Combat- Parallel Lines

by William Peter Grasso

  “Push your patrols farther north up Highway Two,” Jock Miles told Phil Harper, his 2nd Battalion commander. “Find the best locations for artillery traps at all the places the Chinese are exiting the mountains. According to intel, the chinks must be in a hurry to get away from the pounding they’ve been taking from our big guns, so they’re now traveling in daylight as well as their usual nighttime movements. Have your people man the outposts along with the artillery FO teams so we can provide security for them round the clock.”

  “Got it, sir,” Harper replied. “This will come as great news to our Captain Papadakis. He’s been chomping at the bit to get out there and kill himself some more chinks, and I’ll be glad to oblige him. The guy’s unstoppable.”

  “Yeah, I learned a long time ago that you’ve just got to point Theo in the direction you need him, and then get out of his way. He doesn’t need a whole lot of supervision.”

  “I’ve come to appreciate that, sir,” Harper said.

  *****

  It had taken Captain Theo Papadakis less than a day to establish the OPs and LPs in accordance with Jock Miles’ wishes. Positioned on either side of a ridgeline several miles long just east of Highway 2, those outposts overlooked the two secondary roads suspected of being the prime routes of the retreating Chinese infantry. The southernmost of the LPs also straddled a mountain trail which, from its trampled-down condition, had apparently seen its fair share of traffic, too. Along with the men of his Able Company, Captain Pop had under his control two FO teams from Baker Battery, the Negro artillery outfit attached to 26th Regiment.

  The FO teams fired in numerous registration points along the roads and trail, numbering each for simplicity when communicating with their battery’s fire direction center. With firing data for each point already computed, rounds could be on target in less than forty seconds after being requested, most of those seconds being the time-of-flight of the rounds.

  “Setting up all these registration points is the way to go, Captain Pop,” said Lieutenant Thackery, the senior FO from Baker Battery. “I hear that’s what saved Second Division down at Wonju when they were outnumbered something like six to one. They fired in a bunch of registration points along likely avenues of approach to their positions, many more than you usually would. Once the bad guys started coming, they just kept pumping out rounds onto those registration points. Didn’t have to adjust much of anything, so no precious time was wasted. It saved their asses.”

  “Let’s hope it works here, too,” Papadakis replied. “Tonight should be a pretty good test.”

  Thackery added, “Just so the temperature and wind don’t change much and the guns keep shooting the same ammunition lot, that firing data will give us first-round hits every time. But when those parameters do change, Captain, we should shoot in those registration points again, if at all possible.”

  “Agreed.”

  Papadakis had his GIs set out as many noisemakers as they could cobble together along the likely paths the Chinese would travel. The noisemakers were the same type of crude devices he’d used with great success in the jungles of Papua, Dutch New Guinea, and the Philippines: empty ration cans filled with a few small stones and strung on wire low to the ground. He’d had to practically stand on more than a few troopers’ heads to get the cans in place; it was another task that many of his inexperienced GIs considered useless busywork when piled on top of all the arduous digging to continuously improve their positions. To make it worse, handling the sharp-edged metal cans and stiff wire was brutal on the hands in the cold temperatures; some parts of the task required gloves to be removed for a few moments, so unprotected skin was lacerated often. But Papadakis knew the effort was worth these hardships: running for their lives, the poorly fed Chinese troopers were exhausted, and exhausted adversaries stumbling through the dark couldn’t help but activate the noisemakers. The rattling sound they made—like maracas shaken momentarily—was hard to mistake for anything else and carried over great distances at night. Even if you couldn’t see the intruders, you could certainly hear them.

  And those doubting-Thomas GIs of mine will find out soon enough it was all worth it, he was sure.

  The noisemakers proved their worth that first night on the LPs. They betrayed the approaching Chinese at several locations along the roads; the steel rain was falling on them moments later. When the sun rose, Captain Pop’s men counted over two hundred enemy bodies. They’d probably killed more; nobody could figure out how to tally the innumerable body parts strewn among the intact corpses. None of his GIs had been wounded or had even fired a shot.

