Battlefield Taiwan

Shields Up

“General Bennet, the PLA just broke through our defenses near Gulouzixiang and this entire stretch of the Yalu line!” a colonel from the operations center warned as soon as the general entered the room.

They had been monitoring the PLA assault for fifteen hours as both sides relentlessly launched attacks and counterattacks against each other. The Chinese had been hitting the Allied lines at eight different points now that the river had finally frozen over enough for them to move large numbers of soldiers across it. To make matters worse, a major snowstorm was blanketing most of northern Korea, dropping visibility down to practically nothing. With swirling snow and little visibility, they couldn’t make use of their helicopter gunships or close air support, which meant that they had to rely on artillery.

Bennet immediately walked towards the wall map. He saw multiple areas on the line that were blinking red, indicating they were under attack, and three spots that were now fully red, showing where the enemy had broken through.

“This blasted weather — if I could get my fighters airborne, we could stop this attack immediately,” he thought angrily.

“What units do we have that we can send to plug those holes immediately?” he barked at his operations officer.

Major General Tim York, the J3, responded, “We have the ROK 702^nd Special Assault Regiment and the US 15^th Infantry Division moving to plug the hole in the line here”—he pointed to one of the breaches—“and the ROK 27^th Infantry Division, along with the entire 1^st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, is heading to plug the line here, and then and the 81^st Stryker Brigade Combat Team is moving to stop the PLA advance through the line here, across from Gulouzixiang, China.”

Pointing to another area, he frowned. “That area there I think is of great concern. Prior to the heavy snowfall, satellite imagery showed a massive concentration of enemy artillery, troops, and armor units that was forming up there when the storm hit.”

Turning to his Air Force LNO, Colonel Sutherbee, Bennet pleaded, “I know we have a major snowstorm going on right now, but is there any possible air support we can get?”

Colonel Sutherbee shook his head. “Not right now, General. I’m working to see if we can get support from our bases in Japan. They may be able to fly above the storm and drop some precision-guided bombs on a series of predetermined targets. I’ve also spoken with the group commander at the 2^nd Bomb Wing out at Guam, and they’re going to get airborne and provide us with a series of arc light flights.” Sutherbee walked over to the map. “They’ll deliver one bombing run along this position here and then hit this hole in our lines here. They’re going to be flying high to get above the snowstorm and will be dropping 500 lbs. dumb bombs, so it’s going to be a straight carpet bombing run.”

General Bennet almost sighed in relief. If he couldn’t get tactical ground support for his forces on the ground, then getting the Air Force to bomb several miles of their lines that were captured was the next best thing.

Turning to one of his other officers, he asked, “Does anyone know how long this snowstorm is supposed to last?”

A naval weather officer assigned to the command spoke up. “At least two days. It’s a really heavy blizzard coming down from northern China. To make matters worse, Sir, it’s supposed to eventually envelop most of the peninsula as it moves towards northern Japan. It’s going to have a major impact not just on our air operations, but also on our naval operations in the Sea of Japan.”

The others in the room thought about that for a minute. If neither the Air Force nor the Navy could provide direct ground support to the Allies for a few days, they could be in serious trouble.

John realized the dire straits they were in. “We need to rush more troops to the front immediately,” he asserted. “If the PLA is able to break through our lines here, then we’re toast. It’ll roll up our entire defense.”

As General Bennet further reviewed the situation, another officer nearly jumped out of his seat. “Sir, you have to hear this!” he shouted. “I just received a radio message from Major General Pike, the 7^th Infantry Division Commander. He said the PLA broke through the ROK forces and the 2^nd Infantry Division all across the Yalu. He’s encountering the lead elements of the PLA advance party all the way south in Taechon, some forty kilometers south of the Yalu River,” he said to the disbelief of everyone present.

“Get me General Cutter on the phone immediately,” Bennet barked to one of his operations officers.

“Man, I hope his Marines can help bail us out of this, or we’re finished,” John thought as he waited for the Marine general to be tracked down.

A few minutes later, one of the officers signaled for him to come over to his desk and held out the phone for him. “Roy, this is John. Where are your Marines right now?” he said, urgency in his voice.

Cutter was taken aback. He had finally been able to extract most of his Marine force from the front lines and moved them down to Busan before loading them back up into the transports to start the next offensive. “My boys are in the south at Busan, resting up. What’s going on, John? Are you guys in some sort of trouble?” he asked. He knew John had stripped away a lot of his reserve forces to free up his Marines.

