Lee Grossman didn’t yield an inch. He would never have made first-string fullback at Columbia if he felt intimidated by every man on the football field bigger than him. “Lieutenant,” he said, “didn’t West Point teach you that smart isn’t measured in inches? Now get back to your platoon. That’s an order. And try not to be such a schmuck.”
“Is that an order, too?”
“No, Bob…it’s just good advice.”
Taking charge of an organization never comes easy, even for an Army colonel. Jock’s first meeting as a member of Chuck Murdock’s brand-new regimental staff was proving that old piece of wisdom in spades. Just four short days ago, Murdock and every member of his staff—with the exception of Jock Miles—had been in Australia, doing other jobs. They’d been jerked away, flown by flying boat to an invasion fleet still licking its wounds from a vicious mauling by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and forced to don dead men’s shoes. One imperative drove it all: MacArthur decreed his reclaiming of Port Moresby would proceed as planned and on schedule.
A minor setback, MacArthur’s Headquarters at Brisbane had labeled the debacle in the Coral Sea. The only thing that had prevented a major disaster, Jock supposed, was the Japanese fleet having to withdraw to refuel and rearm. I wonder what Brisbane calls the Navy abandoning us at the mere suggestion of Japanese ships on the horizon?
There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to organize from scratch an invasion force that was already in shooting distance of the enemy. A brief overview of the regiment’s problems looked something like this:
The Adjutant (S1) had no idea of the exact number of troops ashore. He still did not even have a complete list of what units had made it off the beach.
The Operations Officer (S3) knew the attack plan—the frontal assault to which a higher headquarters habitually defaults—was a recipe for disaster.
The Supply and Logistics Officer (S4) had nothing but a sketchy idea of the status of ammunition and food supplies across the regiment.
The Air Force Liaison Officer insisted his Air Force needed 24 hours advance warning for any mission. After all, he explained, the planes did have to come all the way from Australia, the closest airfield there being over 300 miles away.
The Naval Liaison Officer had the easiest job of all: there was, at present, no Navy with which to liaise—and there was no estimate of its time of return.
Yet, MacArthur demanded they attack, immediately if not sooner.
Jock, the Intelligence Officer (S2), watched as frustrated officers quibbled over details of which they had no real grasp: I’m lucky, I guess. At least I’ve had a good view from the mountain of what we’re up against.
Colonel Murdock commanded his staff to be silent. “I’ve heard enough, gentlemen,” he said. “Everybody has problems, but the important question is what are you doing about them? Now, everything we hear from Division boils down to this…they expect us to frontally assault Port Moresby, which is defended by a well dug-in force possibly greater in number than us. What’s more, we’re expected to do it without the Australians…their part in this operation has been put on hold indefinitely. Needless to say, I’m uneasy about such an enterprise. Captain Miles, as intel officer, tell us what you know about the Japanese defenses around Port Moresby.”
Jock didn’t bother stepping to the map as he said, “They expect a frontal attack from the east. If we do that, we’ll get shellacked.”
The S3 wasn’t impressed. “Really, Captain,”—the lieutenant colonel spoke Jock’s lesser rank with all the condescension he could muster—“do you presume to know better than Division…and General MacArthur…how to take an objective?”
“I don’t presume much of anything, sir, except I’m pretty sure we’re looking at this all wrong.”
“Please…enlighten us, Captain,” the S3 said.
“Yes, Jock,” Colonel Murdock said in a tone far more encouraging than his S3’s. “Let’s hear your ideas.”
Jock approached the big map. Pointer in hand, he began his impromptu briefing: “We’ve been looking at the mountains of Papua, and Astrolabe in particular, as a barrier and flank protector, but that’s a big mistake. While Astrolabe has been a unique and valuable observation post, it could be turned against us in a heartbeat.”
He ran the pointer across the map along the backslope of Astrolabe. “Notice the widely spaced contour lines…the back side of the mountain is not very steep…more like a mesa, a gently sloping plateau, quite unlike the sharp front slope we’re looking at from the seaward side.”
