Combat Reckoning Read online

  “Shouldn’t we just shoot them with the main gun?” Wadley asked.

  “Wrong tool for the job, Lieutenant. Like using a sledgehammer to drive a pin. We either use the MGs or just run ’em over.”

  They were still one hundred yards from the KPA machine guns when the Korean gunners broke and ran, leaving the heavy weapons behind. They vanished into the tall grass.

  “Should we chase them down?” the driver asked.

  Wadley looked to Sean and asked, “What do you think, Sergeant?”

  “No,” Sean replied, “don’t chase the bastards. Just crush the machine guns under the tracks and get back to the road. Keep your eyes peeled for gooks with anti-tank rifles, too, especially behind us.”

  The entire Marine convoy had come to a halt. The head of the column was still drawing heavy fire; several deuces were burning in pools of their own gasoline. The tanks of 1st Platoon had pivoted on the road to face the ambushers—two facing left, two facing right—and were firing their machine guns in steady bursts. It was hard for Sean to tell from this distance if the infantrymen were on the trucks or not.

  It took several frantic commands from Marine officers to get the convoy moving again.

  The lead tank was some five hundred yards from Ping-Pong when the first T-34 revealed herself, her main gun suddenly emerging from behind a line of shacks. She got off her first shot while the Pershing’s turret was still trying to traverse onto her.

  The round glanced off the Marine tank’s glacis plate and then exploded against her turret ring beneath the gun mantle. It jammed the turret and killed two of her five crewmen. She was functionally useless now; dazed and bleeding, the three crewmen still alive escaped through her lower hatch.

  The next Pershing in column stopped dead on the road. Before she could get off a shot, she, too, was struck by a round from the T-34.

  It wasn’t a death blow; all the tank’s systems were still operative. Her crew, however, was concussed and dazed.

  Motionless on the road, she’d be an easy kill.

  Wadley brought his tank to a stop, too.

  Watching through binoculars, Sean saw his every critique of Marine armor tactics being played out in horrifying detail:

  The two tanks that ain’t hit…they ain’t doing nothing! They ain’t communicating, ain’t maneuvering…ain’t even trying to mass fire.

  The only thing that’s saving their asses is that T-34’s taking forever to reload. But once she does, one of ’em can kiss her ass goodbye.

  When he turned to talk to Wadley, the lieutenant wasn’t there. He’d climbed out of the turret and was standing on its roof, trying to get a better view of the fight ahead.

  It only took seconds for a bullet to find him.

  The round knocked the lieutenant to the ground beside the tank, where none of her crew could see him.

  Two men from the deuces—one carrying a corpsman’s medical bag—ran toward Wadley. They also vanished from sight as they ducked alongside.

  Sean wouldn’t dare stick his head out of the turret right now. Though vision from the cupola was limited, he was able to see the corpsman stand and shake his head. Then he and the Marine with him lifted the lieutenant’s lifeless body between them and moved as quickly as they could back to the deuces.

  Whether it had been a stray round or a sniper’s well-aimed shot that killed Wadley didn’t matter. But one thing Sean knew for certain: We’re all gonna die if somebody don’t take this thing by the balls right fucking now…

  And it might as well be me. Screw what that Marine colonel said about giving orders.

  He radioed the tanks of 2nd Platoon: “We’re gonna flank that gook tank in the village. Form a diamond on me. Number Four, put your turret facing aft so you’ll be ready to cover our asses. We’ll move behind that ridge off the right side of the road. Do it now.”

  Then he added, “First idiot to throw a fan belt will be on my permanent shit list.”

  As they plowed off-road through the scrub, Sean told himself, The lieutenant wasn’t so wrong about it being a dumb ambush. That T-34 shoulda engaged much sooner so them gook infantrymen mighta taken advantage of the confusion and done some real damage.

  Damn good thing this is dry ground. If it was muddy, this heavy old girl woulda sunk to the sprocket hubs already.

  This rise is great cover, though. If it wasn’t for all the dust we’re kicking up, they wouldn’t even know we’re coming.

