Battlefield Taiwan

Supplies and Reinforcements

It was dark outside. Snow once again drifted down on the Korean Peninsula. The temperature had continued to hover around 2℉ as General John Bennet poured himself a cup of coffee, his fifth of the day.

He snickered as he looked at his coffee mug, which his brother had bought for him as a gag gift. Designed by some veteran-owned company, it bore the inscription, “Filled with Blood, Tears, and Whiskey.”

As John sat down at his desk, his eyes wandered to a family photo, a picture of him, his wife and their four kids, two boys and two girls. His eldest son, John Junior, who went by JR, had just joined the Marines four days ago.

“Why the heck did he join the Marines? I could have helped him out so much more if he had just gone into the Army like I told him to,” he thought. Then again, JR was a strong-willed young man bent on doing things his way. “I’ll have to speak with General Cutter about my son once he finishes officer basic course. At least he went officer — I really wish he’d stayed in and finished law school, though.”

John snapped himself out of his thoughts and looked down at his desk. He had been reviewing the latest casualty reports and the burn rates of their current war stocks. The Chinese had just launched a massive offensive the day before. The new attack was turning into something fierce as the PLA brought a lot more forces to bear than he had thought they had in the region. He had chewed out his intelligence directorate for not knowing about the increase in PLA soldiers moving towards them. It was their responsibility to identify these units before they became a big problem.

As he was scanning through the casualty reports, two of his colonels popped their heads into his office. “Sir, we have a situation developing up north,” one of them said. “You should come to the operations center.”

General Bennet sighed. He knew this was probably not good if they were asking him to come back to the ops center so soon. He’d only left there forty minutes ago.

“All right, I’m on my way,” he said, reaching down and grabbing his coffee cup to take with him.

“I might need more of this,” he thought as he followed his officers down the hall.

“General Bennet, we have a break in our lines — here at Dashiqiao,” said Brigadier General Phillips, his operations officer or J3 as he pointed to a spot on the digital map.

The map displayed the various US, ROK, and Japanese units all along the front lines, along with a red line showing the enemy’s front line and a blue line marking the edge of the Allied forces. As the general examined the image, he saw that the break in the line was serious.

“If the PLA is able to exploit this break, they could potentially roll up the entire front line, forcing us to give up the past ten days of hard-fought gains,” Bennet realized.

“OK, everyone, let’s keep our cool. What’s happening? Let’s start from the beginning,” John said, trying to calm everyone down. It had been a trying few weeks, and nerves were becoming frayed as exhaustion and stress continued to mount.

General Phillips, who was standing nearby, sighed. “The Chinese appear to have moved an entire army group to the area. Right now, most of the troops we’ve been encountering are militia, but following the militia units are the regular army groups. I talked with the brigade commander from the 16^th Mechanized Brigade. His brigade is just south of the main enemy assault, and he told me the PLA’s been hitting his entire side of the line with multiple human wave attacks throughout the day.”

General Bennet frowned.

Phillips continued, “His brigade isn’t the only one experiencing this problem, either. All up and down the line, they’re reporting massive human wave attacks. The only thing that’s stopped them from being overrun up to this point has been close air support. However, even the Air Force is starting to buckle under the pressure from the PLA Air Force.”

Phillips went on for another twenty minutes, bringing everyone up to speed on the status of the front line and the Allied positions.

After a while, Colonel Vince Sutherbee, the Air Force liaison officer or LNO assigned to General Bennet’s command, jumped into the conversation. “Sir, now that most of the Taiwanese military has officially surrendered, the Chinese are winding down their primary combat operations in Taiwan. What we’re seeing now is a transfer of those air assets from the southern theater of command to northern China. We are starting to see a massive increase in the number of Shenyang J-11s and Chengdu J-10s. These aircraft are starting to mix it up with our fighters in significantly greater numbers than we’d seen in the past.”

Before anyone could ask him about the Air Force providing additional ground support, Colonel Sutherbee added, “Our aircraft are doing their best to maintain air superiority over the battlefield. Our A-10 Warthogs, which have been instrumental in blunting the PLA attacks, have been taking a terrible beating with the increase in PLA fighters. In some cases, we’ve had pilots flying their aircraft back into combat despite one of their engines being completely inoperable or blown out. The demand for air support is so great, we just don’t have enough aircraft to support the ground forces and keep the enemy fighters off the battlefield.”

General Bennet looked distressed. Turning to his Navy LNO, Captain Amber Michaels, he asked, “What about the Navy? When are those additional carriers going to get in range to use their aircraft over the battlefield?”

Captain Michaels was a new addition to Bennet’s staff, having transferred to his headquarters shortly after the sinking of the USS Ronald Reagan, one of the lucky crewman to survive that tragic day. Bennet was glad to have her at his command and knew he would have to rely on the Navy a lot more going forward for their air support, especially with the Air Force still recovering from the loss of Kunsan Air Base at the outset of the war.

Amber responded, “Sir, I spoke with Admiral Kinkaid an hour ago. His strike group is now entering range of our most forward front lines.”