  “That’s a good haul,” Papadakis told his leaders, “but you know for damn sure we didn’t get all of ’em…and the ones still walking might have some mighty strong suspicions we’re around here somewhere. They’ll be looking for us, watching to see if we give ourselves away. So from now on, when the sun’s up, we lie real low, with outstanding noise discipline, no fires, no nothing. You got me?”

  His men did as they were told. An enemy lurking nearby would’ve been hard-pressed to detect the well-dug-in American company.

  That’s how it remained until late morning, when an American helicopter passed overhead, orbited the hill on which Papadakis had set up his CP, and—to the horror of every man in Able Company—landed in a small, flat clearing on the backslope. Her occupants had seen some of the GI positions, since no effort had been made to conceal them from airborne observation; there was little need to do so when your enemy didn’t have planes overhead. Captain Pop raced to the helicopter, intent on telling her occupants to get lost.

  A brigadier general alighted from the Sikorsky H-19—her blades still whirling, the blatant sound of her engine reverberating through the hills—and walked right up to Papadakis. He was trailed by a major, presumably an aide. As they drew near the small, swarthy man, the general’s expression changed from stern to quizzical. He asked, “Are you from some Allied country? Turkish, perhaps?”

  The aide snapped to parade rest behind the general, his face a sneer behind reflective aviator sunglasses.

  “Negative, sir,” Pop replied. “We’re one hundred percent US Army…Able Company, Second of the Twenty-Sixth. And since you’re wondering, I’m Greek-American, born and raised in New York City.”

  The general was still unconvinced; offended, perhaps, by this foreign-looking soldier. He asked, “What’s your division?”

  “Twenty-Fourth Division, sir.”

  “And what’s your position in this Able Company?”

  “I’m the company commander, sir, Captain Theo Papadakis.” Pulling his parka open to reveal the railroad tracks on his shirt collar, he added, “Now, how about doing me a real big favor and get that whirlybird the hell outta here? You’re giving away our position.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Captain Paaa…”

  He quickly gave up trying to pronounce the name—which his memory hadn’t properly retained in the first place—and continued, “You’re obviously lost, Captain.” He spoke the rank with no respect, as if he didn’t believe it possible. “You’re in Tenth Corps territory. I should know, because I’m Assistant G3 in General Almond’s headquarters. You’re perilously close to Second Division’s CP. You’re lucky I didn’t call in artillery fire on you.”

  Papadakis repressed the urge to laugh. This general was so lost—and so belligerently ignorant about it—that any artillery he requested would’ve landed miles from here, maybe on one of his own X Corps units.

  Tenth Corps, eh? I heard that Almond, the corps commander, is a walking, talking disaster. Looks like his staff officers are, too.

  Lieutenant Thackery, the Negro artillery FO, approached the two men, carrying his map board under his arm. His presence seemed to repulse the general even worse than that of Papadakis, who thought, It’s gospel truth in this man’s army that Almond ain’t real fond of the colored race. Looks like his staff officers think the same way their boss does.

  Pop said, “Good…you got the map. Show
the general where he is, Lieutenant. You might want to point out where the boundary between Ninth and Tenth Corps is, too.”

  “Lieutenant?” the general said, his face reddening and not from the cold. “This nigra is an officer?”

  Pretending to ignore the slur, the seething Thackery presented the map to the general, who ripped it from his hands, saying, “I don’t need a map reading lesson from one of these people.”

  “Then to save us all some time, let me do it, sir,” Papadakis replied.

  In a few quick jabs at the map with his finger, pointing out terrain features plainly visible from where they stood, Captain Pop made his case: the general and his helicopter were miles from where they thought they were.

  As he gave his tutorial, Theo glanced up to the elevated cockpit of the Sikorsky H-19. The pilot had a sheepish look on his face as he made a shrugging, palms-up gesture that Pop took to mean, Look, I tried to tell him…

  The general’s error now irrefutable, Papadakis added, “I’m kinda surprised your chopper didn’t get knocked down by friendly artillery fire on the way over here, sir. You musta passed right through the no-fly zone.”