He placed the pointer on the western edge of Astrolabe. “Now, the mountain is really a long ridge…fifteen miles long…which stops abruptly about twelve miles north of Port Moresby. Right there is a valley…a deep notch…where the Laloki River runs through. The Aussie coast watcher I’m working with knows that terrain like the back of his hand. It’s more than wide enough for large troop movements, with vehicles, to pass through and gain the backside of the mountain in force. From there, it would be no problem for a Japanese battalion to push Charlie Company off the peak and command the high ground once again. If they move their artillery up there, we’re all finished. They could hit every square inch of our lines down here on the lowlands.”
The Air Force liaison officer shook his head. “If they tried that…lining up guns on that ridge…Fifth Air Force would blow them to smithereens.”
Jock didn’t flinch. “Sir,” he replied, “with all due respect to the Air Force, we’ve told you exactly where their artillery is lined up now…and you haven’t touched it. And by the time we wait twenty-four hours for your planes to bomb them off the mountain, we’ll all be dead.”
Colonel Murdock stepped up to the map looking surprised, like he was seeing its features for the first time. He sounded surprised, too: “Are you proposing, Captain Miles, we turn the tables on the Japs with a flanking movement from behind Astrolabe? Through this notch, as you call it?” His fingers traced along that spot on the map as he spoke, their touch lingering as if caressing a lover.
“Ridiculous!” the S3 said. “We’d need to put half the regiment, with supplies, over that mountain. That’ll take a week or more just to get into position.”
“The natives will be more than glad to carry the supplies for us, sir,” Jock replied. “That’ll save days.”
Colonel Murdock took back the floor. “What the S3 is saying, Captain Miles, is we don’t have the luxury of time. We are to attack tomorrow, so there’s no time to do anything but stick with the plan Division has given us and make it work somehow. I do agree with you on one point, though…we’ve got to make sure no Japs slip around us through that notch. Can your boys from Charlie Company handle that ’round the clock? We can’t have any of those little bastards slipping through in the dark.”
“Affirmative, sir, Jock replied. “They can handle it.”
Chapter Twenty
Day 7
The radio message was quite clear: Charlie Company was to reposition to the western end of Astrolabe and cover The Notch: the valley through which the Laloki River flowed. It wasn’t much of a walk from their present position—only seven miles—but that put them seven miles in front of the American lines. Even though this was the day the attack was to be launched and the sun had been up for an hour, those lines hadn’t moved an inch yet.
Lee Grossman rationalized the order this way: If it had been signed by anyone other than Captain Miles, I would have considered it the words of a lunatic.
The company—130 men in four platoons, plus two dozen native porters—walked in single file, with tactical dispersion of five yards between men, along the narrow trail running down Astrolabe’s peak. From Bogater Boudreau on point to the last native porter bringing up the rear, they stretched like a snake for more than half a mile. Trevor Shaw and his radio stayed with Grossman near the head of the column. Melvin Patchett stayed at the back of the column, making sure there were no stragglers. Ginny Beech was right behind him, leading the porters. There
was no tactical dispersion between Top and Ginny; they could almost hold hands.
Those two seem awfully chummy, Grossman thought. They were even sharing chow before we set out. That was strange: Top usually keeps to himself. Maybe the loneliness is finally getting to an old dog like him, too.
“May I make a suggestion, Lieutenant?” Trevor Shaw asked.
“Sure,” Grossman replied.
“We should set up two observation points this time, as far apart as you feel comfortable.”
“Why’s that, Commander?”
“So we can triangulate our target spotting at night. We won’t see anything but flashes of gunfire and shell impacts. With no visible landmarks, it will be almost impossible to pinpoint their location.”
Wow…what a great idea, Grossman thought. Wish to hell I had thought of it. We just need to iron out a few details.
“What’s the closest the two points can be and still be effective, Commander?”
“To smooth out the probable error…about a mile,” Shaw replied.
