Once the battalion was finally on the move—all forty-two tanks and twelve wheeled vehicles of it—Sean had a radio message relayed to 26th RCT, estimating their arrival time at Taejon as 2300 hours.
Let’s just hope we get there in time to do some good, he told himself.
Tenth Battalion was understrength, like just about every other American unit in Korea. Worse, it was equipped almost exclusively with M24 Chaffee light tanks; only one platoon in Able Company—3rd Platoon—was equipped with medium tanks, the M4A3 Sherman. Sean had lobbied—successfully—to have that platoon at the head of the column. He would take command of the first Sherman in column and lead the battalion to Taejon. Colonel Parker, in his Chaffee, would be several tanks back.
They weren’t twenty minutes out of Yongdong when a Chaffee broke down. Parker radioed for the column to halt. Reluctantly, Sean complied.
Hopping off the lead Sherman, Sean ran back to confer with the colonel. “We really shouldn’t be stopping, sir. A bunch more are gonna break down before we hit Taejon. You know that as well as I do. We can’t pull over every time that happens.”
“I won’t leave any of my men out here unprotected, Sergeant,” Parker replied.
“You don’t have to, sir. When they break down, they just pull the machine guns and the breech block from the big tube and hop on one of the Service Company trucks that’s trailing us for just that reason. Everybody else keeps moving. The trucks can catch up easy enough.”
“That’s all well and good, Sergeant, but what about the main gun ammo? We can’t just leave that out here.”
“We got no choice, sir. It would take forever to unload that stuff into a truck, and without boxes to put it in, it’s more dangerous rolling around loose in the bed of a deuce than leaving it behind.”
While Parker took a moment to mull that over, Sean prodded, “So, we can get moving, sir?”
Reluctantly, the colonel replied, “Yeah, go ahead.”
Rolling in the Sherman again, Sean thought, Why is it some of these officers forget everything they learned in the big war the minute they show up in this shithole? Colonel Parker’s no novice. He was no fireball, but he led a tank company through some pretty rough shit in France and Germany. Back then he’d never do anything as stupid as what he just did. He’s got the same delusion as MacArthur, like this ain’t real combat because it’s just a bunch of gooks we’re up against. Too many of these fucking officers are thinking like that, like they forgot how hard it was to beat down the last bunch of gooks—excuse me, nips—this army had to fight.
Talking to some First Cav guys, I finally got a reason how come the entire Eighth Army got almost nothing but these little toy Chaffees for tanks: the bridges in Japan were too narrow and flimsy to support the bigger models, so the whole damn Army of Occupation was equipped with lightweight Chaffees. What’d they need bigger tanks for, anyway? They thought it was all for show. Nobody was ever going to actually fight, right?
But the bridges…that gotta be the biggest crock of shit I ever heard in my life. All across Europe, I musta watched combat engineers build about a hundred bridges—each one in a coupla hours—that could support any damn vehicle we had.
The only reason they couldn’t do the same in Japan was because MacArthur only cared about putting on his little show, with him being the star and the nips throwing flowers at him…what’d they call those things, Chrysanthemums or something? But he couldn’t give a shit less about something as trivial as combat readiness.
*****
It was 2200 hours now, and 10th Battalion’s column was less than ten miles from Taejon. The crew of the lead Sherman had never been thrilled with Sean’s presence in their tank since it put them at the head of the column. But they’d loosened up a little in the last hour, just enough to ask this master sergeant in their midst some questions.
The gunner asked, “You really fought in Shermans back in Europe, Sarge?”
“Yeah,” Sean replied, “went through a whole bunch of ’em. They’re pretty good vehicles if you use ’em right. Not perfect, mind you, but pretty good. They need more armor and a bigger gun, but if you made ’em any heavier, they couldn’t get out of their own way.”
