Cho shrugged. “Fortunately we are not being called upon to characterize the enemy’s behavior. The Dear Leader is content so long as our armies move forward.” He looked uneasy. “But I admit, I would feel more comfortable if I knew what this Yankee, McLaren” — he mangled the name — “had up his sleeve. There are disturbing intelligence reports of troops being held in reserve.”
“What about our air reconnaissance?”
Cho laughed and allowed a touch of bitterness to creep into his voice. “Our Air Force comrades have refused my latest request. Apparently their last camera-equipped MiG-21R was shot down over Pusan three days ago. Naturally they assure me that our Russian friends will soon deliver more modern reconnaissance aircraft. Supposedly they will then be in a position to consider the Army’s needs.”
He shook his head. “So, Chyong, we are forced to rely on the Research Department and its spies for any information from Pusan. And who knows if any of them have managed to avoid the puppet government’s counterspies?”
The two men walked on for several minutes in silence, circling the carefully hidden headquarters complex under a steady rain of softly falling flakes. Artillery thundered momentarily, somewhere off to the south. At last Cho turned back toward his command trailer. He stopped at the foot of its snow-covered steps and straightened his back. “Is there anything I can get for you, Chyong? Or for your men?”
Chyong studied his commander carefully. “My staff is drawing up a formal series of requests for your consideration, sir.”
“Spare me the paperwork, Chyong. Just give me the gist for now. Let the bureaucrats worry about the details later.”
The lieutenant general bobbed his head in gratitude. He’d always appreciated Cho’s prejudice for action. It matched his own temperament. “Very well, then. Most important of all, I need more supplies delivered more consistently. At the moment my infantry battalions and tank crews are subsisting on captured enemy stores, and my artillery units have less than a day’s worth of ready ammunition available.”
Cho frowned. He hadn’t known that things were as bad as that. Some supply problems had been foreseen during the planning for Red Phoenix. In fact, they’d been judged to be inevitable given the enemy’s anticipated destruction of bridges, roads, and rail lines. But prewar staff assessments had all assumed that the difficulties could be overcome by a rapid, unrelenting advance and by the careful management of resources.
The First Shock Army’s commander almost smiled. He should have known better than to rely on estimates rather than on reality. His logistics staffers must have been shading the truth to conceal their own failures. If Chyong’s figures were accurate, the enemy’s air strikes were slowly strangling the ability of the People’s Army to continue its offensive. And going on the defensive to build up new forward stockpiles of food, ammunition, and spare parts was unthinkable. Losing the initiative would mean losing the war.
Fortunately there was a solution. One that had worked well during the North’s first try to liberate the South. It was cumbersome, yes, and overly manpower-intensive. But it would work.
He looked at Chyong, still waiting motionless as snow coated the stars on his shoulder tabs. “You were quite correct to bring this situation to my attention, comrade. I’ll take immediate steps to get you the supplies you need.”
Seeing the other man’s raised eyebrow, Cho explained. “From now on, supplies will move only by night or on days like this. And the convoys will avoid routes the enemy has already targeted. We’ll build new bridges and use porters through otherwise impassable terrain if need be. Finally, I shall see to it that our air defenses are strengthened.”
Chyong nodded his understanding. Such measures had enabled the Chinese to supply large armies in the South from 1951 to 1953, despite the overwhelming air superiority enjoyed by the imperialists. As a young officer he’d studied the system thoroughly and come away impressed both by its effectiveness and its extravagant use of raw manpower. And that last element raised a question that needed to be asked.
Cho seemed to read his mind. “You want to know where all the men for this will come from? Not from your command, I assure you. The high command has placed two more rifle divisions — the Twelfth and the Thirty-first — under my authority. We’ll use them as human pack animals instead of combat soldiers. Better that they should serve the Liberation with their backs than add to our other burdens, eh?”
Chyong’s eyes showed his amusement and agreement.
Cho didn’t allow himself to feel any trace of doubt about his decision until after his subordinate was gone. He’d planned to use the two new divisions to strengthen his advancing army’s flanks. Was it wise to sacrifice the additional security they could have provided? He stood uncertainly in the doorway to his trailer, torn by indecision. Perhaps he should cancel those plans and simply rely on improving the army’s existing supply systems.
Then reason returned. There would be no extra security involved in placing additional troops on the line if he couldn’t supply them. He needed combat power, not useless mouths. Cho turned his back on the gloomy skies and entered his trailer. The morning’s first briefing was already long overdue.
The dull, coughing sound of twin explosions rolled across the flatlands and echoed off the steep, rocky hill above the highway.
“Good shooting, Private Park!” Kevin laid an approving hand on the shoulder of the South Korean reservist manning 3rd Platoon’s Dragon launcher.
The man smiled shyly and bowed his head in thanks at the compliment.
A thousand meters away, two North Korean T-62 tanks burned in fiery testimony to Park’s skill. His missile had slammed squarely into one and exploded, catching the second T-62 inside the resulting fireball. On either side of the dead tanks, other enemy vehicles hastily dispersed, some behind the dense white puffs thrown by onboard smoke dischargers. APCs disgorged their infantry, who promptly sought cover in roadside ditches.
Kevin studied the apparent confusion in satisfaction. His ambush, as expected, had forced the North Koreans to deploy for battle — a maneuver that wasted precious time and fuel. He watched for a couple of minutes more, making sure, and then let the binoculars fall back onto his chest. It was time to head out.
“Lieutenant Rhee!” Rhee’s head popped up from beside a boulder. “Move your people back to the next position. We’ve done enough here.”
The Korean nodded and started bellowing orders. Kevin stood aside as the files of white-camouflaged soldiers began slipping past him, down the slope toward the valley spreading out below this last hill. He glanced toward the road. Were the North Koreans reacting any faster this time?
Nope, the NK column was still trying to shake itself out into attack order. From the look of things, it would be at least another ten minutes before they could advance against what they assumed was an enemy-held hill. Kevin would have liked to have met their expectations. The terrain was perfect, too steep for tanks and with too little cover for attacking infantry. Even a small number of defenders wouldn’t have had much trouble bloodying a much larger assaulting force.
He sighed. Orders were orders.
Even when they didn’t make any sense.
For the last seven days, they’d been retreating virtually nonstop — halting just long enough to delay the North Koreans, inflict a few casualties, and then hustle on. At first he and his men hadn’t minded. They took fewer casualties of their own in that kind of running fight. But as the retreat went on and on, they’d started to question the sanity of the higher-ups. The UN forces had been abandoning defensive positions that could have been held. Why? And where were the reinforcements promised from the States and from South Korea’s enormous pool of trained reserves?