“It’s this blizzard, Roy. The Chinese used it masterfully. As you know, they’ve been hitting most of our lines for the past fifteen hours. While they’ve broken through in a few areas, we’ve largely been able to keep them contained — but Roy, I just received an urgent message. The 7^th Infantry Division just reported running into some lead elements as far south as Taechon. I’m working to verify that, but if it’s true, we are in real trouble. They’ll be able to cut off nearly 40,000 of my soldiers and be within spitting distance of Pyongyang.”

He paused for a second to catch his breath and to let some of what he just said sink in for a moment. “I hate to do this to you, Roy, but do you think you can pull off a George Patton move and get your Marines on the road to Taechon? If the PLA has truly broken through and is driving that far south under the cover of this blizzard, we’re toast. I don’t have any more forces I can throw at them without sacrificing the rest of the Yalu line, stretching all the way to the Russian border.”

A pause in the conversation gave General Cutter a moment to soak it all in. He had been under orders to get his forces ready to secure Vladivostok, but if he didn’t come to the aid of the ROK and US forces now, they could end up losing control of most of North Korea. Taking a deep breath, he suddenly knew what he had to do.

A smile spread across his face as he responded, “Well, General, I guess it’s incumbent upon the United States Marine Corps to save the Army’s butt once again. I’ll get my Marines on the road immediately and keep you apprised of their progress. I’ve got to go — lots to get ready.” He concluded the call and then turned to face his officers, who were now eagerly looking at him, wondering what he had just signed them up for.

“Fear not, gentlemen,” he said jovially. “The Marines have been called up to save the Army… and save the Army we will.”

A few of his officers managed a chuckle before they turned serious again.

Cutter spent a few minutes bringing them up to speed before turning them loose to get the various units roused and on the road. Now it was a race to see if they could get north fast enough to prevent the Chinese from recapturing what they had fought so hard and long for these past few months.

As the Allied forces fought a drawn-out retreat to the Yalu River, US and ROK engineers worked tirelessly to turn the Korean side of the river into a veritable fortress. They built a series of reinforced trenches, machine gun bunkers and other hardened facilities for the soldiers who would be manning the defenses to both ride out enemy bombardments and seek warmth from the cold. With temperatures routinely dropping below zero, frostbite was becoming a major concern.

Sergeant Slater was in an even more foul mood than usual as he walked among the trenches. “This cold is reaching all the way into my bones! Forget this — I’m going back in the bunker!” Sergeant Slater grumbled to himself.

He rushed past a few other guards on the trench line and made his way into the heated bunker. As he entered, the heat from inside welcomed him with its warm embrace. A couple of the other soldiers yelled at him for letting the heat escape, and Slater quickly closed the door. He snarled at them and they quieted right up. Ian wasn’t the most-liked sergeant in the company, but he was respected, which he supposed was just as good.

“Sergeant Slater,” one of the young privates called to him, “do you know if our unit is getting pulled from the line anytime soon?”

Snorting, Ian responded back, “You just got here three days ago, Private. Now you want to know when we’re getting pulled from the line? We’ll get pulled from the line when the higher-ups are good and ready. Until then, we’ll man our positions in the shift rotations we’ve been doing for the past three days.”

The soldiers went back to reading or doing whatever they had been doing prior to his return to the bunker. Most of them would be returning to the cold in the next hour, so they were enjoying the short respite from the freezing temperatures for the time being.

After the long retreat, Sergeant Slater’s battalion had been ordered to help hold this line of trenches with two other Stryker brigades that had just arrived from the US. The two new units were mostly green troops, draftees fresh from training. The only thing keeping those units alive right now was that most of their officers and sergeants were battle-hardened warriors who had been injured either in Europe or at the outset of the Korean War and now made up the nucleus of the new leadership.

While the soldiers of his platoon were kvetching and whining about the cold, more snow began to fall. It was under this cover of snow that the first barrages of the new Chinese offensive began. In an instant, the entire world these soldiers were living in was suddenly under attack. Hundreds upon hundreds of Chinese rocket artillery began to pound their positions and rock their bunker.

This lasted for nearly an hour before the field phone in the bunker rang. Somehow, despite all the noise of the explosions going on, Slater heard it and immediately answered.

“Sergeant Slater, this is Captain Porter,” came the voice on the other end. “I need you to get your platoon on the line and ready to repel the enemy. This is it! We can see thousands of them moving towards the edge of the river bank. I’ve already requested the quick-reaction force to be sent forward to our positions, but I need your platoon to hold your two bunkers and that trench line. Do you understand?” he yelled to be heard over the thunderous booms of the rockets and artillery.

“Understood, Sir. We’ll hold the line. Out!” Slater shouted back.

He screamed at his men, “Get moving to the trench line! Man your fighting positions!”