  He could tell from the radio transmissions that it wasn’t going well back on the road. A frantic transmission from an infantry commander reported the death of the second Pershing. Another round from the T-34 had set her on fire. The resulting cook-off of ammo finished her.

  The other two Pershings of 1st Platoon had finally maneuvered, if you could call it that: they’d moved to take up covering positions behind their shattered sisters. Neither had managed a crippling blow against the T-34.

  The Marine infantry had bailed from their trucks, seeking any isolated KPA squads still lurking along the highway. They seemed to be successful in their quest; radio transmissions indicated dwindling small arms fire from the Koreans.

  The infantry and the tanks…they still ain’t working together, Sean thought, but at least them Marines ain’t running away. A hell of a lot of GI units woulda been high-tailing it in the opposite direction the minute the shit hit the fan.

  But what’s wrong with their tankers? What the hell makes a guy climb out of an armored vehicle when there’s all kinds of lead in the air? If a tank’s good for one damn thing, it’s making you bulletproof.

  Stealing a glance at the vivid burn scars that covered his forearm—a souvenir of combat in North Africa from 1942—he added, Too bad it don’t make you fireproof, too.

  He could hear the groan of the Pershing’s engine as she encountered the first upslope. They were getting close to Ping-Pong; they’d probably have to fire through a shack or two to get at the T-34 from this range.

  But I doubt any civilians are in them shacks with a T-34 doing all that shooting.

  Sean radioed his tankers, “On my mark, everybody pivot a quarter turn left, keep your interval, and come on line. Everybody take one shot. Then we’ll see if we need more. Okay, here goes: three…two…one…PIVOT LEFT.”

  He could just make out the top of the T-34’s turret about four hundred yards away. The rest of her hull was obscured by the flimsy wooden shacks of the village.

  But they’d have no trouble visualizing where her hull was. Even if some of their four rounds detonated early as they passed through the shacks, at least one was bound to be a broadside hit.

  And I’ll bet the gooks buttoned up in that tank ain’t even seen us yet.

  With shouts of On the way, the Pershing gunners fired within split seconds of each other. Sean dropped from the commander’s seat to reload the main gun, catching the full blast of residual flame and smoke as the breech snapped open.

  Grabbing another round from the rack in the turret floor, he swore, Those clowns in Ordnance branch better come through with those gas extractors they been promising before a few more of us tankers get too punchy to fight from all these fumes.

  He rammed the round into the tube and then climbed back into the commander’s seat.

  It took a few moments for the smoke, dust, and debris to settle over the village. But once it did, and they could see the results of their shooting, there was no doubt they’d killed the T-34. Her turret lay upside down in the road, yards away from her smoldering hull.

  Some motion far to the other side of the village caught Sean’s eye; another T-34 had emerged from a tree line. But she wasn’t headed toward the fight; she was running away to the north.

  “Something’s funny here,” Sean said. “If she’s looking to make tracks, she should be on the road. She can’t make much speed in those woods. But I think I know why…the road north of the village is probably mined.”

  With the T-34 that had been blocking them now dead, the rest of the Marine c
olumn began to stream up the highway into the village.

  “Index Six from Ripper Two-One,” Sean called to the convoy commander, “get off the highway. Suspect mine field just north of Ping-Pong. Repeat, suspect highway is mined north of village.”

  Once again, the column slowed nearly to a halt as it navigated around the village, avoiding the highway. Sean could hear the unit commanders on the air, frantically trying to keep their wandering elements intact. Index Six, the convoy commander, was ordering Sean—and 2nd Tank Platoon—to return to the column.

  “Roger, Index,” Sean replied. “Just got one more tank to kill.”

  The terrain north of the village was like the surface of a washboard. Killing the fleeing tank would be like hitting another ship while both bobbed on the waves of a turbulent sea. He could only see the T-34 ahead when she and his tank were atop crests simultaneously.

  And now back on the highway, the T-34 was faster than the much heavier Pershings. She’d outrun them before long.

  Sean told his driver, “Stop on the next rise.”

  Then he told his gunner, “I figure she’ll be about twelve hundred yards away when she pops up again.”

