by Rosone,James
By the end of the sixth day, the PLA had successfully landed and secured most of the Kachemak Bay State Park and began to set up hundreds of 152mm artillery pieces and a variety of rocket artillery. It was at this point the artillery duels began in full force, with the Chinese firing thousands of artillery and rockets at Homer and Anchor Point while the American artillery did their best to conduct counter-battery fire. The PLAAF had also established nine small airfields along the Aleutian Peninsula, ferrying in hundreds of fighter and bomber attack drones from Mainland China. With the defeat of a large portion of the American fighter and bomber drones at Eielson AFB in Fairbanks during the first day of the invasion, the Americans were slowly losing control of the skies over Homer and Anchor Point. With the air war starting to tilt in the Chinese favor, they began to conduct more precision bombing of Anchor Point, hitting a number of the artillery and heavy gun emplacements and some of the Pershing tanks. It would not be long now until the Chinese launched their landing force.
*******
In the early morning hours of the seventh day of the invasion, the PLA, PLAAF and PLAN launched a massive artillery, missile, naval and air bombardment at the Anchor Point peninsula. The assault lasted for several hours; as dawn drew near, the PLA shifted their attacks to hit the peninsula with hundreds of smoke rounds, adding a heavy layer of dense visual cover to the moonscape defensive lines. The American commanders on the ground knew this was probably when the PLAN would launch their amphibious landing and begin to secure the peninsula for the eventual assault and capture of Anchorage. Despite the heavy smoke bombardment, the American commanders could see right through it; dozens of miniaturized surveillance drones were launched into the air, feeding the data collected by their thermal cameras to the displays in their helmets.
Using the cover of smoke and the bombardment, the PLAN had maneuvered dozens of cruisers, destroyers and frigates into the channel to provide cover fire. Now hundreds of landing craft and thousands of amphibious assault vehicles were swarming towards the beach. As the commanders saw the images of the sea vessels headed their way, they quickly grabbed their coms, “The Chinese are in full-out landing assault pattern. Be prepared to engage!”
*******
As Paul sat inside of his command bunker eating an MRE (Meals, Ready to Eat), he couldn’t help but admire the beauty in his surroundings. Despite the beach in front of his position being ringed with concertina wire and other obstacles, you could still see the mountains off in the distance across the bay. The waves were lapping against the gravel shore and the seagulls were squawking as they flew around the coastline. Soon this area would be turned into a cauldron of death, but for right now, it was peaceful.
As he munched on the jalapeno cheese sauce and crackers (his favorite part of the meal), his blissful reflection was interrupted. His HUD suddenly became a loud barrage of instructions being barked at him. He shoved the remainder of his crackers and cheese into his pocket (he wasn’t about to waste those, he had traded for them in the first place), and sprang into action. His platoon was to man the two heavy machine gun nests and the one hundred meters of trench line that connected them both. After receiving his orders, he started handing out instructions of his own. “Listen up, platoon! The Chinese are headed our way. Time to man the battle stations! Stop whatever you are doing, grab your gear, leave the bunkers and get to your assigned position now!”
His platoon had four .50 M2 machine guns in each of the two bunkers and two M134 7.62mm Miniguns. Two of the M2s were aligned to the right of the bunker, providing a ninety-degree arc of covering fire along the beach and the second bunker his platoon manned. The other two machine guns covered the left side of the bunker with the same ninety-degree arc covering the other machine gun first platoon manned and part of their trench line. In between both M2s was the venerable M134 Minigun. The M134 was a belt fed, electrically operated rotating six-barrel machine gun that could be set to fire between 2,000 and 6,000 7.62mm rounds a minute. Both of these machine guns were old in comparison to the more advanced M5 AIR, but their rate of fire and ability to defend the beach were all that mattered. All of the bunkers had been designed to provide each other interlocking fields of cover, so as the landing craft got near the beach they could engage them. Then, as the enemy came ashore, they would rake the beach with heavy machine gun fire. In the rear of the bunkers were built several magazine holds for all of the ammunition for the heavy machine guns. There were 750,000 rounds for the M2 and nearly 2,500,000 rounds for the M134. Despite several days of heavy bombardment, the bunkers were still intact--damaged albeit, but still functional.
