War Cry

15

Major Donovan Kitts checked with his men again. He was back to full strength with the 91st, but with only six of his tanks and crews from his former unit. The 32nd, which had been battered as badly as his bunch, was blended in with his machines. He had his six vehicles in the point of the attack.

At the last briefing, General Reynolds himself had told them that their line-crossers had reported no armor and not over a company of North Koreans directly opposite them. The 91st would slash through the first line and see what was in the rear areas. Five miles, then a fast turn to the right for a run across the countryside. He had trained in some of this South Korean land.

His only problem would be holding back so the infantry could keep up with their advance. They had to secure the area as they moved. Maybe three miles an hour. It would work.

He went to each tank and talked to the tank commander, meeting some of the men from the 32nd for only the second time. Urging them to do their level best.

"This is one strike that could put a fatal thrust into the whole invasion," he said. "If we can bottle up those forces facing Seoul, and take them out, the whole damn invasion could just evaporate."

"Yeah, but if they riddle us, kill our tanks, and slaughter these ROKs, our asses are really in a sling," one of the tank commanders said.

Kitts grinned. "Yeah, truly. So let's keep our behinds out of any slings."

He could see some of the vehicles and troops behind his tanks. The other tank battalion would lead a thrust a half mile to the left of them. If all went well, the two columns would merge at the five-mile point north and swing due west.

Kitts slid down through the hatch on his tank and waited. He'd trained for three years for this night. In those three years he'd had exactly two days of combat. Now it would be a little more. They had to do well. They would do well.

The artillery opened up at precisely 0445. It was almost an hour to sunrise. The artillery started far to the west and worked one unit at a time eastward, until the whole thirty mile front rang with exploding artillery rounds.

He heard the whispers as the 105 and 155 rounds whistled overhead and exploded less than half a mile away. The rounds went in for ten minutes in front of them, three or four a minute exploding in a deadly choreography of death.

Then it was quiet. Ten minutes later jet aircraft dove on the MLR of the North Koreans and unleashed cannon fire and air-to-ground missiles.

At 0510, just as dawn crept over the far hills, the order to move out came. Kitts ordered his tanks to button up and advance with him. He was the first tank in the diamond formation, and thrust forward in his assigned direction. They passed through the South Korean MLR in a narrow path, then expanded in their diamond and charged ahead over the uneven ground at fifteen miles an hour.

Over five hundred troops followed closely behind the clanking, roaring vehicles of sudden death.

"Anything?" Kitts asked his gunner on the intercom.

"Nada, Major." He was using his scope and checking every aspect of the land ahead. "Okay, I have their MLR, there is some firing coming. Machine gun. We'll work the area with a round."

The 105 round fired, and the familiar fumes seeped into the compartment. Kitts watched on the AN/VVG-2 ruby range finder. He saw the muzzle flash of a machine gun; then the whole area of the berm gushed in one large explosion and the flashing stopped.

The tank's 7.62mm machine gun began chattering. He saw more rounds taking out the MLR fortifications the NKs had quickly thrown up two days ago.

Then his tank was at the MLR. His driver edged through the hole their round had made, found no tank trap on the far side, and gunned through the MLR and charged forward.

They were in a series of rise paddies, with their two-foot high dikes around small plots less than fifty feet square. Ahead he could see no troops and no vehicles.

"Check in when you clear the MLR," he radioed his tanks. Quickly six checked in, and before they were a quarter of a mile ahead, the rest reported they had breached the enemy MLR with no problem.

A Captain Casemore came on the radio. He was Infantry with the ROK company directly behind his tank.

"Slow it down, Major. We've got a few nasties to put down along here. Not many, but too many to leave in our rear. Take a five-minute break where you are and let us catch up."

Kitts pulled his rig to a stop, ordered his tanks to stay in place and to keep watching ahead. He spotted a six-by truck on a road a half mile ahead. His gunner swung around, used the M-21 solid-state analog ballistic computer, and zeroed in. Before the truck could get under way, a 105 round jolted into it and blew the truck into scrap metal spread over a two-acre field. Kitts checked his watch. After four minutes of waiting he called the captain on the radio.

"Yeah, we're ready to move, Major. One of your tanks rolled right over a hidden machine gun that was giving my guys fits. Move it now."

Major Kitts rolled his tanks again. They found little opposition. There were no tanks opposing them. Two trucks they saw wound up in the ditch and burning. Along one road, they ran into a string of twenty NK troops, who quickly threw down their weapons and gave up.

