Combat- Parallel Lines

by William Peter Grasso

  Approaching Micelli’s tank, Sean told Sully, his driver, “Pull up broadside to her.”

  They were still fifty yards away from Three when they saw the dark shapes of men clambering onto her deck.

  “Dust ’em with canister,” Sean said to his gunner. Then he told Sully to stop the tank.

  “ON THE WAY,” the gunner said and then fired the main gun.

  Micelli’s deck was swept clean.

  “Put up another canister round,” Sean ordered the loader.

  “There’s only one left after we shoot it,” the gunner said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know, pal. Sully, get closer. Bump her so she knows we’re there…she’s buttoned up and something’s wrong with her radio…”

  Or her whole damn crew is KIA.

  As Sully pivoted his vehicle next to the stricken tank, there was suddenly a voice on the intercom. It was Micelli; he’d exited his tank through the escape hatch in her belly and grabbed the phone on the stern of Sean’s tank.

  “I fucked up, Sean,” Micelli said. “We’re stuck. I think we threw a track. And the fucking radio—”

  “No shit, Rocky. Get your guys in here right now. Your gunner goes last in case he’s gotta fire some canister. Any rounds you got left, bring ’em with you.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right back,” Micelli said.

  More bugles. They sounded like they were right inside the turret.

  “Open the escape hatch,” Sean told the bow gunner. “If some chink tries to crawl in, shoot him in the fucking face.”

  Another round streaked in from the T-34, still clinging, apparently, to the slope of the plateau. It landed short, maybe among a group of Chinese infantrymen…

  Because the bugles stopped in mid-note.

  Squeezing another full crew into the cramped interior of a Sherman was no easy task. But these were not easy times, so difficult things were done immediately.

  Impossible things might take a little longer.

  “CHINKS AT TEN O’CLOCK,” the gunner yelled. He was already traversing the turret that way.

  “Knock ’em down,” Sean said.

  The gunner did just that.

  The last man from Micelli’s crew was crawling through the belly hatch now. With only his torso inside the tank, there was no place for him to go. The other members of his crew were still struggling to make room for themselves and the one canister round they’d managed to bring with them.

  “Hold on to him real good,” Sean said. “Sully, get moving.”

  “We’re going to drag his ass, Sarge,” the driver replied.

  “I could think of worse things right now,” Sean replied. “I say again, get moving.”

  “MORE CHINKS,” the gunner said.

  “Take ’em,” Sean replied.

  “That’s our last canister, Sarge.”

  “No, it ain’t. We just got one more.”

  “WHERE IS IT?”

  “Keep your drawers on. It’s coming.”

  It took a clumsy bucket brigade of four tankers—one sitting in his seat, two kneeling between the driver and bow gunner, and one lying on his back on the turret floor—to pass Micelli’s canister round through the crowded tank and up to the tube.

  The instant it was loaded, the gunner fired it at a throng of Chinese who seemed to be less than twenty yards away.

  Roaring away in reverse, they saw more dark shapes of men clambering over Micelli’s Sherman. If there were bugles blaring, they couldn’t hear them now over the screaming engine of Sean’s tank.

  “Put up an HEAT,” Sean told the loader.

  “You gonna shoot that T-34?” Micelli asked.

  “I can’t even see the fucking T-34, Rocky. I’m gonna shoot your vehicle. Her gun’ll work just as good for the chinks as it did for you, right?”

  “Yeah, I see your point, Sean.”

  It took an awkward dance of the five men crammed into the turret to get the HEAT round out of its rack and clear its path into the breech.

  “I’ve never shot a friendly before,” the gunner said as he sighted on Micelli’s tank.

  “She ain’t so friendly no more,” Sean replied. “Put it right up her ass.”

  The gunner sighed, “If I must.” Then he shouted, “ON THE WAY,” and stomped on the foot trigger.

  The turret’s extra occupants clung to each other for support as the tank rocked and her main gun recoiled just an inch from their faces.

  Temptation Three—Micelli’s tank—erupted in a cataclysm of high explosives and burning gasoline.