SSG Allen continued handing out orders, “Those of you manning the trench line—keep your heads down until the Chinese land the first wave of troops. There is no need to expose yourselves until absolutely necessary. The bunkers will draw most of the enemy fire until the soldiers in the trenches have to engage the troops coming ashore.”
SSG Allen was standing in one of the bunkers, watching through a spotter scope as the wind blew most of the smoke away from their view of the water. Suddenly, he saw hundreds of landing crafts and vehicles heading towards the beach to his front. “Echo Five, this is Bunker 34. We have visual of hoards of Chinese landing crafts headed our way. Requesting immediate fire support, over.”
“Bunker 34, this is Echo Five. We copy. Fire mission on its way.”
Within minutes, artillery and mortar rounds started to hit numerous predetermined points in the water several hundred meters in front of the beach. Some of the landing crafts exploded as an artillery or mortar round scored a direct hit; others were sloshed around by near misses.
As the landing crafts neared the beach, SSG Allen ordered, “Soldiers with the .50s—time to open fire. Start taking them out.”
“FGM-148 Javelins, start firing!” came the next call. The Javelins were fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles, with a longer range than the venerable AT6 rockets. They were guided missiles, which gave the soldiers the power to correct their flight path if needed.
A few moments later, several landing craft reached the beach, and then suddenly, as if appearing from thin air, there were hundreds of PLAN infantry in their exoskeleton combat suits rushing towards the American soldiers with superhuman speed and agility. SSG Allen felt his stomach drop through his knees. “Everyone, engage the Chinese on the beach! Kill them all!”
The M2s and M134s began to traverse back and forth across the beach, decimating the ranks of the PLAN. As the one-inch diameter rounds of the .50 hit their targets, they severed arms and legs, and absolutely shredded the Chinese body armor. Soldiers were literally being ripped apart. The miniguns were devastating the remaining Chinese soldiers rushing the beaches. The volume of fire was awe-inspiring for the defenders as they could see entire squads of Chinese soldiers simply cut apart by the two Miniguns working in tandem. The soldiers manning the trenches began engaging the enemy infantrymen as quickly as they identify a target.
Several of the sergeants manning the various claymore anti-personnel mines started to detonate them as small clusters or groups of enemy soldiers started to coordinate their attacks against the American positions. Across the beach and trench line, there were airburst explosions from artillery and rockets throwing shrapnel everywhere. The cacophony of high explosives, machine guns, grenades, missiles and rockets was numbing.
SSG Allen tapped one of his heavy machine gunners on the shoulder and pointed towards a target. The gunner moved his gun towards a landing craft just as the front door dropped and opened fire. He quickly walked his stream of bullets through the entire landing craft as Chinese soldiers were desperately trying to crawl over the sides of the craft to get away from the slaughter. Within seconds, the machine gunner had killed nearly everyone in that landing craft before setting his sights on the next closest Chinese vehicle bringing more soldiers to the beach. While one soldier began to reload the M2, another soldier began to pour a bucket of water slowly across the red hot barrel. They did not have time
to change the barrels, so they needed to cool the gun so it wouldn’t melt and become unserviceable.
Dozens of Chinese soldiers were getting bogged down in the concertina wire and the various anti-personnel obstacles that the engineers had placed in their paths. Several PLAN soldiers were trying to cut a hole through the wire when an artillery round exploded ten feet above the ground, throwing shrapnel and body parts everywhere. Despite the enormous losses the Chinese were taking; SSG Allen could see the enemy was starting to get off of the sandy beach and move inland. He was starting to get a little nervous. The Chinese appeared like a plague of locusts, consuming and destroying everything in their path.
