Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe

Battle at Anchor Point

Staff Sergeant (SSG) Paul Allen was a twenty-one-year-old young man from Wisconsin. He had joined the Army after graduating high school during the American military build-up. His main objectives in volunteering were to get the $25,000 signing bonus and GI Bill to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering once his four-year commitment was done. SSG Allen had been transferred to the 32^nd Infantry Division, XI Army Group, Second Army, Alaska after recovering from the wounds he received while fighting as part of the 1^st Infantry Division in the battle over Jerusalem. He had managed to survive several bullet wounds to the chest, and after going through several surgeries and physical rehabilitation, he was ready to continue his service to his country. His wounds had afforded him a promotion to Staff Sergeant, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart medal. Now his experience was being put to good use in helping form the NCO leadership of the new 32^nd Infantry Division. Close to half of the NCOs and officers had been previously wounded in the Middle East or Europe-rather than returning to their old units, they were becoming part of the nucleus of the new infantry divisions being formed in the US.

Paul missed his friends from his old unit and tried to stay in touch with some of them as best he could. They had been together during the initial invasion of Mexico, and then through the war in Israel. He knew they were fighting the Russians now, and he was glad to see that several of them were still alive after the last major battle. A couple of them had not been so lucky… this saddened him greatly. He had lost so many good friends during these past eight months. It was a lot to take in for a twenty-one-year-old man. On top of the loss of his comrades in arms, SSG Allen was dealing with tragedy on the home front. Both of his parents had been killed in Baltimore while visiting his sister and her husband for Christmas. No one could have predicted that the IR would detonate a nuclear bomb in the city. Paul still had two brothers, both living in Madison, Wisconsin, where they were from, but the weight of the grief SSG Allen carried was beginning to wear like a heavy anchor around his soul.

Since arriving in Alaska six weeks ago, Paul had been assigned as the platoon sergeant until their new Sergeant First Class completed his advanced NCO career development course. The Army was trying to run as many of their NCOs through these advanced courses as they could when the soldiers were not actively in combat (they were doing their best to rebuild and expand their NCO cadre after so many losses and the massive expansion of the military). Paul’s company had been assigned to Anchor Point, less than a few miles from Homer, Alaska. They had the unenviable task of defending the several mile-long beach front from the Chinese. It was anticipated that the Reds would land their troops all along the peninsula to secure it for their eventual assault on Anchorage and the rest of Alaska. It was up to the men of the 32^nd Infantry Division to stop them.

An engineering battalion had assisted them in developing a series of integrated trenches, machine gun nests and bunkers to ride out the eventual Chinese bombardments. They knew the Chinese naval infantry would be using their new exoskeleton combat suits, so to slow them down they had designed a number of obstacles and mazes of concertina wire that would force them to have to navigate into carefully designed kill boxes. Thousands of landmines, claymore anti-personnel mines and other explosives had been woven all across the beaches and the first several hundred meters inland. They had also set up numerous anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns and missile systems in their defensive network. The 9^th Armored Division deployed a battalion of Pershing main battle tanks, and the engineers dug a number of tank berms for them to hunker down in. A tank would usually fire a couple of shots from one berm, and then quickly move to the next one, rotating between locations to avoid shooting from the same position too many times and being easily identified.

When the construction of this well-laid trap was complete, SSG Allen had looked at their work, stretching back to see the entire landscape. He smiled confidently, thinking to himself, “When the Chinese do eventually land their forces on Anchor Point, they will be in for a surprise.”

General Black had positioned nearly 60,000 soldiers on the Peninsula, along with 400 tanks. It was important to bog the Chinese down on the beaches for as long possible and to bleed them dry. The Reds could only bring a limited number of soldiers with them for the invasion. Preventing them from establishing a strong foothold was key to keeping them out of Alaska. That was why General Black had spent so many resources on turning Kodiak Island and Anchor Point into the fortresses they had become. It would take time for the Chinese to ferry troops from the mainland to Alaska, and the longer they could keep the Chinese from establishing a forward base of operations, airports and seaports, the better the chances were of eventually repulsing their invasion before the weather turned back to the Americans’ favor with the arrival of winter.

