by James Rosone
*******
Several minutes later, Command Sergeant Major Childers shifted uncomfortably on his side as he lifted his pocket binoculars to his eyes and scanned the buildings further down the block, past the oily black smoke from the burning Stryker vehicle and car.
“Where are you, you little snakes? Ah, there you are,” he whispered softly to himself. A smile spread across his face.
They had already tried a few other approaches, but every time they tried to get into a better position to attack the Russians, they were met with a barrage of enemy gunfire and RPGs. Clearly, the enemy had thought this ambush point through and knew they’d be able to inflict a lot of casualties on the Americans. Now the young soldiers in the platoon were all turning to Childers to save them.
“How do you want to do this, Sergeant Major?” asked one of the surviving senior sergeants as he spat a stream of tobacco juice on the ground.
“I’d like to put a tank round into the upper floor above that café at the end of the block,” said Childers with a wry smile. “However, seeing that we don’t have a tank, we’re going to have to figure out how to get closer to the building. Give me your map, will you?”
The sergeant obliged, and Childers eagerly took the map of the city and placed it on the ground. He pulled out his pad of waterproof paper and scribbled down a position on the map. He then used his index finger to give a rough measurement of a landmark they had preplotted on the map with the location of the café where the enemy sniper was located.
The sergeant asked, “You going to call in an artillery strike on them?”
Childers nodded, eliciting smiles and nods from the other sergeants and soldiers around them. With no other officers present, Childers was the highest-ranking person on scene, and while he wasn’t the platoon or even company sergeant, he was the battalion’s senior enlisted NCO. Normally, they wouldn’t be allowed to call in an artillery strike in a densely packed part of the city unless they knew there were no civilians nearby, but with more than a dozen of his soldiers dead and half that many lying in the street wounded and calling out for help, he wasn’t about to let an arbitrary rule written by a lawyer prevent him from keeping his soldiers alive.
“It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission sometimes,” he thought as he looked for the call sign for the German artillery unit they’d been assigned to use.
After signaling for the radioman to call up the Germans, he waited. A minute later, the young specialist handed him the radio handset.
“Arko Three, this is Saber Six-Seven. Fire mission. How copy?” Childers said, speaking calmly into the radio.
The tension in the air around him remained high as the soldiers continued to hear their wounded friends call out for help. It was tearing them up not being able to rush out to help them, but they knew they had to wait until the enemy positions had been dealt with.
“Saber Six-Seven, this is Arko Three. Send fire mission over,” responded a voice with a heavy German accent.
“One round HE. Grid SP 5765 7654. How copy?” Childers requested. He spoke clearly and slowly so their foreign partners would be able to understand him.
The German unit replied, reading him the grid coordinates again, making sure they had copied them right. A minute later the Germans let them know they had fired the shot. A couple of minutes went by before they heard the round sail over their heads and slam into the upper floor of a building roughly 100 meters to the right of where they wanted it to land.
“Arko Three, Saber Six-Seven. Adjust fire 100 meters to the left. Repeat last fire mission.”
A couple of minutes came and went, then they heard the next round sail over their heads and slam into the upper floor of the building where the enemy sniper had been operating. The upper floor of the building blew apart, throwing bricks and pieces of wood in all directions.
“Arko Three, Saber Six-Seven. Good hit. Repeat last fire mission. Stand by for additional fire missions,” Childers directed.
He turned to the remaining soldiers in the platoon around him. “When the next round hits, I want first squad to run out there and grab our wounded and bring them back. Third squad, you’re to lay down suppressive fire and cover them. I need one of you guys to get on the radio and call for a medevac so we can get our wounded out of here,” he said as he handed the radio receiver over to one of the sergeants.
When the next round hit the building, the entire structure blew apart, along with the two buildings next to it. In that instant, first squad darted forward to the wounded soldiers, grabbing them by the handle on the back of their body armor and dragging them back to safety. The soldiers of third squad unloaded on the façade of the buildings where the enemy had previously been. Even though the buildings had been heavily damaged from the artillery barrage, they were taking no chances of someone getting a shot off at their comrades.