Trying to remain positive, Paul continued to relay calming words of encouragement to the men and women in his platoon. It had been nearly twenty-five minutes since the first Chinese soldiers landed on the beach, and it was a bloodbath.
SSG Allen could see on his HUD that eight soldiers of his fifty-two-man platoon had been killed; another eleven more were injured and currently being treated by the medics. A couple of the wounded were being moved back to the second line of defense, while the others were being treated and thrown back into the fight. Near Bunker 34 (the machine gun bunker SSG Allen was directing his platoon from) was a steel door that led to a tunnel that went to the second trench line 500 meters behind them. Every fifty meters, the tunnel made a short right or left turn, preventing the enemy from being able to fire down the entire tunnel or shoot a rocket down it. If it appeared that their position was going to be overrun, this would be the tunnel where the platoon would attempt to make their great escape. When the last soldier closed the door, there were several heavy bolts that would lock the door in place, and at the end of each tunnel section there was a charge that could be detonated, imploding that portion of the tunnel and preventing the enemy from being able to use it.
While SSG Allen was watching the medics move two wounded soldiers to the rear, he looked up and saw the third wave of landing craft heading towards their position. Paul contacted the company commander on his HUD, “Captain Shiller, this is SSG Allen; the Chinese are continuing to bring in additional landing craft. We need an air strike or additional artillery support to help take them out!”
“Copy that Allen. I will try to get some air support, but artillery will be our best option.”
“I’m not sure we can hold up against a third wave, Sir,” Paul responded. “We more or less stopped the first wave at the beach. The second wave has made it past the beach and is nearly at our current position. A third wave will likely overrun us…”
“A platoon of Pershing Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) and several armored personnel carriers are moving up to your position. Hold the line; support will be there soon!”
*******
Sergeant John Porter moved his Pershing MBT right behind Bunker 34 as he was directed to and immediately began to engage the landing craft and amphibious vehicles heading towards the beach. Porter could not believe his eyes; the horizon was covered with landing craft. He took a deep breath, then turned to PFC Higgins, his tank operator. “It’s time for us to start engaging targets; as I call them out, you begin to fire.”
“Roger.”
Porter keyed his sights in until he identified an amphibious assault craft. “Fire!” he commanded.
“Firing,” Higgins responded.
In quick succession, Porter’s tank began to engage one craft after another, destroying them swiftly. In just moments, they had taken out twelve landing craft before they could get to the beach.
Suddenly, a loud explosion rocked a nearby location, filling their chests with the reverberation of the sound vibrations. Once Porter had recovered from the shock, he grabbed his scope and saw that to their left, Sergeant Louis’ Pershing had exploded from a direct hit.
Several more blasts rocked Porter’s tank as Chinese destroyers began engaging his tank. Porter was about to give the order for them to reposition when the tank was impacted with a direct hit. In an instant, the cabin was on fire. Sergeant Porter just could not get the hatch open fast enough…the tank exploded.
*******
SSG Allen’s bunker shook as the battle tank near them exploded. Additional ship and artillery rounds began to hit their bunker, rattling everyone in it. He was amazed at how many landing vehicles and amphibious vehicles had been destroyed by the tanks within just a few minutes of their arrival; it was tragic that they were destroyed so quickly. Fortunately for SSG Allen and his team, none of the rounds from the naval guns were flying at a flat enough trajectory to hit the gun slits in the bunker. The PLAN infantry had also made several attempts to hit their position with RPGs, but they had not gotten lucky so far.
PFC Gomez turned from his scope to provide an update, “SSG Allen, the third wave is getting ready to land, it looks like our tanks took out a few dozen of the larger landing crafts before they were destroyed.”
“Private Gomez, shift fire from the beach to those landing craft that are heading towards Bunker 33,” SSG Allen ordered.
“On it, Sergeant!”
