location from the air.
With a sudden roar, four snub-winged Harriers flashed overhead toward the North Korean positions, flying in pairs. As each jet pulled up sharply and to the right, it threw sixteen small, finned objects tumbling into the village: five-hundred-pound Mark 82 general purpose bombs. They went off in an endless, teeth-rattling series of sun-white explosions.
Other explosions flashed amid the shattered houses. The battalion’s mortars were joining in — tossing white phosphorus rounds that had a dual purpose. Burn and maim the enemy while building a blinding curtain of smoke.
“Marines!” Kruger bounced to his feet, M16 in hand. Helmeted heads all across the field turned to watch him. He climbed high onto a paddy dike and waved his hand toward the gray-cloaked, burning village. “Advance!”
“
It took fifteen minutes of bloody, close-in fighting to clear the town. But at the end of it the road lay open and undefended.
Major Park Dae-Hwan stared approvingly at the carnage around him. The attack had been sudden, unexpected, and savage — perfect in fact. Bodies littered the camouflaged camp, some in full uniform, others entangled in sleeping bags or naked in the snow. Most of the North Koreans had been cut down in the first minute. Few had even had time to grab their personal weapons.
He smiled thinly. The communists had concealed their headquarters well, hiding its tents, armored vehicles, and radio gear in among the towering trees of a small pine forest. It would have been almost impossible to spot from the air. Of course, that same abundant cover had made it possible for this South Korean Special Forces team to sneak right up to the camp perimeter without being spotted.
Park snapped a new magazine into his CAR-15 carbine and slung it across his shoulder. Then he whistled sharply, summoning his Black Berets to the rally point. They’d idled here long enough. He and his team had been inserted by helicopter behind enemy lines two days before and held in readiness for just such a mission. Now they had other work to do. The communists had a whole network of supply dumps, communications facilities, and security detachments posted along this highway. Park intended to destroy them.
“Sir!” Sergeant Kwon came toward him with something clutched in his hand. Park remembered seeing the burly sergeant sawing away at the uniform of one of the North Korean officers.
Kwon stopped in front of him, saluted, and held out a strip of cloth. “A trophy for your collection, Major.” The sergeant grinned broadly at his own joke.
Park took the rigid piece of cloth and stared at it. A shoulder board with a single star. The insignia of a People’s Army major general. He nodded in satisfaction. One of the six North Korean divisions trying to stem General McLaren’s attack had just lost its commander and its entire staff.
He slipped the dead general’s shoulder board into his tunic and turned to leave. His men followed in single file. They had a long march ahead to reach the next objective.
“Gunner! Sabot! Tank at ten o’clock!” The South Korean captain felt his M-48’s turret swing left and waited.
“Up!”
“Fire!” The tank bucked as its 105-millimeter main gun went off with a loud roar. Acrid fumes filled the turret as it recoiled and spit out a used shell casing. The gunner hurriedly loaded another armor-piercing shell. It wasn’t necessary.
Their target, a T-55, sat burning on the raised shoulder of the highway. Fifteen others were scattered across the iced-over rice paddies, wrecked and on fire. It was over. The counterattacking North Korean armored battalion had been slaughtered — caught charging across open ground by twenty South Korean tanks waiting hull-down behind the highway embankment. A single M-48 sat mangled, its turret ripped open by a communist shell.
The captain undogged his hatch and stood high in the turret, gulping down deep breaths of fresh air. Although the entire engagement had taken just five frantic minutes, he was exhausted, worn ragged by the extraordinary combination of extreme physical exertion, fear, and intense concentration needed in battle.
The brigade commander’s voice crackled through his headphones. “All units. Continue the advance in echelon. Division objective is now Uch’on.”
The M-48’s commander squinted into the setting sun and nodded to himself. The village of Uch’on lay eleven kilometers ahead. They just might be able to make it before nightfall. And that would put the division’s lead elements more than thirty kilometers past what had once been the thinly held North Korean main line of resistance.
Thunderbolt had broken through.
The two generals stood together in the shadow thrown by a tall tree. Both were bundled against the cold.
Off to the south Taejon’s battered skyline glowed faintly with the light of a hundred fires, and smoke rising from the city stained the sky a dull, barren black. At this distance the sounds of the fighting were muted, reduced to little more than the quiet crackling of small-arms fire interspersed with the heavier thumping noises made by artillery and mortar rounds.
Colonel General Cho Hyun-Jae grimaced. “I fear, Chyong, that we stand on the edge of disaster. You’ve heard the reports?”
Lieutenant General Chyong nodded. They’d begun picking up the scattered transmissions earlier in the morning. First, news of a possible amphibious invasion on the coast near Seoul. Then, fragmentary reports of a massive assault force rolling out of the eastern mountains. Every signal had been garbled — a victim of imperialist radio jamming. Nothing was certain.
Chyong studied his commander carefully. The older man looked inexpressibly weary. “Is there more news?”
Cho shrugged, barely lifting his shoulders. “Nothing. I’ve dispatched couriers to each of the division headquarters with word to send me more details. I’ve heard nothing from them.” He shook his head. “Since my security troops report that the countryside behind us is crawling with puppet government assassins, I suspect that my messengers have been intercepted.” He drew a hand across his throat.
“Perhaps.”
Cho looked down at his hands. “In any event, our course is clear. We must shift forces northward to meet this enemy thrust. The imperialists cannot be allowed to sever our line of communications. We must counterattack.”
He turned away from the sight of Taejon. “I shall need two of your best divisions, Chyong, and two more from the Fourth Corps. I’ll also need two of the three armored regiments supporting your attack.”
Chyong frowned. Cho’s requisitions would leave his corps a toothless tiger, incapable of capturing the city. And there were other problems that could not be ignored. “My forces are at your disposal, comrade. But my casualties have been very heavy. Even my best units are barely at half-strength.” He moved closer. “Worse yet, our supplies are extremely low — food, ammunition, fuel, everything. There may not be enough fuel to move my tanks far enough north to attack the imperialists.”
Cho’s lips thinned in anger. “I am aware of your supply problems, comrade. Intimately aware!” He took a breath, trying to relax. “Pyongyang has assured me that resupply columns are moving south at this moment. Your tanks will have their fuel. That I promise you.”
Chyong wished his leader sounded more confident that Pyongyang’s promises would be fulfilled.
Major Chon looked at the dark, undulating landscape flowing by five hundred feet beneath his plane. The moon had risen an hour ago, and it now threw just enough light to keep him out of trouble. He glanced quickly back over his shoulder and then forward again. The three other A-10s of his flight were still in position, following him at three hundred knots.
He smiled beneath his oxygen mask. Technically, A-10s weren’t night-capable aircraft, but the high command was throwing everything it had into this counteroffensive. Their orders were clear — to keep the pressure on the
