by Larry Bond
II CORPS HQ, NORTH OF TAEJON
The two generals stood together in the shadow thrown by a tall tree. Both were bundled against the cold.
Off to the south Taejon’s battered skyline glowed faintly with the light of a hundred fires, and smoke rising from the city stained the sky a dull, barren black. At this distance the sounds of the fighting were muted, reduced to little more than the quiet crackling of small-arms fire interspersed with the heavier thumping noises made by artillery and mortar rounds.
Colonel General Cho Hyun-Jae grimaced. “I fear, Chyong, that we stand on the edge of disaster. You’ve heard the reports?”
Lieutenant General Chyong nodded. They’d begun picking up the scattered transmissions earlier in the morning. First, news of a possible amphibious invasion on the coast near Seoul. Then, fragmentary reports of a massive assault force rolling out of the eastern mountains. Every signal had been garbled — a victim of imperialist radio jamming. Nothing was certain.
Chyong studied his commander carefully. The older man looked inexpressibly weary. “Is there more news?”
Cho shrugged, barely lifting his shoulders. “Nothing. I’ve dispatched couriers to each of the division headquarters with word to send me more details. I’ve heard nothing from them.” He shook his head. “Since my security troops report that the countryside behind us is crawling with puppet government assassins, I suspect that my messengers have been intercepted.” He drew a hand across his throat.
“Perhaps.”
Cho looked down at his hands. “In any event, our course is clear. We must shift forces northward to meet this enemy thrust. The imperialists cannot be allowed to sever our line of communications. We must counterattack.”
He turned away from the sight of Taejon. “I shall need two of your best divisions, Chyong, and two more from the Fourth Corps. I’ll also need two of the three armored regiments supporting your attack.”
Chyong frowned. Cho’s requisitions would leave his corps a toothless tiger, incapable of capturing the city. And there were other problems that could not be ignored. “My forces are at your disposal, comrade. But my casualties have been very heavy. Even my best units are barely at half-strength.” He moved closer. “Worse yet, our supplies are extremely low — food, ammunition, fuel, everything. There may not be enough fuel to move my tanks far enough north to attack the imperialists.”
Cho’s lips thinned in anger. “I am aware of your supply problems, comrade. Intimately aware!” He took a breath, trying to relax. “Pyongyang has assured me that resupply columns are moving south at this moment. Your tanks will have their fuel. That I promise you.”
Chyong wished his leader sounded more confident that Pyongyang’s promises would be fulfilled.
PHOENIX FLIGHT, OVER HIGHWAY 23, NORTH OF SOKSONG
Major Chon looked at the dark, undulating landscape flowing by five hundred feet beneath his plane. The moon had risen an hour ago, and it now threw just enough light to keep him out of trouble. He glanced quickly back over his shoulder and then forward again. The three other A-10s of his flight were still in position, following him at three hundred knots.
He smiled beneath his oxygen mask. Technically, A-10s weren’t night-capable aircraft, but the high command was throwing everything it had into this counteroffensive. Their orders were clear — to keep the pressure on the North Koreans around the clock. And if that meant that he and his men had to take unexpected risks, then Chon would see to it that those risks brought results on every mission.
Their prey this time was a North Korean supply convoy that had been spotted late in the afternoon by an RF-5A photoreconnaissance aircraft. Even though the NK trucks had been carefully camouflaged and concealed among some trees, their still-warm engines had shown up clearly on the recon plane’s infrared film. Intelligence believed the communists were moving only at night to try to avoid detection.
Chon’s flight had been readied immediately as part of the ongoing effort to interdict all supplies heading for the Taejon area.
“Phoenix Flight, this is Voodoo, over.” A quiet voice came through his headphones. There was his signal. Voodoo was an observation plane, an OV-10D Bronco. It had the low-light and thermal-imaging sensors that Chon’s attack aircraft lacked, and the slow-moving spotter had been launched at dusk, an hour before Chon’s jets. The radio contact meant his A-10s were approaching the most likely area now.
“Phoenix Flight, location Alpha X-ray four seven three seven, over.”
