Combat- Parallel Lines

by William Peter Grasso

  Sean explained the how and why of him leading Able Company to reinforce the armor ambush. He finished with, “Just need to make sure the old man’s okay with me taking off for a while.”

  Patchett replied, “Seeing the calamities been befalling you tankers today, I’d be surprised if he didn’t want you to go and keep things straight. Just stay in touch, okay? I’ll cover for you back here.”

  *****

  When Sean got back to the tank, Pearson had dismounted. His personal weapon and gear were slung over his shoulder. Sean asked him, “Where the hell you think you’re going, Gene?”

  Surprised by the question, Pearson replied, “You’re taking over, right? Ain’t no room in that buggy for everybody and a big bruiser like you, Sean, so I’m giving you my seat.”

  Sean snatched the rucksack from Pearson’s shoulder, hurled it up to the turret roof, and said, “Negative, numbnuts. I’ll be glad to take your seat, but you’re gonna be equally glad to displace either your gunner or your loader…who also will be very glad. Delighted, in fact. So who’s it gonna be, Sergeant?”

  Pearson picked the loader, who wasted no time exiting the vehicle. As he hurried to the motor pool, he seemed every bit as delighted as Sean had predicted. Gene Pearson seemed less so.

  The two dozer tanks—Shermans with plow blades in front—were already rumbling down the highway, clearing off the foot-deep slush. With Sean’s tank in the lead, the Pershings of Able Company followed close behind the dozers, their rubber-cleated treads providing decent traction on the thin layer of ice still clinging to the pavement. With the top layer of slush cleared, the ice would melt soon…but not soon enough.

  “Like I told your guys,” Sean said to Pearson, “anybody slips off this roadway and gotta get pulled out, it’s his ass.”

  Pearson asked, “How come if the OP can see those chink tanks, the artillery ain’t pasting the shit out of them?”

  “Simple, Gene. The only artillery we got available at the moment is our direct support one-oh-fives, and the odds of them doing shit to a T-34 with indirect fire is about zip, right? So there’s no point wasting precious rounds.”

  “But what about Divarty? And Corps? They’ve got the big guns.”

  “Yeah, big guns…with only a slightly better chance of hurting a moving tank but no better chance of hitting it,” Sean replied. “Don’t think we didn’t ask, though. They’re tied up with higher priority targets, so tough shit for us.”

  They looked up through the hatch at the gray, overcast sky. “And of course,” Sean added, “the flyboys won’t be helping us out through this soup.”

  “I don’t know, Sean. It just seems like overkill to commit two whole damn companies for a handful of T-34s. I think the colonel’s getting a little gun-shy.”

  Sean gave Pearson a withering look. “First off, Gene, you got no squawks with Colonel Miles. None of us do. Secondly, when you commit your reserve, you commit the whole fucking thing. Sending them in piecemeal is asking to have them destroyed piecemeal. Didn’t you learn nothing fighting the Krauts? And who knows…just because the OP can’t see no infantry with them tanks don’t mean there ain’t a battalion or two of them headed this way.”

  One of the dozer tanks was on the radio, saying, “We got a vehicle coming toward us…but I’m pretty sure it’s a Pershing.”

  “Affirmative,” Sean replied. “Let her through so I can have a little chat.”

  It was the runner from Charlie Company, and the little chat was over very quickly. The only thing Sean learned that he didn’t already know was that Captain Marsh had sent his Third Platoon across a bridge, one that had supported heavy vehicles during 8th Army’s advance last fall and again during its winter retreat. But it might have been bombed and weakened since then.

  “But they got across okay,” the runner tank’s TC said. “I heard them report to Captain Marsh over the radio that they were in position.”

  “That’s great,” Sean replied. “Let’s just hope for their sake that bridge is still standing when it’s time to come back. That span goes over a small river, and with all this melting going on, you ain’t gonna be fording that river, that’s for damn sure. Fall in behind me. We gotta get moving.”

