Defense of Hill 781 (25 page)

The sound was terrifying. The earth shook and reverberated, protesting its violation. Men huddled in their holes, in their armored vehicles, against boulders, under their steel helmets, trying to pull their arms and legs closer together, unconsciously assuming fetal positions, faces twisted into grotesque masks of horror and fear. Shells rained from the sky, dozens falling every few seconds along short sectors of the front, reaching out, probing for hard metal and soft flesh. Hot shards of shrapnel ripped horribly through the air like giant, jagged scythes. There was no respite from the horror, the intensity of the barrage rising in crescendo with each passing moment. The front was alive with fire and steel, a blast furnace of destruction searing anything in its path.

For the most part the artillery barrage missed. The companies and platoons of the battalion were deafened by the clamor and pounded by the overpressures, but they had either moved far enough away from the artillery’s target area or were dug in deeply enough, entire tanks now being sheltered by bulldozed holes, to withstand the terrible fire. Heads ached, nerves were frazzled, but with the exception of the unlucky, random victims, the defending soldiers survived the seemingly endless agony of the deadly deluge.

Battle Position 40 completely escaped the venom of the artillery. The enemy focused on 760 and 781, artillery pieces sighted on the last reported positions of Always’ units. Under the cover and shock of the nearby churning, the tough enemy squad picked up its pace of reducing the obstacle. The enemy leader had two red-star clusters in his pocket as his only means of communication, his radio having been split by a 7.62 round in his initial dash to the tank ditch. He did not know if he would live to use them. It was the prearranged signal that the obstacle was open at the point of detonation. He did know that he would not live
after he fired them. It was death either way. The thought spurred him on, a final effort to do the job right; it was his life’s work now.

Captain Dilger was glad he had moved. His former position was taking a terrible pounding. As much as his eardrums ached, he listened intently for a change in the pattern, a slight lessening of the intensity. That would be the signal that the enemy was closing for the assault. He figured he would have five minutes to get in position before the onslaught hit. It would be a close race. He was glad he had rehearsed movement as much as he had. Seconds would count.

Major Rogers huddled beneath his Bradley. He had positioned himself close to the gap in order to ensure he was nearby whenever Dilger came back through. It put him right in the cauldron, but the bulldozer had done its job well. With the exception of a few nicks in the armor plating, the Bradley was relatively untouched, although the ferocity of the barrage was near maddening. Several times Rogers and his crew had had to fight off a sickening depression, an almost violent revulsion at the suffering they were undergoing.

Major Walters was waiting his turn at the TOC. He expected that the enemy would shift his fires deeper once he initiated his attack along the front. He hoped that the deception, night movement, and smoke cover would do the trick. Even if it did, things were going to be awfully violent in a few minutes.

Sergeant Schwartz was cursing again. He hated the artillery. It scared him, and he hated being scared, didn’t want to show it, and so hardened himself with his cursing. O’Donnel was trying hard not to hyperventilate. The kid was shaking violently in the buttoned-up hatch. Unbeknownst to the two of them, a nearby hit had partially severed one of the left track pads.

The scouts were the first to sight the oncoming armor. The enemy was still in column formation when first sighted, about 6,000 meters out and closing fast. The attacking units were making
about a kilometer every three minutes. In nine minutes they would be in range. The scouts called for and got artillery adjusted on them. Some armor careened to a stop or went up in a flash. The vast majority kept coming at no break in speed. It was 0424.

Dilger made his move. At a rush Team Delta fell in on the prepared positions in and around Hill 760, just as the enemy barrage lifted and concentrated around 781. TOW missile launchers popped up on every Bradley. Thermal sights scanned for targets. The sky had lightened appreciably, but the smoke hung heavily. In a few more minutes that too would be gone. For now the thermal sights were the best means of gunning down the enemy. Those who had them used them.

