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Praetorium Honoris

Friday, September 29, 2023

The Hill - Hell on Earth

(Source)
Sauer was halfway to the squad's machine gun position when the first Chinese artillery round impacted about 20 meters behind the trench line. As he hugged the earth, knowing that more would follow, Sauer had the odd thought that he still thought in terms of meters, not yards.

The next round was much closer and the explosion seemed to push him away from the shelter of the bottom of the trench. It was almost as if Mother Earth was trying to throw him up into the fragment-filled air outside of the trench.

Sauer was crawling as fast as he could in the direction of his 1st Squad's MG team, but it was slow going. The ground was shaking and heaving as the artillery continued to fall all around his position. For a moment he stopped crawling and buried his face in the dirt, his arms covering his helmet.

Another explosion, this one too close. His ears were ringing and it felt as if a weight was across his legs. He panicked at the thought of being buried alive.

"Come on Freddy, move your ass!"

He heard the voice, dull and as if from a great distance. Two sets of hands were pulling him forward, his legs had been buried when the section of trench just behind him had collapsed.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," he managed to say, shaking himself free of his rescuers. He was amazed that he still held his rifle in his hands.

Corporal Brett Worthington was pulling him forward, "Come on Freddy, we need you on the gun!"


Pvt. Dana Parsons was screaming in pain and in fear. A nearby hit had thrown him back from the machine gun and blasted dirt and stones into his face. He was blinded and the panic was starting to overwhelm him. The he heard the .30 cal stop firing.

"Shit, shit, shit ..." he stuttered then he began yelling, "Hey, I need someone on the gun, I can't see! I can't see!"

Someone pulled him backwards and told him to shut up. He heard someone yelling, he realized it was the German guy, Sauer. Damn, where'd he come from?


"Schnell, wasche ihm das Gesicht ab! Scheiße! Water, wash his face off! It's just dirt in his eyes!" Sauer realized that he had broken into German, it happened in moments of extreme stress.

"Help me get this body out of the way!" he yelled at the nearest man.

"Shit, it's f**king Smitty!" the man yelled when they rolled the body away from the gun.

"He's dead, if you don't to wish to join him, grab that ammo belt and feed me!" Sauer was frantically checking the gun, other than some dirt in the feed, which he cleared, it seemed to be okay.

When the gun was loaded he looked down the slope, it was crawling with Chinese infantry. They had followed the barrage in.


"That's it Nate, rounds complete. The arty is going for the Chicom guns, we're on our own now." Hernandez dropped the radio handset and turned to head out of the bunker.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"We've still got our mortars, the batteries in the radio are dead. I'll get them going. We're in the shit now, Cap!"

Paddock looked through the observation slit, lots of smoke, very little visibility to the front, so he grabbed his carbine and stepped out of the bunker.

"Jesus, it's f**king freezing," he hissed as the cold air hit his lungs. Then he was in action, the Chinese were almost in the trench.


The company mortars started banging away, dropping their rounds within 50 yards of the trench line. As Hernandez made his way back to the CP, he heard the sound of a carbine firing, nearly as fast as the man holding it could pull the trigger.

Coming around a corner, he saw the CP, Captain Paddock was reloading his weapon and didn't see a Chinese soldier rushing towards him, bayonet at the charge.

Hernandez snapped off a round, it missed but it startled the enemy soldier. The man turned towards Hernandez, sheer hatred painting his face. Before he could act on that hatred, Paddock shot the man in the torso from point blank range.

As the soldier went down, Hernandez put a round into him as well. That snapped the man's head back throwing his soft winter cap, and most of his brains, back against the trench wall.

"Jesus, Sir, I can't leave you alone for a minute!" Hernandez had grabbed a spare battery for the CP radio down at the mortar pits. He handed it to Paddock.

"Fix the radio, I'll watch your back."


The Chinese tried one more push, but as they did so, the sun began to rise. The enemy knew that with the dawn, the American Air Force would make its presence felt.

The bugles sounded, and the enemy tide slowly ebbed back down the slopes of the bloodied hill. The snow leading up to the crest had been churned into a dirty brown, that near the top had been stained red with blood.


