by Unknown
That was when Hufham played his last card. Lighting two more cocktails, Ricks and Lee sent the last two sailing behind them, striking the bridge and setting it aflame. By now the North Koreans had seen what was happening and started firing at them. A couple of shots pinged off the side and back of the Jeep as it finally left the bridge and sailed up the far bank and into the woods.
“Open Fire!” came the shout from around the Jeep as a hundred rifles opened up around them along with small artillery. The North Koreans came under withering fire as they scrambled to get to their equipment. The explosion of the trucks had blocked their escape and the now fiercely burning bridge prevented them from coming forward. Artillery rounds ate through the packed equipment and incendiaries started fires on the rest of the trucks. The rest of the troops were mowed down unmercifully.
Hufham dodged the men and machines that suddenly appeared in front of him and stopped beside an old M-60 tank rapidly making its way to the front. All of them looked around in amazement as the Americans and South Koreans did their grizzly work. A bird colonel walked up to Hufham and looked down at him. “Just where the hell did you guys come from? And better yet, where did you get this Jeep?” he asked.
“Get this guy off me first,” Lee said, not knowing who was talking. A flashlight was turned on as Lee shoved the unconscious man off the Jeep and in the dirt. The light revealed the uniform of a North Korean general.
“Sonofabitch!” said the colonel. “Major, get some MPs over here pronto and take this guy back for interrogation,” he yelled. As some men dragged the general away the colonel said, “Okay, sergeant, mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Master Sergeant Paul Hufham, sir, assigned to the 325th on duty at the DMZ when all hell broke loose, sir. This is Private Ricks and Sergeant Lee, formerly of the South Korean Army. We have spent the last few weeks working our way back home, sir,” he began his report.
“You were at the Z?”
Hufham nodded. “Yes sir. We were there when it got hit, and boy do we have some things to tell you sir.”
Newport News Shipbuilding
In Norfolk, an old fire control technician fretted over a ship’s main fire control system. In the 1980s and 1990s the ship had been cannibalized to keep the old Ford Rangefinders operational on the Iowas. He looked at the mess inside an old cast steel container housing the computer. What he saw was a mass of gears, spindles, weights, and counterbalances, along with what looked like small electric motors. Back in 1938, this was state-of-the-art computing, he thought to himself. He could plainly see the gaps in the system. After making a number of telephone calls, he knew it was a lost cause. There was no way to repair this equipment. The men with him were still scratching their heads.
“What do we need to do, Master Chief?” one asked.
Master Chief Fire Control Technician Zeb Skelly shook his head and rubbed a hand through his thin hair. “Well, I knew we wouldn’t be able to get them all up. I’m just glad we were able to get them all but this one,” he said. The Master Chief had been working four weeks getting at least one of the old computers operating on each of the battleships. The four Iowas were not a problem. They had been operational when last decommissioned, but the others were put together from parts scavenged from what was left. The Massachusetts and the Alabama were running, but the old North Carolina had been the worst of the lot. No parts were left to scavenge, and it was obvious no one made computers like this any more. He ran his hand over some of the parts. “It’s okay, fellas, pay your respects to a fine piece of machinery. When they lit off the Iowas back in the 1980s, these computers were able to operate just as accurately as a digital computer to tell these big guns where to shoot. Let’s just put the old girl back together for now. We’re going to have to find another solution,” he said.
The men started lowering the big casting back over the inner workings as Skelly headed back up from the depths of the ship toward daylight. Despite his age, he didn’t get very winded after climbing up four sets of ladders. He walked up the starboard side and down the brow to the pier. After a short hike he came to an office in one of the workshops. It was a little strange, Newport News had shops for everything, but the modern systems were digital and nobody knew the kind of work he had been called in to do. As a matter of fact, most of the guys were sitting around waiting for electronic parts to come in so they could fix some of the newer systems. He walked past several men and opened the door. His friend Jason Fuchs was sitting there going over some diagrams. “Any luck?” Fuchs asked.
