Team Yankee: A Novel of World War III (Revised & Expanded Edition)

CHAPTER 10 RED DAWN

Just prior to dawn, Colonel Reynolds accomplished what the Poles had not been able to; stop Team Yankee. As much as he would have liked to maintain the momentum of the attack, just as Bannon had been compelled to rein in Garger and 3rd Platoon as it had forged out ahead of the Team, Reynolds need to put the brakes on Bannon.

No one needed to explain why this was necessary. In listening to the traffic on the battalion net when not otherwise fighting his tank and maintaining control of his platoons, Bannon appreciated that while Team Yankee had been able to brush aside the Polish units directly to its front, those Poles who had been to the left and right of the penetration did not panic or flee. Instead, they attempted to close off the penetration as soon as Team Yankee and Team Bravo had passed through. Charlie and Delta companies’ lack of tanks encouraged the Poles to try. Their initial efforts proved to be devastatingly successful as they pelted the two mech infantry companies with a deadly crossfire as they emerged from the cover of the German positions and before they had a chance to fully deploy. The garbled and fragmented reports over the battalion net from Charlie Company, which had not expected to meet any resistance, betrayed the confusion and panic the follow-on company commanders were having to wrestle with.

The battalion XO, who had been following Charlie Company took a hand in sorting out this mess, reporting the situation as best he could and his actions to the colonel. Delta Company, the last of 3rd of the 78th’s line companies, was deployed into positions from which they could support Charlie Company. The XO who was still in contact with the German battalion, was able to get them to add their support to the roiling battle taking place well behind Team Yankee. Once a firm base of fire had been established and friendly artillery had been brought to bear, he moved forward to rally Charlie Company and reopen the breach.

His efforts, however, were rewarded with a direct hit on his track when it reached the place where Charlie Company had gone to ground. The Delta Company commander reported the loss of the battalion XO to Reynolds. He then informed the battalion commander that he would continue to do all he could to support Charlie Company, but, he added, at the moment there wasn’t much he could do other than engage the Poles to his front with the few long range systems that he had.

Unable to contact the Charlie Company commander, and sensing that the entire operation was in jeopardy, Colonel Reynolds ordered Team Yankee to stop where it was and instructed Major Jordan to stay forward with Team Yankee. He then turned Team Bravo around and led them back to hit the Poles in the rear. The day that had begun so well appeared to be turning against the battalion.

The order to halt and take up hasty defensive positions threw Sergeant Polgar. For a minute he thought that the Team Commander had made a mistake. Garger thought the same, for no sooner had Bannon stopped talking, then he came back and asked him to repeat his last transmission. A little agitated at having his orders questioned, Bannon made it a point to repeat his instructions slowly, in such a way as to ensure that they not only were understood, but Garger got the message he’d managed to push the wrong button.

As each of the platoon leaders were acknowledging Bannon’s order, Polgar couldn’t help but take note of the difference between the two tank platoon leaders. The 3rd Platoon leader was clearly upset with his commander for stopping the mad dash he had been leading. Polgar wanted to get on with the attack himself, especially since they had such a clear advantage over the enemy. But he was an old soldier who guessed that Bannon would not have stopped their advance unless there was a damned good reason to do so.

The platoon leader with the 2nd Platoon, on the other hand, sounded as if he were relieved to get the order to halt. Not that Avery could be blamed. The US Army had a tradition of being rough on second lieutenants. It had to be hell on that officer, Polgar reasoned, being assigned to a unit in the middle of a war and then going right into an attack like this before he had a chance to figure out which end was up. And though he was trying his best, so far the poor bastard hadn’t impressed anyone, especially the captain. If any further proof was needed that there was an overall lack of confidence in the man, one of the NCOs in his own platoon had started a lottery in which NCOs and enlisted men in the Team placed bets on how long the new lieutenant would last once they went into action. The big money was on two days. Some bet it would be hours. Polgar had been one of the more optimistic. He had his bet riding on three and a half days.

The Team was settling into positions along an east-west road just as the sun was beginning to peek over the high ground to the east. Bannon watched as the sky slowly changed from near pitch black to a deep, crimson red, reminding him of the old nautical saying, “Red sun at night, sailor’s delight. Red run in the morning, sailor take warning.” The sun that was greeting Team Yankee this morning was blood red. Watching the great red solar orb as it began its laborious ascent, he uttered a silent prayer that the sun he was watching rise in the east was not an ill omen.