  The gunner shook his head. “I’ve never hit anything that far away, Sarge.”

  “There’s a first time for everything, pal. Put one right up her ass.”

  When the T-34 popped back into view, the gunner couldn’t believe how perfect the sight picture was; she’d emerged right where he’d estimated. With just a tiny tweak to the elevation, he announced, “ON THE WAY.”

  Looking across the rolling terrain, everything appeared so compressed, almost two-dimensional. The dark flying dot that was his round never seemed to close the distance. At first, he thought the tank would drop out of sight behind the rise before the shot ever reached her.

  But just as the T-34 was about to start downhill, he saw the flash of impact against her stern. Although she vanished behind the rise, the thick black smoke rising into the air left no doubt she was burning ferociously.

  Sean patted him on the shoulder and said, “See? I told you…there’s a first time for everything.”

  *****

  The objective for this mission—the highway junction—was only a half mile ahead of where they’d just killed the T-34. Sean decided on his own to scout it with 2nd Tank Platoon.

  They found it occupied by a small contingent of KPA manning several mortars. The Koreans fled at the approach of the Pershings, leaving the mortars behind. When the rest of the Marine convoy finally arrived, they found the junction secured by Sean’s tanks, the mission accomplished.

  *****

  As the Marine colonel marched toward him, Sean figured he was in for an ass-chewing. “I heard you all over the damn radio,” the colonel said, “doing exactly what I told you not to do.”

  “What would that be, sir?”

  “Giving orders to my Marines, that’s what, Sergeant.”

  “Well, sir, I look at it this way…after Lieutenant Wadley got himself killed, it looked like we needed some initiative to get things moving.” He paused, hoping his emphasis on the word initiative would strike a chord. Then he said, “That is what you teach your Marines, isn’t it, sir? To always take the initiative?”

  As the colonel fumed in silence, Sean decided he didn’t have much left to lose, so he continued, “And they do a damn fine job of taking that initiative on an individual basis, sir. It’s just too bad they still ain’t figured out worth a shit how to use that initiative to coordinate combined arms operations.”

  Unruffled as the colonel’s angry eyes bored into him, Sean added, “With all due respect, of course, sir.”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Sergeant. I know what with all due respect really means. I do owe you a word of thanks, though. You were right about that mine field. If we’d blundered into that, we’d have taken a lot more casualties than we did.”

  “Just part of the job, sir,” Sean replied. He’d started to say something about tanker’s wisdom that comes from hard experience but decided not to push his luck.

  The colonel continued, “But before I ship you back to that route step outfit you came from, let me ask you something…you’ve been fighting the KPA for a while. What do you make of their capabilities?”

  “If you ask me, sir, they’re running out of steam. This so-called ambush we came up against was just a big fuckup on their part. If it had been a coupla months ago, they would’ve used terrain a hell of a lot better than they did here…and we would’ve been up against a hell of a lot more armor than just two tanks.”

  “So you’re saying we should have them beat in no time flat, Sergeant?”

  “Well, sir…I’ve been hearing the generals in Tokyo say that all damn summer. We ain’t beat ’em yet.”

  The colonel replied, “I’m afraid that’s the way I see it, too.”

  If he was being relieved of duty, Sean saw no point in hanging around any longer. “If you’re kicking me out, sir, I’ll just grab my gear and—”

  “It’s nothing personal, Sergeant, but I don’t have any choice in the matter. My whole brigade’s getting kicked out. We’ve been ordered to pull back to Pusan, get on ships, and go fight someplace else. Our corner of the perimeter will be turned over to you Army doggies within twenty-four hours.”

  “Got any idea where you’re going, sir? And why?”

  “I’ve got a vague idea, Sergeant. But if I told you, I’d have to kill you. It’s either that, or MacArthur would have me killed. But don’t worry…you’ll find out what’s going on soon enough.”

  Chapter Three

  From 30,000 feet, Major Tommy Moon could see the storm clouds building over the Yellow Sea. But that storm was over one hundred miles away, still far off the western coast of Korea. The B-29 bombers his jet fighters were escorting would have plenty of time—and visibility—to bomb their target: the rail junction at Munsan, some twenty-five miles north of Seoul.