Despite the best-laid plans, the past three days had been horrific for the soldiers of the 12^th Infantry Division. The Chinese fleet had parked their ships offshore, and were launching volley after volley at the American coastline. Though most of the attacks were taking place on the Aleutian Peninsula and Kodiak Island, Anchor Point and Homer were starting to be bombarded on a regular basis. Since the Americans still did not have visual contact with the Chinese landing craft, most of the soldiers continued to ride out the bombardments in their various bunkers, turrets and machine gun bunkers, reading books, praying, writing letters to home or simply sleeping, waiting for the inevitable.

On the second day of the invasion, several Chinese ground attack aircraft and drones started to bombard the trench networks, only to be shot down quickly by the various air defense systems. The battle for the skies above Anchorage continued to rage as hundreds of drones and manned fighter aircraft continued to fight for dominance. This limited the volume of air strikes that could hit Anchor Point and Homer, but did little to dissuade the Chinese navy from using their naval guns.

It was not until the fifth day of the arrival of the Chinese invasion fleet that the soldiers of the 32^nd Division started to see the first sign of a potential landing force. Several Chinese destroyers moved into the bay of Anchorage and sailed to within a mile of the shore to start providing more direct fire against some of the heavier fixed American defenses. The Reds started sending out a few smaller vessels ahead of the group as bait; as the Americans would fire on the ships, the Chinese were quickly identifying the camouflaged gun emplacements and counter-attacking those targets.

As the destroyers moved into position and began to open fire, several 155mm artillery guns that had been leveled to act as shore battery guns opened fire, engaging the destroyers. A handful of 20mm railguns also joined the fray, adding their own firepower to the short engagement. From a distance it looked like a laser show as the tracer rounds, missiles and explosions shook both the land and ships. The ships being shot at were quickly becoming riddled with holes and began to sink quickly as the railguns cut right through their armor igniting ammunition stores and fuel. In less than ten minutes, three of the five Chinese destroyers had been sunk in the shallow waters, while the other two destroyers limped back to deeper waters and the rest of the fleet. When the Chinese invasion fleet did make their move on Anchor Point, they were going to have to fight through a well-established fortress at the head of the bay of Anchorage.

By the end of the sixth day, the PLA had successfully landed and secured most of the Kachemak Bay State Park and began to set up hundreds of 152mm artillery pieces and a variety of rocket artillery. It was at this point the artillery duels began in full force, with the Chinese firing thousands of artillery and rockets at Homer and Anchor Point while the American artillery did their best to conduct counter-battery fire. The PLAAF had also established nine small airfields along the Aleutian Peninsula, ferrying in hundreds of fighter and bomber attack drones from Mainland China. With the defeat of a large portion of the American fighter and bomber drones at Eielson AFB in Fairbanks during the first day of the invasion, the Americans were slowly losing control of the skies over Homer and Anchor Point. With the air war starting to tilt in the Chinese favor, they began to conduct more precision bombing of Anchor Point, hitting a number of the artillery and heavy gun emplacements and some of the Pershing tanks. It would not be long now until the Chinese launched their landing force.

In the early morning hours of the seventh day of the invasion, the PLA, PLAAF and PLAN launched a massive artillery, missile, naval and air bombardment at the Anchor Point peninsula. The assault lasted for several hours; as dawn drew near, the PLA shifted their attacks to hit the peninsula with hundreds of smoke rounds, adding a heavy layer of dense visual cover to the moonscape defensive lines. The American commanders on the ground knew this was probably when the PLAN would launch their amphibious landing and begin to secure the peninsula for the eventual assault and capture of Anchorage. Despite the heavy smoke bombardment, the American commanders could see right through it; dozens of miniaturized surveillance drones were launched into the air, feeding the data collected by their thermal cameras to the displays in their helmets.

Using the cover of smoke and the bombardment, the PLAN had maneuvered dozens of cruisers, destroyers and frigates into the channel to provide cover fire. Now hundreds of landing craft and thousands of amphibious assault vehicles were swarming towards the beach. As the commanders saw the images of the sea vessels headed their way, they quickly grabbed their coms, “The Chinese are in full-out landing assault pattern. Be prepared to engage!”

As Paul sat inside of his command bunker eating an MRE (Meals, Ready to Eat), he couldn’t help but admire the beauty in his surroundings. Despite the beach in front of his position being ringed with concertina wire and other obstacles, you could still see the mountains off in the distance across the bay. The waves were lapping against the gravel shore and the seagulls were squawking as they flew around the coastline. Soon this area would be turned into a cauldron of death, but for right now, it was peaceful.

