Combat- Parallel Lines

by William Peter Grasso

  So, again, I ain’t real worried.

  To cap it off, I still got those three canister rounds left over from the fight at the artillery trap. Tunnels are natural-made shooting galleries for that shit. It’ll tear any poor bastards we come across to ribbons.

  Just so our infantry behind us keeps sneaky ol’ Joe Chink off our deck.

  Since the odds of communicating with Task Force Grossman’s HQ while the tank was inside the tunnel were near zero, Sean had the commo section change the crystals in an infantry walkie-talkie so it worked on a frequency in the armor band. He’d station an RTO with that walkie-talkie just outside the tunnel mouth to act as a relay for Sean’s onboard radio. The relay unit would then talk to a compatible radio at the task force’s HQ.

  Rolling slowly into the pitch-black abyss of the tunnel, Sean told the tank’s driver, “Put the headlights on.”

  The horrified driver replied, “Are you kidding, Sarge? You wanna make us a better target than we already are?”

  “No, numbnuts, I want you to be able to see where you’re going so you don’t drive us into a fucking mined barricade or something. And as far as being a target, it sure as hell ain’t no secret we’re here, lights on or not. Now get moving, nice and slow.”

  *****

  At Task Force HQ, Grossman’s RTO was getting frustrated. “I don’t get it, sir,” he said. “Even if those Second Division guys are still ten miles away, we should be working them on this frequency.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Corporal,” Grossman replied. “Somebody’s screwed up somewhere, that’s for damn sure.”

  Then it dawned on him what that screwup might be. He asked his commo officer, “Hey, Lieutenant…when did we do the sig ops changeover?”

  Sig ops: the signals operating document, which contained, among other vital communications items, the list of assigned frequencies for all 8th Army units. When the current sig ops expired, all copies were to be destroyed and the superseding document put into effect.

  “The changeover was at midnight on 1 February, sir,” the commo officer replied.

  “Hold it,” Grossman said. “That could be an hour from now…or it could have happened twenty-three hours ago. Midnight is ambiguous. Did we change over already?”

  “Yes, sir, twenty-three hours ago. Just like everybody else in Twenty-Fourth Division.”

  Grossman had seen this mistake before, back in the last war. It was the reason midnight was never to be the expressed changeover time. It was either published as 2359 hours of a calendar date or 0001 hours of the following day. Which of those two dates midnight fell on was too open to misinterpretation.

  “Do we still have a copy of the expired sig ops?” Grossman asked.

  The commo officer replied, “Well, I’m not supposed to have one anymore, but…”

  He reached into a field box and produced the old document.

  “Outstanding,” Grossman said. “Switch to the old command net freq.”

  The RTO retuned his set and said, “It’s dead air, sir. Nobody’s home.”

  “That’s good. Give Second Division another call.”

  A voice from 23rd Regiment—the 2nd Division unit moving up the highway on the far side of Dog Bone Ridge—replied immediately.

  “Bingo,” Grossman said. “Give me the mike.”

  He told the 23rd that there were friendlies in the tunnel headed their way, with a Sherman flamer in the lead. “Unknown at this time whether they’ll be flushing enemy from the tunnel toward you,” he added. “But be advised: any tank that’s not backing out of the tunnel is friendly. Do not engage an armored vehicle moving in forward gear. Repeat—do not engage.”

  “Affirmative,” the voice from 23rd Regiment replied. “Looking forward to making their acquaintance. We’ll be at the tunnel very shortly.”

  Grossman turned to his RTO and said, “Advise Sergeant Moon there will be friendlies at the tunnel exit.”

  *****

  Sean’s tank was only a hundred yards into the tunnel when heavy automatic weapons fire began to clang off her hull and turret. GI infantrymen who weren’t huddled directly behind the protection of the flamer threw themselves flat on the ground, each man making himself as small a target as he possibly could.

