Patton in Korea/MacArthur in the White House
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Part III, Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.
November 23, 1950
“My God!” one Marine called out. “It’s turkey!”
“Course it’s turkey, you nimwit. It’s Thanksgiving today.” his buddy replied.
Brigadier General ‘Chesty’ Puller had heard at least a hundred versions of that exchange throughout the day. Someone higher up, possibly Patton or MacArthur, or perhaps an officer in Washington, had decided that every soldier in Korea would get a turkey ration for Thanksgiving. The logistics of the effort had been a mess, and not everyone would get the special ration today (though Patton promised that more would arrive through the weekend). He expected they would be thankful for it even if it came three days late.
They had pushed as far north as Sangni, not much more than twenty miles from the Yalu. The one decent road in the area was mediocre even by Korean standards, but in this terrain neither side strayed far from it. The valley it crossed was a mile above sea level, the nearby mountains could reach half that again. The mercury had reached forty below a time or two, enough to freeze your face off in a few minutes if you weren’t careful. The Chinese were tough, tough bastards, but these trackless wastes could be too much even for them. A lot of men who strayed from the road simply vanished in the mountains. The Chinese who came back would be trouble, so he kept one of his regiments ten or fifteen miles behind the rest of the advance.
One thing was for sure though, the Chinese had not expected an entire American corps to attack in this sector. The ROKs hadn’t even sent a full division in this area, and the Chinese had barely matched them. It hadn’t taken a whole lot more for the Marines to rout them.
Unfortunately, not all routs lasted forever.
The Chinese counterattack began as the evening twilight turned to night. Many Marines had moved into the mountains just off the sides of the road, careful not to stray too far and find themselves lost in the wilderness. Their positions were visible in spite of the terrain: fires burning to keep men warm were fires that the enemy could attempt to capture.
Puller fixed his bayonet to his rifle. A star shell burst above them. Beyond this position lay the Yalu River, and that meant victory. With men as good as these, Puller was confident of victory. All the Chinamen in the world couldn’t stop a division of Marines from going wherever the hell they wanted, and they wanted to go north.
***
November 25, 1950
Second Lieutenant Carl Dodd had served seven years in the Army. For nearly all of that time, it had been a fulfilling and rewarding experience (so rewarding, in fact, that he had been given a battlefield commission and could now call himself an officer). Right now, as this halftrack carried his squad towards Onjong in western North Korea, he wished he had picked a different career path. His home state of Kentucky occasionally got snow. It certainly didn’t get anything like this. There was a kid from Idaho in the squad. When he said that it was “bloody goddamn cold”, you could bet your life’s savings that you were in for a miserable time.
As the halftrack jolted on one of the bumps on this lousy road, the captain tried standing up as a way of getting the troops’ attention. When he almost fell out the side, he gave up on that and sat back down.
“Men, remember that you’re going into one of the roughest battlefields in Korea. The 34th Regiment has run into a bit of trouble with the Red Chinese just past Onjong, so they’re sending us in to help out. Our orders are to attack as soon as we reach the front, take some of the pressure off.” The captain said. “Remember, we’re less than fifty miles from the Chinese border. A win here, and we’ll be just a short step away from winning the war.”
Dodd took the opportunity to finish a tin of C-rations. They didn’t taste very good: even after spending two or three hours in the pocket of his winter coat, and that coat covered by his other coat, they still felt like they came straight out of the icebox. Then he threw the tin behind his back. Some of the guys in the squad kept them: if you lit a bunch of leaves with a Zippo and stuffed them in there, you could have yourself a miniature fireplace. Seeing as he was about to go into battle, he wasn’t too keen about having extra things to carry.
The halftrack rattled through the town of Onjong, which looked like hell. Then it drove over the frozen river, where a team of engineers were building a proper bridge to replace the one the communists (or American bombers) had wrecked. Two miles further up the road, the driver called out. “Here’s where I’ve been told to drop you. The front’s about eight hundred yards further up. Stay safe!”
Dodd, and the rest of the men, jumped out of the halftrack and onto the snow-covered ground. For a moment he worried that the squad might leave a track with their footprints, but the wind was blowing like hell and the little bit of snow that was falling would cover them before too long. Nothing to worry about.