As he munched on the jalapeno cheese sauce and crackers (his favorite part of the meal), his blissful reflection was interrupted. His HUD suddenly became a loud barrage of instructions being barked at him. He shoved the remainder of his crackers and cheese into his pocket (he wasn’t about to waste those, he had traded for them in the first place), and sprang into action. His platoon was to man the two heavy machine gun nests and the one hundred meters of trench line that connected them both. After receiving his orders, he started handing out instructions of his own. “Listen up, platoon! The Chinese are headed our way. Time to man the battle stations! Stop whatever you are doing, grab your gear, leave the bunkers and get to your assigned position now!”

His platoon had four .50 M2 machine guns in each of the two bunkers and two M134 7.62mm Miniguns. Two of the M2s were aligned to the right of the bunker, providing a ninety-degree arc of covering fire along the beach and the second bunker his platoon manned. The other two machine guns covered the left side of the bunker with the same ninety-degree arc covering the other machine gun first platoon manned and part of their trench line. In between both M2s was the venerable M134 Minigun. The M134 was a belt fed, electrically operated rotating six-barrel machine gun that could be set to fire between 2,000 and 6,000 7.62mm rounds a minute. Both of these machine guns were old in comparison to the more advanced M5 AIR, but their rate of fire and ability to defend the beach were all that mattered. All of the bunkers had been designed to provide each other interlocking fields of cover, so as the landing craft got near the beach they could engage them. Then, as the enemy came ashore, they would rake the beach with heavy machine gun fire. In the rear of the bunkers were built several magazine holds for all of the ammunition for the heavy machine guns. There were 750,000 rounds for the M2 and nearly 2,500,000 rounds for the M134. Despite several days of heavy bombardment, the bunkers were still intact-damaged albeit, but still functional.

SSG Allen continued handing out orders, “Those of you manning the trench line — keep your heads down until the Chinese land the first wave of troops. There is no need to expose yourselves until absolutely necessary. The bunkers will draw most of the enemy fire until the soldiers in the trenches have to engage the troops coming ashore.”

SSG Allen was standing in one of the bunkers, watching through a spotter scope as the wind blew most of the smoke away from their view of the water. Suddenly, he saw hundreds of landing crafts and vehicles heading towards the beach to his front. “Echo Five, this is Bunker 34. We have visual of hoards of Chinese landing crafts headed our way. Requesting immediate fire support, over.”

“Bunker 34, this is Echo Five. We copy. Fire mission on its way.”

Within minutes, artillery and mortar rounds started to hit numerous predetermined points in the water several hundred meters in front of the beach. Some of the landing crafts exploded as an artillery or mortar round scored a direct hit; others were sloshed around by near misses.

As the landing crafts neared the beach, SSG Allen ordered, “Soldiers with the .50s — time to open fire. Start taking them out.”

“FGM-148 Javelins, start firing!” came the next call. The Javelins were fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles, with a longer range than the venerable AT6 rockets. They were guided missiles, which gave the soldiers the power to correct their flight path if needed.

A few moments later, several landing craft reached the beach, and then suddenly, as if appearing from thin air, there were hundreds of PLAN infantry in their exoskeleton combat suits rushing towards the American soldiers with superhuman speed and agility. SSG Allen felt his stomach drop through his knees. “Everyone, engage the Chinese on the beach! Kill them all!”

The M2s and M134s began to traverse back and forth across the beach, decimating the ranks of the PLAN. As the one-inch diameter rounds of the .50 hit their targets, they severed arms and legs, and absolutely shredded the Chinese body armor. Soldiers were literally being ripped apart. The miniguns were devastating the remaining Chinese soldiers rushing the beaches. The volume of fire was awe-inspiring for the defenders as they could see entire squads of Chinese soldiers simply cut apart by the two Miniguns working in tandem. The soldiers manning the trenches began engaging the enemy infantrymen as quickly as they identify a target.

Several of the sergeants manning the various claymore anti-personnel mines started to detonate them as small clusters or groups of enemy soldiers started to coordinate their attacks against the American positions. Across the beach and trench line, there were airburst explosions from artillery and rockets throwing shrapnel everywhere. The cacophony of high explosives, machine guns, grenades, missiles and rockets was numbing.