After setting that thought aside, and once he was satisfied with the way the Team was deployed, Bannon turned his attention listening in on the battalion net. The colonel, he gathered, was preparing to hit the Poles with everything he had available. First he called the battalion’s artillery fire-support officer and designated targets he wanted hit and when they were to be hit. He next instructed the Delta Company commander to get with the Germans and see if they could increase the amount of direct fire support they were already contributing. Finally, based on information provided by the Delta Company commander, he gave Team Bravo and Delta Company their orders.

His plan was a simple hammer and anvil operation. While holding the attention of the Poles to their front with Delta Company and the Germans and pinning the Poles with artillery, he would be hitting them from behind with Team Bravo.

The plan proved to be as effective as it was simple. The devastating fire that had smashed their ill-fated predawn attack, their failure to destroy C Company, the weight of the firepower of Delta Company, the Germans, and the artillery heaped upon them and the violence of Team Bravo’s attack to their rear finally broke the Poles. One of the surviving Poles who was taken prisoner would later observe that the Americans and Germans had used so much firepower that even the sun had was bleeding.

Forty kilometers east of Team Yankee’s hastily assumed positions, a Soviet tank company commander was about to finish briefing his platoon leaders when he noticed how red the morning sun was. For a brief moment he reflected on its significance.

Pointing to it, he told his gathered platoon leaders that the Motherland to the east was sending a red sun as an omen to them. He promised his gathered officers that if they performed their duties as they had been trained and adhered to the great truths that were the pillars of strength to true Communists, the red dawn they were witnessing would herald the end of the imperialist dreams in Europe and the beginning of a new socialist era. Dismissing them with a salute, the company commander turned away and headed to his own tank.

As he was doing so, he wondered if any of his platoon leaders had believed the line of horseshit he had just served them. Stopping, he turned and looked up at the red sun that was still hovering just above the horizon. After a moment, he heaved a great sigh. It wasn’t important if they did or not. The political commissar had been pleased with his outpouring of socialist propaganda. Perhaps that miserable party hack would stay out of his way for the rest of the morning, leaving the serious business of killing Americans in the hands of the professional soldiers. This thought caused the Soviet captain to smile. The political commissar was happy, his company was finally going to get a chance to kill some Americans, and, if they were lucky, the Poles would get in its way, allowing him to run the worthless shits down. This, he concluded, was shaping up to be a great day.

The end of the Poles did not signal an immediate resumption of the battalion’s attack. This had been Charlie Company’s first time under fire, and the experience had been shattering. Like Bannon, Reynolds had no wish to press deeper into the enemy’s rear strung out and piecemeal. With the need to sort out the tangled mess that the three trailing companies were in, he advised Bannon to hold his current positions until he could get everyone on the right track. Reynolds went on to advised him to that the divisional air cavalry troop was going to be operating between Team Yankee’s current positions and the Saale. That suited Bannon just fine. He was becoming tired of stumbling around like a blind man waiting for the Soviets to hit the Team. Let the cavalry earn their pay.

As it was now obvious that the Team would need to hold their current positions longer than he had initially thought, Bannon began to take a closer look at the lay of the land to his front and flanks and, if necessary, reposition his platoons. Ahead, across the road embankment they were deployed along was a valley about ten kilometers wide flanked by wooded hills that rose sharply on either side. Immediately to the Team’s left was a small town named Issel. As he looked at the town through his binoculars, Bannon could see no sign that it was occupied. There was the possibility that the Soviets had cleared the village of civilians prior to the attack in order to maintain operational security. There also was the possibility it was occupied either by combat service support units or security troops responsible for rear area who were, at that very minute, reporting Team Yankee’s positions back to their higher ups. It was this second possibility that worried him.

After a quick consultation with Major Jordan on the battalion net, Bannon ordered the 2nd Platoon to move into a position from which they could place effective fire onto the town. As they were preparing to do so, he dismounted and made his way over to Polgar’s track to give him his instructions.

With the tanks overwatching his move, Polgar was to take his platoon into the town and check it out. While he appreciated the Mech Platoon didn’t have the manpower to do a thorough job of clearing the town, building by building, they at least could check out the more obvious places and, if the town was occupied, keep anyone they came across busy until one of the pure infantry companies came up and took over for them. Besides, he added as an aside, at least this way some of the Team would be doing something useful. This last point was most appealing to Polgar who didn’t like the idea of sitting out in the open waiting for some hotshot Russian pilot to come along and fire up his platoon.

