Task Force 18 was scattered now, covering an area hugging Korea's east coast over one hundred miles across. Most far-flung of all the ships were the frigates Gridley and Biddle, charged now with backing up the antisubmarine cordon of LAMPS III helos, HS-19s Sea King helicopters, and the S-3A Vikings of VS-42. North Korea had a number of submarines, mostly older, ex-Soviet Whiskey-classes, and it was imperative that they be kept well clear of the American ships ― especially the Marine-laden transports and the Jefferson herself.
The U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson, flagship of the task force, cruised slowly thirty miles off Wonsan, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser Vicksburg and her Combat Air Patrol umbrella of F-14 Tomcats.
Much nearer the coast, eight miles off Wonsan's harbor mouth, the Marine contingent held station: Chosin, Little Rock, Texas City, and Westmoreland County.
Closer inshore still, the destroyers Lawrence Kearny and John A. Winslow turned five-inch guns on the spine of the Kolmo Peninsula, pounding away at the heights above the beach as they covered the approach of Marine amphibious craft. And over the entire area, A-6 Intruders, F/A-18 Hornets, and F-14 Tomcats prowled, stooped, and struck. Every SAM site that could be found along the coast had been neutralized already. Because Wonsan Harbor itself was crowded with the shipping of many nations, North Korean vessels in port were largely ignored, but those which attempted to sortie were quickly spotted by Hawkeye radar planes and pounced upon. So far two Osa-class missile boats ― each carrying Styx anti-ship missiles ― had been discovered and sunk as they tried to motor clear of the harbor. Other Korean casualties included five patrol boats which might have posed a threat to the landing craft, and the North Korean frigate Glorious Revolution, run aground by her crew after sustaining a hit by an Intruder-launched Harpoon missile. Smoke from the fires still raging in her engine room stained the sky over the Kolmo Peninsula as dawn approached.
H-hour was set for 0545 hours, the time of high tide this morning along the east Korean coast. By 0515, the LPD Little Rock's stern doors were open, and the first of her two LCACs began nosing onto seas made choppy by a stiff, northwesterly breeze.
Neither aircraft nor boat, each was a squat, curious-looking vessel eighty-eight feet long and forty-seven feet wide supported on cushions of air. LCAC hovercraft ― the designation stood for Landing Craft Air Cushion ― were one of the more recent developments in amphibious operations. Capable of carrying over one hundred twenty tons of payload twenty miles at forty knots, LCACs were such a new twist to modern warfare that the experts were still arguing over just how they should be integrated into conventional beach assault tactics.
Wonsan would be their first combat test. LCAC 53 and LCAC 55 swung clear of Little Rock's stern, churning up clouds of wind-whipped spray as thick as smoke screens. Driven by twin, aft-mounted turboprops, outsized versions of the aircraft propellers which drove flat-bottomed swamp buggies in the Everglades, the LCACs accelerated toward the coast.
The encounter was more accident than ambush, blind probes by opposing forces which blundered into one another just below the ridge crest on the rocky slopes a mile from Nyongch'on. Second Platoon was advancing by squads, with one thirteen-man team moving while the other two provided overmatch. Third Squad had the point when they encountered the North Korean position.
Gunfire barked and cracked, the muzzle flashes visible as rapidly strobing pulses of light against the blackness of the ridge. The Marines returned fire at once and the morning was filled with the hammering thunder of autofire.
Lieutenant Morgan was with First Squad when the pre-dawn stillness shattered. Like tens of thousands of junior Marine officers before him, Lieutenant Victor A. Morgan had originally joined the Corps during peace time, with no serious thought of ever having to go into combat. A modern Marine officer could well serve his entire career without once hearing a shot fired in anger.
It had taken OCS at Quantico, a course tougher in most respects than that meted out to enlisted recruits at Paris Island and San Diego, to give him a more realistic view of the modern world. Marines had died in Iran, Beirut, Grenada, and a score of other places around the world during "peacetime." And the war to liberate tiny Kuwait had come out of nowhere. Now Morgan found himself on a hill in North Korea, with someone up there doing his best to kill him. He was scared, but the shouted orders of the platoon's sergeant, the sure movements of his men, the memories of his own training quickly steadied him.
"Ryan!" he snapped, grateful for the hours he'd spent memorizing the names and histories of the men in his platoon. "Take your squad to the left. Van Buren! Close up and support Third Squad!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
"And use your two-oh-threes!" Sergeant Walters added. "Move it!"
"Right, Gunny!"
Gunfire continued to crackle through the night. One rifleman in each squad carried an M-203 grenade launcher clipped beneath the barrel of his M-16 assault rifle.
The lieutenant heard the hollow thump of an M-203 off to the right, followed by another. The first 40-mm grenade burst near the top of the ridge, the flash so brilliant it hurt the eyes. The second exploded close by the first. Morgan could hear someone screaming somewhere up there on the hillside. Seconds later, the firing redoubled as Second Squad reached the crest of the ridge and began flanking the enemy.
"Let's move, Lieutenant," Walters said. "Up and over."
"Right you are, Gunny." His initial fear was still with him, but controlled. He felt a swelling excitement, an urgency to close with the unseen enemy. He raised his voice in a bellow which shook his entire frame. "Marines!"
With an answering roar his platoon surged up the slope. Gunfire from the crest was sporadic now as North Korean soldiers began filtering back down the other side.
A Marine officer leads by example. The phrase from OCS was stuck in Morgan's mind, playing itself over and over as he took the lead.
"Marines!"
The Yankee troops had materialized out of nowhere, and Colonel Li was faced with the very real prospect of having his entire command trapped between the Marines in Nyongch'on-kiji and those who were coming up the ridge toward him from the area where that one damaged helicopter had gone down. It had been bad luck that the aircraft had managed to make a soft landing, bad luck that their blundering advance through the darkness had caught his own battered command scattered and unready. Li saw almost from the beginning that his men were not going to stand against the Yankees. With the first grenade explosion, a dozen men turned and ran.
So much, he decided, for Communist patriotic solidarity. Despite continuing clashes with the puppets in the south, few of his men had actually seen combat. The reality was like being doused by a bucket of ice water.
"You!" he snapped, pointing at the man with the Type 80 MG. "With me!"
"Chucksiro!" the soldier replied. He looked terrified. "At once, Comrade Colonel!"
Two hundred meters down the northwest slope of the ridge, Colonel Li and the machine gunner came to an outcropping of boulders dimly visible now in the growing light. The base lay spread out below him. From here, Li could easily see the buildings, the dying fires, and three large American helicopters sitting on the tarmac on the west side of the camp. There were well over a hundred Americans in the camp now; he could see them moving in groups among the buildings, setting up a defensive perimeter.