There wasn’t any need for the spotter plane to say what was at that location. Chon looked at the map taped to his knee and made some rapid calculations. The A-10’s avionics weren’t all that sophisticated, and a lot of the navigating was still done by the pilot.
“Roger, Voodoo, ETA three minutes.” Chon flashed his navigation lights twice to alert his subordinates and banked a little to the left. Once on course he stole a quick glance behind. The other A-10s were still with him.
He checked his armament panel, then glanced at the map. The terrain stayed hilly, with a highway winding around the highest elevations. The best approach route was across the road, moving from east to west, but they would have to do some fancy flying to avoid slamming into a hill at three hundred knots.
He clicked his mike. “Phoenix Flight, this is Lead. Standard attack from the east. Voodoo, our ETA is one minute.”
The spotter plane pilot came back on the air immediately. “Roger, Phoenix. Prepped for illumination on your call.”
Chon answered with two clicks and flashed his lights again. He broke hard left, knowing that his wingman, Captain Lee, would follow him. He looked right and saw the other pair moving away, off to the north.
There was the highway, a thin black line against an irregular gray-and-white landscape. “Voodoo, this is Phoenix Lead. Now, now, NOW!”
Chon kept his eyes on the surface of the road. Even so, the sudden bright, white light cast by the OV-10-dropped string of flares ruined his night vision. Their harsh, flickering illumination wasn’t easy to see by. He blinked, looking for patterns, regular shadows or shapes along the road.
There.
A row of boxy shadows, still moving in column down the road.
Chon’s thumb reached for the cannon trigger as his A-10 dropped lower toward the road.
ON HIGHWAY 23
The flares swaying down out of the sky could mean only one thing. Disaster.
“Get off the road! Disperse!” Major Roh In-Hak screamed into his radio, then leaned out of the truck cab. He waved his arms frantically, motioning the drivers behind him off to either side of the road. Most stared uncomprehendingly back.
It was too late. Roh heard a howling whine and looked back and up. Two dark, cruciform shapes were roaring down out of the sky — heading directly for him. Death on the wing.
The major panicked and threw himself out of the truck cab. He pinwheeled down a steep embankment and landed hard against the frozen earth of a rice-paddy dike. He lay motionless, gasping for air.
Roh looked up at his still-moving truck just as the first attacking aircraft fired. Its bulbous nose was illuminated by a blaze of light even brighter than the flares drifting overhead, and a stream of fire reached out and ripped into the earth near his truck. Then it leaped toward the vehicle as the pilot corrected his aim.
The North Korean major buried his face in the ground as the truck exploded, sending a searing sheet of orange-and-red flame just over his head. It had been carrying artillery ammunition destined for the heavy guns bombarding Taejon. He knew his driver was dead.
More explosions rocked the earth, lighting up the hills on either side of the narrow valley they were in. Roh stayed down as fragments whined all around, trying to shut out the awful sounds as screams blended with the roar of jet engines and the rippling thunder of high-velocity aircraft cannons.
The noise faded and then died away entirely. The enemy planes had finished their strafing runs.
Roh raised his head cautiously and then scr
ambled to his feet. He ran back toward the rest of the column to check the damage and was relieved by what he found. Only the first three trucks had been hit — all carrying ammunition or food. The supply convoy’s precious fuel tankers were still intact.
But they were trapped on this road. His vehicles couldn’t possibly escape over the rough countryside. And Roh knew the enemy pilots would be back to finish what they’d started. He went from truck to truck, banging on cab doors and screaming, “Deploy! Deploy! Troops take up positions in the trees! Get the antiaircraft vehicles operational!”
The column’s air defenses were pitiful. Every one of the People’s Army’s remaining mobile antiaircraft guns were stationed up at the front. As a result, all Roh had to defend his trucks with were a few locally manufactured guns, clumsy 37-millimeter weapons mounted precariously on flatbed trucks, and a sprinkling of shoulder-launched SA-7 SAMs carried by the convoy’s small infantry detachment. He knew it wouldn’t be enough.
Roh heard the jets thundering back and started running away from the road.
PHOENIX FLIGHT
As he banked hard right to come around again, Chon armed his cluster bombs. They would drop all their ordnance in one pass, and there would be no second chance.
