CHAPTER 20
Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.
November 18, 1950
The hour was late. On any other day, Douglas MacArthur would have stopped working by now. He had not intended today be any different from the others. The small but growing stack of papers on his desk, itself a difference and an unwelcome one at that, meant he could not leave his office, not yet. Some meetings had to be had.
“Sit, General, sit.” he said as Doyle Hickey entered the room and saluted. “I wish for this to be as brief as we can possibly make it.”
“As you wish, sir.” Hickey said, sitting down. “What do you need?”
“Read those papers.” he commanded. There was at least a dozen of them, many of them several pages long. Even read quickly, it would take over an hour to get through them all.
Hickey began to read, and for a couple of minutes MacArthur wondered if his deputy chief of staff would need that hour to get through them all. Then he said “sir, these are speeches by General Patton. And you’ve marked them.”
“Precisely, General.” MacArthur said. “Read the parts I marked again. Do you sense a theme?”
Hickey mumbled to himself as he read the papers – much more quickly this time – aloud. Then he realised. “Nazis. Huns. Even a kraut or two. He’s not even referring to his time in Europe half the time.”
“Not in any of those.” MacArthur said. “Every one of those has him labelling the Chinese with the same insults he would have used in Europe. Curious, really. I’m starting to wonder if he thinks he never left at all.”
“Sir, why did you ask me to meet you?” Hickey asked. “If it is merely to listen to Patton some more, well I already do that for an hour or more each day, and I hope you understand how tiresome he can be.”
“Where do you think I got these papers?” MacArthur asked.
“I beg your pardon, sir.” Hickey said, although he couldn’t possibly have misheard.
“Where do you think I got these papers?” MacArthur repeated calmly.
“I don’t know, sir.” Hickey said. “I suppose the soldiers might have copied the speeches down, I know folks who did so when he gave that famous one in England, but a corporal’s diary isn’t too likely to end up on your desk.”
“That corporal tells his comrades-in-arms. Then they tell theirs. Before long, someone who knows someone in the press corps has told the story. If it comes out of Patton’s mouth, that time is short indeed. They end up in front of my censors. The first of these papers is from September 2nd. The reporter thought it a mistake at first, albeit a strange one, so we changed the word to ‘Communist’ and suppressed the matter.” MacArthur said. “Unfortunately, secrets have a habit of leaking. Our friend George knows that better than anyone – that slapping fiasco was world news four months after it happened. This will get out eventually. When they do, I worry that Washington will start rubbing their noses in the war effort again.”
“Sir, that does not answer my earlier question. Why do you need me?” Hickey asked again.
“Because you know Patton.” MacArthur said. “You served under him, and now you converse with him much more often than I do. We both know I would like to retain George in command. I would like your advice on whether that is possible.”
Hickey leaned back in his chair and sighed. “He has not had one full day of rest, not even on the flight to Midway, since he arrived in the summer. George’s sixty-fifth birthday passed a few days ago, and commanding an army is hard work for an old man.” Realising MacArthur had already passed seventy, he said a quick “sorry, sir.”
“Carry on.” said MacArthur unbothered.
“I was talking with a major on Willoughby’s staff the other day, and that major also knows someone on Patton’s intel team. Word is, back at Pyongyang, someone there made a statement, that this war is going to kill George.” Hickey said. “Unless this war ends shortly, I believe they’re right.”
“How long do you mean by shortly?” MacArthur asked.
“The end of winter, perhaps sooner if Washington grows concerned.” Hickey said. “The more gaffes he makes, the more likely it becomes.”
A loud knocking on the door interrupted the two generals. “What is it?” MacArthur called.
“Urgent message for General MacArthur, sir.” the voice – Almond, MacArthur realised – said.
“Come in, Ned.” MacArthur said.
“Sir, the Chinese have launched another major offensive.” Almond said. “All across the line, began less than an hour ago.”
“Find Pinky Wright.” MacArthur ordered. “Tell him to have X Corps embarked immediately and en route for Iwon.”
As Almond left, Hickey spoke up once again. “I’d like to amend my previous statement. Make it, ‘the end of this offensive’.”
“And why is that?” MacArthur asked.
“Because if this fails, Patton won’t be able to launch another one.” Hickey said. “That’ll kill him worse than any bullet ever could.”
MacArthur dismissed him and headed to the room where the teletype operators worked. “Put me through to Washington.” he ordered. “Marshall made us a promise and I’m holding him to it.”
***
Lieutenant General John B. Coulter hoped the Korean family that owned this place never found out that he had ever been here. The map wall was more pin holes than it was wall at this point: the pins didn’t represent very large units, and North Korea was a big place when you measured it by the battalion. The pins moved, but the holes would remain forever. Since this latest offensive, there were a lot more holes than ever before. Yellow pins, representing the Chinese, were to blame.
“Sir, it’s Major Fleming again.” one of his aides said, offering the telephone.
“What is it, Harry?” Coulter asked, taking it. This offensive was far worse than the last had been – there wasn’t any time for pleasant greetings tonight.
“Our lead elements report that they’ve been surrounded.” Major Harry Fleming replied. “We’re near Toksil, ten miles south of Changjin.”