Since there was no chance for surprise, Polgar stormed into the town mounted. The four PCs rolled into the center of the town square where the infantry dismounted and began to conduct a systematic search of the buildings. Working in three-man groups, with one group on each side of a street and their PC following down the middle and a little behind, ready to support them with machinegun fire if they ran into trouble, the infantry began to make their sweep.

The teams conducting the search all followed the same pattern when they entered a building. One of the soldiers would peep into a window to see if there were any obvious signs of occupants. Once they had done so, the three would converge on the door through which they would enter. Leaving one outside, keeping an eye on the street and the house across from his group lest they become so preoccupied with the building they were about to enter that an unseen enemy came up from behind and surprised them, the other two would kick open the door and rush in. It didn’t take Polgar’s men long to find out throwing themselves against a stout, unyielding door could be a painful experience. After bouncing off of a few doors that refused to give, they all began to try the doorknobs first, a technique that was surprisingly successful and infinitely less bruising.

This had been going on for thirty minutes when Polgar, who had remained in the town center monitoring the progress of his squads, heard the muffled report of a Soviet AK followed by the detonation of a grenade. Making his way to where the shots had come from as quickly as he dared, he was greeted by the sight of two of his men coming out of a house dragging a third. The TC of the personnel carrier that had been overwatching this team, after having his track roar up to the front of the house, was systematically peppering the windows along the second floor with machinegun fire. Polgar, stopping behind this PC, covered the three men as they made for the rear of the PC.

Once safely behind the PC, the two men that had been fired on watched for a moment as a medic who’d followed Polgar ripped open their wounded comrade’s chemical protective suit and tore away the T-shirt to get at the wound. A quick check showed that the man had taken two rounds in his left shoulder. The wound was painful and bloody, but wouldn’t be fatal.

When they were satisfied their friend was in good hands, they reported to Polgar. “McGill was on point,” one of the trio, a young corporal by the name of Cooper explained between desperate gulps of breath. “After we’d cleared the ground floor and found nothing there, McGill started up the stairs to check out the second floor. That was when the shooting started. The first volley caught McGill on the stairs, sending him tumbling back down them. Hector covered me while I ran out and dragged him back. Once I had McGill out of the way, Hector threw a grenade onto the second floor to cover our withdrawal. None of us saw who was doing the shooting or how many of the bastards are in there.”

By this time the squad leader of the trio who’d been ambushed had joined Polgar with the rest of his squad. After assessing the situation and deciding he needed to clear the house, if for no other reason than to find out who’d been shooting at them and what strength they were in, he directed the squad leader and one of the teams to circle around back and cover the rear of the house in case someone tried to slip out. He then ordered the TC and driver of the PC to cover the front of the building. He would personally lead the two men who had first entered the house back in to deal with the unseen enemy.

After getting a rundown on the layout of the ground floor, this three-man assault party rushed the front door. Once there, Polgar stationed himself on one side of the door, opposite Hector. This time, however, Hector leaned over and threw a grenade into the opened door before they entered. As soon as the grenade went off, Cooper, followed by Polgar, went charging into the house, guns leveled and blazing away. Once inside, the two of them sought the nearest cover available and waited to see what happened.

When nothing did, Polgar signaled for Hector to enter and cover him as he approached the stairs. When Hector was set, Polgar slowly began to climb the stairs, craning his neck in an effort to see up and over onto the second floor. When he was halfway up the stairs, Polgar halted, took a grenade off of his web gear, pulled the pin, and threw it into the room at the head of the stairs. As soon as this grenade detonated, he charged to the top of the stairs, taking two steps at a time and firing as he went. Once he reached the head of the stairs, he threw himself into the room he’d thrown the grenade and, as before, sought cover.

Just as Polgar began to get up, a yell to halt came from the portion of the squad that was outside at the rear of the building. This was followed by the sound of M-16s firing. In an instant, he realized that the people they were looking for had tried to slip out through the rear and had been caught by the team sent to the back of the house. As Cooper and Hector came up and began to check out the other rooms on the second floor, Polgar went to a window overlooking the rear of the house and peered out.

In the small yard below, two of his men were standing over the body of a young German boy sprawled in a flowerbed bleeding from several wounds. An AK was lying beside him. For a brief, sickening moment, it reminded Polgar of a similar scene in Vietnam some fifteen years earlier. One of his first firefights had involved a VC unit that consisted mainly of fourteen and fifteen-year-old boys. It was an experience that often haunted his dreams. Knowing exactly what his men were thinking, he did what his sergeant had done on that day. “Is he dead?” Polgar barked gruffly.