  The general did an about-face and started back toward the helicopter. He told his aide, “Deal with these people, Major.”

  But the aide had no idea what deal with these people entailed. He remained silently at parade rest as the sun, just liberated from a shroud of low clouds, reflected brilliantly off his sunglasses.

  Papadakis told him, “Maybe the general means you’re supposed to get my name so he can put me up for a medal.” He said it with such a straight face that Lieutenant Thackery couldn’t help but snicker.

  “At ease, both of you jokers,” the major snarled, snatching a sense of purpose from Captain Pop’s wisecrack. “You’d better believe I’m taking your name, but it’s not going to be for a medal, that’s for damn sure.”

  “All right, sir…my name’s Papadakis, just like I told the man before.”

  “What the hell kind of name is that? How do you spell it?”

  “Standard spelling, sir.”

  Then he and Thackery turned and started walking toward the top of the ridge, leaving the major sputtering. The only words they could decipher from his rant were court-martial, liberally sprinkled throughout.

  Papadakis called over his shoulder, “You’ve been standing still an awful long time, sir. You make one hell of a target, especially with those signal mirrors you got over your eyes. I’ve gotta tell you, there are chinks all over these hills.”

  When they looked back again, the major was sprinting to the helicopter. She lifted off the second he’d leapt through the doorway.

  Thackery asked, “That damn chopper…are we going to have to move now, sir?” The tone of his voice left no doubt that just the thought was exhausting.

  “Nah, we’ll guts it out right where we are, Edgar,” Papadakis replied. “Ain’t no better position than this around here, anyway.” He paused and then added, “But the only helicopter I wanna see up on this ridge is one that I request. The next whirlybird that shows up uninvited, I’m gonna shoot her down myself. Nobody’ll know the chinks didn’t do it.”

  *****

  On the evening of 6 March 1951, Jock Miles assembled his battalion commanders at 26th Regiment’s Sumi-ri CP. He’d just returned from a briefing with General Bryan, the division commander, who’d been candid with his combat leaders. Jock extended that same candidness to the leaders of his regiment.

  “General Ridgway has officially declared Operation Killer completed, gentlemen,” he began. “I’d like to tell you it was an unqualified success, but you all know better, because you were there. True, our advances met the geographic goals, and we did inflict a heavy toll on the CCF. But did we achieve the massive level of destruction in men and equipment we’d hoped? I’m afraid not. The warmer temperatures and soggy ground slowed our ability to pursue the enemy greatly, allowing far too many of them to escape. But as General Ridgway has already made clear, this is not an ass-chewing, because you have no control over the difficulties Mother Nature throws at you. We know we’ve got the Chinese on the run. We just haven’t been able to overtake them as quickly as we’d like. Hopefully, this next phase of our advance will change that.”

  He removed the sheet covering the big situation map at the head of the room. In big block letters across the top was the name OPERATION RIPPER. Jock let his commanders and staff study it for a few moments.

  “Notice the phase lines for Ripper,” Jock continued. “They take us to—and slightly beyond—the Thirty-Eighth Parallel over a period of three weeks. You’ll also notice how the phase lines bulge north some ten miles to the east of Seoul early in the campaign. I’m sure you all know why…”

  Every man in the room did, in fact, know why: General Ridgway had no intention of waging yet another knock-down, drag-out battle on the streets of Seoul. The city had been through three of them already—changing hands each time—at great cost in lives and materiel. As envisioned, the initial thrust of Operation Ripper would quickly put 8th Army forces northeast of Seoul, in position to encircle it. The CCF would, hopefully, abandon the city rather than be trapped within, allowing it to be reclaimed with a minimum of fighting.

  If and when the Chinese did abandon Seoul, those American and ROK divisions to the northeast—24th Division among them—would be in position to cut them off and finish them. Just like Operation Killer before it, the primary goal of Operation Ripper was to destroy as much of the CCF as possible. And this time, the terrain retaken would result in reestablishing the integrity of South Korea’s border with North Korea, the 38th Parallel.