Well, almost nothing. This forested hill or mountain or whatever it was… was too quiet. If it was a half mile or less from the front, he expected to be hearing the constant chatter of small-arms fire at the very least. This was eerie.
“Get down!” he ordered, quietly, his squad. “Stay close to the trees too.”
That kid from Idaho – still as green as grass – began to say something. “Sir…?”
“Shut it!” Dodd snapped, no louder than before.
Too late. From somewhere in the forest, a dozen or more communist weapons barked. He pointed his Garand in the direction of the fire, and pulled the trigger. It didn’t fire. Something in it had jammed. As quickly as he could, he pulled it back and began to strip the gun. He noticed the firing mechanism had frozen solid. He looked up to see a Chinaman pointing his bayonet straight at his guts.
***
November 29, 1950
This was it. The Yalu River. That ages-old, mighty barrier between nations, was now a barrier between the UN forces and those of the communists. Here, just off the outskirts of Hyesanjin, that was quite literally the case. Further west, especially west of the Chosin Reservoir, Patton knew there were still a lot of Chinese in the way. Oscar Koch had revised his estimate of the Chinese strength up to 300,000, and just about all of them had struck in that flatter, western part of the country. Eighth Army had struck back, and was on the move if only slowly. He was confident they would push the remaining forty miles or so before Christmas. Syngman Rhee would never receive a card from the general, but if things went well the bastard might receive a united country as a gift this year. The very thought of giving that son of a bitch anything for Christmas made Patton consider dragging out I Corps’ offensive until December 26 just to spite him.
For now, Chesty Puller’s Marines had become the first unit, Korean or American, to reach the Yalu. Here, the oft-discussed river was a pathetic little thing. If you stood on the south bank, you could almost piss across the ice into Red China. Had the weather been better, he would have pissed in the river itself, just like he had the Seine and the Rhine. It wouldn’t be practical to do that today, and he wasn’t interested in waiting around until the spring thaw to try it. If he was still in Asia in the following March, he wouldn’t be in Korea any more. Red China needed to be purged of communist influence just as their puppet state had.
Patton had also expected MacArthur to come here today. MacArthur hardly ever travelled to Korea, and he never stayed for any length of time when he did, but he made a habit of being seen whenever a victory was won. He’d come to Taejon. He’d come to Seoul. He’d come to Pyongyang. He said he would come for the North Koreans’ surrender. Today, Hickey had explained, MacArthur had some important meeting with a prominent Japanese leader, trying to get things ready for Japan’s independence. Instead, he had sent some camera crews and reporters with orders to announce the United Nations’ triumph to the world. The Chinese hadn’t been seen in these parts since Chesty pushed them over the river. Technically this was the front line, but the enemy was nowhere to be seen. If they were out here, Patton just hoped they were a good shot. Maybe his death would convince that coward Truman to actually do something about Red China.
For now, he had a speech to give, standing at the edge of the south bank. He had wanted to give the speech standing in the middle of the river, but the people in charge of setting up microphones and cameras refused to get any closer to what was still supposed to be a battlefield. Oh well, the show would go on.
“Today, a man on my staff informed me that I may be the first general in history to fight four different wars, on four different continents, and to win them all. Even Alexander only managed three. I am often asked why this has become the case, and every time this is asked I give the same answer. Our men. Not the tanks, not the planes, not the bombs, it is always the men that get things done. The brave men that make up our Army, our Navy, our Marines, our Air Force, and of course the International Brigades that have given their support to the cause of the United Nations, it is because of them that I can stand here today on the Yalu River. I say ‘thank you’, but more to the point I say ‘good job’.
“When I say ‘good job’, that does not mean that the job is done. Not at all. There is a job out there still to be done, and it seems to me that an awful lot of sons of bitches out there have forgotten what the hell we’re actually doing out here. This war is not six months old. It has been going for the last thirty-three years, ever since those destroyers sailed into Petrograd and the bastards inside began calling for world revolution. Anyone who speaks of the ‘Korean War’ has forgotten our enemy’s intentions. Their war is not cold, or Korean, or whatever words are used to describe it by the yellow bastards who think these people can be reasoned with. Their war is perennial. Today they hide behind a curtain of iron, but we have seen already that they will stick their hands out and stab us at any opportunity.