  Sean’s column found First Platoon beyond a bend just a short distance down the highway. Not only was the mired tank still stuck, but one of the Pershings trying to pull her out had become stuck, too. The only one of the platoon’s tanks still on the road had just broken a track. Her crew was working feverishly to replace the sheared link pins, sparks flying from the repeated metal-to-metal blows of mallets.

  The wrecker sergeant asked, “You want me to help them, Sean?”

  “Negative. Second Platoon should be right up the road, and they got one stuck that needs a plow job. Work on that one first, then go back and do what you can for these guys in First Platoon.”

  Sean found Captain Marsh with his Fourth Platoon at the near side of the bridge. The four tanks of the platoon had taken up excellent hull-down positions alongside the highway, with only their turrets protruding above the level of the pavement. But the mounds of mud splayed around their tracks betrayed their problem: they were all stuck.

  “Well, sir, you’ve got great firing positions, anyway,” Sean said. “Let’s just hope this don’t turn into a running fight. What about the guys on the far side of the bridge?”

  “They’re not stuck,” Marsh replied. “I’ve concealed them in the village just beyond the bridge.”

  Sean could just make out the village, almost a mile in the distance. He asked, “What kind of fields of fire they got from way over there, sir? It looks like they won’t even see the T-34s until they spill onto the highway. Then we got a real fight on our hands.”

  “Do you have a better idea, Sergeant?”

  “Actually, I do, Captain. One of the dozers is digging out that buried vehicle of yours, but I got the other one right here. Let’s rip up the secondary road the T-34s are on about a hundred yards short of the highway…dig a big ol’ tank ditch right across it, but not too deep, so one of them rice cookers could actually cross it if she wanted to. As soft as this turf is, the digging will only take the dozer a coupla minutes.”

  Captain Marsh looked skeptical as he asked, “Then what do we do, Sergeant?”

  “I don’t figure they’re gonna wanna back up or turn around, sir. That’s a guaranteed way to get stuck in the mud. So we let the first one through if that’s what she wants to do. Once she’s on the highway, your boys on the far side can turn her inside out, no problem. It’s a long-range shot, but they better have the distance down good, since they already drove it to get where they’re at. And they better hit her first shot, because once a T-34 turns toward them, they’re kinda exposed. Those flimsy little shacks ain’t much cover.”

  Captain Marsh looked confused as he studied the firing diagram he’d drawn, silently trying to justify his original plan in the face of Sean’s proposed revision.

  Sean prodded him. “But if we’re gonna dig that ditch, we gotta start right now, sir.”

  Marsh replied, “I just don’t see what we gain by doing that.”

  “What we gain is that we slow ’em down and add an element of confusion. When the first tank gets cooked, and the rest see this ditch in front of them, they’re either gonna stop in their tracks or, if they’re hardcore, they’re gonna try to plow right through. When they hit the ditch, they can move but not shoot. If they stop, they can shoot but not move. Either way, with all the tubes we got sitting here on this highway, the odds are waaay in our favor.”

  Marsh pondered only a second longer. “Go ahead and dig the ditch, Sergeant.”

  *****

  It took the dozer tank five minutes to complete the job. “It would’ve taken a hell of a lot longer if this ground was still frozen solid,” her TC told Sean over the radio. “I’d better get out of here. I can feel those T-34s breathing down my neck.”

  The dozer had barely gotten back to the highway when the firs
t T-34 roared through the ditch without bothering to slow down. Watching her violently pitching from a few hundred yards down the highway, Sean said, “I bet that TC just injured his whole damn crew, the dumb bastard. There gotta be broken bones and concussions like crazy from getting thrown around like that.”

  On the far side of the bridge now, the T-34 pulled onto the highway and began to pivot north. Before she could get halfway through the turn, two HEAT rounds from two different tanks of Marsh’s Third Platoon—the one in the village beyond the bridge—slammed into her hull. A round from a third tank screamed over the enemy vehicle’s deck, flew down the highway, and plowed into soft ground just yards from one of Sean’s tanks. Luckily, the explosion did little more than paint the nose of the buttoned-up Pershing with mud.

