by James Rosone
Two other Ospreys landed their human cargo a kilometer further west, near the small village of Kai Kuk Shue Ha, while two more Ospreys dropped another platoon of Marines to the southwest, at a village called Tin Sam. Both of these platoons were to act as a blocking force and a tripwire in case PLA forces tried to head toward the soon-to-be-established Marine artillery base.
With several hundred Marines dropped off, the group of seven Ospreys turned back to the Portland, where they would begin the task of picking up the next company of Marines to ferry to the mainland.
*******
While the Marines were air assaulting in hundreds of grunts to secure their objectives, the Navy had sent in six of their littoral combat ships; three of their smaller, swifter Cyclone fast-attack patrol boats escorted the eight LCACs that were bringing sixteen of the thirty howitzers ashore. Several other Cyclones raced in to the port facility and other key objectives to drop off several platoons’ worth of Navy SEALS.
Boom, boom, BAM!
Captain McKnight looked off at the port facility a kilometer away and saw several large explosions billowing up into the night sky. He briefly caught the silhouette of one of the Navy’s patrol boats as its chain gun raked an enemy position with hundreds of bullets.
“Give `em hell, boys,” he muttered under his breath. Then he returned his attention to the task as hand.
“I want those trees down, now!” he roared. “We don’t have much time left to get this area cleared out!” The half dozen Marines unraveling det cord around several trees dutifully sped up their process.
Once the howitzers showed up, they would gobble up nearly all of the cleared flatland in the area. His Marines needed to make sure they had a couple of working LZs set up to allow for more reinforcements to arrive and ammunition to continue to be flown in.
Twenty minutes later, McKnight heard the unmistakable noise of the LCACs racing in the water as they headed toward the beach. Captain McKnight hoped they would see the series of infrared lights his Marines had set up, directing the LCACs where to land. In minutes, the first monstrous hovercraft appeared out of the darkness and drove right up on the beach, continuing until it lurched forward in a stop at the signal of a Marine with a pair of handheld infrared signaling lights. Once the hovercraft came to a stop, the front ramp dropped. The first set of heavy trucks roared to life, rolling down the ramp while towing one of the M777 155mm lightweight howitzers behind it.
One by one, the other seven LCACs rolled in and started the process of getting the guns and their crews ashore. As the hovercraft were emptied, they started their engines back up and proceeded to head back to sea, where the sailors offshore would be anxiously waiting to send their next load in. While the artillery crews went to work on identifying where they wanted each gun to be placed, the roar of gunfire and explosions happening across the bay grew steadily in intensity. Captain McKnight observed more explosions blasting around the port area. Meanwhile, the Navy’s patrol boats and littoral combat ships continued to move up and down the coast provide direct fire support wherever needed.
Twenty minutes after the first set of howitzers were ashore, the first of the sixteen guns started to deliver their first fire mission for the ground forces already heavily engaged across the bay. Minutes after the first howitzer started to fire, three more artillery cannons added their weight as well.
The Marines of 1/10 FA were inundated with fire mission requests. In short order, they had all sixteen guns delivering a sustained one to two rounds a minute for the Marines battling it out on the mainland.
*******
As the Osprey circled the area below, Lieutenant Colonel Long spotted the two platoons Captain McKnight had placed as a blocking force to protect the newly established firebase. Despite the short timeframe, they looked well organized in their new positions.
Long turned to look out the other side. His other company had reached the port, and he could see that they were already pushing the perimeter out beyond it. Already, a group of Navy Seabees was hard at work getting the port’s heavy equipment ready to start offloading the first Ro-Ro ship, which was already headed their way.
“You ready to head down, Sir, or do you want us to make another pass?” asked the pilot.
“I’ve seen what I needed to see. You can set us down now. Thanks again for letting me get a bird’s-eye view of my guys,” he answered.
The Osprey headed back down to the LZ McKnight’s Marines had cleared out nearly an hour earlier.