  Back on the radio, Sean checked with his other two tanks. Both reported they were crossing the trigger line for the trap, a culvert where a creek crossed under Highway 17, which was less than half a mile north of 26th Regiment’s position at Yubang-ni.

  Sean figured his tank could cross that line in three minutes…if they were in a forward gear. He told Sully, “Pivot one-eighty and make max forward speed.”

  “You sure it’s safe, Sarge? That T-34 could still shoot us in the ass.”

  “She can’t see much of us now…and in a minute, she ain’t gonna be seeing much of anything ever again.”

  He called Regiment and gave the codeword Calamity, the signal to spring the artillery trap.

  Sully started to protest, “But we’re not at…”

  “We’re close enough. Just drive, Corporal.”

  *****

  Temptation Six—Sean’s tank—was still a hundred yards from 26th Regiment’s line when the first rounds of the artillery trap crashed down close behind her. But there was little cause for her tankers to be alarmed; the trap would be like the jaws of a vise being cranked from wide open to fully closed, with several square miles of death and destruction resulting as the two long lines of impacting rounds—one north, one south—swept toward each other. The barrage would go on for twenty minutes, with seventy American guns firing over five thousand rounds as the vise opened and closed eight times.

  From a ridge above the village of Yubang-ni, Sean and Rocky Micelli watched the impacts of the distant barrage from the turret roof of Six, the strikes twinkling like rapid-fire flashbulbs of manic photographers. The muffled crump of each explosion reached their ears like a drumroll seconds later.

  As Sean finished a radio transmission to Regiment, Micelli asked, “What’d they say? Any chinks get through?”

  “Ain’t no reports of anybody walking outta that shitstorm yet, Rocky. But we better get our story straight about what the hell you were trying to do out there, because they’re kinda curious about how I ended up having to destroy one of my own vehicles. So what’s your story?”

  “We’re not in deep shit, are we?”

  “Nah, not this time. But the colonel does a pretty good job of turning fuckups into learning exercises…and that’s a good thing.”

  Relieved, Micelli launched into his tale. “The area to the east was in shadow, Sean. I thought the chinks might be slipping around us over that way, so I went to have a look.”

  “Without telling me about it over the radio?”

  “I was trying to call you, Sean. I don’t know exactly when the radio crapped out. But I musta tried ten times...and while I’m screwing with the damn radio, we ran a track into that ditch. She needed a tow to get out, but…”

  “Yeah, I know…it wasn’t the time or place to tow anything. But you were sure right about the chinks slipping around that way. That’ll sound real good in the debrief. Might even get your sorry ass decorated. Anything else you wanna add?”

  “No, that’s about it.”

  “Good story,” Sean replied. “Stick to it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The artillery trap had accomplished its objective. When the sun rose on 1 February 1951, the better part of two CCF regiments lay dead along Highway 17. GIs of 1st Cavalry Division flowed through the new gap in the enemy lines, opening the way for the US 8th Army to push the rest of the Chinese 38th Army back against the Han River. General Ridgway had no dou
bts he still faced strong adversaries, with at least two Chinese armies and three North Korean corps south of the 38th Parallel. But he knew he had them reeling, at least for the moment.

  “The Chinese have begun to shift more of their forces east, away from Seoul,” Ridgway told his assembled commanders. “They’re desperate to keep us from encircling the city. To do that, they need to maintain control of their Han bridgehead at Yangp’yong as well as the highway and rail lines that parallel the river in that area. Our job, gentlemen, is to cross the Han and get behind them before they can mass to stop us. Then we cut them off from their support in the north and east and choke off Seoul.”

  Like all audacious plans, it seemed a tall order, especially to those who’d be tasked with executing those plans. But his subordinate commanders had to admit that in the weeks since he’d taken command, General Ridgway’s initiatives had achieved their goals decisively. As Jock Miles put it, This guy knows how to win.