“We fought the Revolutionary War for the cause of the rights of man. We fought the Civil War to bring about the end of slavery. The Huns on the other side of this river have made a habit of trampling upon these things. If we are to truly uphold the values we swore to defend and protect, this war can only have one outcome.”
He drew his sword from its sheath. It was a Model 1913 Cavalry Sword, a sabre that he had personally designed. His beloved weapon had never seen combat use. Swords may not have a place on the battlefield any more, something he thought to be a real shame. They were still far better than any gun when it came time to make dramatic gestures.
“An outcome,” he said, raising his sword high into the air, “where the hammer and the sickle are no more welcomed in the world than is the goddamned swastika!”
He drove the sword into the ice of the Yalu, right through what had until now been a small crack.
Before the words were even fully out of his mouth, two Chinese rifles barked behind him. Patton never saw the pair of bullets that knocked him to the ground.
- BNC
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.
November 23, 1950
“My God!” one Marine called out. “It’s turkey!”
“Course it’s turkey, you nimwit. It’s Thanksgiving today.” his buddy replied.
Brigadier General ‘Chesty’ Puller had heard at least a hundred versions of that exchange throughout the day. Someone higher up, possibly Patton or MacArthur, or perhaps an officer in Washington, had decided that every soldier in Korea would get a turkey ration for Thanksgiving. The logistics of the effort had been a mess, and not everyone would get the special ration today (though Patton promised that more would arrive through the weekend). He expected they would be thankful for it even if it came three days late.
They had pushed as far north as Sangni, not much more than twenty miles from the Yalu. The one decent road in the area was mediocre even by Korean standards, but in this terrain neither side strayed far from it. The valley it crossed was a mile above sea level, the nearby mountains could reach half that again. The mercury had reached forty below a time or two, enough to freeze your face off in a few minutes if you weren’t careful. The Chinese were tough, tough bastards, but these trackless wastes could be too much even for them. A lot of men who strayed from the road simply vanished in the mountains. The Chinese who came back would be trouble, so he kept one of his regiments ten or fifteen miles behind the rest of the advance.
One thing was for sure though, the Chinese had not expected an entire American corps to attack in this sector. The ROKs hadn’t even sent a full division in this area, and the Chinese had barely matched them. It hadn’t taken a whole lot more for the Marines to rout them.
Unfortunately, not all routs lasted forever.
The Chinese counterattack began as the evening twilight turned to night. Many Marines had moved into the mountains just off the sides of the road, careful not to stray too far and find themselves lost in the wilderness. Their positions were visible in spite of the terrain: fires burning to keep men warm were fires that the enemy could attempt to capture.
Puller fixed his bayonet to his rifle. A star shell burst above them. Beyond this position lay the Yalu River, and that meant victory. With men as good as these, Puller was confident of victory. All the Chinamen in the world couldn’t stop a division of Marines from going wherever the hell they wanted, and they wanted to go north.
***
November 25, 1950
Second Lieutenant Carl Dodd had served seven years in the Army. For nearly all of that time, it had been a fulfilling and rewarding experience (so rewarding, in fact, that he had been given a battlefield commission and could now call himself an officer). Right now, as this halftrack carried his squad towards Onjong in western North Korea, he wished he had picked a different career path. His home state of Kentucky occasionally got snow. It certainly didn’t get anything like this. There was a kid from Idaho in the squad. When he said that it was “bloody goddamn cold”, you could bet your life’s savings that you were in for a miserable time.
As the halftrack jolted on one of the bumps on this lousy road, the captain tried standing up as a way of getting the troops’ attention. When he almost fell out the side, he gave up on that and sat back down.
“Men, remember that you’re going into one of the roughest battlefields in Korea. The 34th Regiment has run into a bit of trouble with the Red Chinese just past Onjong, so they’re sending us in to help out. Our orders are to attack as soon as we reach the front, take some of the pressure off.” The captain said. “Remember, we’re less than fifty miles from the Chinese border. A win here, and we’ll be just a short step away from winning the war.”