“Phoenix Flight, this is Lead. Attack in echelon.”
Clicks acknowledged his order, and Chon started concentrating on his flying. More flares went off ahead, lighting up the rugged countryside, and he pulled the A-10’s nose higher to clear a hill just ahead.
As he popped over the tree-lined hill’s jagged summit, Chon saw what looked like a cloud of fireflies and streaks of light zipping past his canopy. Tracers. He tried to avoid flinching. The A-10 was armored, but no sane pilot trusted in armor to keep his airplane flyable. He’d already been shot down once by enemy flak and he wasn’t about to let it happen again.
Chon punched his flare dispenser to automatic and set his HUD for a cluster bomb drop directly over the center of the road now coming up fast.
One concentration of tracers attracted his attention. His eyes narrowed. They were coming from some sort of flak vehicle, and he was tempted to give it a quick cannon burst after he’d made his pass. Chon fought the temptation. Attacking alerted defenses wasn’t wise. The mission was to destroy what they were trying to defend.
He reached for the bomb release.
ON HIGHWAY 23
Roh told the men near him to fire, and purely for effect, he emptied his own pistol at the dark shapes streaking overhead. He could see their undersides clearly in the light cast by his burning vehicles.
As his pistol clicked empty, the North Korean swore to himself. He’d identified the attackers. They were American A-10s and pistol bullets wouldn’t bother them any more than they would a tank. Each spewed a trail of incandescent flares as it roared past.
His motionless truck column disappeared in a blinding series of rippling detonations. Hundreds of flashes tore up and down the line of now-abandoned vehicles and blossomed across the frozen paddies on either side of the road. A cluster of furnace-white fireballs rising in the air told him that the fuel tankers needed at Taejon were gone.
Temporarily blinded, Roh blinked and looked away from the flames, trying to spot the American-made aircraft as they fled the scene of their victory. He was gratified to see that some of his men were still firing at them.
A shoulder-launched SAM flashed up into the night sky, darting after one of the fleeing jets. Roh urged it on silently, hoping that his troops might achieve some small success by at least downing an enemy plane. But then the SAM veered away, tracking a decoy flare instead of the vanishing A-10. He cursed and threw his pistol into the snow.
Two hundred meters away, the inferno along the highway became visible as the dust and smoke cleared. Almost every truck had been lacerated by fragments or by actual bomblet explosions. And at least half were on fire. Roh stared hard at them, trying to remember which ones carried ammunition.
One of the vehicles exploded, aiding his memory.
The First Shock Army would have to make do without its supplies.
JANUARY 17 — NAVAL AVIATION BASE, VLADIVOSTOK, R.S.F.S.R
The rising sun cast long, sharp-edged shadows across the base and gleamed brightly off snow piled beside its runways. One by one the arc lights that had illuminated the airfield winked off, no longer needed to turn night into day.
The Soviet armaments officer yawned and stretched, trying to work a painful crick out of his neck. He stopped to stare in wonder at the sight before his eyes. It had been dark when the last regiment of bombers flying in from the Northern Fleet had landed, and he’d been so busy that he hadn’t really paid much attention.
But now it was impossible not to. He’d never seen his base so crowded before. Nearly sixty twin-engined Backfire bombers were parked across the field — some wingtip to wingtip, others in protective revetments. Every technician he had surrounded the bombers, manhandling AS-4 Kitchen antiship missiles into place under each wing.
He glanced at his watch. Excellent. His men would finish rearming and refueling the Backfires well ahead of the general’s deadline. And then the American carriers steaming arrogantly off South Korea would have something new to worry about.
SEA OF JAPAN
The Red Navy’s Surface Action Group One steamed southwest at twenty knots, slicing through moderate seas under clear skies. The massive Kirov-class battle cruiser Frunze occupied the center, accompanied by two older missile cruisers and two modern Sovremennyy-class destroyers. Other cruisers, destroyers, and frigates surrounded the surface strike force as part of a thick ASW and air defense screen.