Kitts unbuttoned the turret and stood up, checking the terrain ahead.

Twenty minutes later he came to the landmark that had been described, and executed a sharp turn to the right, heading due west.

"Now, things should get more interesting," he told his gunner.

High overhead, Tomcat 204 and 206 flew CAP for the six F/A-18 Hornets from the Monroe. They scanned north for any NK aircraft, and usually came up empty.

The Hornets buzzed around the attack to the north; then when the tanks and the column turned west, they worked ahead, attacking any targets they found.

"Horny One-Sixteen, I've got two trucks on that road down there. Want to take turns?"

"That's a roger, Horny One-Twenty. We'll use the twenties, no sense wasting anything heavier. I'm right behind you."

The Hornets turned toward the slow-moving trucks^ taking a high angle to get more rounds on the rigs from their Mach.9 speed. The first Hornet dumped twenty rounds from his six-barrel gun.

That still left him with five hundred rounds.

"Caught him with three of them, One-Sixteen. See if you can find the fuel tank."

The second Hornet made his run, blasting ten rounds into the lead truck, blowing a front tire, slamming it off the dirt road, and setting it on fire.

"Oh, yes, Doctor," One-Sixteen said. "Now where did that second truck vanish to?"

"Saw him heading for some trees back there, just west of the burning truck. Let's take a look."

"Yeah, got him in there," One-Twenty said. "I'm on him." The F-18 pilot in One-Twenty burned up twenty rounds as he blasted the three trees that hid the North Korean truck. Before the rounds hit, the pilots saw two men running from the woods. After the first run by One-Twenty, the North Korean truck exploded when one round hit the gas tank.

"Now, let's see if we can find a tank or two," One-Sixteen said. "I've still got four Mavericks just looking for a place to call home."

Don Stroh brought the SEALs the latest news about how the war had progressed. The big thrust to cut off the Seoul bulge had gone west fine for five miles, then bogged down with stiff opposition. The North Koreans had six tanks in the area, and evidently were planning a buildup for a thrust of their own.

By noon the big maneuver to end the war had resulted in a stalemate, with neither side getting an advantage. The tanks were behind protection waiting for orders.

General Reynolds was disappointed, the tankers were not happy, and the air support had been less than effective.

This time when Stroh came striding into the assembly room, the SEALs hardly looked at him. He found Murdock and lifted his brows.

"Got a good one for you, Lone Ranger."

Murdock looked up from his MP-5. "Good one what?"

"A mission, an assignment. There's an air base up north that's been giving the flyboys a bad time. It's so well defended with the latest missiles and antiair missiles that they can't penetrate it to knock out the planes that come from there. A lot of the MiGs aren't flying; they're keeping them back for some reason."

"For their big push?"

"Maybe. It's what time now? A little after noon — okay, twelve hundred. You're due at a briefing at one o'clock at Eighth Army HQ. I'll tag along. Don't bother dressing up. Your cammies will be fine."

"When is this party taking place?"

"The mission? If you get the job, it will probably be tomorrow at sunup."

"Sunup, the worst time of the day. That's when a man should be sleeping. I dream of sleeping in to noon every day."

"Sure you do. Let's go for a walk and a jump in a helo."

They arrived at Army HQ south of Seoul with ten minutes to spare. Bird Colonel Chalmers led the session. There was an Air Force colonel, two majors, a master sergeant, and Lieutenant General Reynolds, commander of the Eighth Army in Korea.

Colonel Chalmers briefed them all. "We've tried to neutralize the Sinuju Air Base. It's the major base for the North. They have most of their MiG fighters there. So far we haven't been able to break through their sophisticated air defense. We tried to send in smart missiles, but they get shot down. Our planes can't get near the place without taking fifty-percent casualties. There has to be a better way." He looked at the Air Force man.

"We have a fine little device we call On Sight Radar Targeting, or OSRT. It works well, but must be used by personnel on or near the target. It works with the ground team lighting up exact pinpointed targets with a portable radar unit, which broadcasts that sighting and it's picked up by the attacking planes, which then lock on to the pinpointed target and fire, with devastating results.

"The only trouble is the signal is not as strong as the target's radar in this case, and the plane would have to be well within enemy radar and missile range before we could launch. So that's not an option here. Sorry, Colonel."

"So, what the hell are we going to do about that air base?" General Reynolds asked. When no one spoke, he looked at Don. "Mr. Stroh, you said you might have a suggestion."

