The minigunner also redirected fire to the bunker. She cut down several dozen Chinese soldiers in the span of a couple of seconds. Unfortunately, a number of Chinese soldiers launched themselves into the trench line and began fighting the Americans in hand-to-hand combat before Gomez or the minigunner could mow them all down.
One Chinese soldier threw a satchel charge into the back entrance of Bunker 33. Seconds later, it exploded, blowing flame and smoke out through the gun slits. The bunker was thoroughly destroyed as additional naval infantry continued to rush the trench line.
With one bunker down, it meant that SSG Allen’s bunker was now exposed. He looked down and saw the Chinese rushing his position. He quickly detonated the last of his claymore mines, wiping out dozens of enemy soldiers. Allen stepped out of his bunker and fired a green flare in the sky, letting the second line of defense know their lines had been penetrated and to signal to his own platoon it was time to bug out.
The remaining soldiers in SSG Allen’s platoon began to run down the escape tunnel for safety. SSG Allen stayed behind longer to seal the bunker door just as the last soldier made it in, then he ran for the escape tunnel. He blew the charge in the bunker, destroying it behind them. After he reached the first turn, he detonated the second charge, destroying the first part of the tunnel to ensure no Chinese soldiers could follow behind them. As the remains of his platoon emerged from the tunnel, they were welcomed by defenders who praised them for their valiant effort at the beach. They had succeeded in slowing down the Chinese advance and effectively wiped out the first two waves of their assault.
Thoughts raced through Paul’s mind. He felt lucky to have survived, and grateful that close to half of his platoon had made it out with him. The images of the battle raced through his head, overloading him with gruesome scenes. These pictures at the beach and in front of the bunker would haunt him for the rest of his life; thousands of PLAN infantrymen had been wiped out trying to secure his platoon’s two bunkers and trench line.
Today was the day the PLAN was going to begin its final amphibious assault. They had handed over Kodiak Island to the PLA and reformed up at sea, ready for their last attack that would pave the way to Anchorage. Corporal Chang, like the other soldiers, was nervous about the coming assault. The Army, Navy and Air Force had been pounding Homer and Anchor Point peninsula for days. Rumor had it, several destroyers had been sunk when they got too close to the peninsula. A number of the soldiers in Chang’s squad wondered how their lowly landing vehicles would get close enough to the beach if the shore guns had defeated a couple of destroyers.
Everyone’s coms came to life at the same time, “Board the amphibious assault vehicles and landing crafts. Move quickly! Our time to invade has arrived.”
Chang and his squad boarded the landing craft along with the rest of their platoon; his squad was towards the back of the craft which meant they would be the last off. He realized that this was not a good place to be if he wanted to get to cover quickly. Everyone performed their final checks on their exoskeleton combat suits and equipment as the landing craft moved away from the troop transport and started to form up with the other ships. Steadily, the group of landing crafts began to navigate around the channel until they could see Anchor Point in the distance.
Chang lifted himself slightly above the lip of the landing craft to sneak a peek at the beach. He saw hundreds of rockets and artillery rounds impacting all along the shore, sending geysers of sand, dirt and other materials into the sky. As his boat advanced towards the beach, he saw flashes of light from several well-hidden bunkers on the beach reach out and destroy several of the vessels around him. Red tracers (like lasers) could be seen crisscrossing the water, hitting several vehicles; some rounds bounced off harmlessly while others penetrated the lightly armored landing craft, causing some of them to explode.
As Chang’s landing craft neared the beach, he readied himself and did a check on his exoskeleton suit. He reminded his squad mates of their objective, “Men, we are assigned to take out the machine gun bunker to the right of our landing craft once we hit the beach. You have your weapons — satchel charges and RPG7s. Our goal is to disable or destroy our target as quickly as possible to make way for the second and third waves to advance.”
The soldiers had been told to expect the Americans to have heavy M2 .50 machine guns in the bunkers, but none of them were anticipating the two M134 miniguns as well. As their landing craft neared the beach, several machine gun rounds hit the front ramp and bounced off. Within seconds, the ramp dropped. Chang’s platoon began to rush forward with the rest of the swarm, trying to advance quickly towards the beach. As they were running, one of the heavy machine gunners turned their sights towards his platoon. Within seconds, nearly a dozen men in his platoon had been mowed down by the heavy guns. Chang knew he had to get his squad to some cover quickly or that heavy machine gun was going to cut them apart. Suddenly, Chang heard a loud buzzing sound and saw what looked like a flickering laser reach out from the bunker in front of him and massacred an entire platoon to his left. He had never seen one of the American miniguns used at a beach invasion, and could not believe how fast the platoon had been wiped out. They desperately needed to take out those bunkers before they were all killed.
About 100 meters in from the shoreline was a bank where the sand ended and the grass began. As Chang looked up at the horizon to the small dips and rises in the ground past that point, he could see rows of torn and partially destroyed concertina wire and obstacles, spaced about ten meters apart. PLAN infantrymen were rushing these obstacles, doing their best to either destroy it or cut open wide holes for others to follow through. Several of the armored amphibious landing vehicles did their best to plow through as much of the defensive line as they could before they were destroyed by enemy railguns, mortars and artillery. Their sacrifice was heroic, and probably the only thing preventing the first wave of the assault from being completely wiped out.
Chang moved along with his squad through the various obstacles. They all did their best not to get cut down by enemy fire, and took advantage of as many opportunities to shoot back at the Americans as they could. They were managing to plow along at a fair clip, considering the immense amount of crossfire. In an instant, an explosion occurred near Chang that was so powerful, it picked up the soldier behind him and threw him at Chang’s back. Chang fell flat on his face. He groaned; his nose was partially filled with sand, but the concussion from the blast had stunned him enough that he was powerless to move in that instant. For a brief moment, he lost consciousness. When he came to, he struggled to push the soldier off of his back. As he heard the thump of the man rolling off of him, Chang could see that he was clearly dead.
Looking back, he saw several members of his squad thrown around, some were moving slowly, recovering from the shock, and others were not moving at all. One of the soldiers had stepped on a landmine; it had nearly taken the entire squad out. He was reeling from the shock of it all.
Another loud explosion brought Chang back to reality. He quickly glanced to his left and saw that further down the beach, sand, dirt, and body parts were being blown into the air as several artillery rounds hit the beach. Seconds later, Chang was back on his feet. He yelled at his squad, “Continue to advance to the embankment for cover! And try to take that gun bunker out!”