2RHPZ
09-07-2004, 12:52 PM
A forward observer in Korea
Howard T. Maki
We are all familiar with the old expression, “You never hear the one that gets you,” meaning, if you hear the bullet whiz by, it missed you! Immediately after the sound, you feel especially alarmed when you realize you’re the target. On two occasions, I was the target. In the first I knew I was the only target the enemy gunner, or marksman, was after.
Prime target
Both times happened when I was an artillery forward observer (FO) assigned to the 37th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Division. In Korea, the FO was a prime target. Get rid of the FO and eliminate the "eyes" of the artillery. Moreover, the individual FO had the back-up firepower from hundreds of guns. Not only could he call upon his own battalion to fire missions, he also had the option of calling upon the huge 8-inch howitzers to knock out dug-in enemy bunkers and OPs located on top of ridges hundreds of yards back of the forward elements of the enemy. The FO was the most powerful individual the infantry company commander had for wiping out targets beyond the range and capabilities of his own troops. The mortality rate of the forward observer was high during the Korean War. On Heartbreak Ridge, for example, the 37th FA Bn. lost 14 forward observers, killed and wounded.
In late January 1952 I was with Company A, 23rd Infantry on an outpost some 2,000 yards in front of the main line of resistance (MLR). We occupied defensive positions on a high knoll west of Old Baldy and approximately 400 yards south of Hill 400, a strongpoint occupied by Chicom forces.
Early one morning I left the relative safety of my bunker, turned to the right and began walking to the observation post (OP), some 30 yards distance. It was cold; it had snowed during the night and the path was slippery underfoot. The path was more like a trench, about two-feet deep, narrow and commonly used by men going to or coming from patrols. This morning, the path had only one set of footprints that led in the same direction I was going; these evidently were from my recon sergeant who had left for the OP a few minutes earlier.
A few icy spots along the path made me walk slowly and carefully with my head down; there was no hurry to get to the OP. I was about half way there when suddenly, my concentration on moving carefully changed from unhurried to urgent. The next 30 seconds seemed like eternity.
Without warning, the sound of a half dozen or so ear-numbing machine-gun bullets ripped through the snow about two feet left of the trench I was walking in, churning the mud under the snow, and scattered it in a dirty trail several feet beyond the point where each round had hit.
I didn’t duck; I hit the path with my elbows and chest, hard! Looking forward, I saw what had to be smoke from a machine gun on Hill 400 about 400 yards in front of me. Instinctively, I realized I was in a direct line of fire of the gunner and his weapon so I had to move quickly; to continue lying on the path would only allow the gunner time to adjust his aim carefully, about two clicks left deflection and spray the path I was lying with more bullets.
Fixing my eyes on Hill 400, I rose to a crouch and started sprinting forward toward the OP in the direction of the distant machine gunner. This time I saw the second burst of fire from the weapon, a split second later the rounds tore through the snow and mud, this time on the right side of the path. He had me bracketed! I had to get off that path, now!
Safe at last
Running back to the safety of my bunker was one way, but it’d be faster if I ran to the OP; the heavy layers of sandbags there would protect me from the bullets and give me a chance to call a quick fire mission on Charlie’s position. I knew what I had to do, but the distance seemed so far! I continued running while in a crouch, slipping and sliding on the ice. It seemed I was barely making headway.
The icy condition of the path caused me to slip and fall just as I reached the juncture where I was to turn right and run the remaining 10 steps into the safety of the OP. A quick glance revealed the recon sergeant crouched in the open doorway, a look of concern and fear on his face. He yelled something, but I didn’t hear. My ears were ringing from the loud staccato sound of the bullets as they whizzed by. It was fortunate that I slipped and fell because at that point another burst of machine-gun fire tore into the snow on each side of the path between me and the door opening. If I hadn’t fallen I’m sure I would have been exactly in the line of fire from that last burst!
I got up quickly, ran thrugh the doorway and hunkered in the protection of the sandbagged wall. I was safe! The sergeant asked, “Are you all right, are you okay?”
I said, “I’m fine, hand me the phone.”
