Defense of Hill 781 Read online

  “Recommended reading for leaders at all levels.”

  The Defense of Hill 781 is entertaining and has many valuable tactical lessons to offer to today’s infantry leader. It is recommended reading for leaders at all levels.

  Infantry Magazine

  McDonough’s battle descriptions are the most accurate I have ever read. Having been through the NTC as a battalion S3 (operations and training officer), I found that this book brings back both bitter and sweet memories…. [Lessons learned] are accurate and realistic and would provide an excellent check list for anyone en route to the NTC, particularly battalion commanders.

  [McDonough] also presents a vivid picture of the confusion and turmoil during each battle that affect a battalion’s plans and its mission. He discusses the need for continuous operational planning, rehearsals and coordination. The lessons learned apply to every branch and every facet of battalion operations and tactics.

  This book will soon be on every professional soldier’s reading list and rightfully so. It is easy to read and one you cannot put down. Get your copy early; they will not be on the shelves for very long.

  Frank J. Grand III

  Combined Arms Combat Development Activity

  Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in Military Review

  While the American way of war may differ from ours, the difference is in style rather than substance. Therefore the lessons learned are equally applicable to the British Army. It is for this reason that The Defense of Hill 781 is an important book which is strongly recommended for any officer.

  British Army Review

  The Defense of Hill 781 is more than a well-written tactical treatise on modern warfare. Jim McDonough offers us insight into both the tactical competence and character of command required for decisive victory. The author’s description of the chemistry that bonds cohesive units in battle has the ring of truth that combat veterans will recognize. His tactical primer on attaining the collective force of decentralized, dispersed units, synchronized with the common vision of the commander’s intent and energized with the freedom to act is an important professional lesson for anyone who would lead troops in battle. If you want a deeper understanding of why the Iraqi Army dissolved in 100 hours when facing a coalition led by U. S. forces trained for the past decades in the harsh, realistic crucible of the National Training Center … read this book.

  LTG J. W. Woodmansee, USA (Ret.)

  Also by James R. McDonough

  PLATOON LEADER

  LIMITS OF GLORY

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  Preface

  CHAPTER 1 First Impressions

  CHAPTER 2 Dawn Attack

  CHAPTER 3 Change of Mission

  CHAPTER 4 Defense in Sector

  CHAPTER 5 Deliberate Attack

  CHAPTER 6 Night Attack

  CHAPTER 7 Battle Position Defense

  CHAPTER 8 The Fruits of Victory

  Acknowledgments

  With appreciation to Hal Winton and Ted Pusey, who gave me the idea for this book, and in memory of Sergeant Masterson who gave his all for the readiness of our Army.

  This book is dedicated to America’s straight and stalwart soldiers who have trained hard in times of peace to be ready for war, and have thereby kept the peace.

  Foreword

  One of the best thinkers in today’s United Stated Army has written what at first seems to be a lighthearted and simple story. A lieutenant colonel dies (from eating the army’s rations) and finds himself in Purgatory, which turns out to be a place in the high desert not far from Barstow, California. Here he must atone for his sins and prove himself worthy of Heaven by leading a battalion of soldiers against a well-armed and hard-bitten enemy.

  The place is the National Training Center, the army’s premier installation for development of tactical leaders through hands-on application—but of course the place is also Purgatory, where souls pay for the sins of a life that is now past. The weapons are real—the rifles fire bullets, not blanks, and the battle is for keeps. At the same time, there are observers who monitor and critique the actions of the participants. McDonough’s imagination takes the reader from the real world to the world of games, and from there, well, to Hell and back—or at least to a very tough Purgatory—and as the book goes along, all of these places become one and the same in a compelling and fascinating departure from worldly reality. The reader becomes the victim of a cordial kidnapping and is led off into circumstances that require what Coleridge called “a willing suspension of disbelief.”

  Jim McDonough deftly mixes several sets of imagery to stretch the imagination of the reader and move him into a fascinating world of alternating fancy and fact. There are many levels of experience captured here, all flavored with a subtle and understated humor that any soldier, and especially those who have gone through the National Training Center, will find delightful.

  What is the meaning of all this? The secret: McDonough’s book is a training text, a compilation of lessons learned in this desert school of hard knocks, presented as the story of a single leader’s trials and errors as he fights and learns his way to salvation. The real National Training Center, conceived in the late 1970s and built at Camp Irwin, California, where World War II soldiers learned desert fighting, is now a marvel of technological developments where instruments follow every action and every communication to provide the ability to review in detail the clash of military units. The fighters themselves, opposed by an ominously capable high-technology enemy, fire laser beams instead of bullets and reach a level of reality of combat that provides them that most important opportunity—the chance to fight and “die” and rise again to fight another day (or night) and thus to learn what before only real battle and real death could teach. There will never be a way to tell how many lives the National Training Center saved already on the battlefields of Desert Storm, and how many it will save in the future, but whatever the number, this place is providing the most productive, the most useful training any army has ever had. McDonough tells its story, and describes what there is to be learned there, better than anyone has done or probably will do.