With the last of their dead and wounded having been dragged back to safety, the medics in the group went to work on the injured. A low rumble started moving toward them down the road, and several of the soldiers looked up to see a couple of Stryker vehicles moving toward them. When the vehicles got closer, they stopped, and another platoon worth of American soldiers disembarked. A familiar face also appeared as he walked toward Sergeant Major Childers.
“I thought that was your voice and call sign I heard over the radio,” Captain Jack Taylor said. He approached Childers, extending his hand. They briefly shook hands before Childers led him toward the wounded guys.
“I was on my way over here to check on Second Platoon when they were ambushed,” Childers explained. “Lieutenant Drake was killed and so were three other soldiers. Unfortunately, five other soldiers were wounded and trapped out in the open, and the enemy was using them as sniper bait.”
Captain Taylor shook his head in disgust as he listened to his mentor describe the scene.
“Thanks, Sergeant Major, for helping to get them back. I heard you call in some artillery. Do you think you nailed them?”
“I don’t know, Captain. We should send your Strykers down the block and see if there are any additional holdouts once we get the wounded back to an aid station,” Childers replied. Although he wanted payback, his first concern right now was making sure the wounded were taken care of.
The medics and a couple of the other soldiers loaded the wounded into one of the Strykers, which then turned around and headed back to the battalion aid station. Captain Taylor got on the radio and called back to battalion headquarters to see if he could get some armor support and then poked his head down the street where the enemy was located.
“Childers, I hate to see that Stryker vehicle down there burning,” he said. “My company has already lost four Strykers since we entered St. Petersburg twenty-four hours ago—if we keep losing vehicles to enemy action, we’ll be a light infantry unit on foot instead of a cavalry unit.”
Childers just nodded. Things could definitely be going better.
Thirty minutes went by. Then they heard the unmistakable clatter of metal creaking and the cracking of tank tracks. The ground shook and vibrated as the noise got closer, and then they spotted the source of the sound. Looking down the road toward where the Allies’ line was, Taylor and Childers saw two Finnish Leopard II tanks and four CV-9030 infantry fighting vehicles rumbling toward them. When they pulled up next to Taylor’s group of six Stryker vehicles, what appeared to be a Finnish officer hopped out of one of the vehicles and walked toward them.
“I’m Colonel Juho Heiskanen,” the officer said, extending his hand. “I’m the Jaeger Brigade commander. I was told by your colonel that your unit needed some armor support.” By his demeanor, he seemed very eager to go blow something up.
“I’m Captain Jack Taylor, the commander for Nemesis Troop, 4th Squadron Sabers. We’ve run into an enemy stronghold down the road there,” he said as he pointed to where one of his vehicles was still burning in the road.
“I see. Can you point to me where the enemy positions are?” the
Finnish officer asked as he pulled a small radio from his body armor. Taylor and Childers pointed to the locations where the enemy machine-gun positions had been located, along with the sniper nest.
The Finnish officer relayed the information in his own language, presumably to the tankers. Both of the vehicles lurched forward. Once they reached the turn in the street, they pivoted on their tracks, heading down the road the Americans had been ambushed on.
The turret on the first tank moved slightly, then recoiled as it fired.
Boom! Bam!
The gun turned slightly and fired again at the next target.
Boom! Bam!
Then the tank lurched forward slowly as it started to rumble down the street. The second tank also moved forward quickly, followed by the four infantry fighting vehicles, their turrets staggering from right to left as they provided cover for the tanks should any additional Russian units decide to show themselves.
“Holy hell, if those guys aren’t cocky, Sergeant Major,” Taylor said as a few of the other sergeants nodded and chuckled.
“We should get going, follow these guys in,” Childers offered as he looked at Taylor.
Captain Taylor reluctantly said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Then he turned to his men and shouted, “Mount up! Let’s follow our allies forward!”