The platoons began to report in, Hernandez had his notebook out as Paddock relayed the casualty figures to him -

"First platoon, three wounded in need of immediate evac, six men wounded but ambulatory, seven dead, including the platoon sergeant and one of the squad leaders."

"Second platoon, seventeen wounded, twelve dead, the damned Chinese nearly overran them, it was hand to hand for a while before Third Platoon counterattacked with a squad and drove the bastards back down the hill."

"Third Platoon ..." Paddock paused, Mike Masterson had been a good friend.

"Seven dead, including the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader ..."

"Masterson?" Hernandez stopped writing, looking at Paddock in shock.

"Yeah, seven dead, twelve wounded, one of 'em isn't going to make it unless we can get his ass down the hill ..."

"SHIT!" Paddock slammed the handset down and buried his face in his hands, "The guy just died, make that eight dead."

Hernandez got up and placed a hand on his Captain's shoulder, he picked up the handset. Paddock shrugged it off and went outside, "I need a smoke, Top."

"This is Top, who's this?"

"Hey Top, it's Winthrop. L.T.'s f**king dead, man, S/Sgt Henderson just f**king died, Jesus it's a mess over here, Top. F**king Second Squad's CP looks like a slaughterhouse."

"Calm down, take a deep breath, Bobby. You've gotta pull yourself together. Who's left of your squad leaders?"

"Uh, lemme think. I don't know where Thornton is, hell I've got fifteen guys with me, Parsons is half-blind, Sauer and Johnson are on our last MG, covering the front of the line. We need reinforcements, man!"

Paddock came back in, he looked better, "Top, get over there and sort things out. Runner from battalion just told me that Baker Company is moving up out of reserve, we're going back down the hill. To regroup battalion says, with what I asked them. Jesus why did I stay in the f**king Army?"


Corporal Brett Worthington met Hernandez as he came into the area belonging to Second Squad, "Ain't much left Top, the survivors are all shell shocked, worse thing I've ever seen, and I was on the f**king 'Canal.¹"

Hernandez followed Worthington, it looked like he and Winthrop were the only unhurt noncoms. "We're going back down the hill, into reserve, as soon as Baker relieves us. For now you're the man in Third Platoon, Bobby." He said, looking at Winthrop.

"Brett, you've got first squad ..." he was looking around to see who else he knew who might hold the platoon together for the next day or so.

Making a decision he said, "Sauer, you're a corporal as of right now. Parsons, you gonna live?"

Dana Parsons looked sheepishly at the ground, "Yeah, I think so Top."

"Good. Winthrop, who else ..."

"Parsons is good on the gun, he panicked a bit, but so would I if I thought I was blind and every Chicom in the world was attacking my position. Hell, give him what's left of his own squad, at least until we can get another Sergeant."

Hernandez nodded, "Parsons, you're a Corporal, for now. All right Third, get your shit together, we're packing up soon. Ah, here's our relief now."

A platoon from Baker was entering the trenches, a number of the men looked aghast at the devastation the Chinese attack had left behind.

Hernandez had seen it all before, but it made him sick to his stomach. He wondered if the Goddamned politicians of the world would ever get sick of trying to take what wasn't theirs. Damn them all he thought to himself, damn them all to Hell.


34 comments:

  1. A well named story, far more intense than any sandbox firefight I was in.

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  2. Past few readings are a reminder that Korea was the second go for some servicemen seldom being recognized as "3 War Veterans" - WWII-Korea-Vietnam". And troopies like Sauer would also come to serve in the soon to be expanding ranks of SF.

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    1. Pretty sure we had about the same number of dead in three years in Korea that ten years in Nam produced.
      In one of the very few instances that my maternal Uncle spoke to me about Korea he talked about how he couldn't really tell who he'd hit because " they were packed together". Drafted, he came home a SSG with a Combat Medics Badge and an"informal" CIB since he couldn't have both.
      Boat Guy

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    2. Any Mouse - There were those who saw combat in all three of those wars.

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    3. BG - Roughly 37,000 killed in Korea, roughly 58,000 in Vietnam. So the fighting in Korea was far more intense. (For comparison, roughly 405,000 Americans were killed in WWII.)