SSG Allen tapped one of his heavy machine gunners on the shoulder and pointed towards a target. The gunner moved his gun towards a landing craft just as the front door dropped and opened fire. He quickly walked his stream of bullets through the entire landing craft as Chinese soldiers were desperately trying to crawl over the sides of the craft to get away from the slaughter. Within seconds, the machine gunner had killed nearly everyone in that landing craft before setting his sights on the next closest Chinese vehicle bringing more soldiers to the beach. While one soldier began to reload the M2, another soldier began to pour a bucket of water slowly across the red hot barrel. They did not have time to change the barrels, so they needed to cool the gun so it wouldn’t melt and become unserviceable.

Dozens of Chinese soldiers were getting bogged down in the concertina wire and the various anti-personnel obstacles that the engineers had placed in their paths. Several PLAN soldiers were trying to cut a hole through the wire when an artillery round exploded ten feet above the ground, throwing shrapnel and body parts everywhere. Despite the enormous losses the Chinese were taking; SSG Allen could see the enemy was starting to get off of the sandy beach and move inland. He was starting to get a little nervous. The Chinese appeared like a plague of locusts, consuming and destroying everything in their path.

Trying to remain positive, Paul continued to relay calming words of encouragement to the men and women in his platoon. It had been nearly twenty-five minutes since the first Chinese soldiers landed on the beach, and it was a bloodbath.

SSG Allen could see on his HUD that eight soldiers of his fifty-two-man platoon had been killed; another eleven more were injured and currently being treated by the medics. A couple of the wounded were being moved back to the second line of defense, while the others were being treated and thrown back into the fight. Near Bunker 34 (the machine gun bunker SSG Allen was directing his platoon from) was a steel door that led to a tunnel that went to the second trench line 500 meters behind them. Every fifty meters, the tunnel made a short right or left turn, preventing the enemy from being able to fire down the entire tunnel or shoot a rocket down it. If it appeared that their position was going to be overrun, this would be the tunnel where the platoon would attempt to make their great escape. When the last soldier closed the door, there were several heavy bolts that would lock the door in place, and at the end of each tunnel section there was a charge that could be detonated, imploding that portion of the tunnel and preventing the enemy from being able to use it.

While SSG Allen was watching the medics move two wounded soldiers to the rear, he looked up and saw the third wave of landing craft heading towards their position. Paul contacted the company commander on his HUD, “Captain Shiller, this is SSG Allen; the Chinese are continuing to bring in additional landing craft. We need an air strike or additional artillery support to help take them out!”

“Copy that Allen. I will try to get some air support, but artillery will be our best option.”

“I’m not sure we can hold up against a third wave, Sir,” Paul responded. “We more or less stopped the first wave at the beach. The second wave has made it past the beach and is nearly at our current position. A third wave will likely overrun us…”

“A platoon of Pershing Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) and several armored personnel carriers are moving up to your position. Hold the line; support will be there soon!”

Sergeant John Porter moved his Pershing MBT right behind Bunker 34 as he was directed to and immediately began to engage the landing craft and amphibious vehicles heading towards the beach. Porter could not believe his eyes; the horizon was covered with landing craft. He took a deep breath, then turned to PFC Higgins, his tank operator. “It’s time for us to start engaging targets; as I call them out, you begin to fire.”

“Roger.”

Porter keyed his sights in until he identified an amphibious assault craft. “Fire!” he commanded.

“Firing,” Higgins responded.

In quick succession, Porter’s tank began to engage one craft after another, destroying them swiftly. In just moments, they had taken out twelve landing craft before they could get to the beach.

Suddenly, a loud explosion rocked a nearby location, filling their chests with the reverberation of the sound vibrations. Once Porter had recovered from the shock, he grabbed his scope and saw that to their left, Sergeant Louis’ Pershing had exploded from a direct hit.

Several more blasts rocked Porter’s tank as Chinese destroyers began engaging his tank. Porter was about to give the order for them to reposition when the tank was impacted with a direct hit. In an instant, the cabin was on fire. Sergeant Porter just could not get the hatch open fast enough… the tank exploded.

SSG Allen’s bunker shook as the battle tank near them exploded. Additional ship and artillery rounds began to hit their bunker, rattling everyone in it. He was amazed at how many landing vehicles and amphibious vehicles had been destroyed by the tanks within just a few minutes of their arrival; it was tragic that they were destroyed so quickly. Fortunately for SSG Allen and his team, none of the rounds from the naval guns were flying at a flat enough trajectory to hit the gun slits in the bunker. The PLAN infantry had also made several attempts to hit their position with RPGs, but they had not gotten lucky so far.

