Soldiers and Marines Saga, page 4
“Was it rough?” Symonds asked in a low voice. He could have shouted and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Anyone listening would have heard the rumble of the tank long before they heard a voice.
“Yeah… Shit yeah. gooks was everywhere. Roberts saved our asses when the lieutenant panicked and told everyone to bug out. He held them off while we got away.”
Then Ira couldn’t contain himself.
“Jeez captain, you should see how many gooks Roberts killed. Fucking hundreds of them. All by himself. Then he got some ammunition and went back and killed more of the bastards.”
“I went back with him,” Ira said with a touch of pride in his voice. “threw grenades up for him to toss at the gooks when his BAR jammed and Gomez got killed. He was the loader. Said he was from Phoenix but I think he was really a Mexican what snuck over the border….What the hell, don’t make no difference now.”
God I need a cigarette and want to go home.
Then he couldn’t contain himself.
“Captain, you think we can stop the gooks and get out of here? I’ve got a girl in the States I ain’t seen for over a year.”
I’m really worried. Jeez I need a cigarette.
“Sure. No one beats us, even when they play dirty and surprise us. Just ask the Japs.”
That’s a pile of horseshit but I sure can’t let the troops know how grim it looks.
“Where you from?” Symonds asked in an effort to change the subject.
“Kansas City. You?”
“Wisconsin. Little town outside Milwaukee. Went to Marquette. ROTC.”
And I sure wish I was still there.
Then they both stopped talking and tried to listen even though it was totally useless due to all the engine noise.
They were still going slightly uphill and everyone was getting more and more nervous. Finally, it seemed as though they might have reached the top of the rise.
“Cut the engine,” Symonds told Jimmer quietly, too quietly. There was no response. Then more loudly, “turn it off, goddamn it.” After a few seconds the tank engine fell silent.
Christ I hope we’re not walking into a trap.
Symonds listened intently for a few seconds. Nothing. Then he jumped down and stumbled his way in the darkness from truck to truck telling the drivers to turn their engines off and the sergeants to “tell your men to shut the fuck up and keep everyone in the trucks.”
I’m really nervous, but it’s okay to be nervous since I’m responsible for all these men.
It became totally silent. There was no noise except the rumbling thunder of artillery rising and falling in the distance.
After five minutes Ira embarrassed Symonds by pointedly telling him that they probably have not yet even reached the top. So once again the convoy began to grind its way forward in the dark with its brake lights constantly flashing.
Finally, in the faint light of a partial moon that kept slipping behind a clouds, they could see they are on the top. So again they stop and turn off the engines to listen. The night was silent except for the rumble of thunder in the distance.
“Pass the word for everyone to dismount and hit the ground. Quietly. And pass the word that nobody talks or smokes. Not one goddamn match better be lit.”
That’s it. I’m not going another inch until I can see what’s ahead of us.
******
Ira had described the land ahead as a valley with more farmland but Symonds had caught Jimmer’s fear about getting stuck or ambushed and was unwilling to start down the slope until he could see what was ahead. He worried and worried and it was almost dawn by the time he finally convinced himself that it might be safer to travel in the dark.
“Saddle up. Saddle up.” Symonds called as he ran along the convoy by the light of the moon. By the time he climbed back on the Sherman he was breathing hard and realized that he has somehow gotten tremendously excited. What he hadn’t done while they waited, he realized, with a sudden icy feeling, was take out or break out the brake lights of trucks.
Tailgates clanged shut and engines started as the troops climbed back into the trucks. Then once again the Sherman and the deuce and a halfs carrying Easy Company slowly began moving down to the road below—and crossed it. Then they began to move uphill again towards the vague outline of a ridge they can sort of see ahead of them in the early light before dawn.
Symonds got more and more confident as he realized that the land was exactly as Ira described it.
Shit, I probably never should have stopped.
“There, there.” Ira shouted over the noise of the Sherman’s engine as the outline of the ridge materializes against the moon.
“See that big pile of rocks poking up? Maybe it’s a ruin or something,” Ira explained as he pointed. “That’s where we’re dug in. On both sides of it.”
******
They had to stop at the terrace wall that runs along the ridge about two hundred feet from the top. They found it the hard way in the dark when the Sherman almost threw Ira and Symonds off as it suddenly reared up as it started to climb over the stone wall at a high spot. The trucks could go no farther.
Ira knew exactly where they were—near the original Charlie Company camp where they parked the Jeep yesterday. This is where they’d assembled the wounded and loaded them in the Jeep to take to the aid station. That was before they suddenly had to make a run for it when the men suddenly bugged out.
When they stopped, the trucks’ doors and tailgates were quickly opened, and then some were noisily slammed shut before Symonds had a chance tell everyone to be quiet. Oh shit. That’s all we need.
The trucks were quickly emptied and the troops went to ground as soon as they jumped out. All their weapons were loaded and aimed outward in case of an attack. They were green and they were scared. And they were all damn glad to be out of the trucks and hugging the ground.
From above someone whispered loudly with a country accent “up here and keep goddamn quiet about it.”
Then, after a pause, “and don’t shine no goddamn lights.”