  McDonough’s whimsical hero, Lieutenant Colonel A. Tack Always, is a good soldier whose main error in life was a vanity that he cherished and displayed at the expense of others. Sergeant Major Hope, his guardian angel in this allegorical tale, tells him that he must atone for his overweening pride in his abilities as an airborne ranger. Because of it, says Hope, “You kind of put a whole bunch of other people down … you just didn’t let them think that they were being all they could be, and if they were, it just wasn’t anything to write home about.”

  The lieutenant colonel takes on his mission and leads his ghostly battalion, resolved to win the war of the training center and reach his heavenly goal, but he has a lot to learn. He suffers defeat after defeat, but he carefully and thoughtfully reviews his errors (helped by the relentless pressure of implacable observers who make him and his troops point out and acknowledge their many mistakes). Slowly A. T., who knew very little about the life of armor and mechanized units and their tactics and logistics, becomes a new man, a wise and canny leader. He and his unit grow with each new dose of adversity until he begins to turn the tables on his powerful enemy.

  Then comes Hill 781, his last chance to show that he can accomplish his mission. In the culminating battle of this captivating story, he swallows his pride, the cause of his troubles, and in pulling together all that he has learned, he finds that success lies not simply in absorbing tactical lessons, but also in achieving the high level of understanding and respect for his subordinates and his troops. This recognition gives him the insight to allow them to participate
fully in the planning, in the actions that follow from the plan, and in the individual initiatives that come from knowledge of the commander’s concept. Confidence, empathy, and team spirit now build to a high pitch in the chain of command and in the troops, and the story ends in a crescendo of combat.

  This fine book, action-packed and liberally illuminated with battle sketches both verbal and graphic, is deceptively easy to grasp; it is only after the reader closes the book at the finish that the full complexity comes home. In the end, A. Tack Always, the lieutenant colonel made new, has “earned the right to leave Purgatory.”

  And in the end Jim McDonough has earned every right to say that he has written a superb little classic of a book—one of the best on modern training that can be found today by anyone who is searching for some idea of the true lessons to be learned in the tactics of high-intensity, high-technology warfare—and the way to learn them.

  John Galvin

  General, USA (Ret.)

  Preface

  Shortly after commissioning in the United States Army I was sent to the Infantry Officers’ Basic Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, in those days a twelve-week course designed to prepare the new lieutenant for his first assignment. There was little reading in the course other than the official manuals that explained basic doctrine, weapons employment, and administrative functions the young officer would most likely face in his initial post, most probably as a rifle platoon leader.

  One book that was passed around, however, was an enjoyable little tactical primer entitled The Defence of Duffer’s Drift, a fictional account of a British subaltern in the Boer War who sets out with his platoon to defend a lonely ridge line deep in enemy territory. Lieutenant Backsight Forethought, a pseudonym for the author, Ernest Swinton, is a novice at the business, but through a series of fortuitous dreams that reveal to him the error of his tactical ways, he awakens to the harsh realities of combat and sets in the defense properly by the time of his seventh dream.

  The book was highly entertaining. More importantly, it imparted a number of tactical messages in a readable and unforgettable format, which stood me in good stead as I set out upon my own combat missions in Southeast Asia. Years later as a battalion commander I made it a habit to pass out copies of the book to all newly assigned lieutenants with the hope that it would help them to think hard about the tactical problems they might one day encounter.

  It was during those years in command that I began to go through a number of training experiences at the U.S. Army’s National Training Center, a rugged and realistic post in the Mojave Desert, not too far from Death Valley. It is here that our army has been practicing and refining tactical doctrine while rotating brigades and battalions through exercises that closely resemble the stress and strain of combat. Results of engagements are visually and electronically observed by the cadre, briefed back to the rotating units which simultaneously engage in a self-critique of their performance. The experience is revealing, usually humbling, sometimes shocking, and always educational. This training has done much to focus the army in the last quarter of the twentieth century and has helped prepare the American army to face the rigors of war.

  It occurred to me after several exposures to the National Training Center and a little prodding from my friends that a book that passed on some of the lessons learned there might be a useful thing for the military profession, and of interest to the general reader. I have modeled this attempt to do that on the style of Ernest Swinton. In this case the lieutenant becomes a lieutenant colonel, and the rifle platoon a mechanized task force—a battalion-sized unit combining tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, infantrymen, mortars, scouts, engineers, air defense elements, their organic supporting elements of mechanics, cooks, truck drivers, supply personnel, administrators, medics, communicators, and the direct support of designated artillery, air cavalry (helicopters), and fixed-wing close air support.