  “We’ve reached the final phase of Operation Thunderbolt, gentlemen,” Ridgway continued. “I’ve ordered General Almond’s Tenth Corps to advance north along Twenty-Fourth Division’s right flank and become an eastward extension of our line, anchored on Chip’yong-ni. Since that town is a major highway and rail junction, denying it to the Chinese should put a big crimp in their transportation network.”

  There was another situation map hanging on the wall; it had been concealed behind a shroud to this point. Ridgway signaled his aide to uncover it and then told his commanders, “Gentlemen, once Thunderbolt is complete, this will be the next phase of our push to the Thirty-Eighth Parallel.”

  There was a moment of surprised silence when they saw the title of the map, printed in big letters across its upper border: OPERATION KILLER.

  Jock told himself, The man doesn’t believe in mincing words, either.

  Of those present, only Ridgway knew how horrified Washington had been with the name Killer, as if the politicians believed that offending the enemy was somehow worse than destroying them. But he understood the desire of the Truman administration to seek a negotiated end to the fighting in Korea, the sooner the better. He considered Washington’s revulsion at the term ridiculously overcautious and out of step with battlefield realities:

  We’re expected to fight from a position of strength. Shouldn’t we be negotiating from one, too?

  Ultimately, he’d held his ground and prevailed; the name would stand.

  But Operation Killer wouldn’t begin until Matt Ridgway had closed the book on Thunderbolt, and that closing was still one objective away.

  *****

  “Tenth Corps is dragging its feet,” Ridgway told General Blackshear Bryan, commander of 24th Division. “General Almond’s still fussing about where the boundary between your division and his Second Division should be. If he keeps screwing around, there’s a good chance a gap will develop between your forces and his, and that could be disastrous. It’s bad enough I had to drag his ass back from his playtime in Tokyo as MacArthur’s chief of staff so he could do his job out here as a goddamn field commander.”

  Bryan replied, “I understand, sir. Do you have a preference where the corps boundary should be?”

  “You bet your ass I do, Blackie. I want the entire length of Highway Twenty-Four from the Han crossing east of Yoju to Chip’yong-ni—the whole twelve miles—to be in Tenth Corps’ zone of responsibility. None of this you get one side of the highway and I’ll get the other crap. That’s how we fuck up…nobody covers the highway itself because they assume the other guy’s doing it, and the chinks come down the road like they’re on a Sunday stroll. I’ve ordered Almond to cover the entire highway right up to the peaks paralleling it on both sides. But there’s one part of that zone where coordinating the boundary is going to get tricky. Take a look at this…”

  Using a grease pencil, Ridgway circled a spot on the map roughly three miles south of Chip’yong-ni. “Main line railroad tracks pass through two tunnels south of the town,” he said. “If we don’t stop them, the Chinese will use those tunnels to position troops who can block Highway Twenty-Four. And we won’t be able to see them doing it.”

  He traced the tracks running north toward Chip’yong-ni with his finger. “See how the tunnels sit on either side of the highway, about half a mile apart, connected by a bridge that carries the tracks over the highway? Have you ever seen better natural bunkers? We’ve already given the complex a name—Twin Tunnels.”

  He paused until Bryan had finished making notes. “Aerial recon reports Chinese troops in the area of the Twin Tunnels,” Ridgway continued. “We need to control every inch of the road and the tracks, especially at night when the chinks can move around best. I’m willing to bet that Almond’s boys in Second Division will do a half-assed job of covering the western tunnel and the tracks beyond it, since it entails their going over yet another set of hills. I’ll need you to pick up the slack there, Blackie. If you don’t control that western tunnel, Almond’s boys will be in for a tough slog on that highway. It’ll be a bloodbath like the road out of Chosin Reservoir all over again.”

  *****

  Picking up the slack fell to 26th Regiment, specifically Major Lee Grossman’s 3rd Battalion, reinforced with a platoon of tanks. Jock Miles told him, “Lee, I’m giving you Sergeant Moon as your armor advisor. I know you haven’t had much chance to work with the tankers yet, especially at night. He’ll be a big help to you. There’s no better teacher on the employment of armor than Sean Moon.”

