Defense of Hill 781 (19 page)

Always resist the temptation to admonish Baker for his decision to go with his dismounts. Although that call may have been erroneous, the more important consideration was to preserve the independence of the battalion’s subordinate commanders. The colonel knew that the majority of the decisions they would have to make would be faced by them alone, and he did not want to restrict their freedom of action and their ability to do so.

The general rule was to put the right man in charge of the right job. Franklin had been the wrong man. Everyone knew it. It didn’t have to be said.

But for Always, Franklin was not the scapegoat for this costly mission. He looked to himself as the bearer of the bill. He scrutinized what he had done right and what he had done wrong. He heaped no recriminations upon himself. There was no room for that. He maintained his objectivity amidst his introspection. He needed to be in balance. By the time the review was over, the order for the next mission was ready—a night attack against the withdrawn enemy.

CHAPTER 6
Night Attack

A night attack has features all its own. Always had done many of them in his life as a light infantryman. He had thought them difficult then, although they offered many advantages to a trained soldier. He had never done one where vehicles accompanied, indeed were an integral part of, the attacking force. He was used to surprise and stealth. He was used to slow, deliberate movement over difficult terrain, terrain the enemy would have assessed as unusable to an attacking force.

He had been doing a great deal of night movement in the course of the battles of the last few days. He had moved into position to facilitate an early morning attack, into areas that were, except for the ever-present enemy reconnaissance, devoid of opposition. But this was different. Now he would have to cross the line of departure early after darkness and close with and destroy the enemy before the light of dawn. Moreover, he had very little time to plan his attack, gather his forces, and execute. It was already early into the afternoon, and night would be falling within six hours. Instinctively, he knew that he would have to use every available minute of darkness to pull off his mission. That left barely enough time even to reconstitute his devastated force. He held only slight hope that he could have
them in an organized posture to push out at dark with a well-coordinated plan.

Not that he questioned the wisdom of the night attack. Always was experienced enough in the business to know that now was the time to keep up the pressure. The enemy had fought a tenacious fight to hold onto Hill 876, but with significant losses he had been forced off. He could not have had time to either reconstitute his strength or put in significant defenses by nightfall. It was doubtful that he could make any improvements after dark. It had been an exhausting fight that day, and night always has the effect of exaggerating the feelings of exhaustion brought on by a day’s bitter labor. Moreover, if the enemy did attempt to improve positions at night, the noise and movement would reveal his positions to an observant attacker and would have the ultimate effect of increasing the defender’s vulnerabilities.

Always’ battalion, however, was badly battered from the efforts of the battles of the last several days. The activity had been nonstop, the fighting exhausting, the casualties debilitating. The infantry dismounts, at best barely sufficient when up to full strength, had been worn down to 10-man platoons. Many of the men had just come up to take the places of those lost earlier. It struck Always as a little absurd that an infantry task force could field only 60 men per company even when at 100 percent of its authorized strength. In a balanced task force of two tank and two Bradley companies, this meant that he could only hope to put 120 men on the ground. With attrition, he was now down to 60. As a company commander, he had commanded companies with two times that number of infantrymen alone. It bothered him a great deal. The machines could do only so much. Even in this age of modern, high-technology warfare the infantryman remained key. He was worth his weight in gold, yet he had been cashed in to pay for the very expensive machinery. Always needed both in his battalion. To him, the
compromise did not make any sense. The prospect of a night attack was underlining the illogic of it all.

But the task force was short not only in infantrymen; it was supported by a single engineer platoon. Those men, and particularly their platoon leader, had pulled off minor miracles in the preceding days. But their work exposed them to danger. One bad moment at an obstacle under artillery fire or along a road covered with direct fire, and they could cease to exist. They numbered around thirty at top strength. A single mine-clearing mission and they could go to fifteen, or worse. Aware of this, Always had husbanded them during the defense of the day before and the attack of that morning. Tonight they would have to take their chances. There was little doubt that the withdrawing enemy had seeded mines to cover his escape routes.

If shortages of men were a great concern to the battalion commander, so was the need for replacement vehicles. Battle and maintenance casualties had taken their toll. By the end of the morning’s battle they were down to less than 40 percent of their combat vehicles. Despite herculean efforts—and if the battalion was manned adequately in any single area it was in maintenance personnel—Always doubted if they could enter the night attack with more than 60 percent of their fighting vehicles. His strongest card was his antitank vehicles in E Company, which had gone relatively untouched during the last two fights. He would have to figure out a way to get maximum effectiveness from them during the night fighting. For the others, “fix forward” would be the maxim, and that meant working the people and the supply lines for all they were worth. For the hundredth time the commander felt an appreciation for his excellent executive officer, who even before the dawn attack had ended was making things happen to keep the combat power of the battalion sustained. Clearly, Major Walters was worth a combat company all by himself.

The weather was taking an unusual turn. The winds that had been rising for the last couple of days were shifting direction, and with that came a cloud cover, at first unnoticed through the swirling sand, but now darkening the sky at what would normally be the peak of the day’s brilliance. Instinctively Always knew that the developments in the weather would impact on the night’s operations, but it was too soon to gauge. He would have to watch and adjust his calculations accordingly.

