A Mighty Endeavor (61 page)

Infantry Company, Second Battalion, 16e
Regiment d’Infanterie Coloniale,
RC-157, French Indochina

“Cowardice! Unforgiveable cowardice!”

Captain Gregoire Dieudonne crashed his fist on the table to give emphasis to his words. In front of him, Jourdain Roul stood to attention, trying to keep his temper under control. He was uneasily aware that a good part of him agreed with his Captain’s assessment. The company was formed up around a small hamlet; one so small, it didn’t even have an official name. Its importance was limited to the fact that it was here that RC-157 made a 90-degree switch in direction from south to due east and crossed a small stream. The curve of the stream and the arc of the road offered what appeared to be a good defensive position; on the surface, anyway. His experiences earlier in the day gave Roul good reason to doubt that.

“Do you have any explanation for your actions? Or must I assume that you are English?” Dieudonne was bright red with rage. Still, his words gave Roul a chance to explain himself.

“Sir, our position was untenable. The Siamese had occupied the high ground to the north and were making undisturbed artillery practice on my right. Their infantry demonstrated against my center, pinning it in place, while they advanced to cut the road in my rear. They had tanks in support. There was nothing I could do. If we had remained in place, we would have been cut off and forced to surrender.”

Roul took a deep breath. “Sir, our position here is in equal danger. The Siamese are not advancing along the road, to the exclusion of everything else. They are methodically occupying the ridge to the north, parallel to RC-157. They are doing that while we speak. If they haven’t occupied Hill 168, they will soon. From there, they can bring their guns up again. Captain, I must urgently recommend we detach a unit to secure Hill 168.”

Dieudonne stared at the map, running permutations through his mind. Despite his behavior towards Roul, he was actually quite sympathetic to the young Lieutenant’s dilemma. The French defensive plan had been based on the border battalions forming a series of roadblocks along the key east-west highways that would pin down the Thai forces. Then, the core of the Indochina army would counter-attack, envelop their left flank and drive them back. The problem was that the whole plan was built around the assumption that the Thais would keep to the roads. Obviously, they weren’t doing that at all.

Dieudonne knew more about what was going on around him than Roul, although he was unpleasantly aware that his picture was very incomplete. He suspected that the disappearance of the Third Battalion,
Tirailleurs Tonkinois
had been caused by the same sequence of events that had taken place at Phoum Kham Reng. Only, the
Tirailleurs
hadn’t disengaged and had been swallowed up in place. If Roul hadn’t disengaged, his platoon wouldn’t be here now. On the other hand, if he had remained in place, his sacrifice would have bought Dieudonne more time to prepare his defenses. Sometimes there were no good options.

“If you had held your position as ordered, I might have had time to do just that. The option is no longer open to us. We will have to extend our position on our right to defend against an envelopment. Take your platoon and prepare defensive positions on our extreme right. And Lieutenant, do not believe that your position on the right of the line means your actions today are considered creditable.”

Lieutenant Roul snapped out a salute and stomped out of the tent, obviously angered by the reprimand. Dieudonne shook his head and studied the map again, trying to put some form of sense to the Thai advance. It was slow and methodical; a harsh critic might even describe it as lethargic. The image that came to his mind was that of a slow flood of water, perhaps from a dripping tap. It was quietly seeping past the French defenses, not forcing its way through them.
Obviously their commanders are determined to keep their casualties to a minimum but there is more to the situation than just that. They’re just not trying to move quickly. Are they really prepared to cede the initiative to us?

His thoughts were interrupted by a tattoo of rifle fire from his left flank. A breathless runner arrived a few second later. “Sir, Lieutenant Lucrece sends his compliments and says he is under rifle fire from a low ridge some three hundred meters to his front. He seeks permission to return fire.”

Dieudonne looked at his map and marked a red circle on the ridge in question. It really wasn’t much of a ridge. At best it was only some ten meters higher than the position held by Lieutenant Benjamin Lucrece. “Tell the Lieutenant to hold his fire. We will engage the ridge with our mortar.” The company had a mortar squad with a single 60mm barrel. This was the kind of situation the weapon was ideal for. The captain left his tent and went over to
where the Sergeant in charge of the mortar squad had set up. A quick
inspection of the map and the mortar crew knew exactly where they had to drop their rounds. A few seconds after that and the ridge was marked by the series of small explosions that showed an infantry mortar at work. The Thai rifle fire quickly petered away and the ridge, such as it was, fell quiet.

Second Battalion, First Regiment, 9th Infantry (Black Panther) Division

“Any casualties?” Colonel Romklao had his maps out in front of him.

“None, sir. The men pulled back quickly. They’re certain, though, it was mortar fire. A 60mm mortar.”

Romklao knew the implication of that. A single 60mm mortar firing meant they had an infantry company ahead of them. His reconnaissance squad had goaded the French into opening fire with it. That had told him all he needed to know. It was probably a full strength company as well. Romklao regretted bitterly that the infantry platoon he had run into earlier in the day had managed to slip away.
They’ve had plenty of time to rejoin their company. It would have been better to have put them in the bag earlier.