PFC Gomez turned from his scope to provide an update, “SSG Allen, the third wave is getting ready to land, it looks like our tanks took out a few dozen of the larger landing crafts before they were destroyed.”

“Private Gomez, shift fire from the beach to those landing craft that are heading towards Bunker 33,” SSG Allen ordered.

“On it, Sergeant!”

Gomez shifted the .50 back to the water and fired a stream of rounds into one of the amphibious vehicles that was closing in on the beach. After firing a few dozen rounds into the vehicle, it exploded, killing all of its occupants. Gomez redirected fire to the next landing craft as it started to exit the water, driving up on the beach. Just as the vehicle dropped the rear ramp, it exploded; several PLAN infantrymen came running out of the vehicle on fire. Gomez quickly gunned them down.

As the third wave of naval infantry hit the beach, they quickly began to join their brethren, who had hunkered down behind anything that would stop a bullet. Suddenly, a massive surge of infantry began to rush Bunker 33 and the trench near it. SSG Allen saw a rather brave Chinese soldier jump up with an RPG7 and fire it at Bunker 33. His shot was perfectly aimed, and it hit the gun slit, exploding into the bunker. Within seconds, there was a small explosion inside of the bunker and the guns went silent. At that moment, SSG Allen yelled at Gomez, “Shift fire! Lay into them before they reach the bunker and trench line.”

The minigunner also redirected fire to the bunker. She cut down several dozen Chinese soldiers in the span of a couple of seconds. Unfortunately, a number of Chinese soldiers launched themselves into the trench line and began fighting the Americans in hand-to-hand combat before Gomez or the minigunner could mow them all down.

One Chinese soldier threw a satchel charge into the back entrance of Bunker 33. Seconds later, it exploded, blowing flame and smoke out through the gun slits. The bunker was thoroughly destroyed as additional naval infantry continued to rush the trench line.

With one bunker down, it meant that SSG Allen’s bunker was now exposed. He looked down and saw the Chinese rushing his position. He quickly detonated the last of his claymore mines, wiping out dozens of enemy soldiers. Allen stepped out of his bunker and fired a green flare in the sky, letting the second line of defense know their lines had been penetrated and to signal to his own platoon it was time to bug out.

The remaining soldiers in SSG Allen’s platoon began to run down the escape tunnel for safety. SSG Allen stayed behind longer to seal the bunker door just as the last soldier made it in, then he ran for the escape tunnel. He blew the charge in the bunker, destroying it behind them. After he reached the first turn, he detonated the second charge, destroying the first part of the tunnel to ensure no Chinese soldiers could follow behind them. As the remains of his platoon emerged from the tunnel, they were welcomed by defenders who praised them for their valiant effort at the beach. They had succeeded in slowing down the Chinese advance and effectively wiped out the first two waves of their assault.

Thoughts raced through Paul’s mind. He felt lucky to have survived, and grateful that close to half of his platoon had made it out with him. The images of the battle raced through his head, overloading him with gruesome scenes. These pictures at the beach and in front of the bunker would haunt him for the rest of his life; thousands of PLAN infantrymen had been wiped out trying to secure his platoon’s two bunkers and trench line.

Today was the day the PLAN was going to begin its final amphibious assault. They had handed over Kodiak Island to the PLA and reformed up at sea, ready for their last attack that would pave the way to Anchorage. Corporal Chang, like the other soldiers, was nervous about the coming assault. The Army, Navy and Air Force had been pounding Homer and Anchor Point peninsula for days. Rumor had it, several destroyers had been sunk when they got too close to the peninsula. A number of the soldiers in Chang’s squad wondered how their lowly landing vehicles would get close enough to the beach if the shore guns had defeated a couple of destroyers.

Everyone’s coms came to life at the same time, “Board the amphibious assault vehicles and landing crafts. Move quickly! Our time to invade has arrived.”

Chang and his squad boarded the landing craft along with the rest of their platoon; his squad was towards the back of the craft which meant they would be the last off. He realized that this was not a good place to be if he wanted to get to cover quickly. Everyone performed their final checks on their exoskeleton combat suits and equipment as the landing craft moved away from the troop transport and started to form up with the other ships. Steadily, the group of landing crafts began to navigate around the channel until they could see Anchor Point in the distance.