“Lead elements? How big are we talking?” Coulter asked. Fleming was attached to a regimental command, but the guy attached to the next regiment in the line had gotten killed about a week ago, so more often than not he spoke for the whole division now.
“200 men, near enough.” Fleming said. “Colonel Lim thinks the whole 6th Division is going to be cut off if we don’t pull back immediately.”
“He is to hold his ground.” Coulter said firmly. “No retreats. Dig in and wait. What are your supplies like?”
“96 hours, maybe a bit more.” Fleming said automatically. Patton, or more likely his logistics bosses, had ordered every Korean unit to keep three days’ worth of supplies on hand at all times. This plan of theirs was relying on the Koreans remaining in the fight for some time.
“Good. I’ll say it again, hold out where you are. That’s an order from the top.” Coulter said, putting down the phone.
“So what do you think?” he asked his intelligence chief after another yellow pin went into the wall and he explained it.
“There’s a lot of them.” Colonel James Tarkenton said. “Just how many, there’s no way of knowing. It could be 70,000 like Willoughby thinks. It could be 700,000.”
“Koch thinks it’s about 200.” Coulter observed.
“He thought that.” Tarkenton corrected. “This one’s a lot bigger than last time. Everything I’ve seen of Koch tells me he knows what he’s doing too.”
“More than you did?” Coulter asked jokingly. They both knew that one of Patton’s first actions as Eighth Army’s new commander was to sack half of the old staff, and that included Tarkenton. Quite a few of them worked for Coulter now instead.
Tarkenton just chuckled. “None of us had a chance against the Bastogne gang. And if they’re right, the ROKs could be in trouble. 200,000 outnumbers them almost two-to-one. Worse if there’s more. Up in the mountains, it might not matter too much. Can’t move anywhere except straight into the lines. I’d be worried about this area though.” he said, pointing towards the flatter lands of the northwest.
“Why’s that?” Coulter asked.
“If those pins have any bearing at all on the enemy’s relative strength, most of the CCF is going to be falling on the ROKs at their weakest point. Patton’s gambling with the lives of his men telling them to hold Onjong.” Tarkenton said.
“Not our men.” Coulter said. “Koreans. And I doubt he cares a bit.”
***
November 19, 1950
“Sir, you asked to see me.” Lieutenant Commander William T. Amen said, saluting as he waited at the door of the Eighth Army headquarters.
Returning the salute, Patton ordered him to “come in, come in.” He waved to an empty chair and lit a cigar. “I’m told you’re the only son of a bitch around here who’s managed to knock one of those things down.” A picture, taken about a week ago, was sitting on the table showing a MiG-15 leaving behind a trail of smoke.
“The new jet? I believe I was the first, sir, but I’m sure the other pilots could do just as well against them given time.” Amen said.
“Yes, the damned Russian jet. Doug MacArthur will be sending more B-29s up to flatten what’s left of North Korea as soon as this weather clears up a bit, and I want to know what we’re in for.” Patton said. He also knew two B-29s had been lost in a recent raid on Kim Il-sung’s mountain citadel at Kanggye, but the pilot didn’t need to know about those.
“Sir, put bluntly, they are better than anything we’ve got. I was flying a Panther, a Navy plane, and it was a lot faster than that. A guy I know who flies an F-80 said much the same thing. By the looks of things, those ones are built as interceptors. Send bombers in, a lot of them won’t return.” Amen said.
“And what did you think of the pilots?” Patton asked. “Russian, or Chinese?” He didn’t even bother acknowledging the possibility of Korean pilots. Kim Il-sung’s puny air force had been wiped out months ago. If they had any crews worth knowing about, they had hidden them well.
“They’re pros.” Amen decided. “And they don’t want to be caught, that’s for sure. Even with that fantastic plane of theirs, the first thing they do when they see us is turn for the north and scram. I’ve seen them twice in the last couple of weeks, they didn’t hang around for more than a minute either time. But anywhere within fifty miles of the Yalu, especially the west part of the country, that’s going to be dangerous. Unless we get better planes, we’re going to lose a lot of pilots up there.”
“That smells like the Russians.” Patton said. “If we captured a Chinese, it’d be like the hundreds of the bastards the gooks picked up already. No-one would care. Why the hell would they hide it? The Russians now, they still want to pretend they’re not the ones who started this mess.”
Before Amen could reply, Colonel Landrum came into the room and said “Sir, Admiral Struble reports the fleet is nearing… the landing sites.” he hesitated saying Iwon, as the operation was still technically a secret even though a Navy man undoubtedly knew about it in some form. “Less than two hours before we begin unloading.”
“I have to see it.” Patton decided. “You find out everything that Commander Amen knows about the new Commie plane and send the report to Stratemeyer. Commander, it was nice speaking with you.”
Then he got up and found Sergeant Mims. His plane would be waiting at the nearby airstrip. That could get him to Hamhung, a little more than half the way. A jeep would be waiting for him at the other side. The trip might – just – be possible in two hours. Eighth Army was moving up at full speed now, but it wouldn’t meet the enemy until tomorrow at the earliest. The staff could manage without him. If they couldn’t... he’d have found a new staff years ago.
- BNC