. Packets of South Korean won—the local currency—spilled to the ground.
“I suggest you arrest this captain immediately, Lieutenant,” Patchett said. “Better round up all these KPA bastards, too. And search every one of them wagons.”
Somebody screamed, “GRENADE!”
Patchett looked down to find a GI hand grenade at his feet, white smoke wisping from its fuze.
He kicked it toward the group of young men who, until just a moment ago, were lounging by the roadside. Now they were all flat on their faces. The appearance of the grenade was apparently no surprise to them.
Then Patchett hit the deck like everyone else.
The explosion killed two of the KPA infiltrators outright and wounded half a dozen more. When Patchett raised his head, he saw the men who’d just bribed the interpreter running back toward Taejon. They were in good company; all the other young men farther back in the column were running away, too.
With three shots from his carbine, Patchett took down the closest three. He would’ve emptied his magazine, but he didn’t have a good bead on the others anymore.
A few of the other GIs started to fire at the fleeing KPA men, too.
“Cease fire,” Patchett said. “You ain’t gonna hit ’em. Save your ammo.”
A search of the carts found two in the middle of the column loaded with weapons, which were concealed beneath sacks of refugees’ belongings. Several dozen weapons were Soviet issue, but another dozen were American. There were more GI grenades still in their shipping crates.
“This is what happens when a unit throws down its weapons and bugs out,” Patchett said as he rummaged through a cart. “You become your enemy’s supply depot.”
The ROK captain was running away, too, trying to mingle with the refugees. A GI tackled him.
“Tie that captain’s hands behind his back and put him in my jeep,” Patchett said. “We’re gonna have ourselves a little military justice later on up at the CP.”
A few of the GIs were picking up the packets of money that had been torn from the captain’s pockets. The lieutenant seemed unsure whether to stop them or not.
“Better grab some of that dough for yourself, Lieutenant,” Patchett said, “before your boys get it all.”
But the lieutenant didn’t touch the money.
“Ah, very good, sir,” Patchett told him. “Always take care of your men first.”
After assigning some of his soldiers to guard the ROK captain, the lieutenant said, “You know, Sergeant, I swear that grenade had the longest fuze in history.”
“Three and a half to five seconds, sir,” Patchett replied. “That can be one hell of a long time. The difference between life and death, you know?”
Walking to his jeep, Patchett knew the lieutenant still had something on his mind. Hesitantly, it was put into words: “I need…I really need to thank you, Sergeant. I messed up back there. But I’ve got to ask you, do you think any of those genuine refugees were in on it?”
“If they were, they were forced to, that’s all. I reckon we should let them go on their way, Lieutenant. We scared them enough.”
“Yeah, okay. But I still feel like a horse’s ass for missing what that ROK was up to.”
“All’s well that ends well, sir. But remember, just because you and another guy are fighting the same enemy, that don’t make you friends. Now don’t let them KPA bastards you got rounded up over there get away. We’re gonna need to have a real long chat with them.”
*****
General Walker’s plane—a single-engined Stinson L-5—touched down in 26th RCT’s position just after 1100 hours. She’d had to land along the highway behind the artillery’s position; it was the only safe place to avoid all the friendly rounds in the air. A waiting jeep whisked the general the mile to Jock’s hilltop CP.
“I like what you’re doing here, Colonel,” Walker told him as he scanned the area around Taejon through binoculars. Do you think you can hold this position another four days?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Then how long do you think you can hold it?”
“Two days at most, General. Unless I get some serious armor support, their armor will break through in that time.”
“But Tokyo says the Air Force is doing a fabulous job knocking out their armor, Colonel. Is that not the case?”
“Well, sir, it is the case—in daylight. Until we get aircraft that can find and destroy armor in the dark, though—or tanks that can kill a T-34—our stay here will be very short.”
“Tokyo is convinced the KPA doesn’t have the capability for large-scale armor operations at night, Miles. Are you telling me they do?”
“No, sir, I’m not telling you that. It’s absolutely true they don’t have the capability for large-scale night operations, just as we don’t. But they’re perfectly capable of small-scale operations…and a few of those strung together will break through our line and run wild. Once that happens, this position—and this unit—is as good as overrun.”
