Soldiers and Marines Saga, page 17
What I’m hoping is that the new perimeter will be somewhere near where it was last time. If it isn’t, we’ll just keep walking south until we find it.
It doesn’t take the troops long to figure out the plan. They like it. Having an alternate way out if we have to run for it appeals to everyone, and rightly so.
******
Hart just sent Hammond, and all his Shermans and Porks, across the Han to support Spinelli and the Marines. Most of our trucks are also over there on the other side of the Han as well. As it stands, Spinelli and Major Hutchinson are in overall command of the Task Force 817 units on the south side of the Han; Hart and I will stay with the troops on the hill. If the pressure gets too great, we’ll either pull back across the river to the firebase, or use our backdoor telephone wire route, and meet up at the Pusan perimeter.
But nothing happened. We stayed in place, and listened to the radio chatter. There was no question about it. The Chinese were moving around us to the north. Instead of trying to break through down the interior road, they are moving their troops and armor eastwards towards Seoul.
Task Force 817 is now, for sure, the northernmost United Nations troops, and the only ones on the north side of the Han.
For all practical purposes we are cut off.
On New Year's Day, Chuck Rust called in from his observation post to report that a division-size enemy force was setting up a camp in a valley about half way between Hill 817 and our old roadblock, at the entrance to the mountains. It was just out of range of Spinelli’s 105s. We could hit them with his two 155s, but I decided to wait.
I’ve got an idea.
******
It was New Year’s Day. Division headquarters, and the Korean Command, are in turmoil at the big American military base on the outskirts of Seoul. What’s left of the ROKs are fighting street by street for the city and it’s increasingly clear from, our aircraft sighting reports, that the Chinese armor and divisions, that were previously spread all across northern Korea, are moving eastward towards the coast, and then south towards Seoul. They apparently want to avoid another bloodbath at Hill 817 and the crossroads.
“How long do you think Roberts and his boys can hold, Ben?” General Ridgeway asks me.
“I’m not sure Jim, but he’s one smart son of a bitch, and tougher than hell. I’ll bet he’ll hold a lot longer than anyone expects. The Chinese are obviously not anxious to have another go at trying to force him out. He gave them a serious bloody nose the last time they tried.”
“We need to know. Better get down there to check it out. See if we need to send in someone with more rank.”
“If we need more rank down there, we’d be a lot better off promoting Roberts. He’s the best commander we’ve got.” And I still feel guilty about falling asleep after I promised to send him support.
******
The fluttering whoop, whoop, whoop, of the helicopter got everyone’s attention. It settled in a big flurry of snow and dust into a little bare spot we long ago scraped out on the north side for medical evacuations. The Chinese, who have somewhat encircled the north side of the hill, promptly sent over a couple of mortar rounds to welcome our new arrivals.
The Chinese can’t see where the chopper lands and missed by a mile. But one round hit on the hill near the water pump, and literally blew apart the PFC on duty in the tent that houses it, and wounded another man walking nearby.
“Good morning, General. Welcome to Task Force 817.”
Damn, Talley’s hair has gone from gray to white since I last saw him.
“Hello Guns, General Ridgeway sent me down to see how you’re doing. He wants to know the condition of your command.”
“We’re okay sir. But first let’s get you under cover in case the Chinese decide to drop in a few more mortars. …This way please… Murph, get that pilot under cover.”
We walked rapidly to my four man command post with curious eyes peering out at us from every position we pass. Everyone’s gone to ground because helicopter landings inevitably attract Chinese mortars which, although we don’t know it yet, have just killed one of our guys, and slightly wounded another.
“In here, Sir.”… “Ira, take a walk. Coffee, Sir?” I said, reaching for the pot that always stands on the charcoal stove, as I grabbed up a couple of dirty cups from the top of a wooden crate labeled 30 caliber belts. The crate is our table, and the ammo belts in it are always full.
“We’re in pretty good shape, General. The Chinese have moved in what looks like a division-size force to keep us contained.… They’ve got a loose perimeter in place around 817, and the firebase. So we get a lot of sniping back and forth, and periodic mortars. But nothing we can’t handle.”