Miraculously the majority of the key leaders were still in place. The original company commanders were still commanding, although some were debilitated by minor wounds. Two of the original executive officers were gone, and several of the platoon leaders were down. About one third of the platoons were now led by sergeants, some of these being staff sergeants, one grade below the normal level of platoon sergeant. But even though the requisite number of leaders were in place, virtually all of them were worn to the core. The activity had been nonstop, and although each man had done as much as he could to pace himself, the overall effect was not to be denied. All were beyond the point of normal physical endurance. It was will, determination, and psychological energy that was driving them now. It was getting harder for them to focus, to rationally think their way through problems. The easy was becoming difficult. The simple execution of menial tasks was now requiring intense concentration. It seemed as if sleep itself were counterproductive, since recovery from the short catnaps was taking longer and longer. Always had stressed how important it was for leaders to husband their energies, to get whatever rest was possible. He would have to remind himself to abide by the same advice.

Command Sergeant Major Hope had advised Always that night attacks here tended to be extremely tough. The vastness of the terrain, the darkness of the desert nights, the ability of the enemy to hide in every nook and cranny of his familiar territory combined to make such operations very hazardous. Nonetheless,
the colonel felt confident about the upcoming operation. He had long since lost his fear of the darkness and had learned to move easily in the night. He had garnered much experience in moving light forces at night. The complication here would be the machines, but he felt he had learned much about them in the last few battles. Moreover, his determination was hardening. He figured he knew now how badly you could be hurt, and like the fighter he was, he was determined to go to his fate sobered but undaunted, intent on giving more than he got.

The objective for the night was Hill 760, some six thousand meters to the east. The distance was short enough, but the going would certainly be treacherous. The zone of attack was dominated by a wall-like ridge line to the south that pointed directly at Hill 781, the objective of Always’ second battle. The cliffs were interrupted by small canyons, depressions, and rock piles that allowed for countless ambushes. The northern boundary of the zone was marked by an improved road that ran due east-west before cutting off on a line to the northwest beyond Hill 760. While this would be an easily identifiable terrain feature to help keep the elements oriented in the dark, it was likely to be mined and covered by fire. Moreover, although the road was in Always’ zone, any spilling over it to the north could lead to an intermingling between him and the battalion attacking on the colonel’s left. Fratricide was a major concern at night, even within the different elements of a single task force, and the danger would be tenfold should Always come close to another task force that would be as hair-triggered as his own.

It was probably this concern as much as any other that led Always toward the plan that was eventually issued to the battalion. He knew instinctively that the zone he was given was too small to maneuver his many forces safely in the dark. If they were too tightly controlled, they would be bunched up, thereby offering a lucrative target to an enemy lying in ambush. Loosely controlled, they would be prone to bumping into each other in the dark,
and in the confusion opening up on one another. The answer to the dilemma lay in the narrow valley that snaked out of Hidden Valley to the southeast, the valley he had come through in his night march three days ago. Always asked for, and got, an extension of his zone to include that valley, which he immediately dubbed Route JOHN WAYNE. Intelligence believed it would be unusable, mined by the retreating enemy forces that morning. Given its narrow constriction, it was doubtful that it would be a safe route into the objective. It could be guarded by limited forces at the farthest extension of its run. Moreover, even if the valley were negotiated successfully, there remained a tortuous and confusing stretch of ground remaining between it and the final objective. The propensity for getting lost in the dark was high.

But it was the valley’s very unfitness as an avenue of approach that made it appealing to Always. The enemy was likely to make the same assessment. Given the haste with which he withdrew, and his depleted forces, it was just possible that the enemy had underrated this route and either purposely left it uncovered or failed to cover it adequately. Coordination of such things was difficult even under the best of circumstances. In this case, the chances of an oversight were good.

The battalion scouts were tired. They pulled in for a quick meal, rearmed themselves, did what maintenance they could, and immediately pushed back out. Always sent half of them south to Route JOHN WAYNE; he sent the remainder 1,000 meters beyond the line of departure along the direct approach from Hill 780 to Hill 760, now broken down into two approaches, Route DIRECT NORTH and Route DIRECT SOUTH. The engineer platoon would follow the scouts moving into JOHN WAYNE, ready to clear any mines and obstacles. If they had success, then a major part of the battalion—Delta Team (one tank platoon and one Bradley platoon) and Echo Company—would follow, their objective to set up on and around Hill 781
overlooking Hill 760. Since there was only a slim chance they would be able to get through, they would constitute the supporting attack. The main attack would go either with Charlie Team along Route DIRECT NORTH or with Alpha Team along Route DIRECT SOUTH. The main effort there would be determined by the situation that developed, and would be designated by the committing of the reserve—Bravo Team (two Bradley platoons and one tank platoon)—which would follow along Route DIRECT NORTH.

On paper the forces sounded more than adequate to do the job. The reality was, however, that platoons seldom consisted of their normal complement of four vehicles. In fact vehicle shortages were now so great that the three teams leading along each route consisted only of two platoons apiece. Only the reserve team and Echo Company would be a full three-platoon force. A loss of a single platoon during the movement to the objective, therefore, would handicap the ultimate success of the mission.

Essentially, there were two ways the units could become lost—either by enemy action or by actually losing their orientation in the dark. Always would have to take his chances on the former, but he would do all he could to mitigate against the possibility of the latter. The ground surveillance radars (two were attached to the task force) were set up in such a position that they could continually vector friendly forces out to the limits of radar range, thereby sighting them in well beyond the line of departure. By being up with the scouts, they could extend their range another 1,000 meters. Both radar teams were committed in the north, where they mutually could position forces taking the direct approaches. The forces along JOHN WAYNE would have no problem identifying where they were, once in the pass. Beyond JOHN WAYNE they would have to move too quickly over rough ground for the radars to be of much good.