Skelly shook his head. “No way in hell unless we can get the parts made. But I got an idea,” he said. He grabbed the telephone and put it to his ear. “Get me Naval Sea Systems Command. I need to speak to Master Chief Dave Castigan,” he said to the operator of the shipyard. He sat back in his chair and waited. Fuchs knew to leave him alone. He had seen that determined look before and knew something was brewing. It took five full minutes for the call to go through.
The Master Chief suddenly sat up. “Dave! This is Skelly, how the hell are you?” There was a pause as the other man responded. “I bet. Listen, we got a problem with the North Carolina’s system. Yea, it’s a total loss. The directors are okay but the computer is trashed. Tell me something. You remember back in the eighties when they brought these ships back? Remember they did that test to see if a digital system would be any better? What kind of a computer did they use for that? You’re shitting me? Are the components around somewhere? What about the plans?” he fired off the questions one after another. Then a grin crossed his face. “OK, Dave, I think you know where I’m going with this. I need you to dig that stuff up and get it down here ASAP. I’ll find a computer, but I need the digital/analog converters and interfaces. I’m gonna get some of these sand crabs down here to get it ready. Right, the whole thing. What’s the program on?” He froze a second. “Now how the hell can we get that program off of magnetic tape?” he suddenly asked a little miffed. Finally he nodded. “Okay, Master Chief, I’ll leave it up to you. Get it on CD or something so we can get going. I’m going to call Dell or HP and get what I can. Thanks, Dave,” he said finally hanging up the telephone.
Skelly looked over at Fuchs. “Close,” he said. They used an old IBM 486 desktop to do it the last time. They modified it a little but used parallel connections to hook in all the inputs. Then they used digital/analog converters to tie it into a system. Luckily, it’s down at Dahlgren. But the program is on mag tape and he said it was too big to use a floppy. He’s going to see if there is a way to transfer it to a CD. We should get a call from Dahlgren this afternoon,” he said looking around the room. “In the mean time, I need a PC. Get one of these guys out here to start rattling the cages and find me one, then tell them to get ready, cause I’m going to rip this old computer out and put the new one in. They are going to have to make it fit all the old couplings,” he said as he flew out the door and back toward the ship.
Fuchs got up and walked to the door, looking out at the men sitting around. “Okay, you guys, I have work for you. I need a brand new PC in here and I want it within 24 hours. Second, I need you to get ready to rig some adaptors to change parallel connectors to USBs, then drag out the schematics on the connectors used on these old Fords. We will be hooking the fire control directors from 1936 into a computer made just this year – along with the interfaces – and I don’t want any mistakes,” he growled. “So off your asses and on your feet, we have a job to do!” The men knew he was not kidding. They jumped to their feet and started getting the materials they needed. The supply clerk got on the telephone. All he needed was a computer.
At Sea off Norfolk, Virginia
Commander Bobby Dandridge was sitting in his chair on the bridge wing – holding on for dear life. Never had he imagined how exhilarating it would be to go this fast. He was given this ship and told to get a crew up to speed. Nearly every crewman was either a reservist or retiree. The ship was USS Rooks, a World War II era destroyer brought back to the US from
South America. At first, Dandridge thought he wouldn’t be able to get the ship out of the harbor, but in just a short period of time he saw the wisdom in detailing the personnel to the ship. Nearly every one of these guys had served in “cans.” They came aboard knowing nearly every system onboard, and the few systems added were quickly learned. The maintenance facility fixed all the problems reported, so there was no excuse for not taking the old girl to sea.