One of the soldiers standing over the body looked up and saw Polgar looking down at him. “Yeah. Kind of young to be running around shooting at people, Sarge.”

“Just remember Patterson, that sorry piece of trash was old enough to put two holes in McGill. Given a chance, he would have done the same to you.”

Patterson looked at his platoon sergeant for a moment, then down at the dead German boy. After another moment of reflection, he reached down, picked up the AK, and went around to the front to continue the house-by-house search.

Polgar’s report on the Mech Platoon’s contact didn’t surprise Bannon at all. His only regret was the discovery that the town’s total population seemed to consist of a lone fanatic who couldn’t have hurt the Team had cost him a WIA he could ill afford.

Anxious to find out how much longer they were going to sit there, Bannon dismounted and walked over to where the battalion S-3’s track had pulled in to find out what Jordan’s best guess was. Major Jordan’s track was nestled up against a large hedgerow that separated two fields. The troop door on the back ramp was open as was the cargo hatch on top. Stopping at the door Bannon stuck his head inside.

Major Jordan, seated across from his radios, had arms folded with chin resting on his chest, giving all the appearances of being asleep.

“Must be nice to have a cushy staff job where you can take a nap three times a day.”

“Bannon, someday when you grow up, and I trust you will, you’ll come to appreciate the fact that we grown-ups need to conserve our energy if we’re going to be able to keep up with you kids,” Jordan replied without moving a muscle or opening his eyes.

“Oh, is that what you call it? Conserving energy? Back home we call it sleep.”

“Shit, don’t they teach you tread-heads anything at Fort Knox?”

“Sure they do, Major. And someday, when Infantry Branch authorizes you to use multi-syllable words, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I’m sure there’s a reason you came over here other than to harass me Bannon. Hopefully, it has to do with that shooting in the town you haven’t reported to me yet.”

“That was a small affair. Some hyped-up commie high school kid wanted to play Rambo. He wounded one of Sergeant Polgar’s men before he got his ass blown away. So far, that’s all we’ve come across. What I really came over here for is to find out when we’re going to get this circus moving again. If it’s going to be awhile, I want permission to move up onto the high ground to the northeast where we can get under some cover. I’m not thrilled about sitting out here lined up along this road trying to hide my tanks behind these damned bushes.”

“I expect we’ll be moving soon. The brigade commander just got off the radio with Colonel Reynolds. Colonel Brunn was all over the Old Man. Told him that if he couldn’t get the battalion moving, brigade was prepared to pass the 1st of the 4th through us to continue the attack.”

“Sir, pardon me if I seem like an underachiever, but, if the brigade commander wants to let the 1st of the 4th take the lead, that’s fine by me. I could use to playing second team real fast.”

Upon hearing this, Jordan sat up and leaned closer to Bannon. When he spoke, he did so in low, hushed tones. “This is not for general distribution,” he began as he scotched closer to Bannon. “Colonel Brunn was a hair’s breadth away from relieving Reynolds after the Hill 214 debacle. The only reason he didn’t was because there didn’t happen to be any spare lieutenant colonels laying around at the time. If the battalion screws the pooch on this operation, the Old Man is gone. The battalion has to succeed.”

“Well, sir, between you, me, and that dumb bush your track is using for concealment, even if what you say is true, I have no intention of taking any undue risks simply to save someone’s reputation. Colonel Reynolds is a fine officer and, under the right circumstances, a great guy, but his reputation isn’t worth a single unnecessary casualty in Team Yankee.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that. The colonel is too much of a professional to do anything dumb simply to save face.”

“God, I hope you’re right, sir.”

Having no wish to dwell on that subject any longer, Jordan took to discussing the battalion’s next move. The air cavalry, he informed Bannon, had come across some trucks and reconnaissance vehicles as they roamed out to the front, scattering the trucks and destroying the recon vehicles as they went. Unfortunately, the cavalry scouts could not tell if they were Polish or belonged to someone else. A scout helicopter had tried to land near one of the destroyed vehicles to check this out, but had drawn fire from a concealed ZSU-23-4. Not being able to obtain this information, and confident that the front would be clear for a while, Major Jordan had requested that the air cav troop shift over to the east and cover the battalion’s right frank. The response from brigade was a “wait, out.”

