Team Yankee: a novel of World War III (11 page)
With a hop and a pull, he managed to pull his body up. He stood on the fender pondering his next move for a moment. Decisions were becoming hard to make. He moved over to the turret and sat on the gun mantel with both feet on the main gun. He was dead tired, physically and mentally. So much had happened since the morning. His world and the world of every man in the Team had changed. They hadn't budged an inch from where they had been, but the scene before him now was foreign and strange. It was all too much for a tired brain to take in. The Team commander let his mind go blank as he sat there perched over the 105mm cannon of 66.
Folk startled him. For a moment Bannon lost his balance and almost toppled off the gun mantel. He had fallen asleep. The fearful day had finally ended, and it was dark. The short nap only accentuated his exhaustion. The ITV that had burned was still glowing red, with small fires consuming the last of its rubber. Through the trees he could see smashed Soviet vehicles still burning. Some were like the ITV, red and glowing. Others were still fully involved, yellow flames licking at dense black clouds of smoke rising in the still night air. The shattered and skewed trees and tree trunks added to the unnatural scene.
"Captain Bannon, the battalion commander wants to see you." First Sgt.
Harrert was standing on the ground in front of the tank looking up. They looked at each other while Bannon collected his thoughts. "Are you OK, Captain?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm OK. Give me a minute to get my shit together. Where is the Old Man?"
"He said he's back down where you last saw each other. He wasn't sure how to get in here and didn't want to throw a track finding a way in."
"Are you finished here, Sergeant?"
"Yes, sir. The other ITV was still running. Newell is going to drive it down to the maintenance collection point. We'll turn it over to the infantry there. 55 is still operational. The only real damage was to the antennas. We replaced them with the spares we carry around and made a radio check. 55's good to go." "And bodies?"
"Folk and I moved them over out of the way and covered them with 55's tarp. The location has been reported to S-1. There's nothing more for us to do here. "
Harrert's last comment was more like fatherly advice than a statement of fact. He was right, of course. The hilltop had been a dumb place to put a position. It took three men killed to convince Bannon of that. He had no desire to invest any more here.
He stood on the front slope of the tank and stretched, then, squatting down closer to the first sergeant, he told him to pass word on to the XO to move
55 over to the 2nd Platoon position. Harrert was to follow the XO over. Once there, the first sergeant was to pick up the XO and the 2nd Platoon leader in the PC and bring them over to 66's position to the right of 3rd Platoon. A runner would go for the 3rd and Mech Platoon leaders. No doubt there would be some new information to pass out once he had finished with the battalion commander. There might even be a change of mission. Even if there weren't he still wanted to gather the leadership and assess the impact of the first day's battle on them and their platoons. The 66 pulled out of the old headquarters position, carefully picking its way through the debris until they reached the logging trail. Once on the trail it only took a couple of minutes to reach their former position. They did not pull all the way up to the berm this time but stayed back in the woods about ten meters. The other tanks had also pulled back just far enough so that they could still observe their sectors without being readily visible to the other people across the valley. The battalion commander was waiting as 66
pulled in. Bannon had been right on both counts. Colonel Reynolds was there to provide an update on the big picture and give him an order for a new mission.
Colonel Reynolds had just come from brigade. Rather than pull all the team commanders back to the battalion CP, he was making the rounds and passing the word out himself.
Besides, Bannon suspected that Reynolds wanted to gauge the impact of the first day's battle on his team commanders just as Bannon wanted to do with his platoon leaders.
The first item covered was a rundown on the battalion's current situation. Team Yankee had been the only team to engage the enemy within the battalion task force. For a moment, Bannon wondered why the colonel bothered to provide him that brilliant flash of the obvious.