She motioned towards her Air Force counterpart. “Working with Colonel Sutherbee, we’re going to break up the air war into two sections. The Navy, with the support of our EA-18 Growlers, will begin to assume control of air superiority from the Air Force. After viewing the latest satellite imagery, it appears the Chinese are preparing for not only a much larger ground offensive, but an air offensive as well—”

Colonel Sutherbee interrupted, “—You’re talking about their H-6 strategic bombers?”

She nodded, adding, “That, and their Xian JH-7 ground attack aircraft. We thought those aircraft might be used against our facilities in Guam, but the latest updates show those squadrons have been moved to just east of Beijing, which tells us they’re most likely going to be used to support their ground forces.”

Everyone in the room sat there for a few minutes, thinking about a possible course of action.

General Phillips chimed in, “What about our B-1s or B-2s? Perhaps we can have them go after the airstrips housing those strategic and tactical bombers.”

Up to that point, the B-1s had been focusing on troop concentrations and heavy industrial centers. The limited number of B-2s they possessed had been focusing on going after the Chinese infrastructure: taking out train tunnels, bridges, and key railyards deep inside of China. While the strategic attacks did not always yield immediate fruit, their long-term impact — disrupting the Chinese economy and ability to move men and material around the country — would be realized soon enough.

Bennet held up his hand before anyone could respond. “The B-2s are under presidential order to keep hitting their specified targets. We aren’t authorized to redirect them unless we get permission directly from Gates. The B-1s, however, I can redirect under my own power.”

He turned to face Sutherbee. “Send a message over to the B-1 squadrons to begin going after the PLA airfields that house the H-6 strategic bombers. I want the Lancers to start hitting the Chinese airfields as often as possible,” he ordered.

Then Bennet turned to his logistics officer. “What’s the status on our supplies and replacement soldiers?”

Brigadier General Amy Tibbits had known this question would eventually be asked, and unfortunately, she did not have any good answers for the general. The US logistics system was stretched beyond its breaking point. It had gotten so bad that the Department of Defense had been contracting UPS and FedEx to use their aircraft to assist in moving critical war material to Asia.

“It’s a sad day when you have to rely on FedEx to keep you supplied with tank rounds and bullets, but that’s where we are,” she thought. She swallowed nervously as the general and the others at the table all turned their eyes towards her.

“Our burn rates are starting to become a major concern. With the renewed Chinese offensive, we’re churning through a lot more ammunition. The other challenge we’re running into is that as we move the supply depots forward, we run the risk of them being overrun if the lines continue to collapse. I will say, FedEx and UPS have really stepped up. They’ve begun to deliver an enormous amount of supplies from the States to Seoul. This has allowed us to use the C-130s to do the more dangerous work of moving the supplies from Seoul to our forward depots.”

Tibbits quickly changed topics and moved to replacement soldiers, which was just as important as supplies. “US First Army is finally starting to graduate the first set of draftees. While most of these draftees are being slated for units in Europe, I have managed to get some of our open requirements filled. We’re going to start seeing an influx of 7,000 Army soldiers to Seoul, along with 15,000 Marines a week. These recruits will be arriving in country starting next Monday, and every Monday thereafter.”

This was the first piece of really good news the group had had in more than a week. While the Allied offensive had been going well and they had been capturing a lot of territory, the casualties had been mounting, and replacement soldiers had been arriving at a trickle, which was not sustainable given their losses.

General Bennet sat back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. He had been left with one bad choice after another. The Secretary of Defense had directed them to attack the PLA hard and push them back out North Korea.

“The US needs some wins,” he could hear the SecDef saying, almost as if he were still in the room.

“Well, I gave them the wins, but I’ve nearly run my army into the ground in the process,” General Bennet thought. “Now we have a major enemy offensive brewing up, and I have no way of realistically stopping it.” John tried to crunch through the scenarios, hoping he could somehow pull a win out of what would be certain defeat if he kept his forces where they currently were.

Looking at his senior leaders, Bennet’s eyes narrowed as he determined what they would do. “It’s clear the PLA is launching a major offensive. Looking at the map, we don’t have nearly enough forces to stop them. We have roughly 101,000 US forces, and that’s if we include the two Marine Expeditionary Forces. The Koreans have suffered some heavy losses, and so have the Japanese. We have no real Air Force replacements coming for many months, and no additional naval ships for at least the same amount of time.”

He sighed, pausing for a moment, but he knew he needed to make the tough decision. “I want our forces to begin a fighting retreat to the Yalu River, establish a defensive line there and hold. We will not retreat beyond the river. That river will be our last stand. This will allow us to shrink our front lines to a more manageable front. The Yalu is also the best natural barrier we could ask for. If we start our withdrawal now, we can control the retreat and allow our forces time to get entrenched and prevent a larger breakout.”

The others at the table nodded in agreement. No one wanted to retreat, but to stay and try to hold their current lines wasn’t tenable given the size of their current force and the lack of air assets being allocated to them. Seeing a consensus between his officers, the general closed the meeting. “I’ll tell the SecDef our plan. Let’s get the ball rolling right now and make sure we can hold at the Yalu.” With that said, the group broke up and began to get their parts of the plan set into motion.