They all moved forward dutifully. When the first Finnish tank reached the end of the block, a massive explosion from underneath the road—possibly from the sewers—exploded skywards, lifting the 60-ton tank nearly fifteen meters into the air and flipping it over on its back. The explosion was so large, the shockwave pushed the other Leopard tank sideways onto the sidewalk and shoved it into a café, collapsing part of the building onto it.
The shockwave from the blast knocked most of the soldiers who were not riding in the Stryker vehicles to the ground as the overpressure blew out many of their eardrums. Sergeant Major Childers found himself lying on the ground against the side of a blown-out Lada sedan. Looking up at the sky, through the haze, he saw debris, snow, dirt and parts of the road starting to fall back to the ground below. Childers rolled over to his side, then suddenly realized he needed to breathe. He struggled for air—his lungs burned. Finally, he was able to gasp and inhale.
It took him a moment to recover. As he did, he saw dozens of soldiers stumbling around him, also trying to collect their thoughts and figure out what in the world had just happened. Looking down the road where the Finnish soldiers had been, Childers saw an enormous hole at the center of the T-intersection, where the lead Finnish tank had just been a few minutes earlier.
One of the Finnish CV-9030 infantry fighting vehicles lurched forward toward the massive crater, driving as far away from the edge of it as it could while navigating around it to get at the enemy on the next block over. The 40mm Bofors autocannon fired away at some unseen enemy as the vehicle quickly advanced. The other CV-90s rushed forward behind the lead vehicle, adding their own firepower to the scene. Several of Captain Taylor’s Stryker vehicles raced to catch up while twenty or so soldiers that were on foot continued to recover from the near-death experience of that massive bomb that had just taken out both Finnish tanks.
Once he had collected himself, Sergeant Major Childers attempted to rally the rest of the soldiers to move forward with him and try to keep up with the rest of the company. Sensing some wetness on his neck, Childers placed his hand near his right ear; as he moved his gloved hand away again, he spotted blood on his hand. Not a lot, but it was definitely coming from his ears.
“Crap! My eardrums have probably been blown out,” he thought angrily. He didn’t have time to deal with that. At least that explained why he could barely hear the Finnish 40mm autocannons firing.
He indignantly trudged along, trying to keep up with the rest of Nemesis Troop. If his hearing didn’t return shortly, he’d have no choice but to be medevacked out until he could hear properly. If he couldn’t communicate on a radio or hear what was happening around him, he would be pretty useless in a battle scenario, and possibly a danger to himself and those around him.
When he came near the crater in the road, he saw the sewer system fully exposed, along with a lot of water and heating pipes. He was in awe, thinking of exactly how many explosives must have been placed in that sewer in order to create a crater this large.
Childers spotted a soldier yelling at him but couldn’t hear anything that was being shouted. Then suddenly he found himself being tackled to ground. The vehicle he had been hiding next to just moments ago took some heavy-caliber rounds.
As Sergeant Major Childers looked up, he saw that the soldier that had tackled him was trying to say something, but he was having a hard time making it out. He shook his head and pointed to his ears. The soldier nodded and gave him a thumbs-up before guiding them to a position with better cover. His new friend said something to a few other soldiers, who nodded toward Childers; he must have been bringing them up to speed on his current condition.
*******
A half an hour went by, and Childers’s hearing was slowly starting to return to normal. He tried his best to shelter his ears by placing some hearing protection in them once he was sure they weren’t still bleeding. He refrained from firing his own rifle and did his best to stay toward the rear of the fighting, focusing his efforts more on helping some of the wounded soldiers. When they had nearly a dozen wounded American and Finnish soldiers, Captain Taylor detailed off one of his Stryker vehicles to take the wounded back to the regiment aid station. He ordered Sergeant Major Childers to head back and get his ears checked out as well.
Nearly forty minutes later, Childers found himself comforting a lot of wounded soldiers at the aid station, doing his best to try and help calm them down and reassure them.