Stroh cleared his throat. Generals always had made him nervous. His highest military rank had been corporal. He pointed to Murdock. "Gentlemen, let me introduce Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock. Murdock and his Third Platoon of fourteen SEALs went in and brought out the Vice President from behind enemy lines four days ago. I'm sure you heard about it. On the way over here from the carrier, we talked about the air base problem. I think I'll let him tell you his suggestion."

Murdock had been checking a map on the wall. He stood and went up to it. He touched the map at Sinuju.

"Gentlemen, this must be where the air base is. Is that correct?" Some heads nodded and someone said, "Yes."

"How many of you have seen a sniper rifle, only one chambered for fifty-caliber rounds? There aren't a lot of them around. The best is made by a small machine shop down in Georgia by the name of Georgia Gun Works. My men are specialists in using this weapon.

"My suggestion is this. The McMillan M87R is accurate up to a mile away. We like to get within a thou sand yards for maximum efficiency. What we suggest is this. The Navy will put my SEALs into the water a short ways off the coast. We'll swim in, infiltrate to within a thousand yards of the targets, and wait.

"Then the Air Force will launch a raid at the air base and get close enough so the North Korean air defenses will come on-line, antennas will display, and facilities vital to the operation will swing into action.

"At that time, the SEALs will be able to identify and locate these devices, then reduce the antennas, hardware, and sighting facilities and anything else we can touch with our fifty-caliber messengers. The M87R's armor-piercing fifty caliber rounds are highly effective in putting hardware and antennas out of commission. We think we can do the job.

"While we're at it, the Air Force raid on the field will be diverted until we have the facility neutralized. Then, when we give a SATCOM go-ahead, the Air Force can get back on course and complete the mission.

"During that confusion, the SEALs will move back to the sea, swim out to a pickup by a chopper or high-speed boat off a destroyer. That's it."

"How many of the fifties do you have now, Commander?" the Air Force man asked.

"We carry three. We will need at least six more. The armorer on board the carrier says he has three. We need to find three more in your stores."

One of the majors spoke up. "We have half a dozen in our recon platoon. We can furnish them to you before you chopper back to the carrier." He motioned to the sergeant. "If this is the course of action we're going to take."

"Any other ideas?" General Reynolds asked. He looked around. Nobody said a word. The general sighed. He looked at Murdock again. "You must be the lieutenant commander who rescued one of my Major Generals three miles inside the North Korean lines."

"Yes, sir."

The general laughed softly. "Good work, Commander. If I could, I'd like to have a copy of your after-action report on that incident. Be good to keep it on file if I need it."

"Be happy to send you one, General."

The oldest man in the room shifted in his chair and stifled a groan. He looked at Murdock again. "Son, are you sure that this will work?"

"No, sir. Fifty-caliber armor-piercing rounds simply don't come with a guarantee, but this sort of action has worked well before. Just to be cautious, you might have the Air Force send three planes over the target in a test run before committing the whole flight. If they don't draw a hail of fire, the whole group should be relatively safe."

The Air Force man nodded. "We've been probing it every day for the past four."

Murdock looked at the general. "Sir, do the SEALs have this assignment?"

The general looked around his staff advisors. Most of them nodded. "I agree, Commander. You and your men have the job. Good luck getting it done, and exfiltrating. No unit in the Eighth could do a mission like this one."

"We'll do our damndest, General. Now, if we could be excused, we'll pick up the weapons and get back to the carrier. We have a lot of planning to take care of."

"You're excused, Commander. Good hunting."

It took them a half hour to sign the paperwork for the fifty-caliber weapons and get them to the chopper and loaded on board. The fifties all had the five-round magazine instead of the ten-rounders the SEALs usually used.

"Ammo?" the major asked.

"Thanks, we've got plenty," Murdock said. "We better get moving."

The major drove them in a Humvee to the airport where the Seahawk that brought them in was warming up. "How far are we from that air base?" Murdock asked Stroh over the scream of the rotor blades as the craft took off.

"That's what we'll have to figure, and how to get you up there and back. A destroyer?"

"Yeah, too far for an RIB. A chopper might attract too much attention. We don't want to have to swim more than a mile or so to shore."

"We'll talk with the carrier guys."

They did a half hour later. They had the CAG, a captain who handled the fleet screen security, and two commanders Murdock didn't know.

"From the Monroe to that town up north is about two hundred and seventy-five miles — if we don't overfly any of North Korea, which we can't do," CAG Olson said.

