Defense of Hill 781 (11 page)

The whole conversation had taken only two minutes. But it was enough. The enemy picked it up, and although the eavesdroppers could not hear the subsequent conversations when Always went back to secure, they had the frequency. They would know whenever he was talking by the break in squelch. They now had some options. They could allow the broadcasts to continue, thereby picking up vital information should Always’ battalion return to the unsecure mode (as they had the previous morning); jam them off the net at the critical moment; or, if they could produce an operator with the voice inflections they had picked up from Lieutenant Rodriguez earlier, they could try some imitative deception. They had learned from their sources around Purgatory that Lieutenant Colonel Always had a soft spot for his soldiers. Perhaps they could play on that compassion to induce him to blunder into a desperate attempt to save Rodriguez.

“Romeo 38, this is Alpha 38.” It was the brigade commander calling.

“This is Romeo 38, over.”

“Roger. Look, we got big trouble developing. I’m calling off the attack on 781. Our whole line is folding back on the right. I’m shifting the armor down into the valley you just came
from. I want you to hold up over on the east by Checkpoint 4. Expect an attack from a reinforced motorized rifle battalion coming out of the north. We’ve got a report that several battalions are entering the picture rapidly.”

Always acknowledged the transmission, received a stern warning to hold his position at CP 4, and began to order his units to shift. But it is always difficult to shift a mechanized force in midstride. As Always signaled Charlie and Bravo to move to CP 4, the enemy decided to make his life a bit more complex. He jammed Always off the air.

The static buzzed through his eardrums like a saw. Every time he spoke he received a head-wrenching screech. The receiving stations were trying to answer, getting out a maddening few words, only to have the essence of the message drowned out. Always tried to fight through it. He had to get everybody moving quickly. This was no time to be shifting frequencies. At that moment, Lieutenant Rodriguez came up on the battalion net, transmitting in the red.

“Romeo 36, this is November 25, over.” Always heard the call clearly, never suspecting that Rodriguez was being helped by the enemy who was retransmitting the lieutenant’s call for help, ensuring it would get through to the colonel. It was a minute before Always identified the platoon leader’s call sign from his cheat sheet.

“This is Romeo 36. Send your message.”

“This is November 25. I need to know when you’re getting up to me. I’m being chopped up by enemy artillery and I can hear some tracks approaching from the north, over.”

Always felt caught in a vise. He was sorely tempted to divert Team Bravo or Charlie to pick up the infantrymen. He had met Rodriguez, and he knew he would not be calling for help unless he were in trouble. But his brigade commander had expressed an urgency to the mission to defend in the vicinity
of CP 4. He responded, “How many antitank weapons do you have?”

“This is November 25. I have six Dragons and six LAWs, over.”

The enemy monitored the report and sent the information on to his own battalion. Always made a quick assessment. The LAWs (light antitank weapons) would be of little to no use. The Dragons were a possibility, but they were unreliable. Six of them would not go very far. But there was no alternative. “Get yourself to ground. There will be no help reaching you for some time. I’ll get to you as soon as I can. In the meantime, try to get lost to the enemy. If you can break contact and get out, we will be holding in die vicinity of Checkpoint 4.”

It took the enemy three minutes to deduce where Checkpoint 4 was located.

Rodriguez was stunned by the news. He looked around for a piece of ground where enemy armor could not approach, found nothing that suited him, picked the next best spot, and ordered his men to move to it. He was burdened with five casualties now, three of whom could not move without help. He was troubled by the one KIA (killed in action)—he had learned never to abandon his dead. But he had only thirty-three men left, counting himself and the two medics. He hesitated, then called to his platoon sergeant. “Mark Jones’s body. We’ll come back for him when we can.”

The battalion radio net was a madhouse now, a whirling, screeching, buzzing, ringing cacophony. Always gave the code word to move to the alternate frequency, “Bayonet!”

The TOC barely heard it over the jamming and began repeating it over the radio. By its standard procedures the TOC would leave one radio on the old net for a few minutes while shifting the others to the new frequency. Always was concerned about the infantrymen on CHOPPER and ordered the TOC to get a
radio up in the red (in the unsecure mode) to continue listening for them. For ten minutes confusion raged over the nets as the subordinate elements scrambled around trying to figure out if and when they should shift frequencies. Those few minutes were fatal.

While the madness on the radio nets was unfolding, the air force lieutenant came scrambling up atop Always’ Bradley. “What do you want, Lieutenant Smith?”

“Sir, I couldn’t reach you on the radio. I got a spot report from some of our fast movers (fixed-wing aircraft) that enemy vehicles are moving down the pass from the northwest toward CP4.”

“Are you sure?” That was the flank Always was concerned about, but it did not seem likely that the enemy would approach from that direction. The brigade commander had indicated the enemy ‘was coming from the north. It was possible, however, that he had meant the northeast, or that his intelligence was faulty.

“Yes, sir, I’m sure. I asked them to confirm and they did. They estimated about one battalion.”

“Okay. Get back to your track and tell the artillery officer to put in the scatterable mine field at the mouth of the pass.”

On the alternate frequency the scout was reporting enemy movement from the north, with a large dust column coming out of the pass at 781. Simultaneously, the battalion executive officer called in a report that the artillery was pulling back into the valley they had left that morning. The artillery pieces had jammed up the routes, interrupting the following battalion trains. Ominously, the artillerymen were reporting enemy approaching from the southeast. Major Walters needed to know where Always wanted to move the trains, and if he wanted the TOC to move to CP 4.

Always held the trains and the TOC back in the vicinity of the LD. The battle was in too much a state of flux to risk piling
them into CP 4. With all the conflicting reports he had received he did not know from which direction he was about to be attacked. Brigade was currently being jammed off the air. Always would have to figure it out for himself.