Once on the ground, Lieutenant Colonel Long headed for the tent his headquarters staff had set up. When he walked in, he saw they had the maps up on the tent wall and the radios going. One of his staffers was plotting the location of the various companies and platoons in the city, as well as the enemy units they had either spotted or the UAVs had found. From the looks of things, there were several large PLA formations heading toward them now. Two were headed toward the docks, and the other was headed toward the lone platoon two kilometers away from their current position.
It was clear that platoon was going to need help soon. Turning to his S3, he asked, “When is Romeo Company going to arrive?”
“They’re getting ready to leave the Portland now,” he replied.
“I want them redirected to this point here,” Long ordered. “We have a much larger force heading toward us and not enough Marines to defend this position. I also want a battery of those guns to shift fire and start hitting this location.”
His S3 walked over to look at the map. Once he saw the number of enemy soldiers heading toward them he nodded. “You’re right, Sir. That looks to be close to two battalions’ worth of infantry headed their way.”
Boom, boom. BAM!
Explosions vibrated the ground beneath them. Several pieces of shrapnel ripped right through one section of the tent, tearing into one of the map boards and hitting a Marine in the arm as he was updating it.
One of the sergeants in the tent began to administer first aid to the wounded Marine. “Corpsman!” he yelled.
Lieutenant Colonel Long raced outside the tent to see what had happened. He immediately spotted two of the artillery guns a couple hundred meters away, turned over on their sides. One of the trucks sitting between the two guns was also on fire, burning in bright orange flames.
His eyes swept toward the bay. One of the Navy’s Cyclone patrol boats was on fire. It looked like the captain was trying to steer the endangered ship toward their patch of shore, away from the port.
Someone shouted, “Incoming fighters!” and pointed in the direction of the city across the bay.
The dark silhouettes of fast-moving objects appeared to be headed right for them. A couple of Marines who had been in the tree line ran out into the open field nearby, each raising a long tube to their shoulders. Seconds later, they each fired a Stinger missile at the incoming war planes.
One of the fighters fired a pair of missiles at the Ro-Ro ship tied up to the pier, while a second fighter shot off two more missiles at one of the littoral combat ships in the harbor. Two more planes continued their flight directly toward Long’s firebase.
The littoral combat ship engaged the fighters with their RIM 116 rolling airframe missiles and CWIS system, splashing two of the five enemy planes. One of the Stingers hit the third fighter, which ripped apart and spiraled toward the ground with a trail of smoke behind it. The remaining two fighters continued to head for the artillery base Long’s men had established.
Seconds later, the planes buzzed over their positions and four objects fell from their wings, tumbling end over end until they slammed into the ground.
Boom, boom, boom, BOOM!
The blast wave and concussion from the explosions hit Long across his entire body, blowing him completely off his feet and sending him tumbling backwards. The blast wave threw him and his soldiers around like the ragdolls of an angry toddler.
A series of secondary explosions rocked the base—some of the artillery propellant had caught fire and exploded.
Colonel Long was vaguely aware of his surroundings, but the world was still a bit dim after being tossed about like that. As Long’s hearing started to return and his brain slowly turned itself back on, the first thing he heard was the cries for help. Sitting up, he did a quick check of his arms and legs, making sure everything worked.
He looked nearby and saw the tent his headquarters staff had set up was largely gone, torn apart. Marines lay in heaps all around it. Down toward the artillery gun positions, he saw nearly half of the artillery guns had been knocked over or were destroyed. Small fires spread all over the base, along with the remains of the dead.
Long gingerly got up. He looked down and saw his rifle was still attached to his IBA via his single-point sling. Hearing cries from the wounded near his headquarters tent, he made his way over to the remnant to check on his staff. As he approached them, he heard one of the Marines crying, begging for help.
When he found the source of the desperate pleas, he saw Private First Class Luke Grabowski leaned up against several of the destroyed radios. He was using his one good arm and hand to desperately hold his intestines in and keep them from spilling out of a large gash in stomach, just below his body armor. His left arm appeared to be shattered and unusable.
