Chapter 18
INVASION USA – The Battle for New York
Colonel Grady arrived two days later, on January 15th. Two of the trucks had broken down only 20 miles from the harbor area, and he sent two trucks back to get the 155mm howitzers they had been pulling. Every big gun was needed. A second convoy organized by Colonel Grady was scheduled to arrive out of the combined Army bases around Texas on January 17th and they had a dozen more 155mm guns, which seemed to be the biggest guns towable and that still worked. Most of the more recent Army artillery had been built with forms of computerized systems since the 1990s.
The airports now had 24,000 troops—8,000 stationed at each airport, and the fourth flight of 6,000 troops who flew into Newark direct from Baghdad were transported over the water into the main New York harbor by two World War II destroyers the Navy now had operational, as well as any old tug boats and barges still working.
Bulldozers from the airports were clearing the highways to the harbor area so that the incoming enemy would not have broken-down cars and trucks to use as cover. All of the major highways were already fenced on both sides of the road, and Colonel Patterson hoped that the enemy wouldn’t have wire cutters with them.
The Air Force wanted the incoming aircraft badly, and the airports would be cleared of American military personnel before the arrival except for the pilots and Marines now being flown out of Quantico instead of Camp Lejeune. The C-130s had already pulled 5,000 Marines out of Camp Lejeune, and the rest of the Marines were still overseas, apart from 3,500 men that were being deployed out of the closer Marine base. The idea was to collect men from more remote bases first, which took more time, and then bring them from bases closer and closer to New York.
US Marines would be the major attack force along the highways, and the invading soldiers would be left alone until they had exited the airports, so that the aircraft would not be in the middle of a firefight.
Within 24 hours, and after much discussion, the Chinese engineers had all decided to become Americans. They had seen the forces grouping around the zones of invasion and realized that the chairman could be on the losing side and there was a chance of survival if they stayed where they were. The engineers were civilians, not soldiers, and if they would be allowed to go back to China and collect family, then why not.
Over the second week, the numbers of soldiers grew by the day. Colonel Patterson worked nonstop to get General Allen’s plan into place, and by the end of the second week, it was time to get started on the harbor-area containment plan.
The Texas convoy arrived a day late, but it had grown in size traveling from Army base to Army base, collecting more trucks, howitzers, and tanks as it traveled across the eastern United States. By the time it trundled into New York and aimed for the harbor, the highways were clear and desolate, with faces of American soldiers looking out of every building as the hundred-mile convoy entered 440 south and progressed toward the New York harbor area.
They had traveled up I-70 and then I-78 into New York. The journey had taken six days, and several vehicles had broken down. Mechanics from the Army bases they stopped at returned in other trucks to collect any howitzers or important vehicles left behind.
Finally, the convoy arrived in New York and reached the check point at the I-78/440 intersection and prepared to guide vehicles to their positions around the large harbor area. Two hundred and seventy-three trucks, tanks, and jeeps, exactly the same types and models Colonel Grady had arrived with three days earlier at Preston’s farm, were told to go south to 278, turn left onto the Staten Island Expressway, and aim for Fort Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton either side of the outer bridge into New York Harbor.
With a grand total of 50 155mm howitzers and dozens of truck loads of projectiles, 25 of the big guns were deployed in a line just off the water from the old, but still stable walls of Battery Weed to under the trees of the Arthur Von Briesen Park. The old dock area was too weak to have big guns firing on it, but several large mortar placements under camouflage netting were placed on the breaking concrete. The old Catlin Battery, last used during World War II, was also overgrown, so the guns were placed just off the rocky shoreline and under the first line of trees, giving them natural camouflage.
On the north shoreline, the second line of 25 guns were placed on the grassy areas on the north side along the Lief Ericson Highway, and again placed under camouflage so that nobody from the water could see the gun placements until the very last minute. Each gun had well over 100 projectiles, mostly armor-piercing, followed by HE. Several of the 70 smaller 105 mm howitzers were placed in between the larger guns on both sides, as well as on both ends of the bridge.
Over a ton of explosives were set under each strut right underneath the two main struts of the bridge. The main cables were also prepared with explosives and the whole main center was designed by the Air Force and Army Engineers to explode and drop into the water. The Army Corp of Engineers in charge of the explosive work didn’t want to destroy the whole bridge, but just the center part, which could be rebuilt at a later stage. The engineers figured that the two concrete pillars would not be affected by the demolition of the middle part and dozens of mortars and rocket launchers were carried up by helicopter and placed on the highest positions in the area.
The colonel was not going to take any chances. Nobody had really done this type of warfare against Navy ships for 100 years or more—artillery cannons against ships—but the main idea was to fire so much at one time into the ships that their defense systems would become overloaded and not be able to repel all the projectiles going in. Aircraft would not be used in the initial battle, since they would just be cannon fodder for the superior Chinese fighter jets, and anti-aircraft guns were brought in from everywhere to give the bigger howitzer placements cover from the air.
It was assumed that the large container ships would be sent in first to test the waters, and that they would aim for and berth at the Global Terminal—the only docking facilities big enough for these massive container vessels. There would be room for all five to berth at the terminal, and several container cranes could unload one ship at a time. Colonel Patterson assumed that unloading one ship at a time was their plan since the Chinese engineers had been given a schedule and repair jobs for every piece of the Global Terminal only. The colonel thought that if he were the chairman, he would make sure the overall area was made safe before the engineers worked on getting the other dock areas repaired.
It was surprising how many old trucks the Army actually had, a miniscule percentage compared to the more modern vehicles of all types that were now useless metal junk until somebody got the electronics of the vehicles working again. But that could take years, or a decade, or even longer.
The president flew back to the White House for the first time in two weeks. It was as he had left it, but at least more communications were available and there were now both radio and satellite phone communications. The old Hughes satellite dishes were cropping up everywhere, and the president realized that a very limited internet communication system could be in the pipeline in a year or so.
*****
The cities of the United States and most of the countries in the Northern hemisphere were not nice places to be. With very little law and order, except in and around certain parts of New York, it was horribly cold. It was the middle of winter, and snow was building up so high that two-story houses were now underneath the snowline and people walked and gathered whatever they could above the ground level.