  Jock concluded with, “If you thought the artillery barrage that kicked off Operation Killer was something to behold, wait until you see the one General Ridgway has laid on for tonight’s kickoff of Operation Ripper. It should be Christmas, New Year’s, and Fourth of July all rolled into one.”

  *****

  Just before midnight, Patchett and Sean Moon made their way up Hill 527, driving as far as they could up its slope in a jeep. Then, on foot, they took the arduous climb the last few hundred yards to Lee Grossman’s CP on the peak.

  “Oh, good,” Grossman said. “More spectators. Pull up a chair and grab a cup of coffee. The show’s just about to start.”

  No sooner had they settled onto camp stools, their gloved hands wrapped around the warm canteen cups, than they could see what looked like a summer night’s storm boiling to the south: several hundred artillery pieces were suddenly firing all at once, their muzzle flashes portraying the lightning, the continuous rumble of the firing that arrived seconds later playing the thunder.

  The artillery preparation for Operation Ripper had begun.

  They could hear the shrill whoosh of countless rounds streaking high overhead, flying north, hoping for a cataclysmic meeting with enemy forces at the end of their trajectory. Most of the GIs—officers and enlisted alike—cheered each salvo as if they were watching a football game.

  The old hands, Patchett and Sean among them, watched in awed silence, however. They’d seen before what massed artillery could do, how human flesh offered no more protection than a sheet of paper to the massive power of their explosives…

  And none of the old hands had ever seen a barrage quite so colossal.

  It would continue until sunrise.

  After it had gone on for five minutes, Patchett broke the silence. “Hey, Bubba, as I live and breathe, I ain’t never seen this many rounds crashing down on nobody. Even being in the trenches back in France in ’18 don’t come close. And in the jungle, we didn’t even see the artillery most of the time, just heard it. What about you?”

  “That turkey shoot in the Falaise Gap back in ’44 was almost like this,” Sean replied. “Not this many guns, but they were firing on and off for days. Burned out God knows how many artillery tubes. And when the guns weren’t firing, my little brother and his flyboy friends took up the slack with their bombing and strafing. When i
t was all over and you looked at it from a distance, all you could see was burned-out vehicles and dead horses. Thousands of ’em. You had to get a lot closer to see the bodies. And there sure was a shitload of ’em, too.”

  He paused, taking a long sip of coffee as he gazed at the pinpoint flashes of rounds impacting miles to the north. “But even though we killed damn near an entire Kraut army in that trap, it wasn’t enough. Too many escaped because goddamn Monty fucked it up. He wouldn’t let us close the door on that damn gap. If he had, we coulda ended Hitler’s war right then and there.”

  They fell silent for a few moments, until Patchett asked, “You reckon we’re gonna kill enough chinks this time out?”

  “I kinda doubt it, Top. I get the feeling that they ain’t never gonna run outta people.”

  “Maybe so, Bubba…but I don’t think it makes no nevermind no more. We finally figured out how to use our high-class firepower to deal with them hordes pretty good. As long as they don’t get better firepower than us, I reckon we can hold ’em off damn near forever, any place we feel like.”

  *****

  On this afternoon in the second week of March, Moon’s Menace VI had just led Switchblade Flight on a SHORAN bombing mission of the rail yard at Uijongbu, ten miles north of Seoul. Mission altitude was the typical 14,000 feet of most SHORAN sorties. Even in broad daylight, that cushion of sky kept her crew safe from ground fire during the bomb run. The flak sent their way burst nowhere near the B-26s.

  Their primary mission done, the flight headed south, following Highway 3 toward Seoul. They descended to 8,000 feet in preparation for possible strafing missions. An aerial observer flying a T-6—a trainer reinvented as an airborne observation platform—came up on frequency, intent on guiding Tommy Moon’s B-26s to enemy concentrations in and around the city. The Air Force had issued Seoul the codename Big Top. As one pilot put it, the city looked like a circus ground when viewed from the sky, the numerous hills within and around her limits poking up like so many circus tents.