Then we got down to the nitty gritty.
“I meant it when I said we’re in good shape. We were able to grab, uh, I mean draw, enough supplies and replacements to bring us pretty much back to full strength. As long as the water lines hold up we’re good for at least ninety days, and maybe a lot more—unless they hit us with artillery instead of mortars.”
“That’s what I thought, but I had to be sure”… oh, and by the way, you’re in for an instant DSC, with upgrade to another Congressional pending, for leading that trench charge. Just so you know, there is no clasp for a second award; people with two are supposed to wear them side by side.”
I’m astonished. My face must have turned red as a fire truck.
“My God, Sir, thank you. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. You earned it. We’re trying to thank you.”
“Uh Sir,” I continue after a pause to regain my suddenly scattered thoughts and composure, “uh…Sir, the Air Force reports the Chinese units in the northwest appear to be moving eastward and then south towards Seoul and Pusan, is that right?”
“Yeah, it looks like they’re taking the long way around in order to avoid you and your boys.”
Then he looked at me thoughtfully.
“Why do you ask? You got something in mind?”
“Actually I do. I don’t think the Chinese expect an attack. So what I’m thinking is… maybe I could go right past the division they’ve stuck in front of us, and run an armor raid around in their rear for a while, something that would cut’em up real good. Hurt’em, confuse’em, slow’em down, while you, and General Ridgeway, get the Seoul perimeter organized.”
I pointed to a penciled line I’d traced this morning on a dirty map covered with coffee cup stains. “I think that route would work.”
“You really think you could do that?”
I told him I thought I could.
“They won’t be expecting it,” I pointed out.
“That’s interesting; very interesting”….. “Hmm. You really think you could pull it off?”
We talked for a while, and then we both jogged rapidly back to the helicopter. When we got there, we found Big Joe putting a newly wounded man into its outside litter. Joe was smoking a cigar, and strapping him into the basket, as we arrived. He looked at Talley defiantly, just daring him to take our casualty out of the basket when he leaves.
General Talley may not know it but having Big Joe standing there glaring at us means the wounded guy is definitely going in the chopper, even if Talley has to walk back to Pusan.
“General, this here is Big Joe, our head medic. Been with me since the beginning, and dumb enough to ignore incoming fire to help our wounded. He needs a warrant so he can talk back to the young docs they’ve been sending up to help him.”
“Are you Master Sergeant Joseph Dombrowski?” Talley asked.
Joe nodded warily.
“Done. The bar will look good with the Silver Star that got confirmed yesterday. It’s your second I believe. See ya, Guns, Mr. Dombrowski. ”
The cigar drooped out of Joe’s open mouth as he stood there. He looked stunned.
“You motherfuckers,” Joe finally said, grabbing his cigar just in time to prevent it from falling. “Now I’ll have to stay in the goddamn army.”
Talley and I were both grinning, as I threw Talley a salute, and he began climbing in the chopper. Joe just stood there in total disbelief.
******
Just before his helicopter takes off Talley leaned out of the chopper door, and told me he’s going to talk to Ridgeway about the operation.
“I’ll tell him we’re calling it Marigold Seven for planning purposes.”
Chapter Twenty-six
The next afternoon Ira took a message for me to the effect that Marigold Seven is authorized, if, and when, its commander decides to implement it.
Marigold Seven was simple, as all good operations are. We’ll zip north on the Pusan road in the middle of the night, go past our old roadblock, and on into the big valley that begins where the Pusan road comes out of the mountains. Then we’ll go about ten miles up the road and begin making a big looping circle on the dirt roads that run through the valley—going west, then north, then east, and then back south. It’s the big behind-the-lines rear area of the Chinese.
But we won’t come back to 817 via the Pusan road, which is the way the Chinese might expect. Instead, we’ll go further east, and then cut south to the Seoul road running along the north side of the Han River.
We're going further east just in case the Chinese get their act together and try to trap us with a blocking force on the way back.