When Jordan relayed Bannon’s request that he be allowed to move his Team, Reynolds, replied that he wanted Team Yankee to press on, but at a slower pace, adding that the rest of the battalion would be moving out momentarily and would be able to catch up, provided Team Yankee didn’t get carried away again. After acknowledging the order, Jordan looked at Bannon and grinned. As soon as the transmission ended, Jordan asked if Bannon had any questions. “That’s a negative.”

“Okay, move out when you’re ready. I’ll be right behind you.”

With that, Bannon made his way back to Alpha 66 and issued the Team its new orders over the Team net.

Orders to stop clearing the town came none too soon as far as Sergeant Polgar was concerned. The house-to-house search was getting old. He didn’t want to lose any more of his people to some runny-nosed commie who hadn’t even begun to shave yet. Besides, this kind of work was hard. When he had charged the stairs and thrown himself into the room in the house where the sniper had been, he had landed flat on his chest, forgetting there were still grenades hanging on his web gear. The force of the fall had knocked the wind out of him as the grenades and other assorted items attached to his web gear dug into his chest, leaving bruises he could feel.

As his tracks were pulling out of town, he decided that he was getting too old to be running around playing John Wayne. In the future, he was going to leave the gung-ho stuff to the young kids in his platoon. He also decided that in the next war, he was going to find himself a nice cushy staff job at the Pentagon, fixing coffee for the generals. His campaigning days were over. War, thought Polgar, belongs to the young, the strong, and the naive.

Avery had mixed feelings about moving again. While sitting in this semi-exposed position was dangerous, moving out into the open, this time in broad daylight with high ground to both sides of the Team, was downright unnerving. As before, his platoon deployed in echelon to the left of Alpha 66. With his own tank in the lead and the rest of the platoon trailing off to the left and behind him, he felt exposed and vulnerable. The presence of Alpha 66 to his immediate right at a distance of fifty meters, 3rd Platoon visible a little farther to the right, and the Mech Platoon bringing up the rear did little to alleviate his anxieties. The only thing his tank was missing, he mused, was a big red and white target pained on the left side of his turret.

Distracted by such concerns, Avery was finding it difficult to keep track of where they were on the map he had laid out before him, direct his driver, and keep one eye one his platoon, and the other on Alpha 66. Controlling 21, let alone the platoon, was proving to be a challenge he wasn’t quite up to yet. This need to multitask was made even more difficult by the way the tank kept bucking as it made its way across plowed fields against the furrows that were separated by drainage ditches. It seemed that every time he looked down at his map in an effort to figure out where they were, the driver would hit a ditch, catching the young lieutenant by surprise and sending him rattling around in the cupola. There had to be a way to manage all of this with some degree of efficiency, he told himself. Just how the Captain and Gerry Garger were able to manage this multitude of tasks was very much a mystery he’d yet to solve.

The pilot of the MI-24D Hind was taking his time as he slowly eased his attack helicopter into position just to the right of an old keep sitting atop a hill overlooking the valley below. With a little luck, their target would be just over the rise to their front. They were lucky to have made it this far. The lead Hind had barely avoided an enemy scout helicopter on their run in. Although the weapons operator had felt confident that they could have taken out the frail scout, tangling with enemy air reconnaissance units was not their responsibility. Someone else would deal with the bothersome scout. They were hunting tanks.

With well-practiced ease, the pair of Hinds positioned themselves on either side of the ancient Keep they were using as their rally point and for reference. If the reports were correct, when they popped up over the trees, there would be a town southeast of the Keep and a group of tanks sitting stationary east of it.

As soon as the pilot of the lead Hind signaled he was set, both attack helicopters slowly rose above the masking terrain they’d been using to hide behind until the weapons operator’s field of vision was clear. The pilot, seated behind and a little higher than the weapons operator, saw the town first. Once he had the town in sight, he began to search to the east of the town for the enemy tanks that were supposed to be deployed along a road. When he didn’t see any sign of them, he ordered the weapons operator to search the area with his sight.

As the weapons operator was doing so, movement just north of the town caught the pilot’s eye. Twisting his head about, he spotted several vehicles moving in a northerly direction. Keying the intercom, he informed the weapons operator of his sighting even as he was bringing his aircraft to bear until the weapons operator called out he had the enemy tanks in his sights. While his own weapons operator prepared to engage, the pilot reported his sighting to his flight leader who quickly shifted his orientation.