Actually light was no longer a problem. Symonds had made them wait so long on the top of the first rise that the early light before dawn was already starting to come up over the horizon. Now he and the men can finally see where they are going.
“I’m Roberts” said a figure walking down from the crest a few minutes later in the early morning light. “What’ve you got?” Reinforcements!
“I’m Symonds” the Captain said holding out his hand. Roberts shook it and they began walking up to the top after Roberts told the lanky sergeant, who had followed him down, to “unload’em and fast, Murph.”
“How’s it look?” Symonds asked.
“So far so good. Had a bit of a dustup with the gooks when we got here, but nothing since. No one’s out there yet, but they’re coming. They’ve got to have this ridge to keep the road open. We’re going to have a real fight… unless they use tanks in which case we’re fucked.”
“The General said to help you any way we can. Besides the Sherman I’ve got Easy Company of the Fourth Battalion—three real experienced lieutenants from War Two who got recalled and 140 troops, mostly green, just off the boat from Japan.”
“We’ve got what looks like a standard company loadout of ammo. Maybe some other stuff. I dunno. The General said to hurry so we just threw everything we could grab on the trucks. ”
“Any recoilless rifles or automatic weapons? And what General?”
“Only brought a couple of old War Two bazookas and about ten rounds. At least, that’s all I know of. But we brought some BARS and a couple of thirties too. Might be another tank coming. It had a mechanical problem a couple of miles back, so we went on without it.”
Then Symonds noticed the two weapons I was carrying. “What are those? Never seen anything like them before.”
“Dunno what they’re called but they’re brand new and a helluva lot better than anything we’ve got.” I said. We tried them out and they work real good. Better than our stuff, that’s for damn sure. Like the guy on the TV says, ‘they take a licking and keep on ticking.’”
“We took’em off the gooks,” I explained to Symonds as we walked up the last few feet of the slope to the top of the ridge.
“They’re great, they really are. Don’t jam even when they get dirty. Clips hold more rounds too. Lot better than our M1s and carbines. What we don’t have is anything to stop tanks except for the Sherman—and I got a great place for it.”
We reached the top and Symonds cautiously peeked around the rocks just as the field of bodies became fully visible in the early light.
“Holy shit. .. My God did you..,” Symonds said.
Then he jerked his head back in a panic. “Any more out there?”
“Not yet,” I said. “At least I don’t think so. But they’ll be here soon enough. We can take’em if they don’t have tanks and come straight at us. If they flank us, or get behind us, or have more tanks than the Sherman can handle….if they do, well, it’s gonna be real tough.”
“General Talley didn’t say anything about the North Koreans having tanks when he told me to get up here and report to you. He only took over the brigade a couple of days ago, you know. And his promotion only came through yesterday. Probably didn’t even know for sure when he was up here visiting you. Good man I hear. Obviously thinks a lot of you—heard you’re getting a couple of medals.”
Medals and an officer. Well I’ll be damned. I like that. Yeah, I really like that.
Chapter Six
We made our plans quickly and Symonds got increasingly deferential when the Charlie Company survivors made it clear that I was the one who’d killed all the gooks.
The new men from Easy were pretty much spread around with the Charlie boys. And, of course, they talked as they worked together to dig additional fox holes. That’s apparently how my new nickname of “Guns” got out.
Never had one before. Nickname I mean.
I explained to Symonds what I wanted. Then he and I along with Murphy and Symonds’ First Sergeant, a white-haired old timer named Ruskin, started spending a lot of time on our stomachs to make sure all our guys have a clear field of fire down the slope in front of us.
The downward slope of the ridge is pretty steep, about as steep as the last two hundred feet up from the stone terrace where the gradually rising farm land ends. One good thing about it, there’s no stone fence on this side of the ridge for the gooks to hide behind.
We initially had the men dig in to expand the line of original Charlie Company holes that are strung out behind the ridge. But looking at the terrain on the way back to retake the ridge I’d come up with an idea. As a result, a lot of the guys had to re-dig their holes to move them much closer to the top of the ridge—and the four of us got our fatigues even dirtier and sweatier and more ripped up.
******
The holes we ended up digging are not as deep as I would have liked. The top of the ridge itself was almost flat and ten to twenty feet wide. Sort of like a little plateau, as if someone had chopped off the very top of the hill. In places it was surrounded at the top by a low stone terrace similar to the one down below.
The ground had apparently once been cultivated, even on the top. Probably had to haul the dirt up. Jeez. But after two or three feet down it became solid rock. So we used the dirt and rocks from the first two or three feet to build a thick foot-high wall around each hole with notches in the front and back for our weapons. Hopefully the walls will be thick enough to stop a bullet or shell fragment. Anyhow, it seems like a good idea and the men worked feverishly despite the painful blisters that quickly grew on everyone’s hands.
“Better to get a blister than a bullet,” Murphy and Ruskin repeated constantly as they prowled up and down the line keeping after the men. Who don’t need much keeping after—they were digging for their lives.
While the men who needed to relocate their holes were beavering away with their entrenching tools to dig them, I had the rest of the guys digging and chipping a position for the Sherman.
