Tom Harsker has been out of the army for almost five years. His marriage to Susan has produced three adoring children. Running, with his father Bill Harsker, a successful air freight business his world seems complete. When the Communist threat grows then he is thrown into a dangerous world once more. The Berlin Airlift brings some danger but when he is summoned to the War office at the start of the Korean War then his personal peace is shattered along with the rest of the world. With just Captain Poulson from his original section the Major has to forge a new unit to operate behind the enemy lines. This time those lines are half a world away. He has to contend with a language he does not understand and enemies closer to him than he is used. The novel covers the first two months of a war which presents new and unexpected challenges to Major Tom Harsker V.C.
I though I had finished with Combined Operations but a mixture of reader interest and a fascination with a war which started when I was six months old meant I had to write just one more. I think that there may be more for I did not even get to the battle of Inchon! The book just covers a few months of the war. The book appears to have generated interest and so there may be more to come.
Excerpt
Lance Corporal Williams appeared. “You wanted me sir?”
“You will be here with me. Anything come through from the boat?”
“Just that they have been attacked again and this time there were more aeroplanes. Lieutenant Drake said he had heard that there was a column heading down from Yangsan towards the port.”
“It looks like we are on our own.”
I cocked my Thompson. We had a good field of fire for three hundred yards. We would not open fire at that range. It would be a waste of bullets. Williams had a Lee Enfield. “I see from your record that you are a good shot.”
“Aye sir. I used to go hunting with my brothers before I joined up. I had a .22 and we made up the rations with rabbits. Mam would give me what for if I hit the rabbit anywhere but the head!”
“Good then you aim for the officers and sergeants. This Tommy gun can keep the heads of the others down.”
“How do I know which are which?”
I had spoken to Sergeant Heon and knew a little more than I had. “They have epaulettes; officers and sergeants. If they have a pistol then they are an officer.”
“Right sir.”
It seemed an age before we saw them. They came in a ragged line and they darted from what little cover there was to the next piece. I had chosen this as my defensive position because there was little cover ahead of us. I saw that they had a variety of uniforms but none wore helmets. Grenades would cause more casualties. I saw that there were two men with sub machine guns and, after peering through my glasses, I saw that they had epaulettes. They were sergeants. I handed the glasses to Williams. “The sergeants have machine guns.”
He peered through them and handed them back. “I could hit them from here sir!”
“No, we wait. Track them and drop them when I shout fire. I want as many hits in the first attack as we can manage.”
They were just one hundred and fifty yards from us when the grenade booby trap went off in the woods to the north. They were close enough for me to see their faces. The officer was young and he looked north. They did not take cover and that was a mistake. “Fire!” I squeezed the trigger and fired a burst of eight bullets. I managed to hit the officer in the leg and he rolled into the ditch. Another bullet winged a soldier with a rifle. Williams managed to hit the two sergeants with two of the three bullets he fired. All along our line came the sound of firing. The Bren’s distinctive sound seemed to punctuate the cacophony of rifle and Tommy gun bullets. The mortars whistled and then exploded behind the Koreans. The flying shrapnel scythed through them. I fired another short burst and then another. The smell of cordite filled the air.
The Korean officer shouted something. The Koreans began to crawl backwards, seeking cover. I saw eight bodies across the front of our line. One tried to crawl and then simply stopped. The ones retreating fired as they fell back. They were wild shots and I heard them zipping above us. They were too high.
When they had fallen back two hundred yards I shouted, “Cease fire!” An eerie silence descended. “Anyone hurt? Section two?”
“No, sir.”
“Section three?”
“All fine sir.”
Just then there was the sound of bullets from the woods to the north and the south. Sergeant Major Thorpe shouted, “They are firing from cover sir.” There was an explosion. “And it looks like they are still tripping Corporal Callow’s booby traps.”
The problem would be night fall. So long as we could see then we had a good field of fire. “Williams, get on the radio and tell the Lieutenant the position. Leave your Lee Enfield here.”
“Sir!”
The sporadic gunfire from the woods continued. Occasionally a Lee Enfield would bark as one of my men spotted a target. Williams came back. “I told him, sir. He said the Koreans were pushing hard towards Pusan.” They would still be fifty miles short of the major port but General Smith would have his hands full to hold them.
I wondered what they were up to. This was obviously an attempt by the Koreans to outflank us but why had they not sent armour? Had we stopped them? If so we had been incredibly lucky. We had caught them by surprise. They had known we were here but thought, perhaps, they could simply roll over us. Perhaps the pilots had claimed more damage than they had actually caused. Dad told me that sometimes pilots exaggerated their successes. We had our answer twenty minutes later. Three Yak 9s came screaming down the valley. They came in line astern and their cannon shells and machine gun bullets zipped and ripped though the village. I heard shouts even above the cacophony of noise. Then the bullets stopped and I heard the engines of the three aeroplanes as they climbed. I turned and poked the Thompson out of the back of my bunker. “You watch the Koreans, Williams!”
The three aeroplanes roared in and they were low. They fired early. I gave them a burst with my Thompson. I heard the Bren and the other Thompsons as they neared us. The bullets from the leading aircraft stitched a line towards me. When his nose rose I breathed a sigh of relief. He stopped firing for he did not want to hit his own men. And then they were gone.
