knew what that meant. The only word for the present situation on the ground was fubar. The Red Chinese were in Seoul. North Korea’s flag flew above the city, or what was left of it, but the men who’d taken it didn’t belong to Kim Il-sung. They got their marching orders from Mao Tse-tung.
If they hadn’t done such horrible things to the UN forces after they swarmed across the Yalu…If they hadn’t, maybe some kind of stalemate would have developed. Stalemate wasn’t the smashing victory Douglas MacArthur had looked for, but it beat hell out of the fiasco he’d got.
Bombing on this side of the Yalu hadn’t kept the Chinese from flooding down into Korea. No ordinary weapons had. But the United States had extraordinary weapons, and it had decided that repairing things here was important enough to be worth using them.
“So…What we wait for now is the command from General MacArthur,” Matt Harrison said. “I don’t know when that will come, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long.”
Bill didn’t think they’d have to wait long, either. MacArthur’s military reputation had been on a roller-coaster ride the past few months. He’d looked like a genius after the Inchon landing. That had retaken Seoul and forced the North Koreans to pull back out of the south to keep from getting cut off by the forces suddenly in their rear. He’d planned on wiping Kim Il-sung’s army—and maybe Kim Il-sung’s country—off the map right after that.
But he hadn’t planned on the Chinese incursion when the forces he led neared the Yalu. He hadn’t planned on it, and he hadn’t been able to stop it. Only stragglers had escaped from the army in the north. Resupplying by air just prolonged the agony, as it had for the Germans trapped in Stalingrad. And the German cargo planes hadn’t needed to worry about jet fighters tearing into them.
So if he was going to put Humpty-Dumpty together again, he’d have to break some Chinese eggs instead. Which was fine if nobody could retaliate. Japan hadn’t been able to when fire fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mao didn’t have any atomic bombs. But Stalin did.
Whether he’d use them or not…was something everybody would find out. Maybe the show of force would overawe him. Maybe he would think Mao had gone in over his head and deserved what he got. Or maybe the world would find itself in the middle of a new big war when not all the scabs from the old big war had fallen off the wounds.
Brigadier General Harrison rapped the lectern one more time. “Something else you need to know, gentlemen,” he said. “Aerial reconnaissance shows that the Russians are moving fighters and bombers onto airstrips in southeastern Siberia, and in Manchuria as well. They are getting ready for trouble, and we are the trouble they’re getting ready for.”
“Great,” muttered a man sitting behind Bill Staley. That was about what he was thinking himself. By World War II standards, the B-29 was indeed the Superfortress. But World War II was over, even if its maladies lingered on. It was 1951. The state of the art had advanced.
In 1917, the Sopwith Camel had been a world-beating fighter. Run it up against a Messerschmitt 109 and it wouldn’t last long. For that matter, a Messerschmitt’s life expectancy against an F-86 would be just as brief.
Bill wished he didn’t think that way. A lot of guys simply did what they were told and didn’t worry about anything past the mission. His mind jumped here and there, every which way, like a frog on a hot sidewalk.
He wasn’t the only one. A flyer stuck up his hand and asked, “Sir, what happens if they try and bomb this air base before we move?”
“Then they involve themselves directly in the fighting and have to take the consequences of that,” Harrison replied. Everybody knew most of the enemy MiG-15s that harassed American pilots had Russians in the cockpit. But those were unofficial Russians, as it were. You couldn’t stay
If they hadn’t done such horrible things to the UN forces after they swarmed across the Yalu…If they hadn’t, maybe some kind of stalemate would have developed. Stalemate wasn’t the smashing victory Douglas MacArthur had looked for, but it beat hell out of the fiasco he’d got.
Bombing on this side of the Yalu hadn’t kept the Chinese from flooding down into Korea. No ordinary weapons had. But the United States had extraordinary weapons, and it had decided that repairing things here was important enough to be worth using them.
“So…What we wait for now is the command from General MacArthur,” Matt Harrison said. “I don’t know when that will come, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long.”
Bill didn’t think they’d have to wait long, either. MacArthur’s military reputation had been on a roller-coaster ride the past few months. He’d looked like a genius after the Inchon landing. That had retaken Seoul and forced the North Koreans to pull back out of the south to keep from getting cut off by the forces suddenly in their rear. He’d planned on wiping Kim Il-sung’s army—and maybe Kim Il-sung’s country—off the map right after that.
But he hadn’t planned on the Chinese incursion when the forces he led neared the Yalu. He hadn’t planned on it, and he hadn’t been able to stop it. Only stragglers had escaped from the army in the north. Resupplying by air just prolonged the agony, as it had for the Germans trapped in Stalingrad. And the German cargo planes hadn’t needed to worry about jet fighters tearing into them.
So if he was going to put Humpty-Dumpty together again, he’d have to break some Chinese eggs instead. Which was fine if nobody could retaliate. Japan hadn’t been able to when fire fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mao didn’t have any atomic bombs. But Stalin did.
Whether he’d use them or not…was something everybody would find out. Maybe the show of force would overawe him. Maybe he would think Mao had gone in over his head and deserved what he got. Or maybe the world would find itself in the middle of a new big war when not all the scabs from the old big war had fallen off the wounds.
Brigadier General Harrison rapped the lectern one more time. “Something else you need to know, gentlemen,” he said. “Aerial reconnaissance shows that the Russians are moving fighters and bombers onto airstrips in southeastern Siberia, and in Manchuria as well. They are getting ready for trouble, and we are the trouble they’re getting ready for.”
“Great,” muttered a man sitting behind Bill Staley. That was about what he was thinking himself. By World War II standards, the B-29 was indeed the Superfortress. But World War II was over, even if its maladies lingered on. It was 1951. The state of the art had advanced.
In 1917, the Sopwith Camel had been a world-beating fighter. Run it up against a Messerschmitt 109 and it wouldn’t last long. For that matter, a Messerschmitt’s life expectancy against an F-86 would be just as brief.
Bill wished he didn’t think that way. A lot of guys simply did what they were told and didn’t worry about anything past the mission. His mind jumped here and there, every which way, like a frog on a hot sidewalk.
He wasn’t the only one. A flyer stuck up his hand and asked, “Sir, what happens if they try and bomb this air base before we move?”
“Then they involve themselves directly in the fighting and have to take the consequences of that,” Harrison replied. Everybody knew most of the enemy MiG-15s that harassed American pilots had Russians in the cockpit. But those were unofficial Russians, as it were. You couldn’t stay
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