E Company was the first to reach CP 4. Evans had gotten only a part of the message to move there on the original frequency. After that he had heard nothing, not the call to change frequency or the call over the artillery net that the mine field was going in. The message was never passed over the battalion net. Two of Evans’ lead vehicles exploded as they rushed into CP 4. The mines worked.

Lieutenant Colonel Always led Alpha and Delta into an arch north of CP 4, oriented to the north and northeast. After raising Captain Evans on his internal net and learning of the disaster in the mine field, he had them face his two remaining antitank vehicles at the exit from the pass. He then brought in Bravo and Delta, facing them to the east and southeast, respectively. As the battalion commander literally circled his wagons, the first wave of the enemy appeared, coming at him from 3,500 meters out of the north.

The helicopters chose this moment to return. They had indeed discovered the correct cipher, but were not aware that the task force they were supporting had shifted frequency. Although the TOC had stayed up on the old frequency, it was operating in the red for the sake of Lieutenant Rodriguez. The aviators, not knowing this and talking in the green, were completely unheard. Nor did they have the alternate frequency.

Their captain, being aggressive, understanding the original mission, and seeing all the dust being kicked up north of CP 4, assumed that the attack on JAB was being kicked off. He brought his company in to cover the attack, thereby bringing his helicopters directly over the attacking enemy, assuming it was Always’ people below him. From this confusion stemmed the slaughter that followed. As the aviators realized they were
directly above the enemy they opened up in desperation. In two minutes fourteen enemy vehicles had been destroyed—six tanks; seven BMPs; and a ZSU-34, an antiaircraft gun track. So too were twelve attack helicopters destroyed, along with two scout helicopters. The ranges had been so short that the aviators never had a chance to evade the fire.

Always did not know the reason for the melee he was observing to his front. He was both admiring of the courage of the pilots and aghast at their recklessness. With their lives they had bought him a desperate few minutes to set up his defenses. It would be a direct fire exchange on the ground now. The artillery was on the move, pulling back from the pressure on the west, and was not yet deployed in a position from which to support. Mortars would be of little help in this armored exchange. Tank and Bradley gunnery would count for everything.

At that instant the chemical strike covered them. Always was leaning outside his cupola yelling at Captain Archer to pick up the enemy at 3,000 meters when the artillery-borne gas exploded all around him. He struggled to pull his body back inside the hatch, choosing to slam the cover before pulling on his mask. When he yelled “gas” to his crew a small whiff entered his throat, searing his lungs and convulsing his stomach. As he pulled the mask tightly over his face, the vomit gushed into the rubber-enclosed space in front of his mouth, filling the mask to the eye sockets. His body twitched, his eyes watered, and he vomited again. He fought to clear his mask and get some air into his lungs. A third wretch and his mask was almost full with his own vomit. As he took his first breath he flooded his nostrils with his own puke. He broke the seal at the bottom of his chin and let the slop spill out. With great effort he brought his body back under control.

“Are you all right, sir?” Sergeant Kelso asked with a great deal of concern in his voice.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Check Spivey.” Always was trying to
move around in the cupola. The cramped space was inhospitable to a man encased in a gas mask. The slightest turn of the head from side to side caused the mask to catch on the sides, radio, latches, and corners of the paraphernalia located in the cupola.

“I’m okay, sir,” Spivey answered, his voice sounding muffled and far away.

“Get ready for action. There’s a battalion’s worth of enemy coming down on us. They’ll be here in a few minutes.” Always now had to prepare for personal combat at the same time he struggled to focus his battalion’s efforts on the enemy force. Reaching all of the subordinate units on the radio was nearly impossible. Many of them were not understandable when talking out of the gas masks. Although the CVCs had a hookup for the mask, allowing the voice to be directly transmitted over the radio, they often did not work or worked only on one radio. Since every commander was up on at least two nets, one was addressed through the microphone on the CVC, the other on a hand-held mike. The latter was audible only when stuck directly under the chin or onto the throat, and even then just barely. Always found himself yelling at the top of his lungs to get his messages across. If he received simultaneous calls on the two radios, which happened often, he was certain to understand neither. The donning of the gas mask had reduced his efficiency by more than half.

With only two of his companies facing the oncoming enemy, the others disposed to face attacks from other directions (after all, reports had indicated they were coming from all points on the compass), it was going to be a desperate shoot-out. The helicopters had helped a great deal with their kills, but they were out of the picture now, their survivors pulling out, unable to establish communications, unsure of operations on the ground, and not inclined to risk a repeat of the grave losses they had already suffered. As the Bradleys put up their TOW missile
launchers, the tanks ranged the oncoming enemy. At 2,500 meters the shooting began.

The T-72s and BMPs were appearing for only a few seconds at a time, rising over the small ridges running between the lines of wadis perpendicular to their front and disappearing as they descended into the next wadi. This negated the effects of the TOWs, which needed an unbroken line of sight on the enemy for the duration of the missile’s flight, more than ten seconds at 2,500 meters. For the tanks it was another story. As soon as they had the target in their cross hairs they could kill in a split second. The same was true for the 25mm gun on the Bradley, although it could not hope to stop a tank. Always recognized this and tried to direct the fires accordingly, tank against tank, Bradley against BMP.

The enemy’s speed was amazing. Within minutes he was at 2,000 meters and closing. Some of his number had been reduced, but at decreasing ranges the advantages were passing to the enemy. The defender’s gunnery was severely reduced by the effects of the chemical strike. It was impossible to get the shooter’s eye close enough to the eyepiece for a clear, sustained picture of the attacker. Moreover, the dust the movement and firing were kicking up further exacerbated the conditions.