Finally, with all the unnecessary shouting and waving that occurs when four or five guys are trying to give instructions at the same time, Jimmer eased his Sherman into a much too shallow hole on the far left end of our line.
Even though the tank wasn’t dug in very deep we’ve got it behind a rock big enough to shield most of the its front and the driver’s compartment, but low enough that its cannon barrel can hang over the rock and command the terrain up to our line.
Not bad. It’s not really hull down but it’s gonna have to do. It sure as hell beats sitting right out in the open.
The tank commander didn’t like the position and bitched and moaned with a heavy southern drawl the entire time he and his crew were rigging their tank’s camouflage net to break its silhouette. But all in all, Jimmer admits to himself, this here position’s pretty good because it gives me some hull protection and I can sweep the entire slope with both my machine guns and the 76mm tube.
I liked it too. With a little luck, and the help of the tank’s camouflage net, the Koreans won’t see the Sherman until it can hit their Russian-made tanks in the side where their armor isn’t so thick. As long as it lasts, it will protect our left flank.
Damn this just might work. I’ll have to remember to let them get close though; can’t afford to give away our positions.
A couple of Symonds’s squads, and their two-man BAR teams, were digging in off to the left side of the tank for more flank coverage and to protect the Sherman from enemy bazooka teams. They can only cover a little bit of the front slope but they’ll do real good on our left flank and rear.
Two more of Symonds's squads with BARs are digging something similar at the other end of the line. From there they’ll have a clear field of fire both to their left front next to where the original Charlies are dug in and to the rear.
They don’t have a tank on that end of the line but we gotten the word on Jimmer’s radio that the second Sherman, the one that broke down coming here, has been restarted and is on its way again. That’s good news. We really need it.
Almost all the Charlie Company guys held on to their captured weapons and piled up ammo, K-rations and canteens in their holes. The Easy Company guys quickly copied them and they all dug like hell. In less than an hour just about everyone had a couple of the North Korean weapons and a lot of ammo. Some had three. But after the new supplies were rationed out it turns out to be water we needed most. There was barely one canteen apiece. Digging holes is thirsty work.
It’s obvious the guys really feel better because they have more than one weapon. I’ve got to remember that. There is nothing worse than having a weapon jam or run out of ammunition and being unable to protect yourself. That’s when the men bug out.
Murphy and the Easy Company Top, Sergeant Ruskin, and, of course, Symonds and I, were constantly walking the line to check the progress of the digging and making sure everyone has both a good firing position and enough ammo and supplies.
Murphy and Sergeant Ruskin supervised the unloading of the trucks that carried Symonds's company and the supplies to us. It went fast even though they bickered constantly because each wanted his company to get the best stuff—Ruskin arguing that he has more men and Murphy saying his men are experienced and will use it better.
And, thank you Jesus, there are four more thirty caliber machine guns and a couple more bazookas and BARs in addition to Easy's regulation two 30s and four BARs and Charlie’s one surviving BAR. Even better, much better, there was a 105mm recoilless rifle and ten armor piercing rounds.
The new machine guns are really dirty and crusted with mud so Murphy and Ruskin soon have their newly appointed gunners hard at work cleaning them and laying out the belts so they can be grabbed up in a hurry. Now, at least, we’re in better shape to beat off an infantry attack—we have six of the thirties plus the two on the tank and one on the Jeep and seven BARs.
Wonder where the dirty ones came from? And should I try to bring the Jeep up here so we can use its machine gun? Yes.
There are also three big sacks of burlap sand bags from some seed company in Mississippi. So as soon as the trucks were unloaded and the ammo and weapons distributed I had Murphy and a couple of men run along the line throwing out a handful of empty bags into every hole.
Everyone understood the need to get the ammo and weapons distributed if we are to survive, so the trucks were quickly unloaded and the cases opened. If anyone had been timing us it is likely we set an army record for unloading trucks fast and filling sand bags.
Immediately after the trucks are unloaded they are sent back to get more supplies and equipment. What we particularly need is anything that might stop a tank. Mortars too. Mortars won’t stop a tank but they’ll help keep them buttoned up and they’ll play hell with enemy troops even before they begin coming up the slope to the top of the ridge.
“Get everything you can find,” is what I tell an intelligent looking Easy Company corporal, a young guy with determined eyes. “But particularly water and any bazookas and recoilless rifles you can get, Jeep-mounted or on tripods. Anything.”
“Don’t wait to make a convoy,” I told him before he hurried off. “Send back each truck the minute it’s loaded.”
My wish list had already been radioed in and the young corporal clearly understood what I wanted him to do—steal everything that isn’t nailed down if he even thinks we might need it.
As it turned out, only two trucks and a three quarter ton weapons carrier made it back. The corporal will be MIA and never heard from again.
I never did learn his name. I think it might have been Jessop or something like that.
******
Symonds has Easy Company’s radio at his position on the left center of our line. He’ll act as our artillery spotter. The radio on Talley’s Jeep down below on the other side of the stone terrace wall will be our backup and help cover our rear if the gooks get around behind us. That changed in a hurry a bit later when Symonds’ radio and radioman got hit.
