Under Fire: A Novel of the Corps
W.E.B. Griffin
Language: English
Pages: 723
ISBN: 0515134376
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
After the epic struggle of World War II, W.E.B. Griffin’s bestselling chronicle of the Marine Corps enters a new stage of modern warfare—with new weapons, new strategies, and a new breed of warrior—on the battlefields of Korea…
In 1950, Captain Ken McCoy’s report on North Korean hostilities meets with so much bureaucratic displeasure that he is promptly booted out of the Corps—and just as promptly picked up by the fledgling CIA. Soon, his predictions come true: on June 25th the North Koreans invade across the 38th parallel. Immediately veterans scattered throughout military and civilian life are called up, many with only seventy-two hours notice. For these men and their families, names such as Inchon and Pusan will acquire a new, bloody reality—and become their greatest challenge of all…
“What are you going to do for a crew?” McCoy asked. “Three of Kim’s men were sailors. They can show the others what to do. There’s not much to know about the rigging on a junk. The sails are square—Okay, oblong—and they’re stiffened with bamboo. They’re like Venetian blinds, you open—raise—them by pulling on a rope. There’s no wheel, just this thing . . .” He pointed to a six-inch-square handle, lashed to the stern. “. . . the rudder. The rudder is huge; it also serves as the centerboard when
than allowing the North Koreans to push Eighth Army into the sea. The proof of that seemed to be that the First Marine Brigade (Provisional) was being used as Eighth Army’s fire brigade, putting out the fires either when American counterattacks failed, or the North Koreans broke through American lines anywhere along the still-shrinking perimeter. The day before, for example, Walker had ordered counterattacks by the Army’s 19th Infantry Regiment on North Korean positions on terrain south of a
minutes, he took Captain Overton’s arm and led him outside. “Overton, I don’t care how you do it, you discreetly— this is an intelligence situation—get word to Major Dunston, asking him to tell Captain McCoy to get in touch with me as soon as he can. It’s very important. And call the sergeant major at the brigade, same message. Or anyone else you can think of to ask. Discreetly.” “Aye, aye, sir.” Then Dunn went out and got into the Avenger and fired it up and flew back to the Badoeng Strait.
character in black pajamas reached into the fuselage and took one cardboard carton, and then another, and finally a U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30 M1, to the strap of which were attached two eight-round ammunition clips. “Excuse me, General,” the captain said. “I’ll deal with this. I was going to have him brought here, but I don’t want that sonofa—character to foul my bridge.” The captain started down a ladder toward the flight deck. General Cushman looked at the character in the black pajamas long
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 bobbling in a wide circle in the Yellow Sea about fifty miles off the lighthouse marking the entrance 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