Knowing Hill 400 was already zeroed in, I called in a fire mission with time-delay fuzes. When the fire-direction center (FDC) said rounds were on the way I raised up to peer through the BC scope. The top portion of Hill 400 erupted in smoke and dust. I saw what appeared to be the form of a man, spread eagled as his body twirled through the air. A smaller object, which I believed to be the machine gun, along with pieces of unidentified equipment, flew upward in another direction.
Perhaps both objects were figments of my imagination, to satisfy a feeling of revenge for this individual who had chosen me as a target just minutes before. True or not, the intended result was achieved: the fire from Hill 400 was neutralized.
I reported the incident to the company commander and told him I was convinced the Chinese had seen me walking on the path to the OP many times over several days. The short distance between Chinese outpost positions and our own could have revealed what I looked like to a person peering through a well-hidden high-powered telescope.
I believe they waited for me to appear on the path and decided to get me, “that troublesome enemy forward observer.” They came close. Despite their failure, they tried again, not with a machine gun but with sniper fire.
Protection afforded by the OP was excellent except for the narrow side entrance and the opening in front that faced the Chinese lines. This wider opening provided no protection from about chest high up to the reinforced roof, about two feet higher.
http://img2.exs.cx/img2/2919/fwrd-oberserver_lookout.jpg
Another close call
A second “close one” occurred a few days after the Chinese machine-gun incident.
I was in the OP with one of the infantry platoon leaders. We were tracing his upcoming patrol route on a map, pointing out and identifying actual terrain features on the ground that would be investigated later that evening.
Although crackling gunfire somewhere along the line was a common occurrance, the initial sound would catch our attention briefly, but be disregarded if the sound came from a distance and posed no threat to us. This day, however, our conversation was interrupted by the loud crack of a single rifle bullet that hit very close to the OP. Then another. The second sound was a louder crack that passed over the top of the OP.
I glanced at the platoon leader who was with me, then toward Hill 400 to see if I could see where the rounds had come from. Nothing. Another round hit a steel barbed wire support about five feet to the right side of the OP. The platoon leader said, “Sniper! I think he’s trying to zero in on us.”
I quickly searched the far hills and ridges with my binoculars for tell-tale smoke. Still nothing. I said, “He must be using smokeless ammo and I can’t see any place close in; maybe it’s long-range stuff.”
At that instant, a bullet hit a thick horizontal timber between and slightly above us, scattering pieces of wood and dust, struck a second timber, ricocheted and fell to the ground between our feet. The noise of the bullet and violent tearing of the wood within the confined space of the OP was so loud it deafened our ears. It happened too quickly to know immediately how close the bullet hit, but as we both ducked, I saw the bullet on the floor with a wisp of vapor rising above it. It was melting a hole in the snow between our feet! I reached down to grab the round, still hot to the touch. With both ears ringing, my voice sounded tinny when I looked at the platoon leader and said, “This is my souvenir of Korea!”
I still have that bullet in my display case. It’s a .30 caliber round, but when it hit it sounded more like a .50 caliber. We rose, cautiously looked out over the wall, but saw nothing.
We never spotted the sniper. We guessed the rounds had come from a long distance because at short range, a good marksman using a telescope sight would not have missed. The first three rounds were zeroing in rounds, the last was meant for one of us although I had the feeling it was more than likely meant for me. The elapsed time for all four rounds was about 20 seconds.
Later, when I got thinking about that close call, I came to the conclusion the guy was either a lousy shot or a rookie sniper. A good sniper doesn’t zero in on his target with three rounds; a good sniper takes only one shot to accomplish his mission.
During the first three weeks of January 1952, I was assigned as a forward observer to a reinforced rifle platoon of Company B, 23rd Infantry that was located on an outpost position in the Old Baldy sector approximately 2,000 yards in front of the MLR. When I arrived, I asked the infantry platoon leader what was it that made his platoon so “reinforced.”
He said, “You, you’re our reinforcement in case we need supporting artillery fire in a hurry.”
All I could think to say at the moment was, “Oh.”
