Brother Fish Page 17

  ‘Mate, what’s going on with the US 2nd? Judging from the ambulances, they’ve been copping heaps.’

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ he answered. ‘There’s been one bloody great fuck-up – they’ve been ambushed by what they reckon is an entire division of Chinese dug in along the ten-mile stretch of high ground overlooking the road. The chinks waited until the Yanks were well into their trap and then let them have it. They were sitting ducks, mate, it’s the full turkey shoot!’ he said, mixing his metaphors.

  Ian was talking about that high ground I’d worried about during our march only a day before. It made my skin prickle.

  ‘It’s this way,’ said Ian. ‘The US 2nd Division managed to hold off the chinks just long enough for the rest of the 8th Army to get to safety. Quite an effort, really. But that was about a day too long for them to save themselves. In that time the chinks had been able to find their way round the flanks of 2nd Division’s defence and get thousands of men dug in on their withdrawal route. In a way, the 2nd Division was sacrificed to save the rest of us.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ I said, ‘but maybe the sacrifice wouldn’t have been half so great if they’d got out of their bloody trucks and tried to clear the high ground instead of haring down the road and hoping for the best.’

  ‘Mate, what can you expect – they’re Yanks,’ replied Ian, as if this explained everything.

  That was the beginning of a withdrawal that drove us back deep inside South Korea in a very short time. The first 250 miles were completed in two frantic weeks.

  We joined the Americans going south and while we maintained a tidy convoy, theirs seemed to be in chaos. The going was pretty rough – their trucks lost traction in the icy conditions and slipped off the road, where they were simply abandoned. The same happened to us on three occasions and it was everybody out and push until we got going again. When this happened the Yanks would yell at us, ‘Ferchrissakes, leave it buddy, get moving, the gooks are burning our ass!’

  After a while you can smell fear in warfare, and as the days wore on there was the distinct whiff of it in the bitterly cold air. The signs of an army in chaos were beginning to accumulate. For instance, there seemed to be no traffic control. Vehicles wanting to join the traffic flow had to bully their way into the queue as best they could. Despite the examples of the US 2nd Division ambush and the occasional burned-out, bullet-riddled hulk of a truck standing by the roadside, the Yanks failed to clear and secure the high ground overlooking the road.

  American failure to observe normal military procedure was a constant worry. No one said as much but I know we couldn’t help thinking that the Chinese might catch up with us and the Americans would be in such disarray they’d be more a hindrance than a help. Sandwiched into the middle of a jittery American convoy of conscript soldiers wasn’t a whole heap of fun. It would have been a lot more comforting had they been the US Marines and not the frightened schoolboys they were, who wondered why they were in Korea in the first place and now found themselves constantly running for their lives.

  In the parlance of the military we were all withdrawing, which suggests a high degree of order and planning. In effect, we were running away as fast as our transport could carry us. The roadside was strewn with American trucks of all types that had skidded off the track and been abandoned. We’d picked up a Yank truck driver who’d abandoned his vehicle when it had left the road. ‘What’s going on with you guys?’ I asked him.

  ‘It’s the big bug out!’ he replied.

  The Yanks certainly know how to fashion a succinct phrase – ‘the big bug out’ explained everything going on. We picked it up and used it for just about anything that seemed like a cop-out by our leaders or anyone avoiding doing a specific job. In the great Australian tradition of shortening everything, this soon led to the phrase ‘bugging out’, which, even today, you hear in use often enough.

  If you’re withdrawing properly, you’re making the enemy pay for every inch of territory he’s gaining. You pull out through another unit behind you who are ready to engage and delay the enemy, then they do the same, and so on. But there was none of this – the enemy had a free run. They must have thought all their Christmases had come at once. We’d had only one small skirmish with the chinks during the withdrawal and that was in the first few days. This ‘bugging out’ was getting us down and we longed for a decent stoush with the Chinese. But as we galloped south as hard as we could go we barely glanced backwards, let alone waited to take them on.