“Good,” Grossman said. “We’ll be able to communicate with walkie-talkies. A mile is about their max range. I don’t want to use field telephones. It’ll use up too much commo wire. We’ll probably need all we’ve got to cover The Notch.”
The artillery forward observer Grossman had been promised had yet to show up. Not really a problem, Grossman reasoned. Artillerymen can’t see in the dark, either, and infantrymen can call for fire just as well. I kinda wish we had the FO, though. Maybe he’d bring another long-range radio with him. Good thing we’ve got that Aussie radio, because ours seem to be real scarce…
And it doesn’t take an artilleryman to realize we’re walking out of the range of our own guns. Sure, the seventy-five millimeter battery near the base of Astrolabe could shoot this far along the lowlands…even hit targets on the front slope of the mountain…but it couldn’t fire high-angle over the peak to the backslope, which is exactly where we’ll need it if the Japs break through The Notch.
Surely, they know this at HQ, right?
Colonel Murdock was less than pleased. He asked his air liaison, “Where’s your fucking Air Force, Major?”
The air liaison was practically breathing down the neck of his radio operator, who ignored him as he clamped the headphones against his ears, struggling to separate information from static. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, nearly socking the major in the jaw with the crown of his head.
“I’ve got it,” the radio operator said. “They’re ten minutes out.”
“About fucking time,” Murdock said.
In another corner of the command tent, Jock huddled over a map with the division artillery commander, a bird colonel. “We’ve got to get some of your bigger guns closer to Astrolabe, sir,” Jock said, sketching a goose-egg on the map. “We need some one-oh-fives or one-five-fives somewhere in here so they can shoot high-angle over the mountain if we need it. The seventy-fives can’t do the job.”
Shaking his head, the divarty commander replied, “I’d love to, Captain, but I need a road or a trail. There are too few up that way and no engineers to make more right now. The big trucks pulling those guns will get stuck in some gully before they go a mile. I can’t risk it…the bigger guns will have to stay down by the coast, where it’s flatter and there are at least some trails for the vehicles to drive on.”
Jock knew the colonel was right: You need engineers to build roads. A division is supposed to have an engineer battalion…but all that’s made it ashore so far is just an engineer company…and they’re clearing land for an airfield five miles behind us, with hardly any of their heavy equipment. From the OP, I think we saw a grand total of two bulldozers come off the landing craft.
Blowing out a chest-full of exasperation, Jock said, “So I’ve got an I and R company sitting way out here”—his finger fell on the map at The Notch—“with no artillery support at all…all by their lonesome.”
“What about mortars?” the divarty commander asked.
“Yeah, they’ve got their sixty-millimeter section…but that’s not going to be near enough if the Japs try to break out through The Notch, sir.”
“How about putting a four-deuce mortar platoon from battalion up there with them?”
“There is no battalion, sir. They got sunk. Besides, we’d need just about every native porter and every mule in Papua to keep those big bastards supplied with ammo. We can’t drive any vehicles up there, remember?”
“Then how about this, Captain? Instead of going over, how about we drive a battery around the east end of the mountain?”
“No go, sir. The terrain is much too rugged for vehicles down there. It’s got to be high-angle fire over the mountain…or nothing.”
The divarty commander just shrugged. “Then I guess it’s going to be nothing, Captain. I’ve got a whole division to support. I can’t sacrifice them for your one little I and R company.”
Once they reached the western end of Astrolabe, Lee Grossman set up his company like a giant horseshoe, with the curved toe overlooking The Notch. The branches of the horseshoe—one facing north, one south—extended back along the peak for hundreds of yards. The men were just starting to dig into their new position when they saw the planes approaching from over the Coral Sea. “Looks like our Air Force has finally decided to help us out,” Lee Grossman said.