  It took a few seconds, but the T-34 brewed up as expected after taking the two killing shots to her flank. Her hatches had blown open, but nothing exited those hatches except smoke and flames. The GI tankers rejoiced in her demise, but it left one big problem: the burning T-34 was straddling the highway, her ammo cooking off, completely blocking the only viable approach to the bridge.

  Sean fumed as he thought, That ain’t the way I figured Third Platoon would get itself trapped on the wrong side of the bridge. I was betting that span would drop into the river at the worst possible time.

  Hell, it still could.

  Captain Marsh asked him, “Are they chink tanks or KPA, Sergeant?”

  “Does it fucking matter right now, sir?”

  The second T-34 approached the ditch more cautiously than her vanquished sister. She stopped at its edge, prompting the gunner in Sean’s tank to ask, “I can barely see her through the trees, Sarge. Should I take her now, anyway?”

  “No, hold up a minute,” Sean replied. “Let’s see what she’s gonna do.”

  With agonizing slowness, her turret began to traverse toward them. “Typical,” Sean said. “The traverse motor’s out. They gotta hand-crank the turret around.”

  Then the T-34 lurched forward, nosed into the ditch, paused at the bottom momentarily, and then slowly continued forward up the revetment, crawling out with her bow high in the air, her soft underside exposed.

  “NOW!” Sean commanded. “SHE’S SHOWING HER BELLY. SCRATCH HER ONE GOOD, DAMMIT!”

  The shot peeled open the top of her hull like a flower suddenly blooming. Her turret, blown off in the blast, fell to the ground twenty yards behind her.

  The three T-34s behind her were still not in the view of any GI gunner. But one thing was for sure: they could no longer try to move forward without leaving the road and getting hopelessly stuck.

  Captain Marsh asked, “What do we do now, Sergeant?”

  “I’m supposed to be asking you that, sir,” Sean replied.

  “Then let me put it this way,” Marsh said. “What do you suggest we do now?”

  “I suggest the best shot in your Third Platoon pulls up to that ditch and knocks out the next T-34 in the column, Captain.”

  “But it’ll be a head-on shot, Sergeant. Not much percentage in that.”

  “I think their tanks are gonna try to turn around, sir, because there ain’t much percentage trying to flee in reverse, neither, slow as that’ll be. We just might get a shot at their flanks or their backsides, because turning around ain’t gonna be no piece of cake. Lots of back and forth…they gotta keep on that narrow pavement or they end up in the slop. So what’s it gonna be, Captain?”

  “Fine. We’ll do it your way, Sergeant.”

  “Outstanding, sir. Oh…and while we’re at it, let’s start getting that blown-up wreck that’s blocking the bridge outta the way. Just hook a coupla cables to her and pull her clear. We may need to cross that bridge real soon.”

  “But that ammo cooking off…”

  “Ah, that’s over with already, sir. It don’t take long.”

  *****

  When the Pershing from Third Platoon arrived at the ditch, the three T-34s still unscathed were in the middle of their laborious attempt to pivot to the opposite direction. The nearest one to the American tank was easy pickings. Once the smoke and flames signaled her demise, the two T-34s beyond seemed strangely inert. They’d both stopped in mid-pivot with hatches open. Their main guns lay at acute angles to the hull lines as if the crews had given up on the idea of traversing them toward the Pershing’s threat. The Pershing at the ditch claimed he didn’t have a clear shot at either of them.

  Sean and Captain Marsh had driven to the bridge, walked across it, and then commandeered the Third Platoon tank that wasn’t busy clearing away the vanquished T-34. Once they’d ridden that Pershing to the ditch, Sean took one look at the enemy tanks in the distance and said, “They’re abandoned.”

  “How can you be sure, Sergeant?” the captain asked.

  “Because they’d be shooting at us if they weren’t, sir.”

  “So we’re done here?” Marsh asked.

  “Negative, sir. Not until we blow up those two perfectly serviceable T-34s.”

  “But how, Sergeant? We don’t have a good line of sight on them.”

  Sean smiled, amused by Captain Marsh’s lack of imagination. “Simple, sir. Why don’t you wait here while I drive right over this hulk in the ditch, right up to that next flamer, and shoot right over her hull. Then I’m gonna back out. By the time I’m on the highway, the bridge should be clear and we can all go back where we came from, mission accomplished.”

