Walking toward the front entrance of the headquarters building, Colonel Tilman watched the group of soldiers throw a lot of their gear into a vehicle that drove out to meet them. Most of them hopped in, and the vehicle headed toward him. A couple of minutes later, the group got off the truck and stowed their gear near one of the burned-out hangars for the time being while three of the new arrivals walked toward him.
As they got closer, he smiled as he recognized one of the men.
“Lieutenant Commander Charlie Haversham, it’s good to see you again!” Colonel Tilman said as he extended his hand to shake his old friend's hand.
Haversham returned the smile. “It’s good to see you as well, Colonel. I see your brigade has gotten itself in a bit of a pickle here at lovely Fort Mag,” he said jovially. He gestured for them to walk into the building and talk further.
Lieutenant Commander Charlie Haversham had worked with Colonel Tilman on a few other occasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more recently in Syria fighting ISIL. Of course, that was when Haversham had been a lowly lieutenant in charge of a SEAL platoon and not a troop commander.
When Tilman walked into the room with their newly arrived guest, he signaled for Lieutenant Colonel Jackman to come join them. “Chuck, I want you to meet Charlie. He’s from SEAL Team Three. His troop has just been assigned to our brigade to help us out with some recon and special missions the division commander has coming down the pike,” Tilman said.
The two men shook hands and did what all warriors do, sizing each other up.
“I’m glad the SEALs decided to join the fight,” said Jackman, half-joking, half-serious. “Better late than never.”
Haversham just shrugged. He didn’t decide where they got sent — he just went where he was told. “Let’s walk over to the map,” he said. “I have some information we need to pass along to you guys. While you guys are playing patty-cake with the PLA here yesterday, I had my three platoons scattered across most of Luzon, feeding targeting data to the air wings and getting us eyes on the enemy. A couple of my teams have spotted some real trouble headed our way,” he replied. He pointed out the location of the enemy armor brigade that had moved into position, along with what appeared to be an infantry regiment to their southeast and southern flanks.
“Commander, if your teams have spotted these enemy units, are they calling in air strikes, or are you waiting for our permission?” inquired Jackman, who was now very concerned. They had some antitank missiles with them, but they couldn’t stand up to an armor battalion, let alone anything larger than that.
Haversham sighed. He had known that question would be asked, and he didn’t really want to answer it. “Two problems with that,” he said. “First, we needed to know where the friendly units were before we called in air strikes. I’m not going to be responsible for getting a Marine company smoked because I didn’t know they were there. Second, and this is probably the bigger problem — the enemy air defense. Right now, that armor unit is staging in the city of Santa Rosa, using the civilians as shields. Despite the civilians, we were given the go-ahead to hit the tanks, so a couple of F/A-18s were vectored in to hammer them. As they got closer to the target, both aircraft were intercepted by Chinese stealth fighters and were shot down.”
Jackman mumbled something under his breath.
Haversham continued. “After that incident, the carrier said they would send in a pair of F-35s. As soon as the F-35s dropped their weapons, both of them were shot down by a surface-to-air missile complex that’s still operational near Clark International Airport. We took out maybe half a dozen or more enemy tanks but lost a total of four aircraft in the process. Needless to say, that is not a very good exchange,” he concluded. This meant that their air support had virtually dried up over the evening.
Colonel Tilman jumped in before Jackman could ask any other questions. “What is the Navy doing to take those SAM sites out, so we can get our air support back?”
“That’s our new assignment,” Commander Haversham responded. “I’m setting up my headquarters here to run my teams. Our guys are now moving to get in position, so we can lase those SAM sites. Then the Air Force can hit them with some of their long-range guided glide bombs. They can launch those bad boys from nearly one hundred miles out and let them glide undetected toward their targets. Once they’re down, we’ll have our air support back up and running.”
Jackman snorted. “Well, this is just great. We have a tank unit prepping to attack us and a heavy concentration of enemy infantry to our south. Colonel, we’re going to need a lot more support if we are to hold this base.”
Tilman nodded. “This information does change things for us. Commander, I want you to give the coordinates of those troop concentrations and tanks to our fire support guys. I have one battery of 105mm artillery on the east side of the base. It’s been a cluster mess getting them set up and ready, but as of half an hour ago, they reported that they’re ready to provide fire missions. I want to hit those enemy positions before the Chinese have a chance to hit us. Is that understood?”
They had a lot of things to do to get ready for a pending attack, and the action would most likely start within the next couple of hours. They spoke efficiently and stayed focused; hopefully their preparations would make a difference in the outcome.
It was 0520 hours when Captain Tim Long awoke with a start as he heard the 105mm Howitzers fire off a volley at some unknown target. Sitting upright, he immediately got to his feet and grabbed his rifle. Then he walked over to his radio operator to find out what was happening.
First Sergeant John Madero and Gunnery Sergeant Mueller were already talking with his radio operator, giving him some instructions before he called back to headquarters. “What’s going on, Top?” asked Long, hoping it wasn’t anything serious.
“We’re working on trying to get an update from battalion. All we know right now is they caught word of a possible tank unit getting ready to attack the airfield, so they’re trying to disrupt the attack with the big guns,” Madero replied.
“OK. Why don’t you guys go ahead and get everyone awake and have them get ready?” Long asked. It wasn’t really a question, but more of an order. “If they’re going use an armor unit, then chances are, this could be a coordinated attack. In which case, they’ll probably hit our positions as well. We’re practically the only unit protecting those Howitzers right now.” Captain Long suddenly felt a new sense of urgency. To add further emphasis to his concern, another volley of artillery fire exploded in the distance.
Nearly forty minutes went by as the company manned their fighting positions and got ready for whatever might be coming their way. The sound of the artillery fire picked up, and a few times, it sounded like they’d changed directions of where they were shooting. Then suddenly, while the Marines were sitting in their fighting positions, eating their MREs and waiting to see what would happen next, they all heard the unmistakable sound of incoming fire.
While many of the Marines were still green, they knew the loud racket was not friendly. Dozens and then hundreds of rockets hit Fort Mag, rocking the base. At first, it was just the airfield that was getting hit, nailing a few attack helicopters that had transferred to the shore, while other rockets hit some of the barracks and garrison buildings, rocking the defenders. A couple of minutes into the barrage, the men started to believe that maybe they were going to skate by without being attacked directly; then the first rocket hit the church, followed by dozens more that hit all across the small little village, smashing people’s homes and the local school.