  That’s a good thing, Tommy told himself. We need weather problems like we need a hole in the head. The flights from Kyushu and back push these F-84 jets of ours to their endurance limits. If poor visibility over the target forces the B-29s to go around for another try—or seek out the alternate target—we jet jockeys will never make it back to Japan. We’ll end up having to land at K-9, that shithole of an airfield at Pusan.

  It was hard enough operating out of there flying F-51s. Even now, despite the engineers working their asses off, the runway still isn’t quite long enough for these ground-loving Thunderjets. Not if you want to carry full tanks or any kind of weapons load.

  He banked his ship to glance down over the left wing and watch the B-29 Superfortresses flying below at 25,000 feet.

  I wish they were higher, like up here with us. I’m sure they wish they were, too. But if they want to carry a full bomb load, that’s about as high as they can go and still carry enough fuel to get home. At thirty thousand feet, they’d be pretty much out of reach of the North Korean Air Force…at least with the ships they’ve shown up in so far. Nothing but hand-me-down prop jobs from the Russians—Lavochkins and Yaks left over from the last war.

  We’ve tangled with a few of them already, when we were still flying F-51s.

  They weren’t that hot. Not by a long shot. We’ve got a big edge in experience, and they got their asses handed to them.

  There are a bunch of rumors floating around that the Russians will give them jets. Maybe even fly them themselves, pretending to be Koreans. I mean, how can you tell who’s in a cockpit? Especially if they keep radio silence.

  That would change things…a lot.

  Two flights of F-84s—eight fighters total—were protecting the twenty-four bombers. Tommy Moon was the escort leader, flying Moon’s Menace IV, the same ship he’d flown in the States before volunteering to fly F-51 Mustangs in the early months of the Korean police action. Each of the other seven pilots was, like him, an experienced combat veteran from the last war, in which they’d flown nothing but
piston-engined fighters. None of them—Tommy included—had a minute of actual combat time in a jet.

  But we’re not too worried. The same rules of dogfighting still apply. Things will just happen a hell of a lot quicker.

  The jets weaved back and forth in the thin air so as not to outrun the slower Superfortresses flying below them. The escorts’ tactical plan was simple: no propeller-driven fighter flown by the North Koreans could effectively attack the jets up at 30,000 feet, so the F-84s would stay in this high bird’s nest until enemy planes made their move against the bombers. Then, using their jets’ superior speed, one flight would streak down and engage them while the other flight kept watch overhead.

  That first engagement would be over very quickly; while their greater speed could put the F-84s on the enemy’s tail quickly, it would also make the gun pass blisteringly fast. If the slower enemy wasn’t immediately knocked out of the fight, it could turn well inside the F-84s and be positioned for another attack on the bombers long before those jets could return to the fight via the miles-wide turn their speed demanded.

  If and when that situation developed, the second flight of F-84s would swoop down on the Korean ships while the first took their place as sentries above the bombers. The cycle would be repeated as many times as necessary until the attackers were shot down or driven off.

  Should an attacker manage to slip by the escorts, the B-29s bristled with their own defensive armament, an assortment of .50-caliber machine guns in multiple turrets. But the odds of shooting down an attacker were so much better for the fighter escorts than they were for the gunners on board the bombers.

  At least we never have to worry about one of those prop jobs latching onto an F-84’s tail. We can outrun them easily.

  He’d offered those words of reassurance to the photo of Sylvie Bergerac, tucked into a corner of the instrument panel. They’d met in France back in 1944, when he flew P-47s with the 9th Air Force and she was a member of La Résistance, the French underground. Now an American citizen, she was an agent of the CIA, currently stationed in Indochina. They’d never married; the demands of their very different professions would make that union a disaster waiting to happen. But their love had withstood the trials of the many separations these past six years had forced on them. He still considered it a miracle that he’d been able to hop a diplomatic flight in Tokyo and spend two glorious nights with her in Hanoi just a few weeks ago.