  The captain needed no further encouragement. He jumped over to the Pershing that would remain at the ditch.

  Then Sean did exactly what he said he’d do, with an added bonus; as his vehicle backed down the road, the four Chinese tank crewmen who’d surrendered to the Pershing were marching before her with hands on their heads.

  Jumping over to the deck of Sean’s tank, Captain Marsh asked, “How’d you find them, Sergeant?”

  “I didn’t, sir. They found me. Look at ’em…they got rags for shoes and they’re starving. They practically ripped each other apart to get a bite of that chocolate bar I threw to them. I guess what the brass have been saying about the chink supply lines being a little thin ain’t no lie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jillian Miles’ lawyer, Mark Pitney, delivered the news of Mrs. Whitelaw’s arrest in person. As she sipped coffee in her Monterey home’s great room, Jillian took it calmly, resisting the urge to pop a cork in celebration. She told Pitney, “Of course I’m delighted to see that devious witch in hot water—boiling hot water at that. But that judge…is it going to make one iota of difference to him?”

  “I understand what you’re saying, Mrs. Miles,” Pitney replied, “but we won’t know that until the hearing. It certainly doesn’t hurt your case, though.”

  “That’s a very small consolation, Mark. Not hurting is a far cry from helping. But no matter…there’s something else I need you to be aware of.”

  She pointed to a legal document on the coffee table. “Read that,” she said.

  He flipped through the pages quickly. “If I understand this correctly,” he said, “the US Government is requesting an emergency extension of its contract with your shipping company?”

  “That’s correct, Mark. The Yanks need my six tankers very badly, apparently. All of a sudden, the British have their hands full with the Iranians trying to seize their oil interests in that country. The Brits’ national revenue will plummet—maybe collapse—without being able to peddle oil on the world market that they’re getting out of Iran for practically nothing, so they’re pulling their tankers from the Korean supply effort to grab all they can get for themselves…before it’s too late.”

  “Is that the dust-up they’re calling the Abadan Crisis?”

  “That’s the one,” Jillian replied.

  “I don’t practice maritime law, so I’m not sure how this works, Mrs. Miles. It says your company—Forbes-Weipa—has a contract that runs for a term of six months, expiring on the thirtieth of April of this year, 1951. That’s nearly a f
ull two months from now. Doesn’t that give everybody plenty of time to—”

  “Negotiate a new contract, Mark?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Perhaps,” she replied, “but the US Government prefers to operate like everything is an emergency, and they feel their emergency must become your emergency. It’s all bureaucratic nonsense.”

  “Are you suggesting they can’t invoke an indefinite emergency extension of the contract, like it says here in paragraph three?”

  “That’s their fantasy, Mark, not mine. Read the side note…that provision only applies to a declared war, which Korea is not. The only way my tankers will keep floating American gasoline to Korea is if the contract is renewed.”

  “And you don’t plan to renew the contract, Mrs. Miles?”

  There was no anger in her voice, just cold, confident steel: “Why should I, Mark? What has the American government done for me lately, except kick me out of the country?”

  Her words stunned him. Pitney told himself, The lady knows how to play rough. She’s had a potential game winner up her sleeve the whole time, and she’s been waiting for the climactic moment to show it.

  But he couldn’t help but wonder if she was underestimating the dangers involved, especially the one that could affect her most directly.

  “Isn’t this ploy a little risky, though, Mrs. Miles? I mean, with your husband in the fight…restricting critical gasoline supplies…”

  “Of course Jock’s on my mind, Mark,” she replied, “but nobody ever wins without taking risks. My husband’s a soldier, a combat commander. If anyone understands that, it’ll be him.”

  *****

  A few miles farther north up Highway 2, beyond where Sean’s tanks had defeated the Chinese T-34s a week ago, were a number of secondary roads and trails that spilled from the mountains to the east. Spotter aircraft had reported evidence of large numbers of CCF troops moving through those mountains on foot, trying to reach the highway that would take them to the relative safety of the 38th Parallel and beyond.