The noise level assaulting their ears was horrendous. The continuous thudding of dozens of rockets against the ground above them was terrifying, and now he was ordering everyone out into it. When they opened the bunker door leading them into the trench network, not only were they slapped with subzero temperatures, they were smacked with the overwhelming rumble of explosions and the percussion of hundreds of rifles and machine guns firing at each other. Some of them froze up from the shock of it all.

Undeterred, Sergeant Slater screamed at his men, “Move! Get to your fighting positions quickly!”

The soldiers began to shove and push their way out of the bunker.

Ian immediately turned left when he came to the T-intersection of the trench and headed towards his heavy machine gun bunker, while his other soldiers filtered into the firing positions on the trench. When the engineers had built the trenches, they’d placed heavy 4x4 planks of wood over the top of each trench, both to keep out the snow and to provide overhead protection against flying shrapnel. Every meter, there was a short break to allow the soldiers to pop above the trench line and fire down into the enemy below. As Slater ran into the machine gun bunker, he saw his two M2 .50 machine gunners firing away at the enemy soldiers across the river. His other two M240 machine gunners had their weapons angled a little lower and were firing into the enemy soldiers that were currently racing across the frozen river to get at the concertina wire below.

In the distance, he could see friendly artillery fire reaching out to hit the Chinese artillery positions that had been pounding them mercilessly for the past hour.

“Lord, I hope that counterbattery fire can silence some of those guns, or they’re going to pound us into the dirt,” he thought before returning his focus back to the enemy in front of him.

Looking down at the maze of concertina wire and other obstacles the engineers had built, he saw waves of enemy soldiers rushing towards it. When the engineers reached the impediments, they began to attach the Bangalore torpedoes together into long tubes and slid them through the lines of concertina wire, landmines and other obstacles, blowing them up and creating holes large enough for the infantry soldiers to follow through.

“Take out those Bangalore troops!” yelled Slater to his machine gunners. “We can’t let them breach our defenses.”

One of the M2 gunners shifted his fire away from several infantry fighting vehicles that had just arrived at the edge of the river to the enemy engineers attempting to breach their defenses. The soldier fired off a series of three-to-five round bursts, decimating an entire squad of enemy soldiers as they were attaching and then sliding the ever longer torpedo through the concertina wire. Seconds later, a loud explosion rocked the bunker, throwing Ian to the ground as some debris from above fell on top of him.

Slater slowly regained consciousness, pushing the blackness from his mind as he fought to reclaim control of his body. He looked to his left and saw one of the original guys from his platoon from before the war, lying on the ground not more than a few feet away with blood coming out of his nose and mouth. He coughed, which only caused more blood to flow out of his mouth. As he struggled to breathe, little foamy blood bubbles escaped from his lips and he looked at Ian, terrified and pleading for help.

Slater shoved aside the debris that was on top of him and crawled over to his friend. “Hang in there, Joe! You’ll be OK. Let me roll you over onto your side,” he said as tears started to stream down his face.

He rolled his comrade onto his side, so the blood wouldn’t just collect in his lungs and drown him. To his horror, the lower part of his body didn’t turn, but just separated from the rest of him. Ian saw some of his intestines fall out of his friend’s stomach and he convulsed for a second before looking at him, a single tear running down from his face. The light in his eyes showed briefly for the last time. Ian knew his friend had just died, and it made him furious and immensely sad that there was nothing he could do for him except try to kill more of the enemy that had just robbed him of a great friend.

In that instant, Slater got up and surveyed the damage to the bunker. They must have taken a tank round or some other projectile, because nearly everyone in his line of sight was either dead or injured. One of the wounded soldiers, his right arm nearly severed, had resumed his post at the M240 machine gun and was pouring fire down into the enemy soldiers that were now rushing through a breach in their concertina wire.

Ian grabbed the field phone and got out an urgent request for medics and more soldiers to help him in the bunker. Then he ran over to one of the M2 heavy machine guns and took aim at a wave of enemy soldiers that was rushing across the ice.

Sergeant Slater squeezed the trigger, firing a ten-round burst into the cluster of enemy soldiers. He was glad to see most of them get shredded by the .50-caliber slugs as they ripped through the gaggle. There were just so many enemy soldiers charging across the river, it was nearly impossible to miss them. All he had to do was point his weapon in their direction and he was all but assured of hitting one of them. Because of the high velocity of the M2, a single round could often hit two or three enemy soldiers, making it an ideal weapon to use at a charging human wave.

