Read Online Valleys of Death by Bill Richardson - Free Book Online

seemed to play.
    The smoke and dust still hung in the air when they attacked again. The first waves came with rifles; behind them more soldiers followed and picked up the weapons left by the dead. On almost every attack, the North Koreans tried to slip behind our lines and cut off our avenue of retreat. Once they did, they would pound our flanks. This time, the North Korean soldiers charged up the hill right into the teeth of our machine guns. After the third attempt, they quit and we settled in for a tense night.
    We waited all night, but they didn’t attack again. The North Koreans instead went around us and cut off the road back to Tabu-Dong. As the fingers of pink light shot up over the horizon, we were ordered to withdraw through the North Korean line. This was not going to be easy.
    Just as we were ready to start our dangerous trek, we were notified that the remainder of the battalion had breached the North Korean line close to Tabu-Dong. Colonel Johnson ordered McAbee to withdraw off the ridge. He was sending trucks through the breach in an audacious attempt to get us out.
    We found a field near the road where the trucks could turn around, and we dug in. We were in a bad spot and knew it. If the trucks got stopped, there was little hope that we could fight our way back to our lines. If we stayed put, they would smash us with another artillery barrage. And I was sure we wouldn’t escape without losses.
    I gathered up the section before the trucks arrived.
    â€œMove quickly when the trucks get here. Be prepared to fire as we go down the road. I want everybody facing out,” I said as calmly as I could. “I want half of you on each side of the truck ready to fire. Fire on my orders. Look for orange panels. Those are friendlies.”
    Soon, I could see the trucks coming down the road. Five two-and-a-half-ton trucks. They had machine gun mounts, but since the Army was short, no machine guns. They raced down the road at a breakneck pace. Their engines screamed as the drivers pushed them. They pulled into the field in a semicircle and barely stopped before we started climbing aboard. Things were tight, and in minutes the whole company was crammed into the truck beds. Witt, one of the section’s pudgy ammo bearers, tapped me on the shoulder just as the driver started back toward the road.
    â€œSarge, can I please get on the floor of the truck and pray for us?”
    â€œOkay,” I barked. “But you better make it a goddamn good prayer.”
    The trucks quickly got up to speed. I kept talking and repeating orders to scan the road and be ready to shoot. Standing near the cab, I watched the truck in front of me swerve and almost lose control. Shit. If one of these trucks crashed, there wasn’t enough room to go around it.
    Then I saw the panels in the distance. We were getting close to the North Korean line.
    I ordered the section to fire. I wanted to keep the North Koreans’ heads down. We kept up a steady stream of fire. I have no idea if we hit anything, but I could hear the North Korean rounds hitting our truck. When I saw the panels getting closer, I started shouting to my men.
    â€œCease fire. Cease fire.”
    I could hear the fire slack off as each truck passed through. I finally exhaled and watched as the men relaxed. I helped Witt up from the bed of the truck and slapped him on the back.
    â€œGood work,” I said. “He listened.”
    It didn’t take long and we were off the trucks and quickly organized to move against a position to the east of the road. This seemed a little crazy. We’d attacked way out in front of our lines and luckily withdrawn through Tabu-Dong; now we were attacking a hill that seemed to be in the rear of the positions we had just passed through.
    We were part of Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker’s “mobile defense.” The strategy focused on using a small number of soldiers to form a thin screen while the bulk of the force