communications status.
Matthews waited till he was done before she told him about Major Price.
The XO sent her out to find a medic while he walked over to where Price was.
Outside the TOC not much had changed. In the distance Matthews could see numerous shell holes where the antennas had been. Men from the signal platoon were already scurrying about, putting up spare antennas and checking cable connections. Matthews headed for the medical team assigned to the command post. As she approached its area, located on the far side of a small rise that separated the TOC from where the CP's admin- support vehicles were, she heard the sound of tracked vehicles.
The ambulance, which was a tracked vehicle, she thought, was cranking up and coming to the TOC. She had almost reached there when the scream 'BMPs!' from that direction told her she was wrong. Matthews froze for a moment and-listened:- A burst of machine-gun fire, joined by the sound of small-caliber cannon confirmed her fears. The Soviets had somehow managed to penetrate into the brigade's rear and were attacking the CP.
Her immediate instinct, to turn and run, was overridden by the urge to see exactly what was going on so that she could render an accurate report. Dropping down, she rapidly crawled up to the top of the rise and looked over.
To her front she saw six BMPs moving forward in a loose formation.
Trucks and personnel from the headquarters company were scattering about in an effort to escape them. The BMPs, given so many easy targets, slowed or stopped and fired wildly at whatever happened to be in their sights. They obviously did not know that there was a CP on the other side of the hill.
Having seen all she needed, Matthews ran back to the TOC. The XO had heard the firing and was already directing the remaining staff to throw what was really critical into the M-577 tracked command-post carriers and get ready to move. Matthews reported to him what she had seen. He thought about it for a moment, then told her to get the S-2's M-577 track ready and moving.
She asked about Major Price, reminding the XO that they couldn't move him.
He barked at her, telling her to get the M-577 out of there.
At the back of the S-2 track she saw Sergeant Trent and another NCO, who had managed to get Major Price strapped onto a long wooden table and were in the process of carrying him into the track. Matthews gave a hand as best she could as they eased the major down onto the floor.
Despite the fact that he was in a great deal of pain, he did not scream. He clawed at the edges of the table while the lieutenant and two sergeants bounced and bumped it against the side of the track. His face was contorted in pain.
His knuckles were white. But he did not scream.
Once they were in, Trent yelled to the driver to crank the track up and raise the back ramp. Matthews looked about and saw that the intelligence situation map was already loaded. She turned to Trent, told him to wait a moment and ran out of the track. The S-3 track was already pulling away, leaving the shredded extensions and support poles as well as field desks and unnecessary paper and books.
Matthews looked around what had been the S-2 area and grabbed a couple of books and binders. The sound of machine-gun fire grew closer.
Sergeant Trent's yells hastened her search. She looked down at the mass of papers scattered about the ground and decided that efforts to recover more would be useless.
She turned and ran up to the crew door located on the rear ramp, which was now up and locked. With a heave she dumped the books she held in her arms into the open door and then hopped in after them. Sergeant Trent grabbed her arm and pulled her in as he yelled to the driver to move out and follow the S-3 track. Matthews, lying on the floor of the track as it began to move and bounce away, saw through the open crew door a BMP come over the rise. It began to fire at them. With effort, Trent was finally able to close that door just before a burst of machine-gun rounds tapped on the outside of the ramp.
For a moment, all was silent except for the sound of the M-577's engine, the grinding of its tracks and the heavy breathing of its occupants. The four people in the rear sat or lay where they were in the dark interior of the command-post carrier, drained by the close escape. None of them knew what was going on outside, let alone with the battle, a battle now obviously out of control and being lost.
Despite his better judgment, Lieutenant General Weir had gone into the corps operations center when he got word that the Soviet attack had begun. Anxiously he watched the situation turn sour. Successive cups of coffee did nothing to calm him as the corps staff, already used to a string of disasters, thrashed about in a futile attempt to gain an understanding of what was happening. Weir, pacing and fuming, saw Air Force and Army air units thrown into the fray without coordination at widely scattered targets and enemy concentrations, most of which were not an immediate threat to the 2nd Brigade. Orders to withdraw the entire brigade to Tarom were canceled and then put back into effect twice in the space of one hour.
The deputy corps commander, a major general, went from staff section to staff section in an effort to influence the situation. He alternated between yelling at the corps signal officer and the operations of cer whom he threatened to relieve of his duties unless he got a handle on the situation. Sometime during midmorning the deputy commander received word that the corps commander, who was at the forward corps command post at Saadatabad, had collapsed. Seizing the opportunity to escape the chaos and ignorance of the main command post, the deputy decided to go forward and 'get control of the situation.' Weir watched and listened as the deputy ordered the corps chief of staff to reorganize the staff as he saw fit, reestablish communications and begin to focus combat power at the point of penetration, wherever that was. The deputy then left by helicopter for Saadatabad.
Weir stayed for another half hour without seeing any change. Unable to bear sitting there doing nothing while he watched the 13th Corps, and one of his brigades, go down the tubes, he stormed out and headed for his own advance command post. En route, he scribbled notes, his mind racing through options open to his corps. As he did so, he wondered whether any of the naval officers in the area had ever studied the British evacuation at Dunkirk. As distasteful as that thought was, he could not discount the possibility that the U.S. forces could be forced to withdraw. The warning his friend had given him the night before he left Washington, that the United States could not afford to lose all the ground forces in Iran, kept popping up in his mind. He included
'Evacuation of forces' on his list of options right after 'Request for release and use of tactical nuclear weapons.'
At his headquarters Weir was greeted by his own chief of staff with word from the chief of staff of the 13th Corps that the helicopter carrying the 13th Corps's deputy commander had been shot down. Initial reports were that there were no survivors. Given the current situation and the rapid loss of both senior officers, the 13th Corps's chief of staff had requested that General Weir assume command.
For a moment, Weir considered telling him no, or at least consulting with the CINC. That, however, would take time, a commodity quickly running out.
Weir asked his chief how long it would be before the 10th Corps headquarters could assume control of the battle. The chief, having anticipated the question, told him that while not all the staff principals were in place, the operations staff, the fire-support element, the plans section and the airspace-management element were preparing to do so and could be ready for a battle takeover from 13th Corps in three or four hours, but that the 13th would need to continue to control all personnel and logistic operations for at least another twenty-four hours. The 10th Corps G-1 and G-4 as well as the corps support command were still heavily involved in assembling the 10th Corps. Satisfied that his chief had the situation well in hand, Weir told him to inform the 13th Corps chief of staff that he was en route back and wanted to see all 13th Corps staff principals and special staff officers upon his arrival. He handed his chief his scribbled notes, told him to have his staff start working on those options, and left.
The greeting he got at 13th Corps headquarters was cold and strained.
He was no longer a visitor or an observer. He was their commander, come to replace two who had failed or died. The officers and the men watched him the way the condemned watches the executioner. The staff was assembled in a small dirty conference room, seated around a long table cluttered with scraps of paper. When Weir walked in, they slowly stood to attention. Their faces betrayed a mixture of fear, exhaustion and stress. They're beat, Weir thought to himself as he stood there and looked at them. They've lost the battle and have given up. For an awkward moment, they looked at each other, not knowing quite how to proceed.
In his desperate search for some way to get the 13th Corps staff going again, the Battle of Marengo suddenly
