Several American soldiers jumped into the fighting positions Slater and his soldiers were occupying. One of the newly arrived soldiers plopped his M240G down with the bipod setup and swiftly tore into the advancing enemy. In seconds, the Americans had shredded most of the enemy soldiers before they finally broke and ran back, further into the wooded areas of the island.
In short order, the volume of fire directed at Slater and his soldiers tapered off until it nearly ended completely. With the first real break in fighting, Slater ordered his soldiers to help the wounded, getting them stabilized and then bringing them back to the beach area five hundred meters behind them.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
The mortar platoon finally arrived and started to drop rounds in the tree line where the PLA soldiers had retreated. The soldiers of Charlie Company then advanced past Slater’s company toward the tree line to pursue the enemy. Slater stood and surveyed the area. Everywhere he looked, he saw torn and broken bodies. Enemy and friendly soldiers called out for help, pleading for someone to save them, or at least be with them so they wouldn’t die alone.
Captain Wilkes ran toward him. “Lieutenant Slater,” he shouted, “I need your platoon to help move the wounded back to the beach area and work with the medics to get them loaded on the next set of boats that come in. I’m taking the rest of the company with me to go support Charlie.”
Slater nodded.
With that settled, Wilkes shouted out to the other platoons. “Form up on me!” Soon he led the way after their sister company.
Lieutenant Slater turned to look for his platoon sergeant and found him helping one of their wounded soldiers with another medic. He walked over to check on them and saw his RTO, Specialist Mitchem, lying on the ground with his left arm ripped off. The medic was working on getting an IV in him.
“I hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t by my side since I last used the radio,” Slater thought, ashamed of himself for not having looked after his radioman. The kid had done a great job of staying by his side, and here Slater hadn’t even known he’d been shot. He’d been so busy with trying to keep his platoon from getting overrun, he hadn’t seen him get hit.
Kneeling down next to him, he placed his hand on his shoulder. “Hang in there, Mitchem. It’ll be OK. Doc’s taking good care of you now. We’re going to move you back to the beach and get you back to the ship, OK?”
The young soldier looked at him, pain written all over his face and fear in his eyes, but he managed a nod. “You saved our platoon, Sir. I’m sorry I got shot and couldn’t do more to help,” he replied with tears streaming down his face.
“No, Mitchem. I should have been there for you,” Slater answered, almost choking up himself. He’d lost so many soldiers under his command, but seeing Mitchem lying there like that really got to him in a way the others hadn’t, not since his friend Joe had been killed in front of him in that bunker on the Yalu River in Korea.
“We need to get him back to the beach, Sir,” the medic instructed. He and Sergeant Starr lifted Mitchem up and carried the young man to the aid station that had been set up.
A string of six Mike Boats pulled up to the beach, dropping their front hatches and allowing the next wave of soldiers to exit. This was Delta Company. A platoon of medical personnel also came ashore, along with a platoon of engineers. The medics rushed forward to the temporary aid station, immediately going to work on the dozens of wounded soldiers. Before any of the newly arrived boats could leave, one of the sergeants ran inside two of them, making sure they knew they needed to wait so they could load up the wounded.
As the four other boats pulled away, dozens of soldiers assisted in carrying nearly forty wounded Americans to the remaining two boats to be brought back to the motherships and a higher-level trauma center. Looking at the gravelly beach, Slater saw a lot of dead Americans still lying where they had shuffled off this mortal coil. Looking inland toward where his platoon had just been fighting, he saw more dead Americans covering the ground, mostly the soldiers of Alpha and Bravo companies, who had borne the brunt of the initial casualties.
Once ashore, the engineers went to work tying det cord to various trees not far from the beach. Their goal was to get a swath of trees cleared so the artillery battalion could start to bring their howitzers ashore. Big Army was determined to turn this little island into an artillery firebase. Being situated in the center of the Zhujiang River Estuary, it was spitting distance from all of the major ports in the area. The howitzers would be able to provide a solid twenty-four-kilometer radius of fire. The eighteen 155mm howitzers of the 1st Battalion, 108th Field Artillery Regiment, would provide one heck of a punch to support the Army and Marines as they continued to move inland.
Bullets ricocheted off the armored shell of the LAV as Lieutenant Colonel Long’s battalion continued to race down Binhe Avenue on their way to the Chiwan Container Terminal and the Shekou Container Wharf. His battalion had been in nonstop combat since they’d hit the mainland nearly twelve hours earlier. The PLA had rushed two brigades of motorized infantry into the city of Shenzhen, which had bogged them down for several hours. A company of battle tanks had finally been offloaded at the first port they’d seized, which had helped them break through the bottleneck they had been stuck in. Now they were rushing through the city, buttoned up in their armored vehicles as they raced to the two remaining ports they had to secure.
“Loki Six, this is Rogue Six. How copy?” asked Lieutenant Colonel Long’s regiment commander.
Long depressed the talk button on the handset. “Rogue Six, Loki Six. Send it.”
“How close are you to securing objectives Chiwan and Shekou?”
“We’ve broken through onto Binhe Avenue. Taking heavy small-arms fire as we race through the city. We’re two kilometers from both objectives. ETA five mikes until we have a visual,” he replied. His commander had been all over his butt for over an hour to secure their objectives. Never mind the fact that they only had three tanks left for heavy armor support.
“Good copy, Loki Six. Keep the pressure on. 3/6 is pushing to your north. The Army secured a new firebase for us. You’re going to start using call sign ‘Lightning Eight’ for future artillery missions. 1/10 has been retasked to support 3/6 further north. Out.”
“They changed our artillery support?” asked Long’s S3, who was sitting next to him in the command vehicle.
“Yeah, looks that way…an Army 155mm battalion.”
“As long as they can deliver steel-on-steel, that’s all that matters,” the S3 said, seemingly having a change of heart.
“We’re approaching Objective Shekou!” shouted the turret gunner.
More rounds pinged off their armored shell. Crump, crump, crump. A handful of small explosions shook their vehicle, adding to the chaos that was going on all around them. The turret gunner returned fire at something, hoping to keep the enemy’s heads down.
“Romeo Company is entering Objective Shekou,” announced the vehicle commander. “Papa Company is continuing on to Objective Chiwan. Which location do you want us to stop at, Sir?”
“Go to Chiwan,” Long ordered. “We’ll set up our headquarters there.”
Lieutenant Colonel Long turned to his S3. “Get on the horn to Sierra Company and tell them they need to head to our location. I want our mortars with us, along with the medical unit.”