There’d been no point in Sean asking this crew if they were combat veterans. It was obvious they weren’t. They knew the basics of how to operate the tank well enough, but he knew they didn’t have the experience yet to jell as a team and become one with the Sherman when the pressure of combat tried to crush them. When the shit hits the fan, they’re gonna get all clumsy and shit and start screaming at each other because they’re scared out of their fucking minds. That fear stops them from doing their jobs right.
If they can work through that—and get a round off before the other guy—they just might live.
If they don’t, they’re cooked meat…
And so am I.
Sean told the crew, “In a minute, we’re gonna hit the village of Kumgu-ri. If you blink, you’ll miss it. Right on the far end of that village, the highway’s gonna split. We wanna take the left fork. Understand?”
“Yeah, Sarge,” the driver replied. “I’ve got it.”
The gunner asked, “What happens if we go the other way, Sarge?”
“We drive straight into Gookville and get shot to shit, that’s what happens.”
The gunner continued, “When we started out, didn’t you think it was kind of strange that ROK convoy was on the road, screwing everything up? I guess none of the brass knew they were coming. And it sure seemed like they were bugging out or something.”
Sean replied, “It wouldn’t be the first time, pal.”
“Something else I’ve been meaning to ask you, Sarge,” the gunner said. “How come you made us load the main gun with a WP round? Our SOP says it should be HE.”
“Your SOP is written by dumbshits, that’s why,” Sean replied. “It’s nighttime, remember? So dark you can’t hardly see past your fucking headlights. So if you gotta engage, I guarantee you ain’t gonna see much of what it is you’re shooting at. The willy pete starts a fire that lights up the area for you while it’s torching the target.”
“But in training we always used illum rounds from artillery and mortars to light up targets, Sarge.”
“Let me tell you something, pal…by the time we get an illum round out of ’em—if we get an illum round out of ’em way out here in the middle of fucking nowhere—we’ll all be dead. Believe me, I done this shit before.”
“But you just heard it on the command net, Sarge…Colonel Parker is talking with the guys at Taejon. Can’t their artillery support us now?”
“Sure, if we got plenty of time on our hands. You realize the guns at Taejon are about eight miles away as the crow flies, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Do the arithmetic,” Sean said. “By the time we put in a call for fire, the cannon cockers compute the firing data, and the shit flies eight miles out and about two miles up, you’re talking almost two minutes, and that’s if everybody’s on the fucking ball. We’d already be dead about a minute and fifty seconds by the time the rounds got here.”
They were just a few hundred yards from the fork in the highway when the driver’s voice filled their headsets, yelling, “Heads up! I think we’ve got more ROK deuces coming our way!”
The deuces were barreling down the other leg of the fork, the one Sean had said would take them to Gookville just a minute ago. They were driving in column without lights, which was a good thing; it allowed Sean to clearly see their dark shapes as they lumbered toward the lead Sherman. Sean could count three trucks. There might’ve been more masked behind those three.
“Kill your headlights,” he told the driver.
As the approaching trucks followed the curve that led to the fork, their broadside silhouette told him they weren’t GI or ROK: The hoods are too long, the fenders are too square, and they got those stood-off headlights like on them Lend-Lease Studebakers Uncle Sam gave the Ivans back in the last wa
r.
Mounted on each of their cargo beds was the unmistakable shape of a long-barreled gun: Probably Russian forty-five-millimeter anti-tank guns.
Seen a shitload of them in the last war, too.
Sean ordered the driver, “Turn into them, head-to-head, dead on. Then stop.”
Then he told the gunner, “Put that willy pete right through the first truck.”
The driver promptly did what he was told.
The gunner promptly froze.
Sean didn’t waste time repeating his order. He jerked the gunner from his seat and took it himself. Training the main gun on the lead truck, he called out, “ON THE WAY.”
And then he fired.
Before the tube had even completed its recoil, amidst the cloud of acrid smoke that filled the turret and the chaos of ringing ears, he told the loader, “Put another willy pete up, right fucking now.”
The impact of the WP round on the gun truck was everything Sean had said it would be. Not only did it rip the vehicle apart, it started a fire that lit up the Korean column.
