Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 09 - Under Fire

"That was interesting, wasn't it?" Howe said. "You made it pretty plain what you think of Harriman. What did you think of Ridgway?"

"Good man," Pickering replied instantly.

"Could he take over for the Viceroy?" Howe asked. "The President's going to want to know what we think about that."

"No man is indispensable," Pickering said thoughtfully. "I learned that when my father-whom I regarded much as I regard MacArthur-suddenly checked out and left me in change of PandFE. But I repeat what I said before: Relieving MacArthur would be criminally stupid."

"Harriman was right about one thing, Flem. You are naive. At this level, political considerations do matter to military brass."

"I had the feeling in there, again, Ralph, that I was out of my league," Pickering said.

"I was a buck general, a division artillery commander, when the division commander had a heart attack. My corps commander named me commander over two other guys, regular army guys, who I thought were far better qualified than me-not modesty, Flem. I had spent my life learning how to run a company that makes machines for the shoe in-dustry, with a little time out to be a captain in War One, and to be a weekend warrior between wars-I knew I was out of my league as a division commander. I took that division from the Rhine to the Elbe, and they gave me a second star and a medal. When, two days after Roosevelt died, Harry Truman told me he knew he was out of his league being President, I knew just how he felt."

Pickering looked at him, but didn't reply.

"The President sent the both of us over here to do a job for him," Howe went on. "I'm not sure how I did in that meet-ing, but you damned sure did what the President hoped you would."

"Thank you," Pickering said.

"Now let's go inside and have a drink," Howe said. "Or two drinks."

[FIVE]

USS BADOENG STRAIT

35 DEGREES 42 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,

130 DEGREES 48 MINUTES EAST

LONGITUDE

THE SEA OF JAPAN

1105 7 AUGUST 1950

There were large sweat stains on the flight suit of Lieu-tenant Colonel William C. Dunn, USMC, under his arms, down his back, and on his seat. When he opened the door to the photo lab, he almost instantly felt a chill as the air-conditioned air blew on him.

He had been flying all morning, and he had flown all day the day before. The fatigue was evident on his face.

Reinforcements had begun to flood into Pusan, enough for General Walker's Eighth Army to begin more serious counterattacks than had been possible a short time before. That was the official line. In Dunn's judgment, counterat-tacks with only a slight chance of success were a better al-ternative than allowing the North Koreans to push Eighth Army into the sea.

The proof of that seemed to be that the First Marine Brigade (Provisional) was being used as Eighth Army's fire brigade, putting out the fires either when American counter-attacks failed, or the North Koreans broke through Ameri-can lines anywhere along the still-shrinking perimeter.

The day before, for example, Walker had ordered coun-terattacks by the Army's 19th Infantry Regiment on North Korean positions on terrain south of a village called Soesil. Because of its shape, the area was known as "Cloverleaf Hill." The attack was to begin at first light.

The attack didn't begin on time, and when it finally be-gan, just before noon, the 19th learned that during the pre-vious night, the North Koreans had moved a battalion of troops across the Naktong River, and that this reinforce-ment of their positions-plus, Dunn believed, the delay in making the attack, which had given the enemy time to prepare their positions-was enough to defeat the counterat-tack.

To the south, an attack by the Army's 35th Infantry was at least partially successful. It started when planned, but three miles from the departure line, ran into a tank-supported North Korean position that took five hours to overwhelm.

Lieutenant Colonel Dunn, who had flown three strikes against the tanks, privately thought, Better late than never.

Even farther south, a counterattack by the Army's 24th Infantry against enemy positions in the Sobuk mountains simply failed.

And farther south than that, an attack by the Army's 5th Regimental Combat Team and a large portion of the 1st Marine Brigade had turned out to be, in Colonel Dunn's opinion, even more of a Chinese fire drill.

The 5th RCT, which was supposed to move west on the Chinju road, came to a road junction and took the wrong fork, down which the Marines had already passed. By noon, they were in positions on hills three miles south of the road fork, instead of on the hill where they were sup-posed to be, northwest of the fork.

The North Koreans promptly moved onto the unoccu-pied hill, and in the confusion, Fox Company of the 5th RCT found itself surrounded by the enemy on yet another hilltop, which was now dubbed "Fox Hill."

While this was going on, the enemy, with other troops, also managed to block the MSR (main supply route) from Masan.

All of this forced Eighth Army to order the Marines to halt, turn around-which meant abandoning the terrain they'd just taken-and go to work trying to put these fires out.

The 2nd Battalion of the brigade tried, and failed, to get through to the surrounded men of Fox Company of the 5th, and the 3rd Battalion of the brigade, together with some troops from the 2nd Battalion of the Army's 24th Infantry, tried-and failed-to destroy the enemy's roadblock of the MSR.

At dawn this morning-with Marine Corsairs lending support-the 2nd Battalion of the brigade had broken through to-a more honest phrase, Dunn thought, would be "saved the ass of-Fox Company, but another try at break-ing the roadblock of the MSR by the 3rd Battalion-with Marine Corsairs lending support-had failed again.

But the 3rd Battalion would try again to open the road-block just as soon as Dunn's Corsairs had been refueled and rearmed and were back overhead.

On the flight deck, after landing just now, Dunn had told Captain Dave Freewall-now commanding USMC Re-serve Fighter Squadron 243, following the loss of its com-mander-to ask the steward to make him some fried-egg sandwiches and put them in a bag. He was going to have to see the air commander, Dunn said, and go by the photo lab, and it was either fried-egg sandwiches in the cockpit, or no lunch.

Reporting to the air commander hadn't taken as much time as he thought it would, and unless there was a prob-lem in the photo lab, he would be out of there in two min-utes, so he probably could have had a sit-down lunch, even if a quick one.

The photo lab had what could have been a personnel problem. There was a Navy chief photographer's mate in nominal charge, but under orders to make his facilities avail-able to the Marines, which in fact meant to Master Sergeant P. P. McGrory, USMCR, who was not known for his charm.

Surprising Dunn, the two had apparently gotten along from the moment they'd met. Dunn, however, always waited to see if the other shoe had fallen every time he went into the photo lab.

He raised his hand in a gesture indicating they didn't have to come to attention.

"And how are things in your air-conditioned little heaven?" he asked.

"Morning, Colonel," they said, in unison.

"The pictures from up north?"

"They went to Pusan on the COD at 1020, sir," Sergeant McCrory said.

"Good, thank you very much. And now I will see if I can get something to eat before I go back to work."

"Chief Young's got something I thought you ought to have a look at, Colonel," McGrory said.

I should have known lunch would be egg sandwiches.

"What's that?"

McGrory went to a cabinet and came back with a stack of eight-by-ten-inch prints.

"There was a photo mission this morning-Air Com-mander's request-for pictures of a railroad bridge near Tageu," McGrory said. "Near where that goddamn fool Pickering went down."