by Harold Coyle
The process was repeated with the Mech Platoon, which followed the 3rd. In this way, two companysized units changed places in the dark without a single word other than that between the track commanders and their drivers.
Uleski, leading the Team, hugged the tree line on the northern side of the small valley that the Soviets had tried so hard to reach. When he reached a point about three kilometers west of the village, he moved onto the road and slowly began to pick up speed at a predetermined rate. Had he gone too fast at the beginning, the Mech Platoon at the tail of the column would have been left behind, as they were still hugging the tree line. When the column finally reached the designated march speed, Bannon began to relax. So far, all was going well. The relief had gone off without a hitch and the Team had gotten out of the line without drawing fire. Now they were on the route of march about to hit the first checkpoint along the route on time. This was a good omen.
If the rest of the operation went off this well, it would be a piece of cake.
The drive through the dark countryside was quiet and eerie. The only lights visible were the small pinpricks from the taillights of the tank in front and the blackout drive lights of the tank behind. The steady whine of the tank's turbine engine along with the rhythmic vibrations caused by the tracks had a hypnotic effect. Bannon had to make an effort to pay attention to where they were as the column moved along. Reading a map with a covered and filtered flashlight on a moving tank while trying to pick out terrain features on the darkened countryside was difficult but not impossible. Although Uleski was leading, Bannon needed to monitor exactly where they were at all times as a check on Uleskifs navigation and in case something unexpected popped up. The platoon leaders and platoon sergeants were expected to do the same.
On board the tank all was quiet. Both the Team and the battalion radio nets were on radio listening silence. If the radios were used freely, Soviet radio direction finding units would be able to follow them and keep track of where they were going. Kelp was standing on his seat, halfway out of the turret and facing to the rear of the tank. He was the air guard. It was SOP
that the loader would watch to the rear for air attack and any surprises from that quarter.
Folk, in his seat, was fighting sleep. He was having little success. During a road march the gunner was supposed to cover his assigned sector of observation at all times. But when there is a whole column in front and little prospect of action, it is difficult to maintain a high state of vigilance. But Bannon knew that when he needed him, Folk would be on his sight and ready.
Every ten minutes or so Bannon talked to Ortelli. Marching in column like this is worst for the driver. Not only does he have to fight the hypnotic effects of the steady engine noise and vibration, but he must also keep alert to any changes in the distance and speed of the tank in front of him. Drivers moving in column had a tendency to stare at the taillights of the tank in their front and become mesmerized
by them. When that happens, they are slow to notice a sudden change in distance. Rear end collisions are common under such conditions. Therefore, tank commanders tried to ensure that even if no one else was alert, the driver was.
As they moved deeper into the rear area, other traffic and friendly units began to appear.
The farther back the Team went, the more numerous they became. At first, there were the combat support forces and the artillery units. Team Yankee went past a self-propelled artillery battery lined up but pulled off to the side of the road. Apparently they were waiting for the battalion to pass. Every now and then a single vehicle or a group of three or four trucks would pass headed in the opposite direction toward the front, probably supply vehicles of units still there. At road junctions, MPs directed traffic, alternately letting one vehicle from the battalion column go through, then one from another column on the intersecting road go through. Occasionally the Team would pass lone vehicles on the side of the road. Some were broken down. Some had been destroyed by artillery or air attacks.
The villages the Team passed were now populated with a new class of inhabitants. Signal units, headquarters units, and support units of every description had moved in and set up housekeeping. Night was the time when many of these units came to life to do the majority of their work, especially supply units. They were in a hurry to resupply their units for the next round and get back under cover before the new day brought out the Soviet birds of prey that feed on supply convoys.