Dodd took the opportunity to finish a tin of C-rations. They didn’t taste very good: even after spending two or three hours in the pocket of his winter coat, and that coat covered by his other coat, they still felt like they came straight out of the icebox. Then he threw the tin behind his back. Some of the guys in the squad kept them: if you lit a bunch of leaves with a Zippo and stuffed them in there, you could have yourself a miniature fireplace. Seeing as he was about to go into battle, he wasn’t too keen about having extra things to carry.
The halftrack rattled through the town of Onjong, which looked like hell. Then it drove over the frozen river, where a team of engineers were building a proper bridge to replace the one the communists (or American bombers) had wrecked. Two miles further up the road, the driver called out. “Here’s where I’ve been told to drop you. The front’s about eight hundred yards further up. Stay safe!”
Dodd, and the rest of the men, jumped out of the halftrack and onto the snow-covered ground. For a moment he worried that the squad might leave a track with their footprints, but the wind was blowing like hell and the little bit of snow that was falling would cover them before too long. Nothing to worry about.
Well, almost nothing. This forested hill or mountain or whatever it was… was too quiet. If it was a half mile or less from the front, he expected to be hearing the constant chatter of small-arms fire at the very least. This was eerie.
“Get down!” he ordered, quietly, his squad. “Stay close to the trees too.”
That kid from Idaho – still as green as grass – began to say something. “Sir…?”
“Shut it!” Dodd snapped, no louder than before.
Too late. From somewhere in the forest, a dozen or more communist weapons barked. He pointed his Garand in the direction of the fire, and pulled the trigger. It didn’t fire. Something in it had jammed. As quickly as he could, he pulled it back and began to strip the gun. He noticed the firing mechanism had frozen solid. He looked up to see a Chinaman pointing his bayonet straight at his guts.
***
November 29, 1950
This was it. The Yalu River. That ages-old, mighty barrier between nations, was now a barrier between the UN forces and those of the communists. Here, just off the outskirts of Hyesanjin, that was quite literally the case. Further west, especially west of the Chosin Reservoir, Patton knew there were still a lot of Chinese in the way. Oscar Koch had revised his estimate of the Chinese strength up to 300,000, and just about all of them had struck in that flatter, western part of the country. Eighth Army had struck back, and was on the move if only slowly. He was confident they would push the remaining forty miles or so before Christmas. Syngman Rhee would never receive a card from the general, but if things went well the bastard might receive a united country as a gift this year. The very thought of giving that son of a bitch anything for Christmas made Patton consider dragging out I Corps’ offensive until December 26 just to spite him.
For now, Chesty Puller’s Marines had become the first unit, Korean or American, to reach the Yalu. Here, the oft-discussed river was a pathetic little thing. If you stood on the south bank, you could almost piss across the ice into Red China. Had the weather been better, he would have pissed in the river itself, just like he had the Seine and the Rhine. It wouldn’t be practical to do that today, and he wasn’t interested in waiting around until the spring thaw to try it. If he was still in Asia in the following March, he wouldn’t be in Korea any more. Red China needed to be purged of communist influence just as their puppet state had.
Patton had also expected MacArthur to come here today. MacArthur hardly ever travelled to Korea, and he never stayed for any length of time when he did, but he made a habit of being seen whenever a victory was won. He’d come to Taejon. He’d come to Seoul. He’d come to Pyongyang. He said he would come for the North Koreans’ surrender. Today, Hickey had explained, MacArthur had some important meeting with a prominent Japanese leader, trying to get things ready for Japan’s independence. Instead, he had sent some camera crews and reporters with orders to announce the United Nations’ triumph to the world. The Chinese hadn’t been seen in these parts since Chesty pushed them over the river. Technically this was the front line, but the enemy was nowhere to be seen. If they were out here, Patton just hoped they were a good shot. Maybe his death would convince that coward Truman to actually do something about Red China.
For now, he had a speech to give, standing at the edge of the south bank. He had wanted to give the speech standing in the middle of the river, but the people in charge of setting up microphones and cameras refused to get any closer to what was still supposed to be a battlefield. Oh well, the show would go on.