  “Stop the vehicle,” Sean said. “Just what I fucking figured. They got a barricade up ahead…looks like sixty yards, give or take.” He asked his gunner, “You see it?”

  “Yeah, just barely, Sarge. Should I give them a hot foot?”

  “Affirmative. Just make it a short burst, though. It won’t take much. Save the rest of the goo for later.”

  A four-second burst of liquid fire shot from the flame nozzle. It set the barricade ablaze and brought the automatic weapons fire to an immediate halt.

  The driver sounded unnerved as he said, “I think the engine’s going to stall, Sarge…and I think I’m getting dizzy. That fire’s sucking the air out of here.”

  “No, it ain’t. Calm the fuck down. It ain’t that big an inferno.”

  Not reassured, the driver asked, “Then why are we stopped?”

  “Because we’re gonna let that fire die down a little before we plow through it. I don’t want none of that sticky burning shit dropping off the ceiling and getting into the deck vents.”

  The gunner asked, “You think we just torched a bunch of chinks, Sarge?”

  “Probably just a couple of ’em. Just enough to man that big machine gun. But I ain’t gonna get out and look, okay?”

  The infantry company commander was on the interphone now, asking Sean, “Are we going to be held up long here, Sergeant? We’re sweating our balls off out here with that fire and all.”

  “Better you sweat, sir, than walk into chink twenty-three millimeter that’s cooking off,” Sean replied. “You hear it popping, don’t you?”

  “Can’t hear much of anything over the racket that chariot of yours makes, Sergeant. Any more chinks up ahead?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Captain.”

  It took five minutes for the napalm fire to subside to isolated puddles of flame. The cook-off of Chinese ammo seemed to be over, too.

  “Let’s get moving,” Sean told his crew.

  *****

  The tankers could just make out the tunnel exit now, a dark gray arch of reflected moonlight a few hundred yards in the distance.

  Suddenly, they could make out something else, too: silhouettes of men running toward the tank.

  “Canister,” Sean ordered. “Shoot it now, dammit.”

  The canister round had been loaded in the main gun since they’d entered the tunnel, a precaution on which Sean had insisted. The gunner stomped on the foot trigger without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Put up another one,” Sean told the loader.

  “I didn’t even aim that last one,” the gunner said, as if making an apology.

  “Don’t matter. We’re in a fucking tunnel, remember? All them pellets are gonna bounce around and do the job, anyway.”

  There was no need to fire the second canister round. The first had made most of the silhouettes vanish. But a few were still running past the tank…

  Into a hail of point-blank small arms fire from the GI infantrymen.

  “You sure we don’t have any chinks on the deck?” the gunner asked.

  “I don’t think they were trying to take this girl on,” Sean replied as he scanned the limited view from his commander’s cupola, looking for certainty in the disorienting darkness. “They just wanted to get the hell out of this tunnel. Second Division must really have the far exit all sewed up, just like HQ says they do.”

  When the infantry company commander’s agitated voice came over the interphone, Sean asked him, “All you guys okay back there?”

  “Yeah. No casualties, aside from ringing ears and brown drawers, that is. Pretty surprising, considering we just had a point-blank gunfight. Got a bunch of dead chinks lying around, though. A couple of wounded ones, too. We’ll worry about carrying
them out once we make contact with Second Division.”

  “I’m with you on that score, Captain,” Sean replied. “We’re almost there. Why don’t your company hang back while I roll outside and link up with Second Division? That way, your guys won’t be mistaken for chinks in the dark. I’ll come back and get you once contact’s made.”

  “I like that idea, Sergeant.”

  *****

  The Sherman arrived at the threshold of the tunnel, rolling forward along the railroad tracks. Sean had started to open his turret hatch when the tank shook with a tremendous THUD.

  Then there was another impact of startling violence.

  “ROCKETS,” the driver shrieked. He’d already thrown the tank into reverse, backing her into the tunnel.

  The gunner was shrieking, too: “WHAT DO I DO, SARGE?”

  “Start by getting your foot off the gun trigger,” Sean replied.