The ITVs out in front found the targets first. The first missile went out beyond its range, drifting off harmlessly. Then the platoon settled down and enemy BMPs and tanks began to erupt 3,000 meters short of their initial objective. They were deploying now on line, yet unable to see what was killing them, coming on hard nonetheless. Another volley of fire and the ITV platoon pulled out. They were the slowest of Dilger’s vehicles and would need the most time to withdraw. One erupted in an explosion just as it began to withdraw. It was not clear what killed it.

The Bradleys opened up next, trying to pick the BMPs out of the crowd. It was clear by now that a reinforced battalion was coming at them. The enemy had begun to fire back in greater volume, surprised at the number of survivors of the artillery concentration. Dilger’s FO (artillery forward observer) was giving the enemy hell, firing elongated target patterns along the attacker’s route of march, catching his vehicles repeatedly, severing antennas, shattering gun sights and periscopes, occasionally immobilizing or destroying an entire war vehicle. The FO’s timing was good as he estimated the speed of the advancing enemy and fired to his front. By the time the Bradleys withdrew, the enemy had lost an entire company.

It was now Dilger’s tanks fighting it out, the enemy closing to 2,000 meters, the smoke clearing, the sky almost fully light. For five minutes it was a wild shoot-out, then the captain gave the order to pull back. He fired his own gun at two tanks, hit one, and pulled back in the trail of his company. As he moved toward the gap he came across one of his ITVs stuck in a wadi, its engine overheated. A Bradley had stopped to give it a battlefield tow, hastily set up, the final drives disengaged. Dilger pulled his tank around, called for a concentration of artillery, and opened fire on the nearest enemy; for a moment his attackers pulled into defile. It gave the Bradley time to put the ITV in motion, but the two connected vehicles could move only at a slow pace. Dilger held his ground.

A T-72 and its wingman were carefully working their way around to the company commander’s left. Dilger could hear their engines above the roar of the battlefield, but he could not get a sight picture on them. A sagger missile sought him out, missing by inches. The captain pulled back his Ml. “Move! Move! Damn it, move!” He was watching the Bradley-ITV crawl toward the gap. Another four minutes and they would have it.

Alpha Company had picked up the artillery mission, trying to cover Delta’s withdrawal. The enemy was just out of range of direct fire. Rogers could see Dilger, could deduce just how the enemy was flanking him. He was praying for him to make it out of there.

As the crippled vehicle was towed through the gap, Dilger ordered his driver to move. The soldier responded, releasing the diesel fuel to pour over the engine, creating a dense smoke cover. But the winds were blowing it away as fast as it blossomed, and for brief, intermittent seconds Dilger’s vehicle was visible to the closing enemy. An enemy lieutenant drew a bead on the Ml, his finger poised to release his armor-piercing projectile. Dilger saw him just in time, slewed the main gun on line, and beat him to the punch. The T-72 flew apart and its occupants
with it. A second later Dilger was dead, killed by the destroyed T-72’s wingman, a sergeant who squeezed off his round even as the American captain was killing his lieutenant. The big Ml lay burning 600 meters short of the gap.

Rogers watched the black smoke rise into the air, swallowed hard, and ordered the FASCAM. In that instant the enemy launched his rush at the gap.

The remnants of a reinforced motorized rifle battalion came charging at the open area. Captain Archer’s men opened up with everything they had. Sergeant Schwartz launched his first tank round, recoiled his Ml back deeper into its hole, reloaded, and pulled up to fire again. It took him six seconds to destroy his first two enemy vehicles. The defenders poured everything they had at their attackers. Tanks, Bradleys, missiles, artillery, machine-gun fire, small arms, and grenades hosed the enemy with molten lead. For seven minutes the battle raged in the few hundred meters surrounding the gap. Then the scatterable mines fell in and it was all over for the enemy. Sergeant Schwartz had destroyed eight vehicles. Not a single enemy had made it two hundred meters past the now-closed gap. Most of them were dead and burning on the enemy side of the mine field, the surviving crews desperately making their tortuous way away from the defenders. Artillery chewed them up as they withdrew.