It took three days to fine tune the Marigold Seven plan, and get everything ready to go. All twelve of our Shermans, all five of our Porks, and our three tracked personnel carriers are going. We’re also taking some jerry-rigged “Little Porks”—twenty or so deuce and a halfs and three quarter ton trucks that have machine gun rings or pedestals.
The Little Porks will carry additional machine guns, and mortars, in their truck beds, and their cargo space will be stuffed full of ammo and five gallon jerry cans of gas. Sandbags piled four high against the sides of truck beds will provide a bit of protection.
One gas truck with a PFC volunteer driving, one of the colored guys, or black guys as they’ve started calling themselves, will be in the middle of the column.
He’s either very ambitious or very brave. Either way, he’s a sergeant, with a medal, and a career in the army, if he makes it back.
The Shermans and the half dozen Jeeps, we’re taking have radios, and pedestal mounted machine guns. The trucks have walkie-talkies, and the truck commanders, riding in the front with their drivers, will have extra batteries under their shirts to keep them warm. Every vehicle has a heavy duty chain attached in the front, and another in back, so it can be pulled out of a ditch, or towed if its engine stops for some reason.
All the trucks are carrying a bunch of full five gallon jerry cans in case the potential sergeant-to-be doesn’t make it all the way. And about half of the vehicles, including seven of the Shermans, have snow plow blades.
The plows will turn out to be quite useful; the jerry cans are dangerous, but necessary.
The plan was simple, as all plans should be. We’ll mount a three day high speed cavalry charge in a big circle up and down the dirt roads that wind through the villages in the big east-west valley beyond the mountains. Everybody, even the medics and drivers, will either man a crew-served weapon or drive with an AK47 poking out its rolled down window.
Spinelli, Hutchinson, and Hart will remain behind. Newly promoted Major Teddy Hammond will be the raid’s exec. The number three guy is a Captain, Jimmie Speyer, one of Hammond’s officers, and an experienced tank commander.
Jimmie was an NCO tank commander in the big war, got recalled as a lieutenant for Korea, and just got promoted. He’ll do just fine.
All the weapons and drivers came from the firebase, and their crews are a mix of army and Marines. Many are volunteers.
******
We formed up during the day at the firebase, and roared out of the firebase heading north at three in the morning. We cleared the mountains by four after a brief encounter; we passed and shot up some Chinese troops and vehicles from the division surrounding us, without even slowing down. It was bitter cold, and there were snow drifts on the road.
During the preceding day, one of Spinelli’s 155mm Long Toms fired a single ranging shot at what appeared to be the Chinese division’s encampment, and then a single ranging shot at what appeared to be a Chinese roadblock. Chuck Rust called in the corrections from his observation post.
Just as the Sherman leading the speeding column approached the pontoon bridge at about 310 in the morning, each of Spinelli’s Long Toms fired ten rounds of HE as fast as possible at the Chinese division’s encampment. Then they switched, and each fired five more at the supposed roadblock. Which turned out not to exist. Then they switched again to fire flares over the more distant end of the road where the flares from Tony’s 105s could not reach.
All seven of the Shermans with the plows went first, with the rest of the tanks spread out through the fast moving column. Hammond was in the lead Sherman; I was in a radio Jeep immediately behind the seventh Sherman with Ira at the wheel. Corporal Arnell Williams, a skinny Marine from Oakland, was standing behind me and Ira, holding on to the handles of the Jeep’s pedestal mounted thirty. Everyone in the convoy was heavily layered in clothes, and wearing a jerry-rigged ski mask and tanker goggles to help keep his face warm.
We made the ski masks by cutting holes in extra large size socks. One of the guys from Vermont showed us how.
All three of us were shivering uncontrollably, even though we had the Jeep’s windscreen up to reduce the effect of the icy wind. Ira drove, and I continuously radioed in directions for the flare shots so they’d bloom ahead of the column. Damn it is cold! The idea was to keep the flares well ahead of us so their light would outline the opposition and the road we’re traveling, but not backlight our column.