A minute after Ian had started firing into the Chinese soldiers, eight soldiers from his company’s QRF arrived and immediately went to work on getting the other machine guns back up and running. While Slater’s machine gun bunker had only been out of commission for maybe two or three minutes, the enemy had made it count. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand enemy soldiers had made it across the frozen river and were now at the base of the ridge. As more and more of the obstacles were breached, an increasing number of enemy soldiers were now racing up the ridge towards the troops in the trench.

Across the river, not more than 2,000 meters away from the American positions, dozens upon dozens of Chinese T-99 main battle tanks appeared through the swirling snow, their shapes barely discernable, but there. At 58 tons, they were too heavy to cross the frozen river right now, but they could provide excellent direct fire support to their infantry counterparts. Once Slater spotted the tanks, he knew that must have been what had hit them the last time.

“I can’t let us get nailed like that again,” he thought.

Just then, Ian saw two of the tanks fire in his direction. The rounds looked like they were coming right for him, but they impacted on his trench line, sending part of the wooden roof, sandbags and body parts flying into the air. Slater ducked from the explosion, nearly losing his footing as his feet slipped on the brass casings that carpeted the floor around him. As soon as the shrapnel stopped flying, a wave of Chinese soldiers jumped to their feet and charged into the hole the tanks had just created.

Not manning a machine gun anymore now that another soldier had taken over for him, Ian jumped up, raised his M4 to his shoulder and took aim at the enemy, hitting one soldier after another as they charged towards the opening in the defenses. While he was firing away, he heard the whistling sound of more artillery fire overhead — only these rounds were bound for the enemy tanks. Dozens of explosions lit up the entire area around the tanks, a few even scored direct hits. One tank exploded in spectacular fashion, contrasting starkly with the near blizzard-like conditions; Slater lifted his arm involuntarily to shield his eyes.

Seconds later, Ian turned his gaze back to the enemy soldiers charging up the ridge. To his horror, he saw even more enemy soldiers than before. As all seemed lost, Slater saw additional American reinforcements starting to show up all along the trench line, and then five more soldiers filtered into his bunker as well.

A lieutenant walked into the bunker and yelled out, “Who’s in charge in here?” as he tried to be heard over the roar of the machine guns.

Sergeant Slater walked over to the lieutenant and leaned in closer to his face. “I’m in charge. What can I do for you?” he barked angrily, annoyed that he had to stop shooting at the enemy so that he could deal with this officer.

The lieutenant looked at Slater and smiled. “I’ve got an A-10 on the radio. He wants to know if we want a gun run on the enemy troops at the base of our ridge or if we want him to focus on taking out those tanks,” he said, pointing to the opposite side of the river, where the remaining tanks were continuing to fire rounds into the Allied positions.

“LT, have him focus on taking out those tanks. If we don’t stop them from wrecking our lines, we won’t be able to hold our positions here,” Slater said.

The lieutenant nodded and spoke into the handset of the radio he was carrying.

A minute later, Ian saw several flashes of light that were magnified by the bright white of the snow falling and realized those must have been antitank missiles. They flew at lightning speed towards the enemy tanks, obliterating six of them outright. Ian still couldn’t see where the Warthog was coming in from as the snow continued to swirl all around them. Visibility had gone from roughly three kilometers to maybe a kilometer at best.

Then everyone heard the familiar sound of the Warthog’s 30mm chain guns firing, which sounded like strips of linen being ripped over and over. The 30mm anti-armor rounds tore through the remaining three tanks on the ridge, exploding them in spectacular fashion.

Strings of enemy anti-aircraft fire reached up into the snow-filled clouds, searching for the A-10 that had just destroyed the tanks they were supposed to be protecting. A few more burps from the Warthog’s tank-busting gun blared over all of the other noise, and a couple more secondary explosions blasted on the enemy lines.

The lieutenant gave Ian a thumbs-up and yelled, “We should have some more artillery fire shortly! The Paladins should be arriving at their next firing position!”

Sergeant Slater nodded and yelled back, “Try and see if you can get some more reinforcements up to the trenches!”

Then Slater resumed firing at the gaggle of enemy soldiers still trying to advance up their hill. The ground was covered in dead Chinese soldiers. Just as Ian thought they might repel this assault after all, he heard the unmistakable sound of jet engines flying low and fast overhead.

Looking up instinctively, Ian saw a series of objects fall from the sky and headed right for their positions. One scored a direct hit on the other bunker that Ian’s platoon was manning, roughly 100 meters away. The bunker exploded into a million pieces as shrapnel and debris flew in all directions. Then a second bomb exploded on top of the roof of the trench not more than 50 meters away from Ian’s bunker, throwing not just wood planks from the roof and walls of the trench, but sandbags, bodies and parts of bodies in all directions.