"A destroyer at thirty knots could get up there in about eight hours," one of the commanders said. "That would be a permanent platform for you, a base of operations."

Murdock nodded. "Okay, up there by destroyer, then we take the two RIBs that we used before and motor in to a half mile offshore and swim on in. We'll have two Motorolas with two in the RIBs.

The RIBs will wait for us to come out. Since it'll be daylight by then, they might move in closer and give us some support with their machine guns if we need it. We'll go in to hit the beach about 0300. That should give us time to get through any coastal defenses, find the airfield, and get in position where we'll have the best shots at the antiair antennas. Then we wait for dawn to bring in the Air Force. We send them a go message on our SATCOM. That way we avoid any problem with forwarded messages through the RIB coxswains and the destroyer. We can contact the Air Force on TAC One. Then the Air Force can send in the attack. We'll have it timed down to about a half hour either way. It will have to be light when the NKs bring out their defenses. Otherwise we won't know what to shoot at."

"You'll take the whole platoon?" Stroh asked.

"Yes, all thirteen of us. Nine fifties and four subguns on guard duty. The destroyer can stay six or seven miles offshore away from any surface radar."

Stroh looked at his watch. "Eight hours. It's now almost three… fifteen hundred. You better get your men ready while the captain picks out the lucky destroyer and we get our two RIBs on board and get you a chopper to that destroyer."

"Have your men ready to travel and on the flight deck in an hour, Commander," the fleet screen commander said. "We'll send the RIBs to the destroyer before you go. We'll have chow for you on the destroyer. We'll assign the Cole to you, that's the DDG 67. Let's move it, people."

Stroh talked to the Air Force by radio, and found they had some aerial recon photos of the North Korean air base and surrounding area. He had them faxed to the Cole, where they would be waiting for Murdock.

Murdock had called Jaybird on the way into the meeting with the CAG and the captain, and told him about the mission and to get the men ready to roll. They would have an eight hour boat ride to get their weapons and equipment checked.

As it turned out, they were dropped on board the Cole moments after another chopper put their RIB boats on the fantail. They had arrived on the destroyer more than an hour before the 1800 departure time.

The SEALs were given a modest-sized assembly room amidships, and there rearranged their weapons. Sterling, Holt, Adams, and DeWitt kept their submachine guns. Everyone else was issued a .50-caliber sniper rifle. All had fired it at least fifty times before.

"Listen up," Murdock said. "We'll go over the mission again. We will be taking an eight-hour ride north near the port city of Sinuju, damn near the Chinese border. Our target is the big air base there south of the town.

"We will be shooting up everything that shows that it is, or even looks like it might be, radar equipment, antennas, firing centers, missile-launching centers, radar of any kind or type. That's our job. We need to blind these folks so they can't see the UN planes coming in.

"We shoot hell out of them, get back to the coast, and take a swim out to our RIBs and we're home free."

"How many rounds will we each have?" Bradford asked.

"How many can you carry?" Murdock asked. "I'm thinking forty rounds per man is about right." Bradford shrugged. "They weigh nine pounds per dozen. Make it forty-eight per man; that's only thirty-six pounds for ammo."

Somebody groaned.

"Can we get ammo vests, those front and back pouches we've used to carry mortar rounds in?" Ronson asked.

"Jaybird, see what you can find out from the ammo guys on board. You subgun guys will take double ammo, and hope we don't need it. You'll be our close support."

Jaybird finished using the phone and came back to the group. "We've got vests for ammo. Somebody is bringing up ten of them for us. All the ammo we need will be here in an hour."

"Chow time in two hours," Murdock said. "Then some sack time and we'll be ready to get on the RIB at 0200. Any questions?" There weren't any. "We've got some daylight pictures of the target. Can't see much, but we know we'll have good fields of fire at the antennas from the south end of the field. Come up and look at them if you want to."

Half the men moved up to check out the photo faxes that had come from the Air Force. Six sailors showed up at the door with boxes of ammunition.

"You guys starting a war?" one of the sailors asked.

"No, we're ending one," Jaybird told the man as they stacked the crates of .50-caliber rounds inside the room. Murdock was the first one there to try a load of forty-eight rounds. He put twenty-four in the front of the vest and the other half in the back with it in place over his head. He stood up and winced.

"We'll cut the load to forty rounds," he said. "Thirty-five in the vest and five in the magazine. Let's get it done."

"Move it," Jaybird called. "We've got less than an hour and a half to our special chow call."