One squadron of heavy bombers droned high over Port Moresby, followed by another squadron a few miles behind—20 planes in all. The throaty purr of their engines was little more than a murmur to the GIs on Astrolabe. They watched as anti-aircraft fire rose to meet the planes, the bursts looking more like harmless tufts of soiled cotton than deadly threats. Bombs began to splatter across the eastern outskirts of Port Moresby, the shock waves radiating from hundreds of blasts mingling like the ripples of pebbles thrown on a still pond. A few seconds later, the time-delayed rumble of their explosions sounded like strings of giant firecrackers on the Fourth of July. It was all over in less than two minutes; the bombers turned back toward Australia. Other than one plane slowed by a smoking, feathered engine but still winging its way home, the anti-aircraft gunners had claimed no victims.
“That looked really great,” Sergeant Tom Hadley said, staring at the targeted ground through binoculars, “but do you think they hit any Japs?”
“You got a point, Tom,” Melvin Patchett said. “Nothing’s burning…not a damn thing. Looks like all they did was plow a lot of ground.”
“You remember the Cape, Top?” Hadley asked. “We call in a squadron of bombers…and only one of them comes anywhere near the target and another one bombs the shit out of us.”
“Don’t remind me, son.”
“The attack bombers should come next,” Lieutenant Grossman said, “Our radio’s up on the net...start calling out targets for them.”
A few minutes later, Grossman’s words proved true. Sweeping in so low over the coastal plain the men of Charlie Company actually looked down on them, the attack bombers looked and sounded like a swarm of angry insects. The American A-20s and Australian Hudsons passed over the GIs lined up to attack and headed straight for the Japanese wall defending Port Moresby.
“Pretty gutsy move by those flyboys,” Hadley said, “flying so low over those green troops. They’re lucky some of those dumbasses didn’t shoot them down. How many planes are there, anyway? I can’t count them all.”
“A coupla dozen, at least,” Patchett replied. “Stop your yammerin’ and watch where they hit.”
The attack planes unleashed their bombs and bullets and, banking steeply, turned hard left for the safety of the sea.
“Hmm…not too bad,” Grossman said. “A few of them actually hit where we asked for. Call for a repeat…they need to make another pass if they can.”
“We’d better have them focus on those hilltops over there, sir,” Hadley said. “They look like they’re crawling with Japs.”
“Yeah, fine…you guys call it in,” Grossman replied. “I’m going to
check on Lieutenant Wharton’s platoon down at The Notch.”
It wasn’t much of a walk to The Notch, and it gave Lee Grossman a moment to watch the second strike by the attack bombers. Their accuracy looked a little better this time: They must’ve hit an ammo dump or two…there are actually secondary explosions and columns of thick black smoke curving through the sky. My boys are doing a good job.
From the edge of Astrolabe’s peak, he had a spectacular view of the valley that formed The Notch and the narrow plain stretching for miles toward Port Moresby. Wharton and his men were a short way down the slope—on the military crest—just where they should be: you can still see everything but you can’t get silhouetted against the skyline.
Bob Wharton was having a meeting of his NCOs, his back to his approaching company commander. The NCOs saw Grossman coming—even smiled in recognition—but did nothing to alert Wharton, who roared on, deep in some diatribe. Grossman got close enough to hear his words.
“I don’t care what that kike wants,” Wharton said, “we aren’t setting up a listening post down there in the valley. I ain’t getting any of us killed over his dumb ideas. If they come in force at night, we’ll hear them up here, anyway.”
The silence that followed quickly grew uncomfortable for Bob Wharton. He had expected agreement and gratitude from his sergeants. What he was getting was eye-rolling and looks of expectant glee.
“A word, Lieutenant?” Lee Grossman said.
Now Wharton’s NCOs were elbowing each other with delight. “AT EASE,” Wharton said to his men as he rose and turned to face the voice behind him. He couldn’t tell which sergeant said it, but he heard one murmur, “The Wart really shit in his mess kit this time.”
Slowly, Wharton walked up the slope to face his company commander. He never got to say a word—Lee Grossman took full advantage of the added height the slope afforded him and delivered a mighty uppercut to Wharton’s midsection. As the tall man crumpled, Grossman delivered another to his chin. When the dust settled, Bob Wharton had tumbled back to where his delighted NCOs still stood.
Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Page 11