  “I’ll be glad to have him, sir,” Grossman replied, “especially since it means I won’t be the only boy from New York City when he’s around.” Casting a needling eye Patchett’s way, he added, “And it’ll be nice not having to listen to nobody but crackers for once.”

  “Begging your damn pardon, sir,” Patchett said, switching to his histrionic Southern preacher voice, “but good ol’ Bubba Moon might still sound like a city boy, but I been working on him for a long time now. I wouldn’t call him a convert to proper living or nothing, but he’s finally learned how to do some things right.”

  Grossman laughed, replying, “Like the way you worked on me back when we were in the jungle, Top?”

  “No, it’s better with Bubba…because I don’t always have to say with all due respect, sir while I’m showing him the error of his ways.”

  “All right,” Jock said with a smile, “let’s knock off the walk down Memory Lane for now. We’ve got a lot to do.”

  As they returned to planning the mission that would coordinate the boundary with 2nd Division, Jock felt proud and blessed that these highly capable men, born of very different worlds, were still brothers linked by a warriors’ bond. Even though that bond had been forged in a different time and a different hell, no adversity would ever break it.

  *****

  Task Force Grossman—the battalion-sized combined arms force of infantry and armor—encountered CCF resistance while still two miles from the western tunnel. A recon team out ahead of the main body had been badly mauled while scouting approaches to the tunnel’s entrance in daylight. It had taken repeated air strikes by American fighter-bombers to drive off the Chinese and allow the team to escape decimation. During the fight, the Air Force ASO and his radio operator had been badly wounded in a friendly fire accident. A bomb that had hung up on an F-51 released belatedly as that ship pulled out of her attack dive. The late drop flung the five-hundred-pounder over a thousand yards farther than its intended target, impacting much too close to the ASO team. Both men were on a rescue helicopter within fifteen minutes of the incident. Two hours after that, they were on a medical evacuation airplane to Japan.

  It was now late afternoon, and Division informed Lee Grossman that another ASO team would not arrive until the following afternoon. When he passed this on to his staff, Sean asked, “They’re not pulling the night support aircraft, are they, sir?”

  “No,” Grossman replied, “but they’re wondering who’s going to call targets for them. Any ideas?”


  “I can do it, sir, no problem,” Sean said. “Done it plenty of times. Are we getting Firefly ships or birds with spotlights?”

  “According to the ops order, we’re getting both. But how are you going to talk to them, Sergeant? Didn’t the ASO’s radio truck get hit, too?”

  “Yeah,” Sean replied, “but we got the radio working again. Just had to fix an antenna cable that got tore up. The set’s up and running, so let’s make damn sure they don’t welsh on that air support, sir.”

  *****

  The Chinese forces at the tunnel seemed to be getting stronger as day rolled into night.

  “They must be bringing reinforcements straight down Highway Twenty-Four,” Grossman told Sean. “Chinks are just walking into the tunnel from the far end, and we can’t see them coming, not with Dog Bone Ridge in the way. It doesn’t look like Second Division’s anywhere near controlling that highway yet.”

  Dog Bone Ridge: the name the GIs had given to the hill that housed their objective: the west tunnel. The hill was narrower in the middle where the tunnel passed through it—only half a mile wide—and then flared at its north and south ends. On the map, it was shaped just like a dog’s bone that was three miles long.

  The tank platoon hadn’t been able to do much except lob HE shells at the tunnel mouth from two thousand yards away; they’d be too vulnerable to anti-tank fire if they moved closer across the open terrain. A few of the tankers’ rounds had actually found their way inside, detonating to unknown effect. But most splattered against the hillside from which the tunnel emerged.

  Grossman said, “The best we can do for now is stop them from going in and out of the tunnel on this end. But once it gets good and dark, they’re going to come out to take us on. We won’t see them until they’re right on top of us. We’d have to fire illum all night long just to figure out what’s happening, and you know Division’s never going to buy that. Not with rounds in short supply like they are.”