No one had found it. And the result had been an unsatisfactory compromise. A compromise he himself disliked despite having been its chief proponent.
It was, however, the only realistic policy China could follow at this stage in the renewed Korean War. The Politburo was just too evenly split among the conservatives, moderates, and Party liberals to adopt a less equivocal position.
The Premier nodded to himself as he emerged from a vast gateway topped by a stone-carved Imperial dragon. The policy he’d urged and won was the best of the immediate alternatives available to China. And it was the best precisely because it could be altered to match ebbs and flows in the complicated military and political game being played out in Korea.
China had been losing the competition with the Soviets for influence in North Korea for years. She simply did not have enough of the high-tech weaponry Kim Il-Sung and his son lusted after. And the Premier knew that the failed assassination attempt launched by his predecessor against the elder Kim had been the last straw. It had given the younger Kim the power he needed to throw North Korea firmly into the Soviet camp.
Given that, some of the more liberal and moderate members of the Politburo had argued for open opposition to North Korea’s aggression. They were openly contemptuous of Kim’s antiquated Stalinism and “cult of personality.” But the Premier had squelched that talk swiftly. The Party hard-liners still had more than enough power to successfully resist action they would see as a betrayal of their fellow communists in Pyongyang. Especially when the North Korean offensive seemed to be going so well. And China could not risk yet another internal power struggle in the midst of a serious international crisis.
At the same time, his nation could not afford to openly support North Korea’s actions. First, it wouldn’t gain them anything in Pyongyang — the Soviets were too firmly entrenched. More important, open support for the North while it was killing American soldiers in combat would almost certainly cost China its hard-won commercial links to the U.S. — trade agreements vital to the PRC’s continued economic growth. That was too bitter a pill for even the hard-liners to swallow.
Even the alternative of declared, open neutrality was unacceptable. In fact, perhaps the most unacceptable option of all. A declaration of disinterest in a war being waged in its own stated sphere of influence would make a mockery of China’s claims to status as a world power.
And that was why the Politburo had finally adopted his suggestion that it adopt no clear-cut position. Instead, it would ship Kim Il-Sung the weapons and supplies he’d requested while officially terming the war “an internal affair to be resolved by the Korean people.” And the Premier planned a quiet chat with the American ambassador to help the U.S. understand his position. Such behind-the-scenes diplomacy might help avert an American overreaction to China’s logistical support for Kim’s invasion. Or, at any rate, so he hoped.
The compromise, while unsatisfying, was at least susceptible to change should the battlefield situation itself change. And the Premier’s technically trained engineer’s mind regarded that flexibility as a virtue in and of itself.
He glanced at his watch. It was time to turn and head back to his office for his scheduled meeting with the Rural Electrification Committee. With an effort he shoved the considerations of war and international politics out of his consciousness — making way for thoughts about small hydroelectric dams and coal-fired power plants.
China had made its decision. Now it would await events in South Korea’s snow-covered hills and frozen rice paddies.
Major General Andrew Pittman, USMC, handed the FLASH message from Washington to his division ops officer, the J-3. A frown creased his weather-beaten face and crinkled the bushy, black eyebrows that were his trademark and most prominent feature. His Texas twang was even more pronounced than usual after a full night without sleep. “Well, what do you think, Brad? How much longer before we’re packed up and ready to ship out for Pohang?”
Tall, stick-thin Colonel Owen Bradley Strang scanned the priority message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and handed it back to his boss. He ran a hand over his shaved scalp, absentmindedly ruffling long-gone hair. “Breaking every rule and shortcutting every procedure the way we’ve been doing it since the commandant called?”
Pittman nodded.
The colonel shrugged. “We’ll have the two infantry regiments, the First Amphib battalion, the Headquarters battalion, and the Third Recon aboard ship with all their gear within the next twenty-four hours. The artillery, Divisional Support Group, and the Seventh Commo battalion will take longer.
“Best guess, Brad.”
Strang looked out down the truck-choked road leading to the harbor. Storm clouds had rolled in on Okinawa toward midnight, bringing with them gusting winds and periodic rain squalls. Even with the sun up, the Navy’s harbormaster had been forced by poor visibility to keep the furnace-white arc lights along the quays burning. And in their glare, Strang could see more than a score of gray-painted Navy amphibious ships pitching and tossing in heavy, gray-green seas.
As the trucks carrying troops or equipment crawled through the traffic up to the harbor’s main gate, Marine and Navy officers in rain slickers and camouflage ponchos assigned their cargos to specific ships. The division would sail from Okinawa combat-loaded, with vital stores and gear dispersed so that losing any given ship to enemy air or sub attack wouldn’t cripple the Marines before they could reach the battlefield.
Strang turned back to his commander. “With the weather playing up like this, it’s going to take us at least seventy-two hours to get everything saddled up.” Even that was a miracle made possible only by constant practice and detailed prewar planning. Strang thanked God for the annual Team Spirit exercises they’d held in South Korea.
Both men fell silent as a rain-laden burst of wind rattled against the window.
Then Strang cleared his throat. “Of course, we could always break the division up. Sail now with most of the troops and let the heavies follow on afterward.”
But Pittman shook his head. “That’s a no go, Brad. I talked to the admiral earlier this morning. The Navy’s classified the whole Korea Straits a high-threat area, and he doesn’t have enough escorts available to adequately guard two convoys.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, beating out a martial-sounding tattoo. Then the general looked up. “Okay. Seventy-two hours it is.”
He scribbled a hasty reply to the Joint Chiefs’ message and handed it to Strang for coding and transmission.
The colonel had his hand on the doorknob when he heard Pittman’s voice from behind him. “One thing, Brad.”
Strang turned. “Yes, General?”
“No screw-ups. Anything not aboard in seventy-two hours is gonna get left on the beach. And I don’t want to leave anything on the beach, clear?”
The colonel nodded. “Aye, aye, sir. I hear you loud and clear.” The Marines were going to war, and Pittman wanted every rifle, every grenade, and every piece of equipment in there with them.
Northern California’s low, rolling hills were also being soaked by cold winter rains — rains thrown by a Pacific storm moving inland to dump snow on the High Sierras.
The rain puddled on Travis Air Force Base’s extra-long, reinforced runways, taking on an oily sheen in the flood-lit night.
One puddle on the main runway vaporized, cast into a million infinitesimal droplets by the backblast from the four mammoth jet engines of a Military Air Command C-5 transport plane. The C-5 rolled on in a thundering roar as its engines reached full thrust and it picked up flying speed, lumbered heavily into the air, and arced gently over onto a westward course.
The plane’s engine noises faded, their place taken by the howling, high-pitched screams of other C-5s and C-141s, as they taxied onto the slick tarmac for takeoff or waited motionless while troops and gear of the Army’s 7th Light Infantry Division were loaded on board. A ceaseless flow of buses and trucks from Fort Ord — the 7th’s stateside base — rolled off Highway 80, through the main gates, and onto the field to add to the long lines of combat-ready soldiers waiting their turn to clamber aboard a troop carrier.
The airlift to South Korea had gotten underway as soon as a significant number of the division’s scattered