  I am beginning to sound as if we were in perfect control and everywhere you looked the Yanks were falling over themselves in their haste to flee the enemy. Sure, we’d given the Chinese a good hiding at Pakchon but it must be remembered that, unlike the American units who had borne the brunt of the recent Chinese offensive, we had not yet come across the Chinese in such overwhelming numbers. Defeat is infectious, and we were afraid that we might just find ourselves running scared even before we came up against the enemy. I recall that at the time what we most wanted was to be rid of the American convoys and the chaos of their withdrawal. It was becoming increasingly difficult to stay calm in the atmosphere of panic around us.

  Still back-pedalling frantically, one late afternoon we arrived at Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. On the previous occasion we’d entered Pyongyang the mood had been one of supreme optimism – the North Koreans were in total disarray and the Korean War would soon be a distant memory with very few of us carrying scars.

  Now the capital was possessed by a sense of impending disaster. At the side of the road leading out of the city were great stacks of clothing being prepared for destruction, along with vehicles being put to the torch. When we came across a Yank sergeant who was about to torch hundreds of boxes of B rations, we banged on the roof of the cabin of our truck for the driver to stop.

  ‘Hang on, mate!’ Jason Matthews yelled at the American. ‘We could use some of those!’

  ‘Help yourself, take what you like – you’ve got five minutes, buddy, then the lot goes up in smoke,’ the sergeant shouted back.

  Cold as we were, we jumped out of that truck like jack rabbits and in five minutes the blokes had damn nearly filled the available space in the back of the truck with boxes. While the others were piling in the rations I noticed a second pile of US Army winter clothing a few yards down the road. I called to Johnny Gordon and we hot-footed over.

  ‘Yiz gunna burn this also?’ Johnny asked.

  ‘Right on, buddy,’ the Yank in charge replied.

  With a toss of the head I indicated the pile, ‘Mind if we, you know . . . ?’

  ‘Help yourselves, ain’t gonna do nothing but torch ’em,’ he generously replied.

  We each grabbed a dozen or so standard-issue US Army fleecy-lined parkas that were greatly superior to our own.

  Johnny then yelled, ‘Gloves – find the bloody Yank gloves!’

  The American laughed, pointing to a truck. ‘They’re back in yonder truck, buddy.’ We’d all lusted after the gloves the Americans wore and we grabbed two boxes, each containing a dozen pairs of leather gloves. Thanking the American we staggered away, each under a load of parkas with a box of gloves on top of them, and returned to our truck just as the Yank sergeant put the torch to the remaining B rations. We watched as sufficient food to just about feed an army went up in smoke. You couldn’t help but feel that handing it over to the refugees may have been a better, though perhaps less practical, way to dispose of the rations, although that’s not how retreating armies traditionally behave.

  ‘You beauty!’ several yelled. ‘Giddonya, Jacko, Gordie!’ We became instant heroes as we handed a parka and a pair of gloves to each of the blokes in the truck. We kept four coats for ourselves, one that fitted and one that was oversize, big enough to fit over the one that fitted. Both Johnny and I, being small blokes, had no problems getting an S and XOS to fit over each other. For the first time ever in Korea I felt warm.

  We drove into the night, leaving the panic of Pyongy
ang and joining the madness of the road south. Up to this point the Commonwealth Brigade had been pretty successful in the war, even if we Australians hadn’t yet come up against the full force of the Chinese. An esprit de

  corps had grown up between the various men in the Commonwealth countries, among whom heaping shit on the Yanks was the most common subject of discussion. We’d shake our heads and laugh. ‘Bloody Yanks wouldn’t know how to fight their way out of a wet paper bag,’ we’d say, with evident satisfaction.

  Of course, we had yet to experience the humiliation that comes with total defeat and were, to say the least, bloody arrogant enough, or perhaps the word is foolish, to think that given the same circumstances we would do better than the Americans.

  The deepening winter had only one advantage – the bridges were clear of fleeing civilians, who had chosen to use the frozen rivers as the roadway south. This, of course, begged the obvious question: what was to stop the Chinese from doing the same thing?