“Up 1000”…. “Up 500”…. “Up 2000…”
A corporal in a Mini Pork, about half way back in the column, and a sergeant at the tail end, listened intently, prepared to jump in instantly, and begin calling the flare shots, if I went off the air.
******
So far so good.
Already a long string of Chinese vehicles, and a couple of their old Russian tanks, had been shot up as we roared down the snow covered road through the mountains. If they were on the road, the Shermans hit them with their plows, and pushed them off. The passing vehicles then raked them with automatic weapons fire as we went roaring past.
The flare back lighting of the Chinese is working like a charm. And being hit by a tank plow really fucks up a truck or marching men. Unfortunately, as Hammond found out just as we were coming out of the mountains, hitting a Korean tank also fucks up the plow; so he has to pull over and switch to another Sherman with a plow, to keep the lead.
Everything changed when we reached the valley and moved beyond the range of the 155s and their flares. Then, as planned, Hammond’s Sherman at the front of the column he’d already swapped out the one with the bent plow turned its road lights on and all the other tanks and vehicles turned on their parking lights.
The day before, we had a couple of guys, who’d been mechanics in the real world, freeze their asses off pulling out all the brake light bulbs. Those they can’t get out, they busted with a wrench. They were happy to do it; they were volunteers for the raid who got to stay home and defrost.
About a mile beyond our old checkpoint, we could see a handful of flickering lights in the stone houses of the deserted farm village on the left hand side of the road. Chinese trucks and armor were parked around it. The houses in the village had obviously been taken over by the Chinese and were being used as some kind of headquarters and troop encampment. There was no steam coming up from the vehicle exhausts; their engines were not turned on.
The Shermans absolutely devastated the dozen or so mud and stone houses in the village as they drove past it, and the Porks and Mini-Porks poured in more fire as they passed. Ira pointed, and I watched a Chinese tank blow up with a tremendous explosion. A half a dozen or more other vehicles were on fire. We didn’t even slow down.
I don’t know if I am shivering because I’m cold or because I’m excited. Probably both.
About twenty minutes, and five miles later, we come up on another previously deserted village where two dirt roads intersect. This one was surrounded by a sizable tent camp. The camp was on both sides of the crossroads where we planned to turn right and begin our great circle. Before we reached it, Hammond radioed in from the lead tank to report he sees lots of vehicles and quite a few towed artillery pieces, but no armor or tracked vehicles, at least not any that he can see.
Without hardly even slowing down, we shot at everything as we went all the way to the crossroads, and made the turn. About a mile and a half past the Chinese camp, I halted the column, and turned the mortars in the truck beds loose for about three minutes of sustained fire, while our drivers rushed to gas up their vehicles.
The mortars in the truck beds were firing a mix of magnesium and fragment rounds, and the Chinese camp quickly turned into a maelstrom of fire. Exploding trucks and ammunition lit the sky. I ordered the column to move on when we finally began to get some return fire.
This is fun, but I need to get us down the road and out of range of the surviving Chinese artillery and mortars.
Then disaster struck at the very front of the column, and we stopped for a few seconds. The tank running behind Hammond’s came on the radio and reported that Hammond’s Sherman just took a flukey direct hit from a Chinese mortar or artillery round and had stopped moving.
A few minutes later we got an update. The tank is still operational, but Hammond is dead and its radio antennas have been sheared off. Mike was riding half out of the turret and looking through his binoculars when the Chinese round hit the turret. It literally blew him to pieces, leaving only his legs in the tank. The rest of the crew are alive, but wounded and in shock, the gunner quite seriously.
We stopped for a couple of minutes while Big Joe and his medics, rushed to get Mike’s legs, and the wounded guys, out of the tank. The legs went into the ditch along the road; the wounded guys went into Big Joe’s rolling aid station in an armored personnel carrier. A designated replacement tank crew quickly jumped out of the deuce and a half they’d been riding in, and climbed aboard. They were able, sitting in a pool of Mike’s blood, to get the otherwise undamaged Sherman restarted and underway. It took less than six minutes.