Chang lifted himself slightly above the lip of the landing craft to sneak a peek at the beach. He saw hundreds of rockets and artillery rounds impacting all along the shore, sending geysers of sand, dirt and other materials into the sky. As his boat advanced towards the beach, he saw flashes of light from several well-hidden bunkers on the beach reach out and destroy several of the vessels around him. Red tracers (like lasers) could be seen crisscrossing the water, hitting several vehicles; some rounds bounced off harmlessly while others penetrated the lightly armored landing craft, causing some of them to explode.

As Chang’s landing craft neared the beach, he readied himself and did a check on his exoskeleton suit. He reminded his squad mates of their objective, “Men, we are assigned to take out the machine gun bunker to the right of our landing craft once we hit the beach. You have your weapons — satchel charges and RPG7s. Our goal is to disable or destroy our target as quickly as possible to make way for the second and third waves to advance.”

The soldiers had been told to expect the Americans to have heavy M2 .50 machine guns in the bunkers, but none of them were anticipating the two M134 miniguns as well. As their landing craft neared the beach, several machine gun rounds hit the front ramp and bounced off. Within seconds, the ramp dropped. Chang’s platoon began to rush forward with the rest of the swarm, trying to advance quickly towards the beach. As they were running, one of the heavy machine gunners turned their sights towards his platoon. Within seconds, nearly a dozen men in his platoon had been mowed down by the heavy guns. Chang knew he had to get his squad to some cover quickly or that heavy machine gun was going to cut them apart. Suddenly, Chang heard a loud buzzing sound and saw what looked like a flickering laser reach out from the bunker in front of him and massacred an entire platoon to his left. He had never seen one of the American miniguns used at a beach invasion, and could not believe how fast the platoon had been wiped out. They desperately needed to take out those bunkers before they were all killed.

About 100 meters in from the shoreline was a bank where the sand ended and the grass began. As Chang looked up at the horizon to the small dips and rises in the ground past that point, he could see rows of torn and partially destroyed concertina wire and obstacles, spaced about ten meters apart. PLAN infantrymen were rushing these obstacles, doing their best to either destroy it or cut open wide holes for others to follow through. Several of the armored amphibious landing vehicles did their best to plow through as much of the defensive line as they could before they were destroyed by enemy railguns, mortars and artillery. Their sacrifice was heroic, and probably the only thing preventing the first wave of the assault from being completely wiped out.

Chang moved along with his squad through the various obstacles. They all did their best not to get cut down by enemy fire, and took advantage of as many opportunities to shoot back at the Americans as they could. They were managing to plow along at a fair clip, considering the immense amount of crossfire. In an instant, an explosion occurred near Chang that was so powerful, it picked up the soldier behind him and threw him at Chang’s back. Chang fell flat on his face. He groaned; his nose was partially filled with sand, but the concussion from the blast had stunned him enough that he was powerless to move in that instant. For a brief moment, he lost consciousness. When he came to, he struggled to push the soldier off of his back. As he heard the thump of the man rolling off of him, Chang could see that he was clearly dead.

Looking back, he saw several members of his squad thrown around, some were moving slowly, recovering from the shock, and others were not moving at all. One of the soldiers had stepped on a landmine; it had nearly taken the entire squad out. He was reeling from the shock of it all.

Another loud explosion brought Chang back to reality. He quickly glanced to his left and saw that further down the beach, sand, dirt, and body parts were being blown into the air as several artillery rounds hit the beach. Seconds later, Chang was back on his feet. He yelled at his squad, “Continue to advance to the embankment for cover! And try to take that gun bunker out!”

Hundreds of other Chinese soldiers in their new exoskeleton combat suits were also moving quickly through the obstacles, rushing for the embankment and the sense of shelter. Chang was nearly to the embankment with his squad and the rest of his company when a series of explosions in front of the embankment went off. Several of the claymore anti-personnel mines had been triggered; the concussion was so strong that Chang was hurled backwards into several of his soldiers.

Each of the claymore mines had released 480 steel balls as it detonated, like a shotgun at very close range. As Chang recovered from the blast, he felt a twinge of pain in his left arm, and a throbbing in both of his legs. He looked down and saw that he had been hit by a couple of the steel balls in the arm; each of his legs had taken at least one round as well. He could not immediately get up, so he quickly crawled to the embankment, which was less than 50 meters in front of him. When he looked back, he saw that only three members of his squad remained from the ten men that had been with him when they left the landing craft. When his comrades realized that he was injured, they ran to him and dragged him by the shoulders to pull him further into the embankment. One of the soldiers began to work on his injuries with Chang’s first aid package, while the other two engaged the American soldiers in the trenches. They were about 150 meters from the bunker.