Chief Engineer Chad Messer had actually been an LDO or limited duty officer. Starting as an enlisted man, he came up as a Machinist Mate and had been sent to college and made an officer. He retired at 30 years, which was a good 10 years before. Once back in an engine room, he purred over the equipment like a mother cat with her kittens and had all his people doing the same. He drilled his people unmercifully until they could recite the Operational Propulsion Plant procedures coming and going. Then he re-inspected all the things the shipyard had cleared. The commander remembered him coming up and requesting an underway period to shake the ship out. After getting the OK, Messer ordered fires lit. With great fanfare, he lit off 1 Alpha. When he found no problems, he lit off 1 Bravo. Then 2 Alpha and Bravo. After setting safeties, and topping off fresh water, feed water and fuel, USS Rooks was underway.
The first few hours were spent letting the ship settle in. There was a moderate swell, but relatively calm sea. Most of the crew had to get used to the motion anyway. Most of the newer ships were much heavier – almost three times as much. Most had fin stabilizers to keep the ship sitting relatively upright. Stabilizers hadn’t even been dreamed of when this ship had been built. The ship weighed only 2,050 tons. She was about 350 feet long but only 40 feet wide, so she sliced through the water instead of forcing her way through it. The near vertical bow often allowed the sea to roll over the top and down the forward part of the ship, sometimes throwing spray high into the air.
The Commander, called “Captain” since he was the senior officer aboard, decided to enjoy the afternoon just seeing what the ship would do. The Engineer had been running drills and tomorrow they would have a gunshoot. Things were very peaceful when the Engineer said he was ready to do a full power run. The Captain gave permission and within a minute, the enunciators were shifted to flank speed with 9-9-9 indicated for revolutions.
That was when things started to happen. They started out at 15 knots. Suddenly the Captain heard the whine of forced draft blowers as they sped up to their maximum revolutions. Dark smoke poured from the stacks only to disappear to a soft haze almost immediately as the men below adjusted the fuel/air mixture to get the optimum heat and steam out of the old boilers. The stern gave a shudder as the twin screws began to thrash their way faster and faster, turning the blue-white wake into a wild, bright white froth. The back of the ship began to dip lower into the water and people standing could sense the ship’s speed increase. The bow began to rise, and the spray from the bow wave shot farther out and higher into the air. The waves and chop started passing the ship more rapidly now and on occasion when going over a swell, the ship seemed to leap forward, throwing water into the air as she cut through.
The Captain looked at his Officer of the Deck. “What’s the speed?” he asked.
“We just passed thirty knots, Captain,” the young lieutenant said nervously.
Not bad, the Captain thought, especially for such an old ship.
Down in “Main Control” the Chief Engineer watched the instruments and especially the torque gages on the shafts. The one thing he did not want to do was torque off a shaft. The engine and firerooms were hotter than three shades of hell, and the men clustered under blowers that belched cold air from the air conditioning system straight down on them at a furious pace. Despite it all, sweat poured off the men. But this was what real engineers understood. The heat, noise, smell, and vibrations were a part of their very being. The Chief Engineer felt at home. Everything was well within tolerances and he was determined to show these rookies what a real tin can could do. He reached up and grabbed the microphone for the sound powered phones that were also amplified to serve as an announcing system down in the holes. “How we doing aft?”
“Lookin’ good here. Vacuum at 28 inches and steady, all pressures good,” came the reply.
“Okay, let’s crack her open and see what she’s got. Watch the torque gauges and your water levels,” he ordered. After a quick acknowledgement, he turned to the throttleman. “Open it one full turn,” he yelled in his ear.
The throttleman was a second class petty officer in his mid-thirties. He had volunteered to return to duty to get back in just such an engine room. He followed his instructions and opened the throttle one full revolution and watched the steam pressure rise in the intake of the high pressure turbine, followed by the low pressure turbine. He also kept an eye on the vacuum as the steam was totally spent in the turbines and entered the main condenser, where the steam flashed back into a liquid called condensate and began the continuous process of becoming feed water and boiled into steam again in a never ending loop. They watched as the revolutions on the shafts passed 300. The whole ship was shaking now, especially the stern as the screws pulled the ship ever faster. It was getting difficult to stand back aft and it seemed as if the water was actually above the deck edge.