“Hang in there, soldier. You’re going to be OK. You got yourself a ticket home,” he said to one young man who’d taken a gunshot to the stomach. He stayed with him until one of the medics was able to give him some pain medication.
Childers moved to another soldier, a man who looked to be in his late twenties whose left leg was missing. The soldier still had the tourniquet tied on, since someone who had been more critically injured was being treated first. Childers looked at the nametape and saw that the man was a sergeant with the last name Brice. He walked up and grabbed the man’s hand; he gripped back hard and looked at him with an intense expression of pain written across his face.
Unintentionally shouting because his hearing still hadn’t fully recovered, Sergeant Major Childers yelled, “Sergeant Brice, I want you to know how proud I am of you! You did the best you could. Now hang in there until the doctors can help you. You’ll be back home with your friends and family soon enough!”
When he finished speaking, Childers saw a tear run down the man’s face, though he couldn’t entirely hear what the man said in response. Childers pointed to his ears, and the soldier nodded and mouthed, “Thank you.”
A minute later, Lieutenant Colonel Schoolman walked into the aid station and quickly spotted his command sergeant major and waved to get Childers’s attention. As he got closer, he pointed at his ears; Schoolman nodded and then signaled to one of the doctors. The two of them talked for a minute before the doctor waved for Childers to come with him. Once he sat down, the doctor examined his ears with a standard otoscope.
The doc dictated a note for him, which a nurse dutifully copied it down so it would be legible. “OK, so it looks like you did puncture your eardrums, but if we treat it properly, I don’t think there will be permanent damage. I’m going to put some drops in your ears to help make sure it doesn’t get infected. This might sting a little, but it’s really important that you keep using these drops twice a day for the next two weeks. You’re going to have to sit out for a week or two while your ears heal, but you should be able to rejoin the combat soon.”
Childers breathed a big sigh of relief. For a little while, he’d thought he might be permanently deaf.
An army medic filled out some inf
ormation about what had happened to him and what they had treated him for. The medic must have seen Childers’s left eyebrow rise quizzically, because he suddenly explained, “This form makes sure you get your Purple Heart.” Holding a hand up, he quickly added, “When you retire, you’ll also want this noted in your medical jacket for the VA, so no complaints.”
Lieutenant Colonel Schoolman patted Childers on the shoulder. “When I heard you’d been injured and taken to the aid station, I thought you might’ve been shot again. I’m glad to see it’s only your hearing that suffered.”
Shaking off his squadron commander’s concern, Childers replied, “How’s the rest of the unit doing?”
Schoolman’s expression soured. “Rough,” he answered. “We’re taking a lot of casualties, but we’ve managed to push the Russians across the river. The regiment is going to hold operations at the edge of the river. We’re not going to try and cross. It appears we’ve pushed a large portion of the Russian Army to either the Petrogradsky District or the southern half of the city. At this point, we’re just going to keep them encircled and force them to surrender or run out of food and bullets.”
Childers nodded at that assessment. “I like the sound of that, Sir. This city combat is brutal. We can’t take much more of this, or we won’t have much of a unit left when it’s done.”
“The hard fighting is over with for now, Sergeant Major. Why don’t you stay here for a little while longer and keep consoling the wounded? I’ll see you back at headquarters in a couple of hours, once you’ve had a little bit of time to recoup—and that’s an order.” He shook Childers’s hand and then left to go tend to the rest of his squadron.
*******
The fighting continued around the city as the Allies tightened the noose around the remaining enemy units in St. Petersburg. After the first thirty-six hours of block-by-block fighting, the V Corps commander had his forces keep the enemy encircled, but he refused to grind the rest of his fighting force into the ground in a house-to-house fight with the Russians. He wanted to keep as much of his combat power ready and available for the march on Moscow. The Russians, for their part, employed hundreds of snipers throughout the city and the surrounding suburbs, making sure the Allies knew they hadn’t been defeated yet.