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    4. Would have been a lot less dead in Vietnam if Bobby Strange McNamara and LBJ (hwack-ptooie) hadn't lowered the IQ requirement for the Draft.

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    5. And, yeah, lots of casualties in Korea. Now let's talk about all those dead ChiComs.

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    6. Beans #1 - Would have been a lot less dead if neither one of those two assclowns went into government "service."

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    7. Beans #2 - Yup. lots of those as well. Not to mention the number of dead and maimed Koreans.

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  3. Some went to war and never really came back, shuffling from war to war, even changing nations to remain in war.

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  4. A long horrific night, over two dozen dead, three dozen wounded.......yah, time to leave the Hill.

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    1. Yeah, fighting like that will wear a unit down to nothing in very short order.

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  5. Sarge, one of things I wonder is how much "war" had changed between the end of WW II and the Korean War. There were technological advances that happened even right up to the end; I have a sense (not more than that) that it was very different in some aspects.

    "He wondered if the Goddamned politicians of the world would ever get sick of trying to take what wasn't theirs. Damn them all he thought to himself, damn them all to Hell." Still, even to this day, we are exactly in the same place.

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    1. Korea was more like WWI than WWII, in my estimation. Due to the political "realities" of the time, there would be no sweeping advances into the enemy country to end the war, no bombing of the enemy homeland until they gave up. Besides which, the real enemy wasn't even directly involved, the USSR. Their proxies, the Chicoms, might have made an inviting target for bombing and the like, but no one wanted another world war so soon after the last one.

      Instead we got the long nightmare of the Cold War, invisible to most civilians, very real to those on the sharp edge.

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    2. Well, there were all those very Slavic looking pilots....

      As to Tech, we continued improving on the Proximity Fuse, on Napalm, on better long range artillery, on aircraft. Not a huge tech leap, that would be waiting for the semiconductor revolution to affect.

      Though things like using rifle powder in the ammo for carbines kind of messed up our tech.

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    3. Not enough to make a difference.

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  6. Once humans figured out that they could convince other humans to die for the convincer's desires, war became eternal. The only question is "Whose flag?"

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  7. intense chapter - great writing - can't wait for the next

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  8. The answer to the question in the second to last sentence?

    NO

    May they all rot in Hell.

    juvat

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  9. Improvements in medical systems really aided the survival of non-dead casualties. Yet another improvement worked on between wars. And new drugs and treatments. Though once dead, yeah, no coming back from that.

    What still amazes me is the sheer number of Norks and ChiComs that were killed. Yet they kept coming on and coming on. Crazy war. We had the war won, until the ChiComs showed up.

    Overall, Korea, what's that Wellington line? "A near run thing" or something?

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    1. The improvement in medical treatment and evacuation of the wounded was the big thing from Korea.

      As to the Chinese, we had inklings that they would come in if we advanced to the Yalu. And we ignored that.

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    2. The advances in casualty care between 1898 and 1998 are nothing short of miraculous. Not just the "doc" treatment part, but the organization for evacuation, the placement of treatment facilities, helicopters, and the urgency for getting troops treated instead of laying on the field of battle. The medical profession part is equally important and astounding. Well done to all.

      The philosophical difference between the Christian-Judeo emphasis on preservation of life, contracted to our often barbaric opponents who worship death more than we value life.
      JB

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    3. Our enemies were part of a slave society, where obedience to the State is paramount. Subjects, not citizens.

      The advances in medical care on the battlefield, and close by, were nothing short of amazing. Now if we could get similar advances in the care of those permanently damaged psychologically, that would be great. (Or we could just execute those politicians who want war. Probably cheaper that way.)

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  10. Not saying "no" but execution is a final option. At least at the federal level, I'd favor a "people's court". No question though that in some manner or form, politicians are in extreme need of "encouragement" to do their utmost in performing their elected or appointed duties. Allegiance to party has to be tertiary to our Constitution and citizens.

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    1. Beans, I prefer Wellingtons other comment - 'Believe me, only a battle lost can be close to as sad as a battle won.'.

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