It was just after passing through one of these busy little hubs of nocturnal activity that the Team hit its first snag. The 66 lurched to an abrupt halt without warning. At first, Bannon thought they had hit something. Ortelli informed him that they were all right, but that the tank in front had stopped. Bannon watched its dark form for a few minutes, expecting it to move out and continue the march. When it didn't, he became concerned and decided to dismount and walk up to the head of the column. Whatever was wrong, it wasn't serious enough to break radio listening silence. As he dismounted, Folk moved up into the commander's position, just in case.
Bannon was not happy about the disruption in the march but was thankful for the chance to walk around some, stretch his legs, and break the monotony. It was 0345 Alpha time. They had been moving for almost three hours and were scheduled to attack in another hour and fifteen minutes. As he moved up the column, he noticed a lot of activity in front of the Team and in the fields at the side of the road. There were lights on all over just a little beyond the head of the column.
Uleski was already dismounted and talking to some people when Bannon arrived. As he reached the group, he noticed that it was an engineer unit and that the people in front of the column and in the fields beyond were working on sections of a combat bridge.
"Well, Ski, what do we have?"
"Sir, this is Captain Lawson, commander of the 79th Bridge Company." Uleski motioned to a tall captain across from him, then continued, "His people put this ribbon bridge in earlier today. When Team Bravo crossed it, too many tanks got onto the bridge at once and did some damage. Captain Lawson has to close the bridge and repair it before we can pass."
"Captain Lawson, Sean Bannon, commanding Team Yankee. How long is it going to take your people to unscrew the mess some of my tanks made?" Lawson gave him an estimate and a brief explanation of what had to be done and why the work had to be finished before he would chance having any more tanks across. He was hoping to be done within thirty minutes, barring any unforeseen problems. As Lawson seemed to know what he was about, and his people were hustling, Bannon asked him to keep the XO posted, excused himself and Uleski, and let Lawson get on with his work. Both agreed that except for the bridge, everything so far was going very well. Uleski was told to stay at the front and monitor the work on the bridge. Bannon was going to walk down the column and have the tanks disperse and shut down. This halt would give the people a chance to dismount, shake out their legs, and check their tracks. If the engineers finished before he returned, Uleski was to have his driver crank up 55 as a signal.
The crews were slow to respond. They were tired. Perhaps the halt was a good thing. It would give everyone a break. The tanks moved off the road, every other one on the opposite side, and all facing out at a forty-five degree angle. This was a formation called a herringbone, used by mechanized forces at times like this. By the time Bannon had reached the 3rd Platoon, he didn't need to tell the crews any more. The tank commanders began to move their tracks off onto the side in the alternating pattern when they saw the tanks in front of them do so. The entire center of the road was cleared by the time he reached the Mech Platoon.
It was then that it occurred to him that something was wrong. Had C company maintained its time schedule, it should have been closing up behind the Team by now. But there was no one behind the Mech Platoon. The road behind Team Yankee was clear. When the last of the tracks had shut down their engines, he walked about a hundred meters down the road and listened for the whine of C company's personnel carriers. Still night air, an occasional rumb
le from distant artillery, and the pounding and yelling of the engineers working on the bridge were all that could be heard. After five minutes, he abandoned his vigil and began to walk back to the head of the column. He really didn't know if there was in fact anything wrong. With radio listening silence in effect, he had no way of finding out. Of course, if something really terrible had happened to the rest of the battalion, he hoped someone would take the initiative to break radio listening silence and spread the word. But that was a hope, not a sure thing. Bannon had a bad feeling that things were not going well. Something was wrong, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about whatever it was.
It took Pat's parents a moment to realize that their joyous welcome and enthusiasm wasn't evoking any response. Pat barely acknowledged their presence. She briefly looked at them, softly said, "Hi Mom, Dad," and then turned her head down to look at her children. Sarah hung around her mother's neck, making no attempt to move. Sean leaned against her side and wrapped both hands around the arm Pat held Sarah with. Kurt held her free arm and leaned against her on the other side, head tucked down, sucking his thumb. For an uncomfortable moment, her parents stood there, not knowing what to do or say. Pat's father offered to go get their suitcases while they waited there. Pat's simple response, "There aren't any," made her parents more uneasy. Her father gave her a look, then went to pull the car around to the front of the terminal.