Team Bravo had been badly mauled by artillery, losing five of its ten PCs, two of the four ITVs that had been with them, and one of the four 1st Platoon tanks Team Yankee had attached to them. The destroyed tank had taken a direct hit on the top of the turret. The armor on a tank can't be thick everywhere and the top is about as thin as it gets. None of 12's crew survived. Of the remaining three tanks, one had lost a road wheel and hub but had been recovered and would be back up by midnight. Because of the losses, the trauma of being under artillery for so long, and the loss of its commander, Team Bravo had been pulled out of the lane. D company, the battalion reserve, had moved up to replace Bravo, to give them a chance to regroup.
C company, to the left of Team Yankee, had had an easy day. They hadn't seen a Russian all day and had not received any artillery fire. The battalion commander told Bannon that the C company commander and his men were chomping at the bit, waiting for a chance to have a whack at the Reds. In a dry and even voice Bannon told the battalion commander that if the gentlemen in C company were so fired up for action, they were welcome to Team Yankee's position, including the bodies. The cold, cutting remark caught Reynolds off guard.
He stared at Bannon for a moment, then let the matter drop, moving on to the battalion's new mission.
In the colonel's PC, Bannon received his new orders. On the wall of the PC was a map showing the brigade's sector.
The battalion task force was on the brigade's left flank. First Brigade, to the north, had received the main Soviet attack and had lost considerable ground. The attack against the battalion had been a supporting attack. Bannon thought about that for a moment. The Team's fight had been a sideshow, unimportant in the big picture. As that thought rattled around in
his mind, he felt like screaming. Here the Team had put its collective ass on the line, fought a superior foe twice, and had three men killed and five wounded in an unimportant sideshow. His ego and pride could not accept that. What was he going to tell Lorriet's mother when he wrote her? "Dear Mrs. Lorriet, your son was killed in a nameless, insignificant sideshow. Better luck next time." He began to feel angry.
Slowly he became aware that the battalion commander and the S-3 were looking at him.
"May I proceed?" the battalion commander's curt question didn't require a reply. The 1 st Brigade would be hard pressed to hold another attack. Intelligence indicated that the Soviet forces in front of
1st Brigade had lost heavily and were no longer able to attack. A second echelon division, the 28th Guards Tank Division, was moving up and was expected to be in position to attack not later than dawn tomorrow. The 28th Guards had been under attack by the Air Force most of the day but could not be stopped. Division had given brigade the mission to attack into the flank of the 28th Guards Division as soon as they were fully committed in the attack.
The Mech Battalion was given the mission of pulling out of the line on order, moving north, and spearheading this attack. The battalion commander was now giving Team Yankee, his tank-heavy team, the mission of spearheading the battalion's effort.
Bannon's mind again wandered off the matter at hand. Somewhere in the division's rear, several hours ago, while Team Yankee was still knee-deep in Russians, the division's commanding general had told his colonels as they surveyed the map: "Attack there." While the first sergeant and Sergeant Folk had been dragging the bodies of Team Yankee's dead to an out-of-the-way spot, the brigade com-
mander had told the battalion commander: "Attack there." Now the executor of the plan, the lead element commander, the lowest ranking person in the U.S.
Army to carry the coveted title of Commander, had his marching orders. As he received the detailed instructions from the S-3 as to routes, objectives, fire support, and coordination instructions, they were joined by the Team's fire-support officer or FIST Team Chief, a 2nd Lt. Rodney Unger. He had finally made it back. He was already familiar with the concept of the operation so there was no need to go over everything. When the S-3 finished, he asked if there were any questions or anything that the Team needed. Bannon's request that the Team be pulled out of the line now to an assembly area for a rest was denied. According to the battalion commander, Team Bravo needed it more than Yankee did. As Team Bravo was going to be in reserve, Bannon requested that the 1st Tank Platoon be returned. That request was also denied. He then requested that an ITV section be attached to the Team to make good their losses. That request too was denied as the other companies without tanks needed some antitank fire power. Seeing that he wasn't going to get anything from battalion but a pat on the back and a pep talk, he stopped asking, and the meeting was over. The battalion commander and the S-3 left Team Yankee to go down to C company to calm them down before they chewed through their bit.
