Combat Ineffective Read online

  COMBAT

  INEFFECTIVE

  A Jock Miles-Moon Brothers

  Korean War Story

  A Novel By

  William Peter Grasso

  Novels by William Peter Grasso:

  Jock Miles-Moon Brothers Korean War Story

  Combat Ineffective, Book 1

  Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure Series

  Moon Above, Moon Below, Book 1

  Fortress Falling, Book 2

  Our Ally, Our Enemy, Book 3

  This Fog of Peace, Book 4

  Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series

  Long Walk to the Sun, Book 1

  Operation Long Jump, Book 2

  Operation Easy Street, Book 3

  Operation Blind Spot, Book 4

  Operation Fishwrapper, Book 5

  Unpunished

  East Wind Returns

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2018 Grasso Revocable Trust

  All rights reserved

  Cover design by Alyson Aversa

  Photo courtesy of Olive-Drab.Com

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Combat Ineffective is a work of historical fiction. Events that are common historical knowledge may not occur at their actual point in time or may not occur at all. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales or to living persons is purely coincidental.

  Contact the Author Online

  Email: William Peter Grasso

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  William Peter Grasso, Author

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  William Peter Grasso, Author

  Dedication

  Henry J. Van Der Waarden

  1930-2018

  To Henry John Van Der Waarden

  My wife’s father

  A Navy man who, after eighty-eight years,

  has embarked on his final voyage

  May the heavenly seas offer him eternal peace

  SUMMER 1950

  NORTH KOREA ATTACKS

  Author’s Note

  Often called the “forgotten war,” the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 remains overshadowed by the vastness of WW2. Yet it marked an escalation of America’s military misadventures on the Asian mainland, where US domestic politics continued to distort foreign realities, provoking disaster and an ultimate stalemate on the battlefield. In no way, however, does the fictional story presented here mean to denigrate the hardships and sacrifices of the individual American soldiers forced to fight an enemy they did not understand and for whom they were woefully ill prepared.

  Korea marked the first time the American military fought as a racially desegregated organization. The stresses of combat, coupled with lingering racial animus in both the ranks and the high command, forced a limited return to segregation for some units. Derogatory terms for people of color used in dialogue serve no other intent than to accurately represent this animus in the contemporary setting of 1950.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Novels by William Peter Grasso

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Map—North Korea Attacks

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Upcoming Novels

  About the Author

  More Novels by William Peter Grasso

  “Let him not boast who puts his armor on

  As he who puts it off, the battle done.”

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

  Morituri Salutamus

  Chapter One

  9 July 1950

  Travis Slocum wanted to be back in Japan. Life was good there; so good, in fact, that being a corporal in an American army that might actually be expected to fight seemed an afterthought. Once he showed up for morning formation—more a route step gaggle of milling GIs in and out of uniform—he could get lost for the rest of the day and, as a rule, nobody would come looking for him. Off post, there were countless women for the taking, plenty of booze to be consumed, and fat black market profits to be made, whether it be from American cigarettes or any government property you could pilfer for resale.

  If some overzealous lieutenant or sergeant did catch a GI in some misdeed, his punishment was usually whittled down to next to nothing once the C.O. got involved because nobody was looking to make waves in MacArthur’s postwar fiefdom of Japan. A unit with an abundance of disciplinary problems reflected poorly on its C.O. If he expected to get promoted in the severely shrunken postwar US Army, he’d put a lid on his problems.

  But Travis Slocum wasn’t in Japan now. A week ago, his infantry unit had been jerked from their comfortable accommodations on Kyushu, the southernmost of the Home Islands, and stuffed onto USAF transport planes for the two-hundred-mile flight across the Tsushima Strait to the Republic of Korea; South Korea, as the GIs knew it. They traded their cushy, off-base apartments for two-man tents and their pillow-soft mattresses for the rock-hard ground outside the town of Suwon, just twenty miles south of Seoul, South Korea’s capital.

  It’s only temporary, Slocum assured himself. They might’ve pushed the South Korean Army around without hardly breaking a sweat, but those North Korean gooks will run like scared rabbits when they come up against good ol’ Uncle Sam’s boys. We’ll be back in Japan in a week or two. All the officers will tell you that.

  “Set up your reckless rifle over there on that ridge,” the platoon sergeant told Slocum, pointing to a spot over one hundred yards away. “Target that road that’s below us. And why the hell are you still wearing those stupid galoshes, boy? It ain’t raining.”

  “They keep my feet warm, Sarge.”

  “That’s a crock of shit, and you know it, Slocum. You’re just too damn lazy to shine your boots. How many times I gotta tell you that they’ll fall apart if you don’t take care of them? Now get that weapon set up on the double.”