  “BUT—”

  “But nothing, pal. You see that pile of rocks about forty yards in front of us?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Douse it with liquid, but don’t fucking light it.”

  That confused the gunner even more, but he did what he was told. Lowering the elevation of the flame nozzle, he launched an arc of unlit napalm onto the rocks.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Sean said, confident the brief splash of liquid had done its job.

  “Why don’t you want me to light it off, Sarge?” the gunner asked.

  “Because my money says they’re GIs you just got wet. Fucked-up GIs. But that don’t mean I wanna kill ’em.”

  “But they shot at us!”

  “Like I said, they’re fucked up. Probably green and panicky, too. And now they’re scared shitless they’re gonna catch fire. They won’t be launching no more rockets our way.”

  “But what makes you think they’re GIs, Sarge? We can’t see shit outside.”

  “Let’s just say I got a hunch, okay?”

  Sean’s hunch was right: it was GIs who’d fired two 3.5-inch rockets from two different launchers at the Sherman. Both had struck the thick armor of her glacis plate, exploding but not penetrating the hull, causing no damage other than chipped paint and headaches for her crew. Once the tank had drenched them and their launch position with the unignited napalm, they’d wisely lost interest in firing anymore.

  An angry lieutenant approached the tank, the clingy, viscous liquid slowly dripping from his helmet and parka. Fortunately for him, his head had been down when the napalm was dispensed. That saved him from getting a faceful. His gunners hadn’t been so lucky.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” he said to Sean, who’d climbed down from the turret and was crouched on the foredeck.

  “I coulda done a hell of a lot worse, Lieutenant,” Sean replied, “and nobody woulda blamed me, neither. But the real issue here is why the hell you shot at my vehicle in the first place. Don’t your men know a fucking Sherman when they see one? Especially after my C.O. told yours we were coming?”

  The expression that came over the lieutenant’s face made him look even more pitiful than the thick fluid dripping from him. “That’s the problem,” he said. “Every section on the perimeter acknowledged that friendlies were cleaning out the tunnel, but the wire to this rocket team’s field phone must’ve got cut somehow. I couldn’t raise them to say you were coming. As I was walking over to tell them in person, I heard all that shooting in the tunnel…I started running then…but before I could get to them, they’d already fired. I arrived just in time to get drenched with this shit.”

  “There’s always somebody who don’t get the word, eh, Lieutenant?” Sean said. “I kinda figured it might be something like that. But you and your guys better get that stuff off you before it starts stinging like a son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah, we’ll do that.” As the lieutenant turned to walk away, he stopped and said, “Hey, Sergeant…thanks for what you didn’t do. And that’s no bullshit.”

  “No problem, sir,” Sean replied. Then he added, “But if I was you and your boys, I wouldn’t be lighting up anytime soon. And that’s no bullshit, neither.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Matt Ridgway was pleased the taking of Twin Tunnels had gone as planned. But he wasn’t really surprised:

  The Chinese forces in the area are weak, and a tunnel doesn’t provide much of a tactical advantage to its defender when both ends can be accessed. They’re like bridges, just harder to bombard to destruction. That western tunnel could’ve posed a real problem at the boundary between Twenty-Fourth Division and Tenth Corps’ Second Division, but after a shaky start, the Second Division boys coming up the highway did a good job, and the Air Force’s help was incredible…far better support than we can usually expect at night.

  To cap it off, Jock Miles’ people handled the follow-up on the ground in fine fashion.

  I had no doubt they would.

  But I’d really like to see all this bureaucratic silliness over his wife’s immigration status put to rest, because I don’t want to lose him, and I’d really like to pin a star on the man. He’s head and shoulders above the rest of the field.

  I don’t think I could’ve made the recommendation for his promotion any more glowing.

  Ridgway was well aware, however, that Twin Tunnels had been merely an obstacle, not a strategic objective. That distinction would fall to the vital transportation center of Chip’yong-ni.