PFC Grabowski looked up at him, tears streaming down his face. “Help me, Sir. My guts are spilling out of me and I can’t stop it.”
In that moment, Long wanted to turn away, to throw up or do anything other than walk toward the young man. But he knew he needed to help him. He moved quickly to the young man’s side. “Hold on, Grabowski. I’m here now. Help will be here soon.”
Long helped Grabowski slide down to lie flat on the ground. He grabbed Grabowski’s first aid bandage and quickly applied it across the gash across his stomach. The bandage now held the man’s innards where they belonged. He placed Grabowski’s good hand on top of his abdomen.
“Hold this in place,” Captain Long instructed gruffly. Then he grabbed his combat application tourniquet and tied off the crushed and bleeding part of Grabowski’s left arm. Long knew he needed to stem the bleeding if the young Marine was to have any chance at surviving.
Turning to look for help, he spotted a group of Marines heading his direction. “I need a corpsman over here now!” he shouted.
One of the people in the group ran toward him at a sprint as the others trotted behind. The Navy corpsman immediately went to work on Grabowski. He gave him a shot of morphine and then did his best to get his abdomen wound sealed up.
“We need some medevacs here ASAP!”
“Romeo Company is almost here, Sir. Once they land, we’ll load the wounded onto the Ospreys and get them brought back to the Portland. Are you OK yourself, Sir?” asked one of McKnight’s lieutenants.
“I’m fine, but clearly most of my headquarters staff have been killed,” he replied, waving his hand around at the torn and dead bodies. Many of these tattered remains represented Marines he had only known for a few months, most of them new to the Corps, fresh from training.
“I think you should set up with Captain McKnight, Sir. We have a command post over in that tree line,” the lieutenant said, pointing in the direction of where he had just come from.
Lieutenant Colonel Long nodded. He knew the lieutenant was right. “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”
As the two of them walked toward the CP, several other Marines looked for more survivors. Long glanced down at the beach; the second wave of LCACs was approaching, bringing with them the rest of 1/10’s artillery battalion. He sighed. Of the sixteen howitzers that had landed in the first wave, only four of them were still carrying out fire missions. The rest of the guns had either been destroyed or disabled.
When they entered the tree line, Long spotted McKnight on the radio and he waved for him to come over. “Yes, Sir. He’s right here,” he said to the person on the other end. Then he handed the radio receiver to him.
“It’s General Tillman,” McKnight explained in response to the quizzical look Long had given him.
Long nodded. “This is Loki Six. Go ahead.”
“Loki Six, this is Rogue Six. What’s going on over there? I heard you guys got hit by an airstrike. Is your firebase still operational?” asked General Tillman, voice filled with concern.
“Two fighters plastered our position pretty hard,” Long explained. “I lost my entire headquarters staff, and twelve of our sixteen howitzers are down. The rest of 1/10 just showed up, so we should have them operational shortly. I’ve also got Romeo Company inbound in five mikes to reinforce our position. How copy?”
A minute went by before the radio beeped and the SINCGARS synced up. “Good copy. 3/6 Marines will head to shore in two hours. Can your battalion hold until they arrive, or do I need to push them to arrive sooner?”
“We can hold, Sir, but I need some air cover and gunship support. I have three battalion-sized formations heading toward our positions. Two are entering the northern side of the city heading toward the port, and the third is heading overland up the peninsula toward our firebase. How copy?”
“Good copy on all. I’ll see what I can do about the air cover. I’m going to dispatch Attack Helicopter Squadron 167 to hit those targets for you. When 3/6 arrives, you need to do your best to have your battalion disengage and move to your next objective. How copy?”
Long sighed for a second. He could see McKnight shaking his head at him with a grin on his face. “That’s a good copy, Sir. We’ll be ready. My vehicles start to arrive on the next wave of LCACs. Out.”
“He’s eager to get us moving to Shenzhen, isn’t he?” asked McKnight.