Like great cats preparing to pounce, the two Soviet MI-24D attack helicopters crouched in the lee of the Keep studying their quarry. A call from the flight leader asking if the pilot or the weapons operator of the trailing Hind had observed any antiaircraft guns or missile launchers caused the weapons operator of that aircraft to scan the area for any trace of a ADA system while the pilot checked his radar warning device to ensure that it was functioning and had not detected any enemy search radars. Only when both were sure they would not be challenged by either surface-to-air missiles or AAA guns did the pilot report back to his flight leader that all was clear before going back to tracking the American tanks, which, at the moment, were out of range.

Only when he was sure both aircraft were set and ready did the flight leader give the order to attack. It would be a standard attack, one they had practiced many times before. As one, they would swoop down on the tanks at high speed. The leader would go for the far tanks while the trailing Hind would attack the near tanks. They were not concerned with the personnel carriers. The American tanks constituted the greatest threat to Soviet ground forces and, as such, made the risk of making two passes, one west-to-east, followed immediately by another east-to-west after looping around, before rallying at the Keep.

With the cry of “Urah” shouted out over the radio, the flight leader signaled the start of the attack.

Avery was hanging on to the machine-gun mount with one hand to steady himself while he ran his finger along his map trying desperately to find a landmark he could use as a reference when the cry of “HELICOPTERS, NINE O’CLOCK,” followed by “MISSILE! MISSILE! MISSILE!” caught him by surprise.

Instinctively he looked up and to his front. There was nothing there. He then turned to his right to look at the Team commander’s tank to see what he was doing. For a moment, Avery watched as Alpha 66 began to spew out clouds of white smoke from its exhaust before making a sharp turn to the right, disappearing behind the smoke. It wasn’t until 66 and 3rd Platoon tanks began to fire wildly above his head that it suddenly dawned upon him what was happening.

The pilot of the trailing Hind was surprised at the speed with which the tanks reacted. Almost as one, they had turned and begun to blow huge clouds of white smoke from their engines. Those that could were firing on his aircraft as they madly weaved this way and that. And though their shooting was wild and totally inaccurate, it was extremely disconcerting to see angry red tracers rising up toward him. A couple of the tanks were even firing their cannons. He had force himself to ignore his natural instincts to break off the attack and focus his full, undivided attention on closing on their target.

One of the lead tanks had not turned or cut on its smoke generator. The pilot quickly oriented on this stray even as he was ordering his weapons operator to engage it. Already tracking the tank his pilot selected as their first target, the weapons operator let fly a 9M17 antitank guided missile.

There followed several tense moments as the attention of both Soviet aviators remained riveted on that one tank, ignoring as best they could the hail of ground fire being thrown up at them. They were committed, and nothing short of divine intervention or a golden BB was going to stop them.

2nd Lieutenant Randall Avery, a distinguished military graduate fresh out of Fort Knox’s Armored Officer’s Basic Course, had just enough time to catch a quick glimpse of the hideous attack helicopter bearing down on him and the fiery blur of a round object proceeding it before the Russian antitank guided missile struck home.

The second their missile hit the tank they’d engaged, the pilot jerk his joystick to the left, increased his speed, and made a run to the north. He wasn’t about to try for a second shot on this run. One hit was good enough.

As he was bringing his aircraft around, a fast-moving object caught his attention. Looking up, he was startled to see an American attack helicopter bearing down on him from the north. It must have been with the scout they had seen before. The weapons operator saw it at the same instant. Without hesitation, he began to lay the 12.7mm Gatling gun mounted in a chin turret on the enemy aircraft. He was just about to fire when his pilot jerked his joystick to the left again in a desperate effort to evade. This did him little good. The American easily adjusted his aim and fired.

A violent shudder and the sight of his weapons operator to his front disappear in a rapid series of small explosions was all the pilot of the trailing Hind saw as 20mm cannon shells ripped into his aircraft as the cockpit began to fill with smoke.

The Hind pilot was still struggling with the controls of his aircraft, trying to escape the hail of cannon rounds pelting it when it was consumed in a ball of fire that scattered its fragments across the Germany countryside.

“WE GOT ’EM! WE GOT ’EM!”

Bannon turned around to see what his loader was yelling about. Dowd was hanging onto his machinegun with one hand and pointing to the north with the other. In the distance, Bannon could see a fire and black smoke. Dowd, with a grin from ear to ear, turned back to view the conflagration he was sure he had contributed to.