A third bomb hit deadly close to Ian’s bunker, throwing him and nearly everyone else inside to the ground. The flames from the explosion briefly entered the bunker, lighting those soldiers who had not gotten out of the way fast enough on fire. The entire structure of the bunker shifted from the explosion, causing part of the ceiling to collapse, and destroying one of the M2 heavy machine gun positions.

Ian was suddenly surrounded by agonizing screams from the wounded, men and women crying out for their mothers, loved ones, or anyone who could help them. As Ian pulled himself up to his knees, he saw the lieutenant who had been calling in support for them on the radio, his entire face missing. A chunk of something had smashed into his head, and all that was left was a gaping four-inch hole where his mouth and nose had once been, with blood and brain matter oozing out of it. The man’s fingers were still twitching and so was his leg. Ian had to snap out of it and turn away before he threw up.

The roar of thousands of enemy soldiers suddenly boomed above all the other noises going on around him. Ian pushed aside part of the collapsed ceiling so that he could see out of the partially destroyed bunker. What he saw horrified him more than the lieutenant’s gruesome dead body. The ground below their positions near the river bank was suddenly moving. It had come alive with enemy soldiers. While the visibility had continued to deteriorate from the swirling snow, the Chinese had moved thousands of additional soldiers across the river.

“I don’t see how we’re going to make it out of this alive,” Ian thought.

He brought his rifle to bear, taking aim at the enemy soldiers and quickly firing off one three-round burst after another at the men who were desperately trying to kill him and his comrades. Soldier after soldier dropped to the ground, but more just kept taking their place. In a matter of minutes, Ian had gone through four full magazines of ammo and was down to just three left.

He desperately called out, “I need more ammo! Can anyone bring me more ammo?” He hoped someone might hear him above all the racket of the shooting.

When Ian was changing out to his last full magazine, a soldier threw him a bandolier that contained ten more magazines. While Ian was not in the trench, his little position in the blown-out bunker provided him with an exceptional spot to pour fire into the charging enemy soldiers. The Chinese infantry were focused on the Americans in the trench in front of them, but they seemed to have no idea that a single soldier to their right was picking them off one at a time.

Ian swapped out yet another magazine for a new one and continued to fire. The Chinese had reached the trench at that point, and many of the men simply jumped in when they got near it, tackling the American soldiers to the ground so more of their comrades could jump in.

As one enemy soldier crested the top of the trench, Ian shot him three times in the chest; he collapsed, only to be replaced by two more of his comrades who made it into the trench. Despite his best efforts, Ian just couldn’t kill enough of them to stop them from getting into their lines. Slowly at first, then very quickly, dozens upon dozens of enemy soldiers were getting into the trenches and silencing its defenders. Ian knew it was only a matter of minutes before they reached his bunker and he had nowhere to go.

“I’m either going to die, right here and now, or I’m going to be taken prisoner,” he realized.

A couple of the soldiers still left alive in the bunker with Ian turned to him, almost pleading with him to tell them what to do. They were now trapped, and it was only a matter of time before the Chinese made their way to their bunker.

In a moment of courage, he yelled to his comrades, “Listen up, guys, we’re going to kill any enemy soldier who tries to come through that door! You hear me?”

They all nodded. The frightened looks on their faces turned to anger and determination. If they were going to die in this bunker, then they were going to take as many of their adversaries with them as possible.

Outside the bunker, they suddenly heard voices and a lot of yelling. A couple of machine guns opened fire and a few explosions shook the air. A few bullets and shrapnel suddenly hit the bunker door. The men knew it wouldn’t be long now. The enemy was about to burst right through that door and try to kill them all.

There was more yelling in Chinese, and then a thunderous explosion burst into the bunker. Seconds later, two loud blasts rang out inside the bunker, punctuated by screams in English and Chinese, and even more rifle fire.

Ian was lying on his back at this point, his rifle having skittered across the floor not more than five feet away from him when he had been knocked to the ground from the most recent explosion. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get to his rifle before more enemy soldiers busted through the doorway, so he reached down and grabbed his SIG Sauer P320 pistol and aimed it at the door. He fired three rounds, hitting the first enemy soldier who came through the door.

Slater fired another two more rounds at the next soldier before something hit him multiple times in his front armor plate and his world went fuzzy. Suddenly Ian couldn’t feel much or move anything, but he heard more screams in both Chinese and English, along with a few desperate struggles and a plea for mercy by one of his soldiers.

Just as he began to regain feeling in his arms and legs and the ability to move, a figure was standing over Ian looking down at him. An older-looking Chinese man smiled briefly, saying in broken English, “You are coming with us.”

Then he hit Ian in the head with the butt of his rifle, knocking him out cold.