troops and the MAC plane crews could be recalled from their Christmas leaves. Many men were still enroute, caught by the crisis at home in cities and towns all across the U. S. As they trickled in, haggard and wan, already sapped by jet lag and family worries, the nonstop cycle of loadings, takeoffs, and landings continued. It would go on without respite for another ninety-six hours.
CHAPTER 25
The Big Picture
McLaren walked into the tent almost unannounced. A few people near the door noticed his entry and started to straighten to attention, but he waved them down. Everyone was too tired and too busy to waste time with Regular Army bullshit.
McLaren was tired, too, but not as exhausted as he had been earlier. Once they’d got the Army’s field HQ up and running, he’d bugged out for a four-hour nap in his command trailer. He’d long ago learned the old soldier’s lesson that you should grab sleep whenever and wherever possible. It had been drummed into his head as a company and battalion commander in Nam.
He scanned the worn faces of his staff. It was obvious that he’d have to start enforcing the same kind of sleep discipline on them. He didn’t want men too tired to think straight trying to run his army’s logistics or write operations orders.
McLaren saw Hansen in the far corner and caught his eye. His aide nodded and moved to the front of the large, wood-floored tent that served as the HQ’s Operations Center. Hansen stepped up onto a low platform backed by wall-sized maps.
“Gentlemen, the general would like to get this afternoon’s brief underway.” Officers around the tent looked up at Hansen’s words and moved to find chairs.
McLaren sat in the front row.
Normally briefings were set-piece affairs, the presenters in their best uniforms, following a ritual older than they were. Everyone afraid of making a mistake in front of the big boss, but wanting to do their best, too. The room was always as still as a church, except for the briefer’s voice and the whirr of a projector showing carefully prepared slides.
That kind of protocol had gone right out the window when real bombs started dropping. Now there were people running in and out with printouts and other scraps of paper. Everybody was in cold weather gear and BDUs, mottled baggy uniforms that were worn in combat. Everyone wore a sidearm. And now a chance to sit down meant a chance to eat.
A paper plate materialized in front of McLaren. Corned beef sandwich, chips, and pickles. His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t put anything in it since early last evening. He picked up the sandwich and bit into it, chewing wolfishly. Some of his own fatigue fell away at the first taste.
Still chewing, he glanced up at the short, portly officer waiting to kick the briefing off — Colonel Logan, his J- 2.
McLaren didn’t like the expression on Logan’s face. He was worried, a little wide-eyed. Well, let’s see what we’ve got to be worried about, the general thought.
“Good afternoon, sir. I’m going to start with a short rundown on what we now know of the North Korean drives and their order of battle.” Logan looked down at his notes, took a deep breath, and said, “Finally, I’ll try to indicate likely courses of enemy action over the next several days.”
In other words, McLaren thought, he’s gonna try to predict what the bastards will do next. Good luck, Charlie.
Logan walked over to a map that had been taped up on the tent wall. It showed all of the DMZ and the upper third of South Korea. McLaren leaned forward, eager to get the big picture. He had been out of circulation for four hours.
“North Korean forces are making attacks all along the DMZ. They’ve had their greatest success in the west and have gained the most ground there.” Logan tapped the map with a pointer, indicating an area running from roughly Tongjang in the west to Ch’orwon in the east. “This is flattest terrain and the easiest to attack over, especially with the rice paddies frozen. Their assaults along the eastern portion of the DMZ haven’t been backed by the same level of firepower or Special Forces support. We’re evaluating those as holding attacks — intended largely to pin down our troops in the east.”
McLaren nodded to himself. No surprises there. South Korea’s geography closed off a lot of North Korea’s offensive options. The mountains and razor-backed ridges running down the eastern half of the Korean peninsula formed a natural barrier to ward off any would-be attacker.
Logan continued his dry-mouthed recitation of the available facts. “In the west, we face two main attacks. One launched down Highway One by the North Korean Second Corps, and the other moving down Highway Three along the Uijongbu Corridor. That one’s being spearheaded by the enemy’s Fifth Corps. Both corps have been heavily reinforced. We’ve identified elements of at least two armored, four mechanized, and eight infantry divisions in these attacks.”
There were gasps around the room. Neither enemy force had been listed on the Eighth Army’s prior OB charts as containing more than half that strength. Somehow the North Koreans had been able to double the number of their troops along selected portions of the DMZ without alerting either American or South Korean intelligence.
“The enemy’s Fifth Corps drive has already captured Yonch’on. In the west, they’ve pushed up to the outskirts of Munsan.” Logan looked soberly at the assembled officers. “In other words, the North Koreans are already across the Imjin River.”
McLaren scowled. That was bad. The Imjin had always been viewed as a principal backstop for the allied forces deployed along the DMZ. Prewar staff studies had estimated it would take the North Koreans a minimum of two days to push that far south. They’d done it in less than sixteen hours.
And Munsan was a quarter of the way to Seoul. Seoul was the center of it all. It had a population of eleven million in a country of forty million people. Damn the geography that placed the political, cultural, and economic center of the country within forty kilometers of a hostile border.
Logan finished describing the known positions and strengths of the attacking forces. They were pushing hard, using Soviet steamroller tactics — attacking everywhere until they found a weakness, then concentrating everything at that point. McLaren listened to his J-2 with half his mind. The other half was busy considering options. The North Koreans were showing they could play the Soviet ball game well, demonstrating a dangerous grasp of speed and offensive firepower. But there were weaknesses, too. Weaknesses he and his troops would have to be ready to exploit. Soviet tactics weren’t too flexible. If they could find ways to seize the initiative, to disrupt the smooth unfolding of the North Korean plan, they should be able to throw the enemy commanders off balance.
McLaren filed the thought away for future consideration and turned his full attention back to the briefing. The J-2 had moved on to a discussion of the new North Korean equipment they’d identified so far. One of Logan’s assistants came up front with a slide screen and another turned on a slide projector. The first image was a fuzzy black-and-white shot, so blurred it was only a collection of angular shapes. It was an airplane.
“This was taken from the videotape of a fighter that fought last night. This is a MiG-29 Fulcrum, a Soviet design that has been recently added to the enemy inventory. It’s a very advanced aircraft, a match for our F-16s. But that’s not all. The Soviets have provided the North Koreans with other weapons.”
He put up another slide. In color, it showed several tanks against a typical Korean winter landscape. “These are T-72 tanks, one generation advanced over the T-62s that we thought were their newest models. It has a bigger gun, better armor, and is much faster than the T-62. This is a complete surprise to us.”
A buzz of conversation swept through the crowded Operations tent, and Logan waited for it to die away before continuing, reacting to the irritated disbelief he’d heard from his fellow staff officers: “Yeah, I know.” He looked at the general.
“Sir, I am very embarrassed that we didn’t know about this new equipment in the enemy’s inventory. We had some information from ROK Army Intelligence that the stuff was present, but it was disregarded because we