“Forget him. He’s gone. Keep your eyes open for the other son-of-a-bitch,” Bannon yelled before ordering Kelp to cut the smoke generator off, but to be ready to kick it back on. He then called to the platoon leaders for a SITREP. Garger quickly came back with the report that two of his tanks had observed the second Hind disappear to the east, chased by a pair of AH-1 attack helicopters, which Bannon guessed belonged to air cav troop that had been reconning to their front. For once, he reflected as his eyes turned skyward, someone up there was looking out for the Team.

Believing the air attack had accomplished little more than scattering the Team, he ordered the platoon leaders to rally their tracks, then form up on Alpha 66. As the smoke and confusion caused by the Hinds had not cleared, it would take a few minutes to sort things out. With that in mind, he ordered Kelp to find some cover and stop. It was only then that Bannon realized Avery hadn’t replied to his call for SITREP. It was Hebrock, coming up on the Team net to report that Alpha 21 had been hit during the attack that provided him with the reason that officer hadn’t.

“Damn!” Bannon thought as he mentally amended his earlier assessment. Not everyone could be lucky. By now he had come to accept the cruel fact that in war, people died. What irked him at the moment was the way second lieutenants assigned to the 2nd platoon seemed to be making a habit of it.

With nothing to do as he waited for his platoons to rally, Bannon stood upright and took to looking around to see if he could spot Alpha 21. His efforts to spot the crippled tank were hindered by the lingering clouds of the smoke that had been thrown up by the tanks, leaving him little choice by to called Hebrock and request further details. In response, Hebrock replied he’d let him know how bad things were as soon as he reached 21’s position and had a chance to assess the situation there.

As Alpha 24 closed on the smoking hulk of 21, Hebrock was convinced that everyone in the crew was dead. Main gun rounds in the turret’s ammo storage compartment were still cooking off, throwing great balls of flame and smoke into the air. The blow-off panels, designed to vent the force of stored main gun rounds set off by a hit up and away from the crew, were lying fifty meters away from where 21 sat. After bringing his own tank to within forty meters of 21, he ordered his driver to stop. From there both he and his loader watched in silence as they waited for the as last of the onboard ammo to cook off.

Just as he was about to report to the Team commander that 21 was a write off, the loader’s hatch on 21 swung open. Hebrock watched for a moment. To his amazement, he saw 21’s loader climb out. Turning around, he reached down to help someone else who was down inside the turret behind him. On seeing this, Hebrock ordered his driver to pull up next to 21, then made a call over the company net to the first sergeant, telling him they needed the ambulance ASAP.

The air attack had given the rest of the battalion a chance to catch up. As the follow on companies were about to reach Team Yankee, Colonel Reynolds called to ask if the Team could continue in the lead, or if he needed to pass Charlie Company forward. Bannon replied that wouldn’t be necessary as his platoon leaders had been able to rally their people with no trouble, with 2nd Platoon using the shattered 21 as their rally point.

Bannon waited until he saw the lead vehicles of Charlie Company closing up on his Mech platoon before ordering Hebrock to leave the recovery of 21’s wounded to the first sergeant, take over the platoon, again, and resume his place in formation.

Only after Hebrock had acknowledged his transmission did Bannon realize just how cold such an order must seem to an outsider. He had no doubt that every man in the 2nd Platoon wanted to help their buddies in 21. Within the platoons there was a strong personal bond that held the men together. It was not only natural, it was necessary, for the bonds that bound a soldier to the other men in his crew, squad, or platoon is often the only thing that keeps a unit from buckling under the stress and horrors of war. So is the need to carry on in the face of a tragedy such as the one that had befallen Alpha 21’s crew. It was unfortunate that lieutenant what’s-his-name had been hit and could very well be dead. That happened in war. Seeing to those who had fallen, however, was now somebody else’s responsibility. It was Bannon’s, as well as what was left of 2nd Platoon, to continue their mission. They could not stop each time a tank was hit or a man was hit. Not only would that hinder the accomplishment of their mission, doing so would place other personnel belonging to the Team in jeopardy. As much as he didn’t like the thought of rolling away and leaving the crew of Alpha 21 to fend for themselves until the medic track arrived, Bannon had his orders and the responsibility of seeing to it they were carried out, regardless of the cost.