“I wrapped your injuries at tight as I could, and used the cream as we were taught,” one of the soldiers said to Chang.

“Thank you for the help Private. Take your RPG and try to see if you can hit the gun port of that machine gun bunker to our left. We have to try and take it out or no one is going to make it.” They each had an RPG7 with them, and a total of four rockets each. Chang knew the RPG could not destroy the bunker, it was too heavily reinforced. His hope was to hit the firing slit; the explosion of the RPG would travel inside the bunker and potentially destroy the gun or kill the Americans manning it.

As Chang looked back over the beach, he saw the third wave was already starting to hit the beach. He also saw dozens of bodies bobbing in the water all around burnt and blown out amphibious vehicles and landing craft. The beach itself was covered in bodies: some were stuck in the concertina wire, others were missing limbs or even half of their bodies from the various mines, and some were simply blown to bits by the mortars and artillery rounds that had landed in their midst. As he watched, he witnessed more soldiers getting cut down by those machine gun bunkers. He knew they had to be taken out.

One of the privates popped up long enough to fire his rocket at the bunker. Unfortunately, it impacted about two feet below the gun slit. The second private jumped up to fire his rocket, but was hit by several bullets from the Americans in the trench line in front of them. He died instantly.

Chang grabbed the RPG from his fallen brother-in-arms and slithered several feet down the embankment. He waited a moment to make sure that no enemy fire was aimed in his direction, and then he propped himself up to take aim at the bunker. He knew that the rocket would fall a little as it flew, so he set his sights just slightly above the gun slit. He fired the RPG, and then quickly ducked just as a stream of bullets and tracers flew over his head. When he did look up, he saw that his rocket had hit the gun slit and the machine gun had gone silent. Then smoke started emanating from within the bunker as it started to pour out of the gun slit. They had done it; they had accomplished their mission.

With the machine gun bunker now silent, hundreds of naval infantrymen rushed through the paths that had been made for them by the first two waves of the assault. They moved quickly to close the distance between them and the American soldiers in the trenches. Several rounds of claymore mines were detonated by the Yankees as the Chinese soldiers rushed forward, but without the second bunker, the lines were being overrun by sheer manpower.

Suddenly, dozens of Chinese soldiers were jumping into the trenches, fighting hand-to-hand with the Americans. Chang took another rocket from one of the dead privates and reloaded the RPG. He fired another round at the second gun position to their right. Chang saw a soldier open a side door briefly and fire a flare into the sky. Not knowing what this green glow meant, Chang took one more shot with the RPG, aiming at the steel door he had just seen the soldier shut; he was hoping to take him out.

Suddenly, the remaining American soldiers still in the trenches ran to the bunker and opened the now severely damaged steel door. In mere seconds, they were all inside the bunker. The Americans tried to close the door as best they could after Chang had hit it with the rocket. Seconds later, several Chinese soldiers blew the door open and rushed the entrance of the bunker. As they did, the entire thing exploded, killing everyone in it and injuring other soldiers nearby.

Chang looked to the two privates left in his squad. “Well done, soldiers! Continue on with the rest of the company while I wait for the medic to come and further address my injuries.”

Without any hesitation, they immediately moved forward, joining the rest of the naval infantrymen and advancing past the first trench line towards the second line of defense much further back.

As Chang looked at the carnage that was before him, he thought to himself, “If every battle with the Americans on their homeland is going to be like this, we are going to need a lot more men. ” He had to give the Americans credit, they fought like savage dogs. They had made the Chinese pay dearly to take this land from them.

On the coastline, several larger landing crafts pulled up to the shore and opened their doors to offload a heavy main battle tank. “We sure could have used those things to help take out the gun positions,” thought Chang to himself. As the tanks moved across the beach, they ran over dozens of dead bodies as well as those of the wounded who could not get out of their way fast enough.

Immediately after the MBTs offloaded, a wave of medical personnel sprang forward and immediately went to work tending to the wounded and loading them back on to several of the landing craft that were still at the beach. As additional soldiers and medics advanced to Chang’s position, an officer came up to him and angrily asked him, “Why did you not advance with the rest of your company?”