  How quickly things can change in combat. We were passing landmarks we’d come across in our advance and now we were seeing them from the opposite direction. Late in the afternoon we passed the hill where we’d dug in with the US 7th Cavalry Regiment when, anxious to see action, we’d deserted to the front. I wondered what had happened to the tank commander Orwell J. Partridge, who’d given us a lift in the dust and heat of the time and to whom I’d given the badge from my slouch hat, and to Sergeant Crosby Jones Ovington Junior who’d welcomed us into the 7th Cavalry. Were they still alive? So much had happened since then. I sighed inwardly to think that at that time I thought I’d miss the war and have to go back home a virgin soldier for the second time.

  On the way north the 1st Cavalry had erected a sign that read: ‘You are entering North Korea by courtesy of the 1st Cavalry Division.’ Now heading south, some disillusioned Yank had erected a sign in its place that read: ‘You are now entering South Korea by courtesy of the Chinese People’s Army.’ The irony was not lost on us.

  We arrived at Uijongbu, hacked weapon pits out of the snow-covered, frozen ground and patrolled forward looking for the Chinese. But then it became apparent that we were victims of just about the biggest intelligence fuck-up since Napoleon’s advance into Russia. Interrogation of the Chinese prisoners of war had put together an amazing story.

  You will recall that when I explained the nature of the Korean peninsula I mentioned the mountains that run like a crocodile’s back through the centre – peaks that are impassable so that, even in an overcrowded country, the Koreans, with the exception of a few small villages situated on the lower slopes, were unable to settle within them. It was obvious to the Allies that the war must take place on either side of this towering and inhospitable spine. While it was accepted that small marauding guerilla units might try to exist within the protection of the mountains, the Yank brass, on the premise that ‘If we can’t go there then nobody can’, believed the mountain range too rugged and precipitous to shelter any significant number of the enemy.

  However, the nobody-who-could turned out to be the Chinese. Around 300 000 Chinese had used the mountains to infiltrate over sixty miles inside Korea without anyone knowing. They’d travelled on foot, donkey and horse at night and at first light, before our planes could get into the air, they’d camouflaged themselves carefully. What few villages they’d encountered they’d contained, so that no word of their infiltration leaked out onto the plains below.

  When we were being briefed on the advance to the Yalu, I’d noticed there were no 8th Army troops in the mountains. Someone had asked the skipper – okay, I admit it was me – ‘Skipper, are the Americans sending patrols up into the mountains?’ The skipper was usually careful not to be critical of the Americans, or, for that matter, any of our allies, so his reply had been all the more surprising. ‘The Americans don’t like going off the roads – if they can’t reach their objective by tank or truck they tend to avoid it.’ Without tanks or trucks, the Chinese had moved deeper and deeper into Korea until they were well behind the advancing 8th Army. Meanwhile we’d decided the Chinese had taken one look at us and shat their pants running back across the border. Everyone had been optimistic about reaching the Yalu River and concluding the war in time to be home for Christmas.

  As the 8th Army had headed for the Yalu, the Chinese had swept down out of the mountains decimating two South Korean divisions, hitting the exposed flank of the US 2nd Division, threatening the choke point, and overrunning the Turkish Brigade that waited in reserve near Kunu-ri and sending us all scuttling back into South Korea.

  Effectively, the Chinese had done in reverse what MacArthur’s earlier Inchon landing had achieved when he’d sent the North Koreans racing backwards. But there was a small difference: the Chinese had achieved the same result without the benefit of aeroplanes, tanks, trucks and artillery. This did not go unnoticed – we were fighting warriors whose only weapons were the burp gun, machine gun and some mortars and they were beating us with one hand tied behind their backs.

  Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had been very big on how the West, in particular the British, Germans, French and Americans, had exploited China’s technological backwardness for over a century with what she termed ‘gunboat diplomacy’.

  ‘The Chinese have very long memories and great patience,’ she’d explained. ‘You must understand that one hundred years is a very short time for them, Jack. You may be sure that one day they will avenge this greedy and arrogant rape of the Celestial Empire by the foreign devils who came from over the sea.’

  It had sounded rather problematic to me, even at the age of nine. At the time Mao Zedong was still on his Long March. Together with about 40 000 followers he had established a modest communist soviet in Shaanxi Province, and it was inconceivable that his little slant-eyed, bandy-legged soldiers could avenge themselves against the might of Britain and America. As I mentioned previously, since childhood I’d been led to believe that the yellow hordes were poised to attack Australia at any moment in order to get to our abalone. But in my mind we’d tell them to go ahead and help themselves as the bloody stuff was inedible anyway. Then we’d stand by and watch as half of them drowned in the attempt. Who’d ever heard of a Chinaman who could swim? They wouldn’t know that abalone is only to be found in the deepest and narrowest underwater gullies. Ha ha ha, so much for the so-called yellow hordes.