  “Can’t we hitch a ride over there, Sarge? That’s a long way to hump this heavy son of a bitch.”

  “No, you cannot hitch a ride, Corporal. The company’s only got one damn jeep, and it’s got better things to do than haul your sorry asses around. I know that thing’s heavy, but that’s why there’s four of you. Now, why are you goldbricks still here?”

  By the time the crew of the 75-millimeter recoi
lless rifle—the reckless rifle—had carried the 114-pound weapon and six rounds of its anti-tank ammunition, each weighing twenty pounds, to the designated firing point, the four out-of-shape GIs were exhausted, gasping for breath. That trek was probably the only physical exercise short of sexual intercourse, hoisting a beer bottle, and walking the chow line any of them had had in months.

  “Ain’t this a bad position?” a PFC named Owens asked Slocum. “We’re sorta skylined on this ridge, ain’t we?”

  “We can’t be on the front slope, dummy,” the corporal replied. “This thing won’t have enough rear-end clearance. The backblast will pick up rocks and shit and send them flying. Probably kill us all. You forgot already that a reckless rifle has two wrong ends?”

  “No, I didn’t forget nothing. I just—”

  “Can it, Owens,” Slocum interrupted, pointing to the two stripes on his sleeve. “When you’ve got enough of these, then maybe one day you can be section chief. Now, where’s the damn sight box?”

  “It’s right here.”

  But when Slocum opened it, the box was empty.

  “For fuck’s sake, Owens, where’s the fucking gunsight?”

  “Gee, I don’t know,” was his flustered reply. “We had it when we were on the truck coming up from the airfield. It must’ve fell out.”

  “Well then, go back and find it, you moron. You had one damn job, for cryin’ out loud.”

  As Owens skittered off, Corporal Slocum sagged to the ground, lying flat on his back to take the load off his aching legs. Trying to walk around in the galoshes was taking its toll. He’d lied to the sergeant why he was wearing them; it had nothing to do with keeping his feet warm. He’d lost his GI boots—both pairs. When he’d packed his gear in that great rush for the flight to Korea, they were nowhere to be found. His Japanese houseboy, who he hadn’t seen for a day or two, must’ve taken them to be shined…

  Or had simply stolen them.

  Either way, Slocum’s only remaining GI footwear was his low quarter shoes, oxfords you wore with dress greens or khakis but never combat fatigues, which they’d be wearing until their upcoming victory parade through the streets of Seoul. The galoshes were just a flimsy attempt to keep from being caught out of uniform.

  But his legs were paying the price. If he had to walk anywhere else—or worse, run—he didn’t think he’d be able to do it.

  If we were shipping out of anywhere but Japan, I’d have never gotten away with it. The top sergeant would’ve inspected every piece of gear for every swinging dick, Slocum told himself. But we’re in MacArthur’s Army, and he has his own set of rules. Nobody bothers to check shit. It just turns up problems when you do.

  Other commanders have problems, not MacArthur. Everything’s always hunky-dory in his house.

  PFC Luckinbill was hovering over him now. “Hey, Travis,” he said, “how the hell are we gonna aim this shit tube without the sight?”

  Still flat on his back, Slocum replied, “First off, that’s corporal to you. Secondly, were you dozing off when they told you about boresighting?”

  “You mean looking down the barrel through the breech?”

  “Right. See? You weren’t asleep after all.”

  “But we ain’t gonna have to do that, anyway, right, Corporal?” Luckinbill said. “Those gooks ain’t gonna take us on. But talking about boresighting—don’t they have to be pretty damn close for that to even work? I mean, the tube’s gonna move a little when we load a round and close the breech. That’ll knock the aim off, won’t it?”

  Slocum knew that was correct, but he didn’t want to think about it. “Relax,” he said. “Owens will probably be back any second with the sight.”

  “But the gooks,” Luckinbill persisted, a smug confidence in his voice, “they’re not going to take us on, right?”

  “That’s what all the brass say, Private.”

  *****

  Something made Travis Slocum sit up. He didn’t hear it, he sensed it—that dull, low-frequency vibration of mechanized power, like the constant, menacing rumble that seeped from the foundries of his hometown—punctuated by the clanks and squeals of metal in motion. He didn’t see its source on his first scan with binoculars.

  But then some GIs on the ridge to his right were shouting, pointing into the distance like terrified spectators of an unfolding calamity. He couldn’t hear what they were yelling at first, but then the sheer repetitiveness made its meaning obvious:

  Tanks! Gook tanks!