The second battalion fell on Team Bravo. Its commander had seen the destruction of the lead battalion, realized the gap was closed, and staked his success on punching through Baker’s people. The regiment’s commander, forward where he could follow the battle, promised him fixed-wing aircraft to help drive home his attack. The radio message was intercepted, translated, and passed to Colonel Always at the same time it was relayed to the air defense warning net. As a result, when the two enemy jets winged in they were ambushed within seconds of passing the crest of Hill 781. They both crashed and burned before they could inflict any damage on the defenders.

It was too late for the enemy battalion to turn back. It bounced off Captain Baker just as Always committed the supporting helicopters, which approached from a masked position just south of Bravo’s defensive battle position. The result was a duck shoot. The enemy was too concerned with the ground fight, then a raging inferno, to take the time to look up and see who was eating his lunch.

Always ordered Archer to shift his tanks over to Bravo to thicken Baker’s defenses. It was on the way there that Sergeant Schwartz’s track broke, leaving him stranded in the open just around the corner from Checkpoint 6. As he went out with his driver and gunner to check the extent of the damage, an incoming artillery round impacted a few feet from the tank. The driver and gunner were killed outright. Schwartz was flung against the side of the tank at the same time a huge chunk of shrapnel ricocheted off the armor plating and gouged across both his eyes. As he came to his senses, he realized he could not see.

O’Donnel rushed to help his tank commander, horrified at the sight of his two dead crew mates and repulsed by the red mash that had been his sergeant’s face. Despite his own pain, Schwartz found himself trying to console his soldier.

“Okay, O’Donnel. It’s okay now. Here, help me get back in the tank. This fight’s not over yet.” Schwartz was fighting to keep control over himself. He had not cursed since the artillery shell hit.

The two tankers climbed back in, the loader shifting to the tank commander’s hatch under the direction of his sergeant, the sergeant taking up position as the loader. “Okay now, O’Donnel. Keep your eyes open. Remember what I told you about firing this thing. When the enemy appears, give me a yell so I know it’s coming, then shoot him. I’ll reload as soon as I hear the round fire. Got it?”

O’Donnel could not believe the toughness of his sergeant. He was going to load blind, a reflex conditioned by years of
experience. He had not yet taken time to cover the wound across his eyes.

“Yes, Sergeant. I understand.” His voice had sounded a little shrill. He swallowed, and fought to bring himself under control.

The tank had lost its track in an ideal location. A natural depression formed a miniature canyon that allowed the gun barrel to traverse along a narrow sector to its front, wide enough to track a vehicle for a few seconds but narrow enough so that the enemy would have to come directly at it to get a good shot. It was no accident that the tank had ended up there. Schwartz had picked out the route to Bravo Company on his reconnaissance. His foresight had payed off at the critical moment. If O’Donnel didn’t lose his head, they had a chance.

The enemy was resolute. Despite the storm blowing apart his very fiber, he continued to press his attack. Soldiers dismounted in an attempt to reduce the obstacles in their path. They were eaten alive by the artillery and machine-gun fire. The enemy sent vehicles armed with grappling hooks to pull down the barbed wire. The first three vehicles were destroyed by direct fire hits. Nonetheless he continued to throw himself at Checkpoint 6. In the fourth try, a single-lane gap was opened through Bravo’s defenses.

Baker and Always saw it at the same time. Instinctively the two warriors brought their own combat vehicles in line to shoot at the gap, but not before they gave the appropriate orders to bring other forces to bear. For Always that meant his close air support, which he had kept waiting five minutes out. The timing was tricky. He had to cut off his artillery and mortar fire along an air corridor so that he could bring them in safely. If there was too much of a time lag between cutting off the indirect fire and bringing in the aircraft, the enemy would gain a major advantage. Always brought the planes in a minute behind the shifting of fire. The enemy was caught by both systems.