  Now here I was fighting alongside two of the most mighty of the gunboat diplomacy nations and clearly we were receiving a hiding at the hands of the Chinese. Perhaps we would indeed be home by Christmas, though by courtesy of the Celestial Empire who would sweep us into the sea, the full kaboodle, planes, tanks, trucks and all the foreign devils diving over the cliff tops and into the waves. This time it would be our turn to swim for our lives.

  Despite the reality of our situation, some of the blokes remained optimistic. I was putting up my hutchie next to Catflap Buggins and John Lazarou when Catflap said to Lazy, ‘Hey mate, what you gonna do when you get ’ome for Chrissie?’

  Lazy then said to him, ‘Don’t be bloody stupid, we ain’t gonna be home for Christmas no more – the fuckin’ chinks have got us by the fuckin’ short and curlies.’

  ‘That’s just bloody it, mate. They’ll be saying to themselves, “Whacko! At this rate we’ll be home for Chinese New Year, these fuckers can’t fight,”’ Catflap replied.

  ‘Not all of us can’t fight,’ Lazy said indignantly. ‘We can fight, and the Poms are doing okay. It’s just the noggies and the Yanks.’

  ‘Yeah, but there’s more of them can’t fight than there’s us who can, so it goes without sayin’ the chinks are gonna win and we’ll be ’ome for Christmas and them for their New Year firecracker night.’

  There was silence as Lazy thought about this for a moment. Then he said, ‘How much? What’ll you give me?’

  ‘Odds? Yeah, okay, three to one the chinks smack our arse and I’m back with Lotus Blossom in Japan.’

  ‘Righto, you’re on. A month’s pay, ok
ay?’

  You had to hand it to Lazy – he was loyal, all right. Although the way things were going for us, Catflap must have been pretty confident. Later I said to Lazy, ‘Mate, the bet you made, you and Catflap, a month’s pay, that’s a lot of bread.’

  ‘Nah, I won’t never have to pay the bugger,’ Lazy answered confidently.

  ‘Why – you think we’ll win, do you?’

  ‘Don’t matter if we don’t win,’ Lazy grinned. ‘I reckon I’ll be dead, so I won’t have to pay him anyway!’

  Three weeks passed at Uijongbu without a sign of the Chinese. Christmas came and went and New Year arrived and was duly celebrated with a good ration of beer and several cases of rum the company storeman had somehow got his hands on, claiming he’d liberated them on the way to the officer’s mess. The next morning, suffering from a combination of rum with beer chasers, we learned that the Chinese had finally caught up and attacked the 6th ROK Division who, with the US 24th Division, were to our front. Once again the bloody South Koreans had let us down. This time they should have done better though – they’d had plenty of time to dig in and prepare and we’d thought they’d be okay. But as usual they’d broken and run almost the moment the Chinese launched the attack.

  We were sent forward to secure the Tokchon road junction, through which the withdrawing troops were to pass. Already the South Korean troops were fleeing down the road in panic as fast as their short legs could carry them. Most of them had jettisoned their equipment and anything else they thought might encumber their escape. You couldn’t help feeling contempt for them until you saw the look of terror in their faces. It was obvious that they greatly feared the Chinese.

  With the South Koreans not even putting up token resistance, the Chinese troops advanced so fast they were able to put in a road block between us and Tokchon. Then, with the help of American tanks, we managed to send them packing and secured the road junction. But the place was swarming with Chinese and we soon got the order to withdraw and head back down the road, feeling that the Chinese were on both of our flanks. Sure enough, with the South Koreans disappearing, two small groups of Chinese decided to have a go at us. A platoon from A Company took on one lot and an American tank took care of the other. It wasn’t what you’d call a major attack but it was good just taking them on face to face, so to speak, to remind ourselves that they were human and prepared to withdraw when things hotted up a bit.