When Pat and her children moved to leave, they moved as one, none of them wanting to let go of the other for the briefest moment. Pat's mother continued to stare, feeling less and less at ease in the presence of her daughter. As they left the terminal, an airman took Pat's name, the children's names, her husband's name and unit, and Pat's destination. The final checklist and roster in their long odyssey.
Outside, Pat and the children climbed in the back seat. Even in the car they continued to hold on to each other. As they pulled away, Pat turned and watched the terminal. They were finally leaving military control. She thought about that for the moment. She thought about the other wives and their children. She looked at her parents in the front seat and began to wonder, Now what? The evacuation was over, but now what? There was nothing more to do.
She was safe. Her children were safe. She was going back to her parents' home. But what then? Wait? Wait for what? For the war to end? For word to come about her husband? And what kind of word? Pat had listened to stories from wives who had waited while their husbands were in Vietnam. She wasn't ready. Even now, safe in the U.S., the dark abyss of the trackless future opened before her. Like an earthen dam that had tried to hold back more
water than it could, her resolve collapsed, and she began to cry. Her children silently tightened their grips on their weeping mother to comfort her and themselves. Her parents in the front seat stared ahead, not knowing what to do or say.
: CHAPTER FIVE.
Hunter and Hunted.
Twenty-eight minutes from the time Bannon had talked to Lawson, 55 cranked up. The bridge was opened and ready for Team Yankee. The engineers, however, made sure that the tanks didn't screw up their work again. An engineer NCO stood at the near end of the bridge, stopping each tank as it approached the ramp. He would hold the tank there until the tank on the bridge got off on the far side of the river. When it was 66's turn at the on ramp, Lawson came up to the side of the tank.
"Right on schedule, Lawson. Your people done good. Give 'em an atta boy." "Will do, Bannon. You give those Russians hell."
With a thumbs up and a grin, 66 rolled onto the bridge as Lawson waved. The military was strange like that. In the middle of the night you run into a major problem. You suddenly find yourself depending on someone you never met before and probably would never see again.
But that person knocks himself out to do his job and helps you get on with yours. Lawson and his engineers had done their job and done it well. Now Team Yankee could go about theirs.
Crossing one at a time was a slow process. Uleski kept the pace down until he had determined that the Team had cleared the bridge. He then began to pick up speed slowly until he
reached, then slightly exceeded, the former march speed. All together, Team Yankee was forty-five minutes behind schedule. It was now 0430 hours, Alpha time. The sky in the east was becoming light. They were supposed to be crossing the line of departure in another thirty minutes. Even at best speed, they would not be able to make it. But the tanks could not travel at top speed. If they did, the personnel carriers would not have been able to keep up. It would be useless to arrive on time without the infantry or the FIST. So the Team stayed together and made the best possible speed. What concerned Bannon more than being late, however, was the failure of C company to close up at the bridge. Even as the Team left the bridge site, he kept looking back across the river in the gathering light, searching for a glimpse of anyone else in the battalion. But there was no sign of C company, D company, the battalion CP, or trains. C company was thirty-five minutes behind schedule for some reason. Perhaps the battalion had learned about the problem at the bridge and had diverted C company to another route. If that were the case, C company could be in front of Team Yankee. Or C company could be lost. Or they could be held up in a massive traffic jam in one of the small villages. Bannon didn't have any idea what had gone wrong, but he did know that Team Bravo was in front of Team Yankee, continuing with its mission. Without the faintest idea as to what was going on behind the Team, all he could do was to carry on as ordered. When they closed up on Team Bravo, he hoped someone would be there who knew what was going on or had some new orders.