Uleski had the platoon leaders and the first sergeant assembled in the PC when the battalion commander left. They were exchanging information and observations as Bannon climbed into the track. Before he discussed the new mission, he had each platoon leader update him on the status of his platoon and the condition of the men and equipment. They were all tired but confident. The first day's success had removed many of the fears and doubts that they had had in themselves and in their men. The Team had met the Russians, laser range finder to laser range finder, and fond that they were not ten feet tall and could be beaten. Even Uleski was more himself. Bannon began to feel better. The negative thoughts that had kept clouding his mind in the
battalion commander's track were fading. The quiet, calm confidence of Team Yankee's leadership gave its commander's flagging morale a needed boost.
According to the book, a .leader is supposed to use one-third of the time he has available from when he receives a mission to when he executes it for the preparation of his order.
That formula is a good guide, but it seldom works out in practice. Rather than keep the platoon leaders and FIST chief waiting while he came up with his plan, Bannon gave them what information he could. As the platoon leaders copied the graphics of the operation from the commander's map to theirs, Bannon considered his plan of action and quickly wrote some notes for his initial briefing. The briefing included the general situation, the enemy situation, the Team's mission, routes of movement, objectives, and a simple scheme of maneuver. The Team may have done well in its first fight, but it had been an easy one, conducted from stationary positions using a plan that had been developed for months. The new mission was an attack, a short notice one at that. He didn't want to do anything fancy or complicated. Simplicity and flexibility were what he wanted.
The Team would use standard battle drill and rely on their SOP. Order of march out of the position would be the 2nd Platoon with 55 in the lead, followed by 66, the FIST track, 3rd Platoon, and the Mech Platoon. Bannon explained that they would travel with either the two tank platoons up and abreast and the Mech trailing or in column with 3rd Platoon overwatching the advance of 2nd. This scheme put the majority of the Team's combat power forward and left some flexibility to change formations rapidly with minimum reshuffling.
Detailed instructions, the artillery fire support plans, and any new information would be provided prior to the move.
After his briefing, Bannon made a quick check with the platoon leaders to answer any questions concerning the new mission. He reminded them to ensure that their platoons stayed alert and on the radio. He also stressed the need to make sure they rotated with their crews when it came to sleeping. He wanted wide awake, alert leaders when the Team went into the attack. With the platoon leaders dismissed, he went over the needs of the Team and the support plan for the attack with Uleski and Harrert.
The news the first sergeant had was not good. The heavy fighting to the north had consumed huge amounts of ammunition, in particular tank main gun ammo. Because the corps ammo resupply point was still being set up, division ordered the brigades to send whatever tank ammunition they had to the 1 st Brigade. All the rest of Team Yankee's basic load of ammunition that was supposed to be in the battalion trains area was gone, headed north in the Team's trucks to someone else's tanks. Bannon was too tired to work himself into a rage. The battalion commander and the S-3 had been there for over thirty minutes and had neglected to inform him of this "minor" point. He began to wonder whose side the battalion commander was on. It almost seemed as if this was some kind of test to see how far Team Yankee could go
on its own.
The good news was that the Team would still get a hot meal in the morning, provided there was no interference from the Russians. New protective mask filters would be passed out at that time. The first sergeant had been working on securing them since he heard the news of the chemical attack. He
would have enough replacements for the entire Team. An additional day's worth of MREs would also be passed out to add to the two days' supply already on the Team's tracks. The Team was in good shape as far as fuel was concerned, but Bannon wanted to be sure.
Harrert was to arrange for a top off right after breakfast, provided battalion hadn't taken the fuel too. The three of them exchanged a few sharp and humorous remarks on that subject and, with a chuckle, broke up the meeting. The first sergeant returned Uleski and McAlister to the 2nd Platoon's positions before heading back to the trains area. Bannon headed back for the FIST track to finish the Team's plan.
Second Lt. Rodney Unger was a good FIST Team chief. He still had a lot to learn about tanks and infantry. But he knew about artillery and how to get it. When he was first assigned to the Team as the FIST nine months before, he still