“Today, a man on my staff informed me that I may be the first general in history to fight four different wars, on four different continents, and to win them all. Even Alexander only managed three. I am often asked why this has become the case, and every time this is asked I give the same answer. Our men. Not the tanks, not the planes, not the bombs, it is always the men that get things done. The brave men that make up our Army, our Navy, our Marines, our Air Force, and of course the International Brigades that have given their support to the cause of the United Nations, it is because of them that I can stand here today on the Yalu River. I say ‘thank you’, but more to the point I say ‘good job’.
“When I say ‘good job’, that does not mean that the job is done. Not at all. There is a job out there still to be done, and it seems to me that an awful lot of sons of bitches out there have forgotten what the hell we’re actually doing out here. This war is not six months old. It has been going for the last thirty-three years, ever since those destroyers sailed into Petrograd and the bastards inside began calling for world revolution. Anyone who speaks of the ‘Korean War’ has forgotten our enemy’s intentions. Their war is not cold, or Korean, or whatever words are used to describe it by the yellow bastards who think these people can be reasoned with. Their war is perennial. Today they hide behind a curtain of iron, but we have seen already that they will stick their hands out and stab us at any opportunity.
“We fought the Revolutionary War for the cause of the rights of man. We fought the Civil War to bring about the end of slavery. The Huns on the other side of this river have made a habit of trampling upon these things. If we are to truly uphold the values we swore to defend and protect, this war can only have one outcome.”
He drew his sword from its sheath. It was a Model 1913 Cavalry Sword, a sabre that he had personally designed. His beloved weapon had never seen combat use. Swords may not have a place on the battlefield any more, something he thought to be a real shame. They were still far better than any gun when it came time to make dramatic gestures.
“An outcome,” he said, raising his sword high into the air, “where the hammer and the sickle are no more welcomed in the world than is the goddamned swastika!”
He drove the sword into the ice of the Yalu, right through what had until now been a small crack.
Before the words were even fully out of his mouth, two Chinese rifles barked behind him. Patton never saw the pair of bullets that knocked him to the ground.
- BNC
That was rather unexpected and will undoubtedly have some major consequences. I think the Chinese might regret this action soon-ish
I think he would have preferred firing his revolver at the enemy.
Well. In some way if he truly was killed, it 'do have the opposite effect and it's probably that 'd backfire to the Chinese.
Cause, while on one hand, his last (?) speech if he 'd has stayed alive 'd be a bigger political headache for the current US administration and possible it 'd have been granted his removal from his command...
His, (seemingly) death and circumstances of it, I think that only would magnify, out of all proportion both his figure and mainly his last speech political contents. Even, possibly to become it, among the more anti-Communists, in a 'call to act' on the way that had been delineated by the gral. Patton...
Cause, while on one hand, his last (?) speech if he 'd has stayed alive 'd be a bigger political headache for the current US administration and possible it 'd have been granted his removal from his command...
His, (seemingly) death and circumstances of it, I think that only would magnify, out of all proportion both his figure and mainly his last speech political contents. Even, possibly to become it, among the more anti-Communists, in a 'call to act' on the way that had been delineated by the gral. Patton...
Mao will negotiate, he knows the faster he negotiates the faster he can keep a lid on this storm.
The the Yalu will be the DMZ. Korea will be quite bloody TTL as they try to root out the communists, making all the massacres committed in OTL small in comparison.
If Korea manage to replicate it's OTL development it could possible rival Japan with a population of at least 100 million.
The the Yalu will be the DMZ. Korea will be quite bloody TTL as they try to root out the communists, making all the massacres committed in OTL small in comparison.
If Korea manage to replicate it's OTL development it could possible rival Japan with a population of at least 100 million.
Sergeants Meeks and Mims dropped the captured rifles and prepared to walk the mile and a half back down river to the ford they had crossed 2 hours previously.
"Godspeed, old man. I hope the send off was everything you hoped for."
I might have seen it coming, but it's still no fun seeing Patton get shot 
If he does go out, hopefully he will be avenged tenfold and the war wrapped up ASAP.
If he does go out, hopefully he will be avenged tenfold and the war wrapped up ASAP.
marathag
Banned
Or Teddy Roosevelt, shot in the Speech.I might have seen it coming, but it's still no fun seeing Patton get shot
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