“UP,” the loader shouted.
A split second later, Sean said, “ON THE WAY.”
This round ripped the third truck in line apart. It started another blaze, which illuminated yet a fourth gun truck.
Sean grabbed the gunner off the turret floor and said, “You ready to do your job now? I’ve got her all warmed up for you. Take out that truck at the back end.”
The gunner screeched, “Are they even shooting back?”
“Are you fucking complaining? Fire the gun, dammit.”
In moments, the fight was over. Three Korean gun trucks—the first, third, and fourth in the column—were shattered and burning, their ammo stores beginning to randomly cook off. There was no need to shoot the second truck; her crew had abandoned her and run off into the night. The bow gunner of Sean’s tank hit her with a burst of machine gun fire anyway.
“What do we do now, Sarge?” the driver asked.
“We get moving,” Sean replied. “The fork’s right up ahead. Shouldn’t have any trouble seeing it now with them fires burning.”
Rolling once again, Sean radioed Colonel Parker, “Might want to get our ass-end Charlie to drop a coupla thermite grenades in that abandoned gun truck. No point wasting any rounds on her. We’re gonna need ’em before you know it.”
Even though he’d killed the fourth truck, the gunner still hadn’t come to grips with the whole affair. His voice trembled as he asked, “How the hell do we know we didn’t just kill a whole bunch of friendlies, Sarge?”
“Let me put it this way…if they were dumb enough to be driving around in Russian vehicles with Russian weapons, they deserved what they got.”
“But they never shot at us.”
“That’s the name of the game, pal. Get ’em before they get you. Didn’t they teach you clowns anything?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sean’s lead Sherman was two miles beyond the fork in the highway when Colonel Parker came on the radio, ordering the column to halt once again. Then he called Sean back to his command tank.
“Just got word from your boys at the Twenty-Sixth,” Parker told him. “They’re getting hit…hard. We’ll be walking into a cauldron if we keep—”
“Hang on just a second, sir,” Sean interrupted. “With all due respect, are you thinking about not helping them?”
“We’re bumbling into a fight in the dark, Sergeant Moon. It sounds like suicide to me. Hell, you’re the only guy out here who even knows where he’s going.”
Before Parker could respond, the radio squawked again. This time, it was Clipboard Six—the commanding general of 1st Cavalry Division—on the air.
Sean watched as Parker pressed the headset closer to his ears so as not to miss a single word. As he listened, the colonel’s face grew more tense. The radio exchange came to an end as he said, “Roger, Clipboard. Solid copy. Will advise. Out.”
He told Sean, “Division wants us to press on to Taejon.”
“That’s good news, sir.”
“I’m glad you think so, Sergeant. Now, do me a favor.” Parker handed the headset to Sean. “Talk to Montana at Taejon and figure out where they need us. You know the terrain, so maybe there won’t be any misunderstandings.”
“Gladly, sir.”
Sean’s communication with Colonel Miles took less than a minute. When it was done, he laid his map on the turret roof of Parker’s tank and said, “We need to split into two teams, sir…one that continues up this highway and cuts the gook armor off just east of Taejon. The other team needs to backtrack a coupla miles and then cut across the hills. That’ll bring it around the back side of the Twenty-Sixth so it can stop the armor rolling down the west side of the city.”
Parker was shaking his head. “I’m not real crazy about splitting my battalion, Sergeant. That’s asking to get cut up piecemeal and—”
“Sir, we’re not applying force piecemeal here. We’re performing a double envelopment, just like we used to do all the time back in the big show. It’s just a little trickier in the dark. But I got a plan for that, too.”
Sean went on to explain how he would lead a company of tanks through the hills to get to the west side of the battle. Colonel Parker would take his other two tank companies and continue up the highway to interdict the KPA on the east side.
“You keep the platoon of Shermans with you, sir,” Sean said, “because you’re gonna need ’em. Just leave me the one I’m already riding in.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Parker replied, “Oh, all right.” To Sean, it sounded like the most unenthusiastic acceptance of a plan he’d ever heard.