Gomez shifted the .50 back to the water and fired a stream of rounds into one of the amphibious vehicles that was closing in on the beach. After firing a few dozen rounds into the vehicle, it exploded, killing all of its occupants. Gomez redirected fire to the next landing craft as it started to exit the water, driving up on the beach. Just as the vehicle dropped the rear ramp, it exploded; several PLAN infantrymen came running out of the vehicle on fire. Gomez quickly gunned them down.
As the third wave of naval infantry hit the beach, they quickly began to join their brethren, who had hunkered down behind anything that would stop a bullet. Suddenly, a massive surge of infantry began to rush Bunker 33 and the trench near it. SSG Allen saw a rather brave Chinese soldier jump up with an RPG7 and fire it at Bunker 33. His shot was perfectly aimed, and it hit the gun slit, exploding into the bunker. Within seconds, there was a small explosion inside of the bunker and the guns went silent. At that moment, SSG Allen yelled at Gomez, “Shift fire! Lay into them before they reach the bunker and trench line.”
The minigunner also redirected fire to the bunker. She cut down several dozen Chinese soldiers in the span of a couple of seconds. Unfortunately, a number of Chinese soldiers launched themselves into the trench line and began fighting the Americans in hand-to-hand combat before Gomez or the minigunner could mow them all down.
One Chinese soldier threw a satchel charge into the back entrance of Bunker 33. Seconds later, it exploded, blowing flame and smoke out through the gun slits. The bunker was thoroughly destroyed as additional naval infantry continued to rush the trench line.
With one bunker down, it meant that SSG Allen’s bunker was now exposed. He looked down and saw the Chinese rushing his position. He quickly detonated the last of his claymore mines, wiping out dozens of enemy soldiers. Allen stepped out of his bunker and fired a green flare in the sky, letting the second line of defense know their lines had been penetrated and to signal to his own platoon it was time to bug out.
The remaining soldiers in SSG Allen’s platoon began to run down the escape tunnel for safety. SSG Allen stayed behind longer to seal the bunker door just as the last soldier made it in, then he ran for the escape tunnel. He blew the charge in the bunker, destroying it behind them. After he reached the first turn, he detonated the second charge, destroying the first part of the tunnel to ensure no Chinese soldiers could follow behind them. As the remains of his platoon emerged from the tunnel, they were welcomed by defenders who praised them for their valiant effort at the beach. They had succeeded in slowing down the Chinese advance and effectively wiped out the first two waves of their assault.
Thoughts raced through Paul’s mind. He felt lucky to have survived, and grateful that close to half of his platoon had made it out with him. The images of the battle raced through his head, overloading him with gruesome scenes. These pictures at the beach and in front of the bunker would haunt him for the rest of his life; thousands of
PLAN infantrymen had been wiped out trying to secure his platoon’s two bunkers and trench line.
*******
Today was the day the PLAN was going to begin its final amphibious assault. They had handed over Kodiak Island to the PLA and reformed up at sea, ready for their last attack that would pave the way to Anchorage. Corporal Chang, like the other soldiers, was nervous about the coming assault. The Army, Navy and Air Force had been pounding Homer and Anchor Point peninsula for days. Rumor had it, several destroyers had been sunk when they got too close to the peninsula. A number of the soldiers in Chang’s squad wondered how their lowly landing vehicles would get close enough to the beach if the shore guns had defeated a couple of destroyers.
Everyone’s coms came to life at the same time, “Board the amphibious assault vehicles and landing crafts. Move quickly! Our time to invade has arrived.”
Chang and his squad boarded the landing craft along with the rest of their platoon; his squad was towards the back of the craft which meant they would be the last off. He realized that this was not a good place to be if he wanted to get to cover quickly. Everyone performed their final checks on their exoskeleton combat suits and equipment as the landing craft moved away from the troop transport and started to form up with the other ships. Steadily, the group of landing crafts began to navigate around the channel until they could see Anchor Point in the distance.