His battalion was flowing forward, mostly silently. That was part of the doctrine they had carefully absorbed from their German instructors.
Don’t get hung up on every enemy force that tries to block you. Go around them; filter past them and leave them cut off in your rear. Follow-up forces will deal with the troops you have by-passed. Keep the initiative by continually moving forward. Don’t get involved in fights you don’t have to; but, if you have to fight, bring every scrap of force you can summon against your enemy.
The Germans had used the analogy of a man digging a hole in dry sand. As fast as he shovelled it out, it would flow back around him. The only problem was that, in this particular case, he was the follow-up element. The other two battalions in the regiment were already moving to occupy Hill 280 some 12 kilometers further east.

“Are the guns ready?” The Regiment had a battery of six 77mm infantry guns ,but it had been split down to three two-gun sections; one section was attached to each infantry battalion. That was another thing their instructors had stressed; most of the damage done by artillery took place with the first few rounds. After that, the effectiveness of the guns declined steeply. A few shells right at the start of an action were worth hundreds later on. Not for the first time, Romklao reflected grimly on how much hard-won expertise their advisors had passed on. Before their arrival, he’d never understood just how much his Army had to learn. Now, he knew enough to wonder whether his army was capable of translating lessons into practical experience.

“Yes, sir.”

Lieutenant Kulap Kamon had brought his guns up and positioned them behind the ridgeline exploited by the recon section. This was their second time in action. A few hours earlier, they’d dispersed a French outpost at Phoum Kham Reng. It had been a minor action, starting with a sergeant wounded by a sniper and ending when a few rounds from his guns had sent the rest of the French unit running. But it had been enough to give his men some of the swagger of veterans.

“Have smoke ready. The machine guns will open the battle.”

Romklao had positioned his four heavy machine guns carefully. They were screened from direct fire, but their bursts would graze the top of the ridge before plunging on the French positions. Each machine gun had its limits set. They would fire along those lines to rake the French positions with gunfire. Indirect fire from machine guns; Romklao knew he would never have believed it was practical.

“Colonel, we have the dive bombers waiting. Nine Hawk IIIs, with four 50-kilo bombs each. Their pilots await our word.”

The comment from the Air Force officer in the truck sounded a little pompous, but rumors were already spreading on how the dive bombers demoralized the French infantry. The rumor mill was always more efficient than any regular communications system could be. There had been doubts within the Army about whether assigning Air Force pilots to Army units this way had been wise, or even sensible, but the idea was working.

“Ask them to hold please. We will mark the target with smoke when we want them to make their attack.”

Romklao took a flare gun and fired a red flare into the sky. There was a pregnant pause. Then rifle fire broke out along the ridgeline to the north. Romklao had two of his four infantry companies spread out along the ridge with orders to pin down the French right and prevent them reinforcing their left.

“Machine gunners, open fire on the French positions.”

Infantry Company, Second Battalion, 16e
Regiment d’Infanterie Coloniale,
RC-157, French Indochina

Captain Dieudonne had been expecting the attack to develop on his right but the force that was taking part astonished him. The volume of rifle fire was much more than that of a company. He could count at least six light machine guns snapping short bursts into the positions held by his two platoons on the right flank. The firing spread quickly along the line. Now he heard the sustained jackhammer noise of heavy machine guns. For a moment, he thought that it had started to rain. The sight of some of his men, caught in the open, falling to the ground quickly dispelled any such notion. He was under indirect machine gun fire.
It’s probably just suppressive fire. The enemy’s main strength is on my right.

In truth, after the initial surprise, the machine gun fire achieved very little. At most, it disrupted movement in the French position. Once the French infantry had gone to ground, their casualties were very few. So, it was no surprise to him that the whistle of inbound artillery fire dominated the noise of the battle. The shells seemed aimed directly at him. Their noise swelled to a crescendo before the shells exploded with soft, dull thuds in front of his positions. The white smoke billowed upwards. Just like Lieutenant Roul a few hours earlier, Dieudonne thought that he was coming under gas attack. His mind recalled ugly pictures of the time when he had been a young Lieutenant in the trenches of 1918 and had seen gas at work for the first time.
Thankfully, it isn’t gas; just smoke. Roul mentioned that the Siamese like smoke screens.

“They’re coining.”

The cry went up from along the trenches that marked the position of the platoon on his left. Dieudonne looked at the advancing infantry with a degree of shock. The main attack was coming on his left and was in much greater strength than he had believed possible. There were more than two hundred Thai infantry attacking; perhaps closer to three. They swarmed forward, beginning their descent of the long ridge that had shielded them. Beyond his left, Dieudonne saw another force of infantry, at least equal to the one on the ridge, moving to envelop his flank. There is no way that this force could be anything less than a whole regiment. Any further thoughts along those lines were disrupted by the scream from overhead.

Each Thai Hawk III had peeled over. The aircraft dove on the French positions beneath. The noise of their near-vertical, full-power descent hammered into the brains of the men below. It prevented rational thought and dispelled any attempt to organize a defense. Looking up at the aircraft, each and every man was convinced that the attack was aimed personally at him. The defenses started to break apart. One of the sections of Dieudonne’s heavy machine gun platoon was trained for anti-aircraft work. The crews held firm. They sent two streams of tracers skywards. The effort only brought about their destruction. The dive bombers saw where the fire was coming from. The later aircraft to dive used that area as their target. The Hotchkiss machine guns were silenced by a combination of bombing and strafing before they could do any harm.