Chang simply pointed to the bloody bandages on both of his legs, and a medic ran up to him. The officer hurried off and started to yell at another batch of soldiers he had found near the American trenches.

Chang was loaded onto a stretcher and moved to a landing craft, which then headed back to sea and to the troop transports. Chang’s part in the war was over for the time being.

The PLAN infantry had secured Homer and Anchor Point, dislodging the Americans after twenty-one hours of continuous combat. They had moved ten kilometers inland before they were finally stopped by a battalion of American Pershing MBTs and several battalions of the older, yet still venerable, Abrams Tanks.

In the battle for Anchor Point, 14,373 American soldiers had been killed, wounded, or found to be missing. However, the PLAN naval infantry had been effectively destroyed as a fighting force. They had lost 41,235 soldiers who were killed, missing or wounded during the battle before the PLA began to land their force and assume the role of attacker. The PLAN had started the Alaskan campaign just three weeks prior, with 150,000 soldiers fully equipped with the new exoskeleton combat suits. Between the battles of Kodiak Island, the Aleutian Peninsula and the battle of Anchor Point, they had lost 86,438 soldiers. The PLA, by contrast, had lost less than 43,000 up to this point, but they still had not fully dislodged the American defenders from Kodiak Island.

Dr. Dewei Zhong was in a holding pattern off shore. He would be part of the last group to reach Anchor Point. The first wave of doctors were Tieh Ta practitioners, who specialized in trauma injuries; they triaged the patients and would get to work setting broken bones and treating the soldiers who had lost limbs. The Tieh Ta practitioners would also offer to assist those who were too far beyond treatment in ending their lives peacefully. Dr. Zhong had mixed feelings about this practice, but Buddha had been tolerant of monks who had committed suicide in such cases, and so he kept his mouth shut and followed along, knowing that those who received such an offer were struggling under great suffering.

As Dr. Zhong waited offshore, he smiled to himself thinking about how much more equipment the Americans would need in order to do his job. He was quite sure that death rates with the American doctors would be at least double what theirs were with the limited amount of equipment they had under their budget. Dewei didn’t need all of those fancy gadgets in order to do his work. He could simply look at a patient’s face and their tongue and have a very good idea of whether or not infection had spread in the body, if IV fluids would be necessary, and which medicines would be of greatest use in restoring balance to the body.

While he was reflecting, his landing craft suddenly bumped into the shore, and he almost lost his balance as his ship lurched forward. Once everyone caught their footing, they all rushed forward as one unit, lugging their bulky bags of supplies. As more and more of the scene came into view, Dr. Zhong was no longer smiling… what unfolded before him was horrific, even past the limits of what he had imagined in his mind. The sheer enormity of the agony in front of him was overwhelming. There was hardly a place to stand where there wasn’t blood or the remnants of a soldier blown apart by an explosion. Dewei took a deep breath; if he allowed himself to think about it all, he was going to become useless. He needed to calm himself and focus on what was immediately in front of him.

Dr. Zhong set to work; once he started working with the patients, the automaticity kicked in, and he was able to be effective and swift. He moved steadily from patient to patient, administering a combination of traditional Chinese herbal medications and Western drugs, dressing wounds, starting IVs, and motioning to the medical transporters when a patient was stabilized enough to move back to the ship. Hours went by in what seemed like minutes, and then suddenly all of the wounded were cleared from the beach. Dewei returned to the boat, accompanying a patient who was not quite as stable as the rest.

As they took off towards the Middle Kingdom, Dr. Zhong continued his work. There would be very little sleep until they returned home and were relieved by other practitioners. Dewei moved swiftly from patient to patient, feeling the temperature on different parts of their body and giving instructions to assistants who would add or take away blankets. Dr. Zhong was a little more liberal with the pain medications than most of his colleagues; he knew that his fellow Chinese service men were very stoic in nature and that most would not ask him for assistance, but he felt that easing their suffering would be one way to bring better karma to himself. His movements were like a well-rehearsed dance; he did not waste time or energy, but steadily moved along, caring for others well into the night.

The final ships would come to collect the bodies of the dead, so that their families could give them a proper burial. If a soldier’s body was too damaged to be returned to the family, the family was given a set of their dog tags, along with any cremated remains that might have been collected. The Chinese believed that this dignity in passing would help ensure that the souls of the departed would continue to look after and care for their loved ones after their death.