By 0520 Team Yankee was only three kilometers south of Kernsbach at the point where they were to turn off the road and begin to deploy. But rather than turn off, the tanks to his front began to deploy into another herringbone formation on alternating sides of the road. Bannon turned, signaled the FIST track to pull off, and told Ortelli to drive up to the head of the column and find 55. As 66 came up to the XO's tank, Bannon saw Major Jordan standing on the side of the road next to his PC. To prevent a
cluster of parked vehicles,
Bannon pulled off on the opposite side of the road. At this point, they were only six kilometers from the line of departure, the front.
Jordan stood next to Uleski across the road, looking unhappy and impatient to be on his way. He began talking while Bannon was still in the middle of the road. "There has been a change in plans. You're to pull your Team into an assembly area over there in the forest and await the word to move into the attack." He motioned to the northeast where a road coming out of Kernsbach disappeared into a forest between two hills. "The battalion column became separated last night. I'm going on back along the line of march and see if I can find the rest of our people."
"Any idea how long it's going to be before we move into the attack?" "Not until, and only if, we get this jug fuck unscrewed. For now, no one
in
this battalion is going to do any attacking. Any other questions?"
"Yeah, where's Team Bravo and any other friendly units?"
"Team Bravo is in position now as planned. Team Charlie, Task Force 2nd of the 93rd Mech is in the tree line just west of Kernsbach. The Scout Platoon from 2nd of the 93rd is in that wood lot just to the north. If you need to, contact them by radio. I gotta be rolling. Good luck."
Without waiting for further questions, Major Jordan climbed up onto his personnel carrier and took off down the road to the south as fast as his PC
could roll. Bannon turned to Uleski, "Bob, go get the platoon leaders and double time them up here ASAP."
"On the way."
While the XO was gathering up the platoon leaders, Bannon put out his map on the front slope of 55 and for a moment studied the area where the Team was to go. He decided quickly to put the two tank platoons on the west, one on each side of the road, facing out where they would have good fields of fire. The Mech Platoon would go through the woods to the east side and straddle the road. He wanted to get the Team under cover and depl
oyed.
As soon as the
platoon leaders were gathered around the map, he gave his orders. "There has been a delay in the attack." The faces of the platoon leaders lit up as if the governor had just given them a last-minute reprieve. "We are going to move into an assembly area to the northeast.
Second Platoon, you deploy here to the north of the road and orient to the west. Third Platoon, you deploy here and orient to the northwest. That will give you two crossing fires.
Be advised, there are friendly scouts and a friendly company team here. So don't shoot unless you're sure they're Russians. Lieutenant Harding, you will deploy your platoon here on either side of the road. The XO will deploy with you. Once we're under cover, check out your tanks and tracks, boresight your main guns, and feed your people. As there is no way of telling how long we'll be here, treat this as you would any defensive position. If there are no questions, let's roll." Garger stopped Bannon as he was about to pick up his map. "I don't have a question, but I think you ought to be advised that 33 fell out about ten klicks down the road." Uleski and Bannon stopped midstride and stared at Garger as he continued,
"Sergeant Pierson stopped to see if he could help. O'Dell told him he suddenly lost all power. They tried to restart 33, but the engine kept aborting. I have the grid location of where 33 is." "Give it to the XO when we get into the assembly area. Right now let's get off this road before some Russian jet jockey makes us all grease spots." With that, the group scattered and remounted.
The woods of the Staat Forest were easy to move through. It was a typical German forest, with the straight, tall trees well spaced in neat rows. The forest floor was as clear of clutter as if it had just been raked. As the tanks jockeyed into positions and shut down, the forest and the hills on either side trapped the noise and caused echoes. When all were shut down, Bannon could distinctly hear the conversations of other crews as they dismounted, stretched, and went about taking care of their tanks. The routine called for Folk and Bannon to check out the fire control, while Kelp and Ortelli checked the track and suspension. When the fire-control system was finished, they boresighted the main gun and checked the weapons.