“Let me take Baker Company with me, sir, since they’re already at the rear of the column. That’ll make the backtracking easier, so we ain’t bumping into each other.”
The colonel replied, “Fine,” with that same lack of enthusiasm. Then he laid a fingertip to the map and said, “But I’ve got one question. What do I do if I get to this T-intersection at the end of the highway and there are no gooks there?”
“Even better, sir. Just turn left toward Taejon until you roll up on ’em…and then you kick ’em in the ass. With any luck, I’ll be coming from the other direction and we’ll trap ’em but good.”
*****
As he navigated the lead Sherman along the trail through the hills, the driver said to Sean, “Now I see why you only took a company down this trail…less tanks to fall into ditches and throw tracks.”
Of all the technical things that could go wrong on this trek of fourteen lumbering armored vehicles through steep hills in the darkness of night, roadside ditches weren’t Sean’s biggest concern. This was: A driver’s gonna try to stay right on the ass of the guy in front of him so he don’t get separated…and that’s fine, until he gets too close or too far away from that guy when they’re on a hill. Then he panics, downshifts real hard and sudden, and blows his transmission. Narrow as this trail gets sometimes, there may be no place to push a broke tank out of the way…and then everybody behind him gets stuck.
Apparently, Lieutenant Bradshaw, the Baker Company commander, had the same concern; he kept slowing his column of Chaffees to put as little strain on the transmissions as possible. But they were dropping far behind the lead Sherman now, so far that Sean could barely make out their blackout lights.
“Might want to step it up a little,” Sean urged the lieutenant over the radio. “We need to get there sometime tonight.”
“Just trying to get as many of us there as possible,” Bradshaw replied. He was in the process of abandoning a broken-down Chaffee as they spoke. Her crew were cramming themselves like sardines into other tanks.
Sean’s reply: “Amen to that. Let’s just try to do it a little quicker, okay?”
They were coasting down out of the hills now, getting closer to the Taejon-Pusan highway. Looking north, they could see the luminous signs of a night battle raging: the momentary orange pinpoints of dazzling light that
were artillery and mortar rounds bursting; the tracer rounds like brilliant dashed lines arcing across the sky; the vivid flames of shacks and vehicles set alight. From a distance, it seemed breathtaking, almost beautiful.
But that distance would dissolve quickly…
And so would the illusion.
“Nobody’s shooting illum,” the gunner said. “I wonder why?”
“Because it’s probably a close fight,” Sean replied, “and when you’re close, illum lights you up just as good as it does the enemy. Better off without it.”
He got on the radio and advised Montana Six that they’d be at 26th RCT’s perimeter in just a few minutes.
The reply: “Outstanding. Come up the highway and block the pass between The Twins.” Sean recognized the voice: Sergeant Patchett. Then he laughed as he thought, I’m surprised that old cracker didn’t name that pass The Cleavage, with it being between The Tits and all. I would’ve known what he was talking about, that’s for damn sure.
Watching the light show going on in the sky to the north, the driver said, “Oh, man…I don’t like the looks of this.”
“Don’t sweat it, pal,” Sean replied. “It’s your lucky night. You’re about to lose your virginity.”
The driver was surprised that Sean could crack wise while the rest of the crew were on the verge of soiling themselves. He asked, “C’mon, Sarge, aren’t you scared, too?”
“Sure I’m scared,” Sean replied, “but at the moment I’m more scared of you clowns getting me killed than the gooks doing it.”
*****
Colonel Parker’s column lost a Sherman and three Chaffees to breakdowns before reaching the T-intersection. Like Sean and his crew, he could see the lights of a battle in the distance. The only difference was that he was viewing them from the opposite side.
But those lights were all Parker’s column could see. There appeared to be nothing ahead of them, not KPA tanks, vehicles, or troops; not even the road intersection. He was pretty sure they should have reached that intersection by now. He could think of nothing else to do but stop the column to get his bearings.
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