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

"Sir William made it quite clear to me, Captain McCoy, that the use of British elements in your operation is by no means an order. Using any, or all, of what we can offer is entirely up to you. What do you think?"

"I think if it wouldn't give Taylor the wrong idea about Marines, I'd kiss Lieutenant Diceworth," McCoy said.

"Well, perhaps there would be time for that later," Jones-Fortin said. "But right now, nose to the grindstone, et cetera, right?"

[TWO]

TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND

0330 25 AUGUST 1950

"What the hell is going on?" Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman asked when Captain Kenneth R. McCoy jumped off the Wind of Good Fortune onto the wharf. "I almost blew you out of the water when I saw you coming in with that light."

Another man jumped onto the wharf, and Zimmerman looked at him in absolute surprise.

"Lieutenant Diceworth, Royal Marines, Master Gunner Zimmerman," McCoy said.

"How do you do, Mr. Zimmerman?" Diceworth said, politely.

Zimmerman saluted, then looked at McCoy for an ex-planation.

"I want everybody who won't fit in Boat Two-includ-ing the militia-on the Wind of Good Fortune in ten min-utes," McCoy said. "I want to be in the Flying Fish Channel in fifteen minutes."

"I asked you what's going on, Killer," Zimmerman pur-sued.

"There's been a slight change in the operation."

"What kind of a change?" Zimmerman asked dubiously.

"I only want to do it once, Ernie," McCoy said. "Get everybody loaded up."

"Good morning, Lieutenant," Zimmerman said to Dice-worth. "With respect, sir, may the gunner inquire where the hell the lieutenant came from?"

Diceworth smiled.

"From HMS Jamaica, actually," Diceworth said.

"He and fifteen more English Marines," McCoy added.

"Actually, Captain," Diceworth said, "that's Royal Marines."

"Sorry," McCoy said. "And two pretty-good-sized boats with people who know how to drive them, and radios with which they can talk to Charity, the destroyer, who's laying just outside the lighthouse."

"No shit?"

"And can bring naval gunfire to bear on all the islands, and has aerial photos, so we can call in what we need when we need it."

"No shit?"

"And now, if your curiosity is settled for the moment, Mr. Zimmerman, would you please get your ass out of low gear, and start getting this circus on the road?"

The essential difference between the pre-Royal Marines and pre-HMS Charity plan, and what they were going to try to do now, was that the element of surprise wasn't nearly as important as it had been.

If the two-lifeboat "invasion fleet" had been detected and brought under fire by any of the North Korean forces, it would almost certainly have meant disaster. The North Koreans had both machine guns and rifles, and would have brought the lifeboats under fire the moment they saw they were filled with armed men.

Machine-gun and rifle fire from firm ground goes where it is directed. Machine-gun and rifle fire from crowded lifeboats bobbing in the rapidly receding tide waters of the Flying Fish Channel would have struck its targets only by wild coincidence.

So the element of surprise in the initial plan was of prime importance. Now it fell into the category of "nice to have if we can get away with it"

The plan now had a role for the Wind of Good Fortune. With the two boats from HMS Jamaica running to her star-board, where they could probably not be seen, and towing the lifeboat, she would move up the Flying Fish Channel past Taebu-do and Taemuui-do under both diesel and sail power. The sails probably would do very little to propel her forward, and their being raised might have the opposite ef-fect, if mere was a strong wind from the north-in which case they would be lowered.

All the Marines-Royal and U.S.-and most of Major Kim's national police would be in the boats. They were now divided into three teams, scattering the Royal Marines among the U.S. Marines.

The two larger teams, one commanded by Captain Mc-Coy and the other by Lieutenant Diceworth, would, if everything went well, land undetected at the narrow point-the center of the hourglass-of Yonghung-do, and then split, and simultaneously move over land, Diceworth's team to take the village of Oe-ri on the south end of the island, and McCoy's to take Nae-ri on the northern end.

The lifeboat would hold a seven-man team, commanded by Zimmerman, as the reserve.

Taylor, Hart, and Kim would be aboard Wind of Good Fortune, Kim to control the militia, and Hart to operate the radio to report what was going on-especially if some-thing went wrong.

It was a good plan of operation, and it almost worked.

They managed to get past Taebu-do and Taemuui-do without, so far as they could tell, arousing any interest whatever.

But as they approached Oe-ri on the south end of Yonghung-do, hoping to pass there, too, undetected, the junk sailing up the Flying Fish Channel attracted the atten-tion of a Norm Korean sentry. First, there was a siren, and then the Wind of Good Fortune was in the light of a search-light, and finally there came machine-gun fire, which, after a moment, walked its way through the water and into the hull of the Wind of Good Fortune.

And a moment after that, two rounds of five-inch naval gunfire landed on the machine-gun position. The search-light went out, the machine gun stopped firing, and the outer of the two Jamaica boats-which held Lieutenant Diceworth's team-cut free from the Wind of Good For-tune and headed for the village.

As a Royal Marine handed twenty-round magazines to a U.S. Marine firing his Browning Automatic Rifle from the bow of the boat, two more rounds of five-inch from Char-ity landed in Oe-ri.

The second boat from HMS Jamaica-carrying Mc-Coy's team-now started to edge ahead of the Wind of Good Fortune, headed up the Flying Fish Channel for the north end of the island and the village of Nae-ri.

With the loss of the element of surprise, there was no need now to land in the middle of Yonghung-do and go overland.

The distance was a little over three miles, and the boat was making-even against the rapidly receding tide-close to fifteen knots. It took them just over fifteen min-utes to reach the end of the island, but that was appar-ently enough time for the North Koreans on the southern end of the island to notify the North Koreans on the northern end that they were under attack. When McCoy's boat turned out of the Flying Fish Channel toward the village of Nae-ri, they were immediately brought under rifle fire.

They've probably laid a telephone line across the island, McCoy thought, as he watched a Royal Marine sergeant speak into the microphone of his field radio: "Mother, Mother, Baby Two, Baby Two, Sixteen, Sixteen," he said, lowered the microphone, and turned to McCoy.

"On the way, sir," he said. "If the captain remembers, Sixteen is four rounds from Charity's five-incher, sir."

"Good show, Sergeant!" Captain McCoy said, in the best English accent he could muster.

A few moments later, there was the thruttle-thruttle sound of a large-caliber round moving in the air, and then an enormous explosion in the village of Nae-ri. And then another, and another, and another.

McCoy, who was riding in the bow, gestured to the coxswain to make for the shore, and then to Sergeant Jen-nings to get on the bow with his Browning Automatic Rifle.

[THREE]

TOP SECRET

0500 GREENWICH 25 AUGUST 1950

FROM OFFICER COMMANDING HMS CHARITY

TO HMS JAMAICA

PERSONAL AND IMMEDIATE ATTENTION VICE ADMIRAL SIR WILLIAM MATTHEWS, RN

SIR

I HAVE THE HONOR TO REPORT, BASED ON INFORMATION FURNISHED ME BY CAPTAIN GEORGE F. HART, USMC, THE FOLLOWING:

THE ISLANDS OF YONGHUNG-DO AND TAEMUUI-DO WERE SUCCESSFULLY IN-VESTED BY U.S. AND ROYAL MARINE FORCES EARLY THIS MORNING AND ALL RESISTANCE WAS ENDED AT 1500 LOCAL TIME THIS AFTERNOON.