Captain McCoy called an Officers' Call of his staff. It convened in the captain's cabin of the Wind of Good For-tune. Present were Lieutenant Taylor, Captain Hart, and Master Gunner Zimmerman.
"I have reason to believe the North Koreans may come into port tonight, probably just before dark," McCoy began.
"Where'd you get that, Killer?" Zimmerman asked, cu-riously.
My worst-thing-at-the-worst-time theory, Ernie.
"I thought you knew, Mr. Zimmerman," McCoy said. "God tells me things."
"Oh, Jesus Christ, McCoy!" Taylor said, half in disgust, half laughing.
"And there have been two changes of plan," McCoy said. "The first is that if they do come in, we're going to have to kill everybody on board, or sink the launch, prefer-ably both."
"Not just run them off, to come back and play later?" Taylor asked.
"The minute they come in the harbor, they're going to see the boat," McCoy said. "So the first thing we shoot on the boat is wherever the radio is likely to be, and anybody who looks like he has a microphone."
"Why are they going to see the boat?" Hart asked.
"Because the camouflage will be off it."
"Oh?"
"Because you and me, Hart, the moment we finish with the NKs, are going to go to the lighthouse. Maybe, just maybe, if that's lit up in the wee hours of the morning, they won't lay naval gunfire on the islands."
"No, you're not," Zimmerman said.
"What did you say, Mr. Zimmerman?" McCoy snapped icily.
"Hart and me'll go to the lighthouse," Zimmerman said. "We'll take two of the guys with us." He paused, then went on: "Who do you want to be here if the general gets on the radio?" Zimmerman said. "You or me?"
"Taylor will be here."
"He's right, Ken," Taylor said. "You can't leave here. But I don't think Ernie should, either. Hart and I can han-dle the lighthouse if you give us two men, and Ernie can work the radio."
"For what it's worth, I vote with the Navy," Hart said. "I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of Killer steering me around in the boat in the dark."
"Okay," Taylor said. "That's settled. We just had a vote."
"A vote?" McCoy said. "What does this look like, Con-gress?"
"What I'd like to know, Ken," Taylor said, ignoring him, "is how you can be so sure the NKs are going to suddenly show up."
"I've got a gut feeling," McCoy admitted. "That's all."
"That's good enough for me, Killer," Zimmerman said, matter-of-factly. "I will go alert the troops to prepare to re-pel boarders."
He got up and walked out of the cabin.
Hart and McCoy looked at each other.
"You stick by the radio, George," McCoy ordered. `Tell Kim to turn the engine on and leave it running. Maybe, with a little luck, we'll hear from the general, and none of this John Wayne business will be necessary."
Hart nodded, and then said, "Aye, aye, sir."
The John Wayne business proved to be necessary. Twenty minutes later, as Technical Sergeant Jennings was hauling the camouflage netting off the boat, the lookout posted on the end of the wharf suddenly started to run down the wharf toward the shore.
Jennings waved at him to stay where he was, and after another half-dozen steps, the lookout jumped to one side of the wharf and concealed himself in the rocks.
Jennings dropped the camouflage net and jumped ashore, and, bent double, ran into the alley between the closest two houses. He ran behind the houses until he came to the one where he thought Captain McCoy would be.
He wasn't.
He ran to the next house.
McCoy was there, taking up the squatting firing position with his Garand as if he were on the range at Camp LeJeune.
"Captain!"
"I see them, Jennings," McCoy said.
Jennings looked through the window, and for the first time saw the boat, and the North Korean soldiers in then-cotton uniforms manning what looked like an air-cooled.50 on her bow.
The partially uncovered boat caught their attention, and they fired a short burst at it.
"Shit," McCoy said. "I was hoping they'd try to capture it intact!"
Then his Garand went off, and then again, and then again, and Jennings saw the two Koreans on the machine gun fall, one backward, as if something had pushed him, and the other just collapse straight downward.
"If you remember how to use that rifle, Sergeant," Mc-Coy said, "now would be a good time."
[TWO]
ABOARD LST-450
37 DEGREES 11 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,
125 DEGREES 58 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE
THE YELLOW SEA
1615 13 SEPTEMBER 1950
LST-450 was now hobbling in a wide circle in the Yellow Sea about fifty miles off the lighthouse marking the en-trance to the Flying Fish Channel. She was alone, in the sense that she was not escorted by-under the protection of-a destroyer or any other kind of warship, but there had always been some sort of aircraft more or less overhead since she had sailed from Sasebo, and the farther north they had moved, there seemed to be more ships just visible on all sides of her.
Not a convoy, Captain Howard Dunwood, USMCR, had reasoned, although there certainly was a convoy out there someplace, surrounded by men-of-war. What he was looking at were ships of the invasion fleet who someone had judged did not need protection as much as some other ships-an LST was not as valuable as an air-craft carrier or an assault transport, obviously-and had been placed, for the time being, far enough from where the action was likely to occur to keep them reasonably safe.
After reviewing with his men for the umpteenth time the role Baker Company was to play in the Inchon invasion, Dunwood turned them over to the first sergeant and went to the bridge. He would have a cup of coffee with the captain before the evening meal was called.
The major sent to Sasebo from Division G-3 had been- as Dunwood expected he would be-a bullshitter, but the more Dunwood thought about what Baker Company was going to be expected to do, the more he came to believe the major had been right about one thing. Baker Company's role in the invasion was going to be critical.
You just can't sail large unarmored vessels slowly past artillery, and that's exactly what was going to happen un-less Baker Company could (a) seize the islands, and (b) hold them against counterattack long enough for the Navy to get some cruisers and destroyers down the channel past them.
And the more often Baker Company rehearsed its role, the more Dunwood was sure that Division G-3 had come up with a pretty good plan to do what had to be done, and that the plan-now changed by what they'd learned in re-hearsal-was now as good as it was going to get.
What was going to happen now was that during the hours of darkness-probably meaning as soon as it really got dark-LST-450 would end its circling and move to a position just off the lighthouse marking the entrance to the Flying Fish Channel.
There, it would rendezvous with five Higgins boats put into the water from the USS Pickaway (APA-222).
Starting at 0330 the next morning-14 September-af-ter they had had their breakfast, Company B would begin to transfer from LST-450 to the Higgins boats. There would be twenty men and one officer on three of the boats, and twenty men under the first sergeant on the fourth, and twenty men under a gunnery sergeant on the fifth.
The naval gunfire directed at the channel islands would begin at 0400 and end at 0430. As soon as it lifted, the Hig-gins boats would enter the Flying Fish Channel, move down it, and occupy, first, Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do Islands, and then, depending on the situation, other islands in the immediate vicinity.