Team Yankee, having collected itself, moved forward again. This time, however, they were not alone. Far to the left Bannon could catch glimpses of some of Team Bravo’s tracks. They were now abreast of the Team and moving north. To his rear, he could make out tracks of the battalion command group, followed by Charlie Company. Satisfied that all was back on track within the Team and the battalion, he turned his attention to the town of Korberg just to the north. That, and the valley to the east of it, would be the next critical point he needed to pay attention to, for if there were any Soviet or Polish forces in the area, that was where he expected they would be.

As his track, accompanied by the ambulance, closed on 21, First Sergeant Harrert could feel his stomach begin to knot up. He knew that he wasn’t going to see anything new. Two tours in Vietnam, training accidents, and the first few days of this war had exposed him to many such scenes. Once he was there and doing something, he’d be all right. It was the anticipation that bothered him the most. How bad was it this time? How many? Was there something he could do, or was this just another case of bagging and tagging what was left of men he’d known? Did he know their wives, their children? Would they be able to identify the bodies? First sergeants are supposed to be detached, able to handle these things without a second thought. But first sergeants are also human.

It was with great relief that Harrert found there had been only one casualty. Tessman, who greeted Harrert, led him and the medic to where the lieutenant was lying.

While the medic began to work on Avery, Tessman explained what had happened. “The LT had been standing up in the cupola when the missile hit the rear of the turret, setting off the ammo back there. The rest of us came out of it without a scratch,” he stated as he gave a quick nod of his head over to where his driver and loader were sitting. “The LT wasn’t so lucky. The force of the explosion from the main gun rounds set off by the missile hit him squarely in the head and back.”

Pausing, Tessman glanced over his shoulder to where the medic was working on Avery. “If the ballistic doors that separated us from the stored ammunition had been open, we’d all be dead.”

“Well, you’re not,” Harrert replied. “How bad is the lieutenant?”

The answer to this question was supplied by the medic. “He in bad shape, first sergeant. “He has massive wounds and severe burns on his back and head. If we’re going to save him, we need to evac most Ricky-tick.”

“Okay, get him loaded up then,” Harrert sighed as he turned to the crew and ordered them to help the medics place Avery on a stretcher and carry him over to the medic track. When it was gone, the first sergeant and Tessman began to look over 21. They had the driver try to start the engine but to no avail. Alpha 21 would have to be towed back to the battalion maintenance collection point by the M-88 recovery vehicle.

As he was waiting for the 88 to come up, Harrert looked up at the burned out ammo storage compartment. “I expect they’ll be able to get this tank back in action within two day, three at the most.”

Tessman, observing that this was the second time that this tank had been hit, dryly replied that they should retire it and use it for spare parts. Harrert agreed, but added the Army was fast running out of tanks and couldn’t afford to throw them away simply because they had had a run of bad luck. To that, Tessman offered 21 to the first sergeant after it had been repaired. The first sergeant had to stop and think about that one. Maybe this tank should be scrapped.

The Soviet tank company commander did not like the idea of moving through the woods in single file. He would have preferred to have gone north past the town of Langen. By doing that his company and the battalion following it would have been able to deploy into combat formation before making contact with the Americans. The regimental commander, however, had vetoed that idea because of the presence of American scout helicopters. To have gone through the Langen Gap would have left them to observation from the air. Not only would the regiment lose the element of surprise, they would also be open to attack by enemy attack helicopters and ground attack aircraft. Instead, the lead tank battalion was reduced to winding its way along narrow, twisting trails through the woods.

There were few options open to the Soviet company commander. Once his tanks began coming out of the woods high on the hill, they would be visible to everyone in the valley. After they had been observed, there would be little time to take advantage of their surprise. Therefore, rather than have the three tanks of his lead platoon, the regiment’s combat patrol, go out on its own, he had them pull back with the rest of the company. To succeed, they had to take risks. He gambled that his commander would not find out that he had pulled in the combat patrol and, in doing so, risk the possibility they would stumble into an ambush before the emerged from the woods.

In addition to pulling the battalion’s lead element back, the Russian captain ordered his tanks to close up until they were almost fender-to-fender. With his entire company bunched up in this manner, the company would be able to quickly burst out of the woods and deploy into a tight battle formation. It was a good plan, one he was sure that it would work.

The only thing that could possibly go wrong now was the presence of an antitank ambush along the trail they were on. If the lead tank was hit, the others would be unable to bypass it or fight. The thought of such a thing gave the Russian chills. As far as he was concerned, the sooner he was out of these damned woods and in the open where he could maneuver, the better.