“Semper Gumby, McKnight. That’s about all I can say. Speaking of that—when Romeo lands, I’m going to have them reinforce your second and third platoons on our perimeter. I need the rest of your guys to work on getting those new guns showing up ready. See if the gun bunnies need some help getting some of those howitzers turned back over. Maybe a few of them can be salvaged.”
Long looked for a spot to sit down. He was still a little rattled from the airstrike that had wiped out his headquarters staff. So far, only two other Marines from his headquarters unit had survived unscathed.
Minutes later, they heard the thumping sound of the Ospreys’ helicopter blades as the giant flying machines landed in the clearing they had built. The helicopters landed two at a time, disgorging their human cargo. As the newly arrived Marines ran off the back ramps, medics and others loaded the wounded Marines onto the helicopters to bring them back to the Portland, which had a level one trauma center.
As the newly arrived Marines headed toward their positions, Lieutenant Colonel Long walked out to find Captain Nickles, the Romeo Company commander.
Nickles saw Long and trotted over to him while the rest of his men filtered into the tree line. “It looks like you guys took a few hits, Sir,” he said when he got closer.
“You could say that,” Long said with a snort. “Listen up, Nickles—McKnight’s got two platoons that are about to be a speedbump for an element that’s at least battalion-sized and heading our direction.” He pulled a map out and hastily pointed to it. “I need you to get your men over to this position here and hold the line. We’ve got some gunship support headed our direction, so use them as you see fit. Once McKnight’s and your LAVs and JLTVs arrive, we’ll mount up and head over to help you out. We need to push the PLA back to Sha Tau Kok. When 3/6 Marines land, the rest of our battalion will rally on us here, and then we’ll take the Sha Tau Kok Road to the San Tin Highway and the Shenzhen interchange. From there, it should be a straight shot to secure the next port.”
The two of them talked for a bit longer before Romeo Company took off at a quick trot to get in position. Meanwhile, the LCACs finished offloading the remaining guns of 1/10 FA and headed back to the ships offshore to pick up Long’s battalion of LAVs and JLTVs to bring ashore, along with a company of tanks that had been assigned to them. The next few hours would see some of the heaviest fighting of the campaign as the PLA
desperately tried to throw the invaders back into the sea before they could establish a foothold.
*******
As he rode in the LCM-8 "Mike Boat," First Lieutenant Ian Slater thought he was going to get sick. Several of his soldiers had already puked their guts out, adding to the acrid aroma of diesel fuel, feces, and urine that wafted toward him from the front of the boat.
He found himself wondering how in the hell his company had gotten stuck doing yet another amphibious assault. “I swear—I thought we had a Marine Corps,” he thought angrily. Ian had fought in the slaughter that was the Second Korean War, then invaded Indonesia, then India, and now China. He wasn’t sure his luck would hold out much longer.
BOOM, BOOM, BAM.
Explosions blared off in the distance, almost like the grand finale of a Fourth of July fireworks show. When their boat entered the Zhujiang River Estuary, Slater saw several small islands on either side of the LCM, and realized they were nearing their target. His battalion had been assigned the job of capturing a host of small islands throughout the Zhujiang River Estuary and the mouth of the Shenzhen Harbor.
In front of them, two Navy littoral combat ships and several Cyclone patrol boats led the way. A couple of destroyers had even moved into the waterways with them. Looking behind them, Ian saw at least twenty of these Mike Boats following them in.
While their boat got closer to one of the islands, the sound of machine-gun fire and explosions emanating from the nearby cities grew in intensity. The night sky filled with antiaircraft fire. Green and red tracers crisscrossed back and forth across the sky, chasing after high-flying fighters and ground-attack planes and helicopters.
The thumping rotor blades of hundreds of helicopters filled Slater’s ears—the battle for the industrial heartland of China was now in full swing. It was spectacular to see such an awesome display of war machines and military power, but also terrifying. He knew that tens of thousands of enemy soldiers were lying in wait to kill him and his fellow soldiers.
