We had a few other little tricks in store. Under cover of darkness, I’d had teams of soldiers go out and sow the approaches to the hills with Claymore mines. The mines exploded in a hail of ball bearings, shredding PLA infantry squads and introducing still more chaos into the attack.
The Chinese advance stopped at about four hundred yards out from the lines on Devil Hill and about two hundred yards out on Teatime Hill, many of them going down to one knee. From that distance, they weren’t likely to hit many of my soldiers in the trenches, but they would pin us down and prevent us from moving. The Airborne troops had easier shots being dug in uphill in prepared positions, and they exacted a slow, steady toll of Chinese dead or wounded.
Now that I was confident Teatime and Devil Hill wouldn’t fall, it was time to turn my attention to the west. The PLA infantry there had taken a longer time to get to our lines because of the napalm attack, but they were through the gasoline-fed fires now. They came in at a sprint, and only a few of them stopped to provide a modicum of cover before they hit the second defensive line, which was a line of houses and small condominium complexes in the western part of the town.
I had demarcated four defensive lines, labeled Phaseline Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. Each line was an independent chance to stop the Chinese advance, and each represented a fallback position for the Airborne soldiers to retreat to. Phaseline Alpha had been destroyed by the Chinese bombing, leaving only Bravo, Charlie, and Delta.
The Airborne soldiers opened up when the Chinese infantry was still five-hundred yards away from Phaseline Bravo, coming down the road from the west. The defenders had to thin out the ranks of PLA attackers as much as possible before the Chinese could overwhelm them from close range. Perhaps as many as seven thousand fell, but that still left about twenty-three thousand crashing in on the west.
The situation was evolving quickly. I ran to the west so that I could personally direct the defenses there, and ordered the reserve Taiwanese militia to follow me in that direction. It was clear that the battle would be decided there. Over the radio, I ordered, “Gettysburg 1, 2, 3, and 5, withdraw to Phaseline Charlie. Gettysburg 4, hold your positions.”
The strategy here was to maximize the amount of fire coming in on the Chinese. I was keeping approximately 360 Airborne infantry in the defensive positions so that the Chinese would have to mass their men for an attack on those buildings. At the same time, I was pulling back the remaining fourteen hundred soldiers to the next defensive line, another set of buildings a hundred yards further into Citadel. Those soldiers could keep up a withering fire against the Chinese, whittling their numbers down further as they attacked Phaseline Bravo.
Gettysburg 4, the 360 infantry being left behind, would almost certainly be killed in their positions. They would be overrun, but their deaths would buy time for the rest of Gettysburg to slaughter the Chinese massing to attack the positions occupied by Gettysburg 4.
No time to mourn for the many Airborne soldiers I was condemning to death, many as young as 19 or 20.
Should I add the militia to Phaseline Charlie? I had no faith in my ability to move the militia once they were engaged in combat. A lot of elderly folks and kids too young for the military would not be able to coordinate a quick move in the heat of battle. Once I put them somewhere, they would not be moving again.
If I put them in Phaseline Charlie, they could add to the fire against the Chinese now attacking Phaseline Bravo, the second defense line. It would help relieve the pressure on Gettysburg 4, helping them to hold out for as long as possible. But then they’d be committed, and if Phaseline Charlie was in danger of being overrun, the militia would not be able to help the Airborne soldiers there retreat to Phaseline Delta, the final defensive line. If I put them there, in Phaseline Delta, they could support a retreat to the last bastion on the western defensive line.
Don’t decide with emotion. The main argument for putting them in Phaseline Charlie was a desire not to abandon Gettysburg 4 in Phaseline Bravo. But the other Airborne soldiers were already going to provide cover fire for Gettysburg 4. The militia wouldn’t be as valuable there as they would be ensuring the possibility of retreat to Phaseline Delta.
I ordered the militia to Phaseline Delta, a line anchored on the gymnasium, cafe, a three-story parking garage, and a garden in the center of the town. Meanwhile, the Gettysburg 1, 2, 3, and 5 had retreated back to Phaseline Charlie and were already ripping fire into the Chinese lapping around the edges of Phaseline Bravo.
Gettysburg 4 was firing as fast as they could, pouring fire on the Chinese who were now right outside their windows. The Chinese, in turn, were lobbing grenades into the buildings, trying to reduce the gunfire that was cutting them to pieces. Another three thousand Chinese infantry died on the streets and alleys of Phaseline Bravo, but they kept pushing. They kept up a steady covering fire on the windows, and suddenly Gettysburg 4 had to fight from inside the buildings. Twelve hundred PLA stayed behind to clear out the buildings, more than enough to overrun the remaining three hundred Airborne soldiers there. The rest ran forward to attack Phaseline Charlie.
I listened to the anguished cries on the radio from the soldiers of Gettysburg 4 as they were overrun to the last man. They fought in the stairwells and the doorways, but once the Chinese were inside, it was only a matter of time. To my knowledge, none of them even tried to surrender. With grim determination, they made the Chinese pay for every room.
The remainder of Gettysburg went into rapid fire mode, chopping down Chinese attackers as quickly as they could reload. Phaseline Charlie was a 7-11 with two levels of apartments on top on one side of the street and a repairs garage built on what must have been an old blacksmith shop or the like, a large concrete structure that rose four stories into the air. To the west of those buildings, there was about sixty yards of clear space on either side of the road, areas that had been private gardens. Now those gardens became brutal killing grounds, with thousands more Chinese falling.
But there were still more of the Chinese to come. Fifteen thousand had fallen, half of the attacking force, but they had momentum now as they crashed into Phaseline Charlie.
What else can I do? There had to be something. “Shiloh, redirect a quarter of your fire onto the streets to the west. Chop those bastards down!” The soldiers on Teatime Hill were not under heavy attack, they could spare some men to focus their fire to the west, helping to staunch the flow of Chinese attackers. I ran to the parking garage at Phaseline Delta, determined to stop the attack.
Phaseline Charlie put up heavy resistance. Eleven hundred Airborne soldiers were firing out from every window, doorway, and hole in the wall they could find. Every second, another two or three hundred PLA infantry fell from their fire. But the PLA repeated their tactic from before. About three thousand Chinese soldiers stayed behind to try to wipe out the soldiers in Phaseline Charlie and the rest stormed forward for Phaseline Delta, the last chance.
Suddenly, two F-22’s streaked in from the west, lacing a deadline line of cannon fire down the road into Pinglin. Hundreds of Chinese were cut down, and the rest scurried for cover, buying both Phaseline Charlie and Phaseline Delta vital breathing space.
“Gettysburg 1 and 5, cut through and come back to Phaseline Delta, now, RUN!” I shouted. Gettysburg 2 and 3 would stay behind and die, 1 and 5 would have at least a chance of making it out alive.
The Taiwanese militia now had its moment. The PLA recovered from the strafing F-22’s and got ready to fire on the retreating Airborne soldiers, but the Taiwanese militia provided covering fire from the higher floors of the parking garage. They weren’t the most accurate shots, but they were good enough to pick off many of the PLA in the open and keep the rest of the Chinese off the streets for a crucial thirty seconds. By that time, about eight hundred Airborne soldiers had managed to make it to Phaseline Delta.