“How can I help you make sure that doesn’t happen, Miles?”
“Give me tank support from First Cav, sir. Put them on the road direct to here today. How about a couple of battalions?”
“But they’re already supporting you, Colonel. Within twenty-four hours, they’ll be relieving you of the job of holding the Taejon-Pusan railway.”
“Negative, sir. That’s not the type of support I’m talking about. They’ll still be twenty-five miles away. I want some of their tanks here tonight. Preferably Pershings or Shermans.”
“Hardly any Pershings or Shermans have landed in Korea yet, Colonel. You know that.”
“All right, sir, I’ll take Chaffees if that’s all you’ve got. They’ll be sacrificed, make no mistake about that, but I can buy the time you want if I have them.”
General Walker fell silent. He was a short, squat man—like a bulldog, some said—and the figurative weight of the world on his shoulders only made him look more so. Jock thought he knew the calculation going on in the general’s mind:
He’s afraid if he divides his forces, they’ll all be destroyed piecemeal. But if he keeps First Cav intact, at least they’ll have a fighting chance to survive.
The Twenty-Sixth, on the other hand…we’re all that’s left of a shattered division.
We’re here to be sacrificed.
All I can say to that is “over my dead body.”
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Walker snapped from his contemplation and said, “I’ll give you a battalion, Colonel. That’s the best I can do at the moment. But I still need you to keep this highway blocked.”
Jock replied, “Very well, sir.”
The general looked at him quizzically, because he’d smiled when he said it.
Men just handed an impossible task rarely smiled.
Maybe he would’ve understood if he knew what Jock was thinking:
Patchett was right, as usual. Real bad news gets delivered in person.
*****
Two flights of F-51s—Banjo and Trombone—were attacking the KPA in the hills east of Taejon while a squadron of B-26s bombed the city itself. The F-51s’ objective was to keep the North Korean armor away from the rail line that ran to Pusan. They’d already derailed a southbound train hauling twenty-one T-34s on flatcars. Once derailed, the entire train had slid down an embankment. Most of the flatcars were now overturned, as were the tanks they were carrying.
“Pretty nice of them to try to move that train in daylight,” Tommy told the other two pilots in Banjo Flight, Al DeLuca and Pete Sublette. Ted Waleska, the flight’s fourth pilot, who’d been forced down yester
day, was safely in GI hands but hadn’t made it back to K-9 yet.
Tommy’s flight had done the lion’s share of the attack on the train; as a result, they’d expended all their rockets. Down to bombs and guns now, they went looking for other targets. The FAC thought he’d found one for them: an artillery battery tucked into a valley.
“Banjo Leader, this is Spectral,” the FAC radioed. “I see four—maybe five—SPs trying to get under camouflage netting. Looks like a battery. They’re between hills so it’ll be a steep approach to target. I’ll mark them for you. Get south of me so you can see the big picture.”
Tommy positioned his flight as requested. He caught a glimpse of one SP—a self-propelled artillery piece—still in the open. When he glanced again a moment later, it was gone.
“Looks like it’s an SU-76,” Tommy said. “Standard Russian war surplus. But it couldn’t have gone that far that fast. He’s still there but hidden under a net, that’s for sure.”
Spectral One-Seven asked, “You still need the smoke?”
“Affirmative. Couldn’t hurt.”
“This run will be with bombs, right?”
“Affirmative again,” Tommy replied.
“Okay, I’ll mark the south and north ends of their position. Drop your eggs between the markers.”
Pete Sublette asked, “How do you want to do it, boss? High or low?”
“Let’s make it low,” Tommy replied. “We’ll waste too much time and gas climbing up to angels eight for a dive-bombing run.”
“Roger,” Sublette replied. “Looks like I’ll be closest once Spectral’s done marking. Want me to lead?”
“Affirmative,” Tommy said. Then he told DeLuca, “Al, you follow Pete. I’ll be tail-end Charlie. We’ll hit them from the southeast. That should keep us out of their line of fire.”
As Spectral One-Seven rolled into its target-marking run, Tommy’s flight orbited both to observe and buy time before they turned toward the KPA artillery battery themselves.
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