  *****

  Praise for Switchblade Flight’s action at the tunnel arrived at K-2 before the B-26s had returned. Eighth Army couldn’t have been happier with the results of the Air Force’s napalm attack.

  “Now they’ll be expecting us to pull something like that off every night,” Tommy said at the debrief. He was only half joking.

  But there was something else on his mind, and it needed to be dealt with immediately. He let it out as soon as the briefing ended and he could get the squadron commander’s ear.

  “I want Captain Martin off my crew, sir,” Tommy told the colonel. “I don’t mind my ship being one of the guinea pigs for this SHORAN system, but I won’t fly with somebody who puts his fancy hardware over the men on the ground we’re supposed to be supporting.”

  “Your request is a little late, Tommy,” the C.O. replied. “Martin started crying to the ops people the minute his boots hit the ramp about how you refused to use the system properly. They told him he wasn’t the mission boss, and if he didn’t like it, he could take it up with me. He did, the dumb shit, and I fired him right then and there. No sparky second-guesses my mission commanders, especially a greenhorn who can still count his flight hours without having to use his toes.”

  “That’s great, sir,” Tommy replied. “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate the support. But who do I get instead?”

  “There’s a captain—a mustang—coming on board in a couple days who was on the SHORAN development team back in the States. I’ve worked with him before on some other radio projects back in the Big One, when he was still a tech sergeant. I think the two of you will hit it off just fine.”

  *****

  Twenty-Sixth Regiment advanced slowly northward toward its final Operation Thunderbolt objective: the village of Hajin. It lay three miles west of the transportation crossroads at Chip’yong-ni, which was in the process of being occupied by 2nd Division’s 23rd Regiment. Jock had hoped his regiment could move faster, but February had brought with it the full weight of winter, and that weight was bogging everything in 8th Army down. Vehicles and weapons of all sizes failed to operate as lubricants congealed, turning to glue. The scarcity of serviceable trucks to haul supplies to the front lines meant that food, ammunition, and fuel were frequently in short supply to those units in contact with the Chinese or North Koreans.

  Men were failing to operate, too, as sub-zero temperatures stiffened joints and muscles worse than ever before, making even the slightest exertion exhausting. The bitter chill of the air they breathed tended to paralyze their lungs like poison gas.
The food shortages resulted in the battered and exhausted GIs barely receiving enough calories to maintain their body temperatures. There wouldn’t be energy left to perform the heavy labor of hauling, digging, clearing fields of fire, and incessant walking that defined a combat soldier’s drudgery.

  Huddled by one of the many warming fires the GIs had set as a matter of survival, Patchett told Theo Papadakis, “If we ever run outta shit to burn, all of us are sure as hell gonna freeze to death.”

  Casting a wary eye northward, he added, “I reckon we can hope them chinks are gonna freeze faster than us. How many you say you found stiff as boards in that half-assed bunker your guys overran the other day?”

  “About a dozen, Top,” Papadakis replied. “Looked like they’d been dead a coupla days. Can’t believe how many bullets my guys wasted shooting at frozen corpses.”

  “Better safe than sorry, sir,” Patchett said. “And at least it kept their damn weapons warm so that gun oil didn’t gum ’em up. You’d think Uncle Sam would pay some genius to invent an oil that didn’t turn solid in cold like this.”

  “Boy, you’re sure asking for a lot, Top.”

  “If you don’t ask, you don’t get, sir,” Patchett replied. “How you doing with that other morale problem?”

  The other morale problem: as if the unbearable cold and the hardships it brought weren’t doing enough to sap the GIs’ will to fight, the rotation scheme Washington had put into place ensured that nearly half the men in 26th Regiment would be eligible to go home during the month of April, having earned enough rotation points by serving ten consecutive months in a combat zone. Motivating men who were short on time to put themselves at risk was a challenge vexing every commander in 8th Army. And it was still early February. The challenge would become more daunting as April drew closer.