  Slocum’s first thought was that gook was an unnecessary adjective. Tanks could only belong to the KPA: the Korean People’s Army, the North Koreans. The South Korean Army—the ROKs—didn’t have any; American tanks were scarce and hadn’t been deployed this far forward.

  He could see them now: four dark green hulks in column emerging from a shroud of dust and diesel smoke, rumbling down the road toward him. Luckinbill and PFC Lopez—the two men left in his crew—saw them, too. Their expressions shifted from amusement, to disbelief, to terror in a matter of seconds. Owens still had not returned from his quest for the missing gunsight.

  “They’re too far, right?” Luckinbill asked. His trembling voice sounded like it was making a wish rather than a statement of fact.

  “Get a round ready to load,” Slocum ordered. He knelt behind the recoilless rifle, his face pressed against the breech, sighting the weapon on the lead tank.

  “I don’t see any infantry with them,” Lopez said hopefully as he fumbled with his M1 rifle.

  “That don’t mean they’re not there,” Slocum replied. “They don’t have to be on the road. Maybe we just don’t see them yet.”

  “We’re gonna shoot as soon as they’re in range, right?” Luckinbill asked.

  “Unless somebody orders us different,” Slocum replied.

  When he looked back to the tanks, they seemed to have gotten impossibly closer. He’d seen pictures of T-34 tanks, Soviet weapons that cut their teeth against the Germans in the last war. US Army doctrine said they were reliable tanks, proven in battle, but far from perfect; the American soldier more than possessed the firepower to kill them.

  Private Owens came bounding up to the gun position. “I found it!” he yelled. He thrust the gunsight into Slocum’s hands, who wasted no time mounting it on the recoilless rifle.

  “Load the round,” he commanded, his eye pressed against the sight as he tracked the T-34s.

  There was no point in firing yet. Slocum reckoned they were about nine hundred yards away, technically within range but still too far for a probable first-round hit.

  Luckinbill pleaded, “Shoot them, already!”

  “Keep your drawers on,” Slocum replied.

  But farther down the ridgeline, another 75 millimeter fired.

  Slocum watched the streaking black dot fly toward the T-34s, counting the seconds to impact for confirmation of his own range estimate.

  Three seconds had never seemed so long.

  The shot missed, impacting the ground well short of the lead T-34.

  The 75 millimeter was recoilless but not smokeless. One thing their crewmen knew for certain: you’d better get a first-round hit against a tank because you’ll never get a second one; the act of shooting gives your position away.

  If you miss, you’d better run like hell.

  And that’s exactly what they did.

  But not fast enough. The lead tank’s reply blew them and their weapon to pieces.

  A 75 millimeter to Slocum’s left took another shot at the lead tank.

  It was a direct hit…

  But completely ineffective. Striking the T-34’s sloped front armor, it bounced off before exploding, causing the tank crew little more than headaches and bleeding ears.

  The second tank in line pulled off the road so it was no longer masked by the leader. Within a moment of stopping, it fired back, scoring a hit that sent the unlucky 75 millimeter tumbling through the air like a matchstick. The GIs manning her escaped the carnage; they’d fled the second the
y realized they’d missed.

  Slocum pulled his head away from the gunsight, turning to tell his crew to have another round ready to load the moment he fired.

  It was wasted effort. They’d run away, too.

  So he waited, telling himself, At least I can try and kill one of these bastards before I take off myself. But they’ve got to get closer. Come on…give me five hundred yards.

  He never got it. His eyes glued to the gunsight, he didn’t see the North Korean soldiers who’d crept up on him from behind.

  His first hint was a glint off the steel of a thrusting bayonet…

  And then nothing would ever matter for Travis Slocum again.

  Chapter Two

  Colonel Jock Miles sat on the front porch of his new home in Monterey, California. It was a sprawling, Spanish-style ranch he’d never laid eyes on until the car bringing him from San Francisco International Airport arrived at its door just three days ago. Like a visitor to a strange new universe, he was still learning the place.

  A briefcase sat open at his feet, containing folders full of notes he needed to condense into an after-action report, but he couldn’t bring himself to begin that task. Still trying to reset his disoriented body clock after that bone-rattling, thirty-hour flight from Tokyo, with stops at Wake Island and Honolulu, it was far more pleasant to watch his two young children play on the lawn of their new home than write that damn report.

  The overseas tour he’d just completed had been with KMAG: the Korean Military Advisory Group of the US Army. In that frustrating eight-month charade, what he’d witnessed as a senior advisor to ROK Army Headquarters was enough to shatter a soldier’s confidence in the wisdom of the US Army and the government it served.