  Although the rank is higher and the unit more complex, the essential elements are not dissimilar. The leader must consider his opponent and his own resources and find the courage and the wisdom to overcome the former with the latter. Ultimately, he must recognize that his prime resource wears a human face and thereby apply the leadership that brings victory. In this may lie a basic truth of war through the ages.

  CHAPTER 1

  First Impressions

  Lieutenant Colonel A. Tack Always found himself standing on the hot strip of desert sand that separated the endless straight track of the Santa Fe railroad from the dilapidated, broken blacktop road that accompanied it along its length as it disappeared in either direction over the horizon. A few dozen meters beyond the road lay U.S. Route 15, the major highway from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, over which traveled the eager souls hell-bent on throwing away the riches they had reaped from their industry in the lands astride the Pacific shore. His eyes were glassy, his head ringing, his battle dress uniform dusty and wrinkled, faded by long days and nights of unbroken use. For the life of him he could not remember how he came to be here, alone, unaccompanied by his soldiers, and without any means of transportation. Confused and befuddled, he walked over to the blacktop secondary road, trying to get a fix on his location. He had seen this place before, but that thought came to him only as if from a distant dream, unclear, hazy, and ominous. Where could he be? Why was he here?

  Aside from the cars rushing past on the highway, there were no signs of life anywhere. Large power lines strung off into the distance, but nary a bird, jackrabbit, or snake broke his solitude. He was alone, utterly and completely. The heat was stifling and he turned to his canteen for relief, only to find himself choking down a stale, hot gulp of water.

  I’ve got to collect my thoughts, figure out what the hell is going on, he thought, his mind virtually creaking at the effort it took.

  As he walked toward a highway overpass several hundred meters away, he sensed a lightness to his body, oddly counterpoised by a heaviness to his soul. The thoughts just were not coming, and try as he might, he could not focus. A sign came into view as he closed on the overpass, taped to the columns supporting the roadway above, “HALT” emblazoned across it in big, thick black letters. Beneath, in finer print, was a series of instructions as to how a military convoy was to pass under, at what interval, at what speed, and so on, as if the poster of the sign was afraid that an unguided unit might sweep the columns out from under the highway, closing the artery bringing the sinners and their money to the Sodom and Gomorrah of the desert.

  Well, that seems unfriendly enough, thought Lieutenant Colonel Always to himself. But the relative coolness of the shade beneath the overpass beckoned him on. For a moment he paused as his eyes adjusted to the darkened light. Then he saw a second sign hanging on one of the middle columns, this one less official looking than the first. Scrawled in an uneven hand with gaudy colors was the message, “Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Abandon all hope.”

  “Good morning, sir.” A voice startled him from his reading, but with habit formed by many years he instinctively returned the salute as he tried to focus on the source of the words. “Are you Lieutenant Colonel Always?”

  “Yes I am. Who are you, please?”

  “Sir, I’m Command Sergeant Major Hope. I’ve been expecting you for some time now.”

  “You have?” Colonel Always was trying to gain his composure. Here was some hope that he might discover just what was going on. If a man, indeed a command sergeant major, was in this godforsaken place waiting for him, then there must be some logic as to how he came to be here.

  “Yes, sir, ever since you died last night.” The words hit Always like a thunderclap, and in an instant the memory came back to him—the long march through the swamps, followed by the steep climb into the high ground, along snaking ridge lines, rucksack knifing into his shoulders as he led his light forces for the umpteenth time on a field exercise designed to show their mobility, sustainability, and hitting power. The fatal step had come as a result of his own obstinacy, his decision to show his soldiers o
nce and for all that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the army ration known as the Meal Ready to Eat, or MRE. How sick he had been of his men’s derision of this space-age update of the old C ration, their snide referral to it as the Meal Ready to Excrete, and their utter conviction that the man was not yet born who could eat three of them in one day and live. And so it was with great fanfare that he ate one meal after another during the day, despite the warning signs that had been building throughout the afternoon—a reverberating wrench in his gut and a rumbling resonance in his bowels. He dug in, undeterred by the delectable delights of a barbecued beef. It was unclear if the final explosion was brought on by the dehydrated potato patty or the freeze-dried strawberries. All he could remember was his adjutant asking him if he would like some water to wash it down, his offhanded acceptance of that offer, a gulp, and a flash. That was the last thing he recalled before waking up here in the desert.

  Fighting to retain his composure he asked, “Uh, look, Command Sergeant Major, I’ve had a hard few days and I would appreciate you refraining from any flip humor.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I meant no disrespect, but I assure you that what I say is true. You did in fact die last night and even now the accident investigation team is struggling with the problem of how to document the cause of death as the MRE, a completely unacceptable finding for the board. I can imagine how hard it is for you to accept, this being your first time dead and all, but I swear that it’s true by the proof that you’ve left no tracks in the sand.”