Now it was one hour after the ship began its run. The pit log showed the ship turning 36 knots. The wind was howling across the length of the ship as it sliced its way. Sailors had stopped going on the main deck and only stood on the O-1 level or higher. Everyone was seemingly topside to witness the spectacle. Only twenty minutes before, the lookouts had spotted another ship. Looking through the “big eyes,” a set of huge binoculars, they could see one of the newer cruisers on her way back from the Med. As the ship came closer, light signals were exchanged and the niceties to senior officers observed, but the Rooks never slowed. She passed USS Port Royal as if she was standing still. After moving five minutes beyond, the captain ordered a right five degree rudder to change course. The ship heeled over while the screws continued to bite into the sea, turning the ship rapidly and coming back up on the Port Royal’s stern. The CO of the Port Royal saw the turn and ordered his engineers to open up the stops on his ship as well, and the mighty LM2500 gas turbines spun rapidly up to full speed. But it was no use. The Rooks passed the big cruiser with a nearly 10 knot advantage and kept going.
Later that evening the ship had returned to her cruising speed to conserve what fuel she had, but the crew was abuzz with the excitement of the day. Many had not really cared about being put on such an old ship. After what just happened, however, they were getting to like the old girl. After dinner the men drifted topside and watched the sunset much like their fathers and grandfathers had on ships like these. Tomorrow, they would shoot the four 5-inch guns. If they could shoot as good as they could run this would be a kick-ass ship.
Chapter 8
May 25 - Desperation
Pusan, South Korea
The interrogation had taken two days. Every detail from the attack at the DMZ to the final sprint over the wooden temporary bridge was taken down and analyzed in infinite detail. Where had the first rounds come from, what kind of rounds, how many men, what kinds of weapons had they been carrying, how many had been in the motorpool, how mutilated Charlie’s body had been – all of it was discussed again and again. At the same time, Hufham was able to find out a few things on his own. The North had come through in five different places in the Zone, none of which were actually above ground. They had quickly moved through the night taking positions, towns, and even cities with relative ease for the first 24 hours. Then things began to bog down even though there was little in the way of resistance. Because of the EMP, the South Korean forces and Americans had difficulty moving rapidly to respond. Tanks and trucks were running on borrowed time. The EMP had disabled the computers actually helping to run the engines. The few that had started were jury rigged by smart mechanics to get them on the road. In some cases, the jury rig lasted about 10 miles. Some tru
cks just kept on running. Tanks were limited to old M-60s still in theater. Their diesels were all mechanical, and not as fast as an M-1. For the most part, everything moved as fast as someone could walk.
It seemed the biggest hold up to the DPR army’s advance was the DPR itself. The North Koreans were not well equipped to keep an army moving. Trucks were pouring supplies across the DMZ, but in no order or priority. Some units had more bullets than they could use, while others had practically none. The worst part had been food. Almost none had any priority and some was stockpiled in the rear while ammo moved forward. The DPR army had to stop to forage for food and fuel. Many times trucks arrived at the front with their supplies and were stuck there because they didn’t have fuel for a return trip. The supply lines began to dry up, especially since the South Koreans began to use a tactic the Russians had used on several occasions – scorched earth.
As the North came down, the South burned their fields, fuel, food, anything that might remotely be useful to the North. In retaliation, the North murdered hundreds. Anyone suspected of striking a match much less fighting for the South was shot as a warning to others. Refugees clogged the roads, making their own delaying action by making it harder for the DPR army to move. All of this helped buy time for the American and ROK army to get organized and set up defenses.
The line was finally drawn 130 miles south of the DMZ. The line held there for three days before the North mustered enough forces to push them back a couple of kilometers. The line held again at the Han-gang River near Tanyang. The river was a good natural barrier, but every day more troops and machines were seen on the other side. The Americans wanted to use artillery day and night, but there were not enough shells in theater to last more than a few days. The Air Force wasn’t even in the air.