Three fighter squadrons — two of MiG-23s and one of MiG-29s — orbited endlessly overhead, constantly relieved by new squadrons dispatched from bases near Vladivostok or on the island of Etorofu. All waited eagerly for the word to pounce on any incoming American airstrike.
Surface Action Group One was just twenty hours away from the vital Tsushima Strait.
ABOARD USS CONSTELLATION, OFF THE KOREAN COAST
Brown stared hard at the enhanced satellite photos. “When were these taken?”
Captain Ross, his threat team commander, checked his watch. “About an hour ago, Admiral.”
“Jesus, Sam, we’ve got big-time trouble here.”
Ross nodded his agreement. Between them, the Soviet bomber force and the oncoming surface action group could catch Constellation and Nimitz in one hell of a bear hug.
Brown handed the photos to his chief of staff and clasped his hands behind his back. “Any political intelligence on their intentions?”
“Negative, Admiral. Still no word out of Moscow on what they’re up to.”
Brown swore and started pacing the length of the Flag Plot. Ross and the chief of staff kept pace with him. “Okay, guys. Here’s the way I see it. The Soviets might just be trying to put some extra pressure on us. Maybe they’re hoping to force us to reduce our close-air support sorties for the footsloggers. Maybe…” The admiral turned and walked back the way he’d come. “But we can’t take that chance. We’ve got to assume their intentions are hostile.”
“Agreed, sir.”
Brown stopped by the large-scale map display. “All right, then, gentlemen. Here’s how we’ll play this thing.” He paused and then went on, “Effective immediately, we’ll alter course to close the Tsushima Strait ourselves — ahead of that damned Russian task force. In the meantime I want all ground-support missions halted. Tell CAG I want his strike crews to stand down for a mandatory eight-hour rest. After that, I want a full-scale antiship strike spotted on deck and ready to go when I give the word.”
Brown looked closer at the plot. “How long before those bastards cross the line into our three-hundred-mile exclusion zone?”
“Twenty-four hours, Admiral.”
Brown grimaced. “Then I suspect those are going to be the longest goddamn twenty-four hours of our lives, gentlemen. Let’s stay sharp.”
The admiral sta
yed where he was as the other two men hurried away to carry out his orders. Beneath his feet, he felt the Constellation heeling over onto her new course — headed south. South toward the Tsushima Strait. South toward a rendezvous with the Red Navy.
UN FORCES MOBILE HEADQUARTERS, NEAR ANSONG
The M-577 command vehicle swayed as it rounded a corner at high speed. McLaren stood high in the commander’s hatch, braced against the personnel carrier’s kidney-rattling ride. From where he stood, he could see the whole headquarters column as it wound its way west along the highway. Tanks and troop carriers were thrown out ahead and behind for security, trucks and command carriers intermingled in the middle, and a flight of helicopter gunships orbited overhead, covering the entire mile-long convoy.
The column slowed as it passed through the smoldering, bombed-out ruins of a small town. Corpses and wrecked vehicles dotted the flat, snow-covered fields outside the village. Most were North Korean. Some were not.
The M-577 bucked sharply as its treads ground over a partially filled-in shell crater, and it turned another corner, slowing still more as it passed a column of men marching east on foot — grinning South Korean MPs guarding dazed-looking prisoners. The MPs saluted as McLaren’s command vehicle roared by, and he returned their salutes with a grin of his own.
The prisoners they were guarding were a clear-cut indication of just how successful Thunderbolt had been so far. Up to this point in the war the NKs had always fought fanatically — often to the last man. Now that was changing. They were beginning to surrender — often en masse. McLaren could feel the tide turning in his favor.
There were other indications of success. Intelligence estimated that his troops had crushed four North Korean infantry divisions in the thirty-six hours since that attack began. Several others had been hammered so heavily that they were now judged completely combat ineffective.
Better still, his armored spearheads had already penetrated up to fifty kilometers, and the NKs still showed no signs of being able to mount a coordinated counterattack. Most of their best divisions remained locked in combat around Taejon, seemingly unable, or unwilling, to break free and march north. Without them the North Koreans couldn’t possibly stop his forces before they reached the sea. And given another forty-eight hours of uninterrupted, broken-field running like this, McLaren knew he could bring victory within reach.