In a way, that felt good even though we all knew that in spite of our carefully laid out minefields, ****y traps, barbed wire entanglements and heightened ability to direct artillery fire, our defenses would be by-passed or over-run in the event of a strong Chicom offensive. At best, our mission was to provide advance warning and delay the enemy’s effort; at worst we were expendable.
A dominant hill mass, numbered on the map as Hill 1200, was located in Chinese forces’ territory about 1,000 yards northeast of my OP. By using my 20-power spotting telescope I could make out a foot trail leading almost to the top of the hill. Periodically, I would check the hill to see if I could spot enemy activity but most of the time I saw nothing.
Spotter plane
One day one of our Piper Cub spotter planes approached the hill from the south. As I looked through the scope toward this hill, I saw an enemy soldier and his machine gun come into view and begin firing at the plane. The plane, apparently untouched, turned and flew in a slow arc back toward our main line, made another turn and flew parallel to the front between the main line and the outpost line where I was. Maybe the pilot didn’t realize he was being fired upon every time he came within the machine-gunner’s range. I continued to watch as the plane made another turn, then another. He was flying in a wide circular pattern.
I began to fear for the plane and the life of the pilot. Nothing happened. The plane made another slow arc, then disappeared in the clouds further east. I called a fire mission to blast the top of the hill with a battery of 105mm shells where the gunner had appeared. It was an impressive sight to see the rounds explode, however, I was convinced the gunner could hear the incoming rounds and retreated to safe cover in well-constructed bunkers dug deep into the hill. There had to be another way.
Maybe I could time a concentration of artillery fire to arrive at the top of the hill at about the same time as the gunner appeared! But first, I needed a plane and a gutsy pilot to fly over over Hill 1200. There were several problems involved with that plan. There was no way to explain the plan to personnel at the fire-direction center (FDC) over my telephone and timing was critical. The plane had to be close to the hill to draw the gunner out into the open, and simultaneously, some distraction, perhaps the noise of the airplane engine could mask the sound of incoming artillery to the gunner. Otherwise, the machine gunner would have time to disappear into the protection of a bunker dug deep into the top of the hill before the rounds arrived at his position. He and his weapon had to be in the open. The answer was provided by a volunteer, my battalion commander, Lt. Col. Robert Backes.
The afternoon of the next day, Lt. Col. Backes paid a routine visit to the OP. I summarized the activities that had taken place since my arrival and mentioned the gunner on Hill 1200 taking shots at spotter planes. When I told him about my plan to eliminate the machine gunner he said, “Good, let’s try it tomorrow at 1400. I’ll tell the FDC about the plan and I’ll be the guinea pig in the plane. I’ll radio ‘Easy 8, okay’ when I’m in position to fly close to Hill 1200. (Easy 8 was my call sign). You call in the fire mission and just before the FDC says the rounds are ready to fire, tell me via radio. I’ll fly over the hill when you say, ‘Sunday shoot, FIRE’; this will be the signal for the guns to fire, the pilot will rev-up the engine, then we’ll get out of there fast. See what happens and let me know.”
The plan worked out just as planned. The machine gunner came out of his hole to fire at the the plane but the combination of the airplane’s buzzing noise, plus the chatter of the machine gun, apparently kept him from hearing the incoming sound of four artillery rounds. Almost simultaneously, they exploded on his position while he was still in view of my telescope. When the smoke and dust cleared, the gunner and his weapon were no longer visible.
I called in “Impede 3, this is Easy 8, TARGET, cease fire, end of mission.”
About 15 minutes later, Backes called me on the phone to ask how it went. When I told him what I’d seen, he said, “Great job!” It wasn’t I that deserved the accolades, it was the two guys in the airplane. Backes and his pilot had guts!
I reported the above story of heroic action by Lt. Col. Backes and his liaison pilot to higher headquarters; however, to my knowledge it was never recognized.
Perhaps this was due to my being the only witness.
Howard T. Maki
We are all familiar with the old expression, “You never hear the one that gets you,” meaning, if you hear the bullet whiz by, it missed you! Immediately after the sound, you feel especially alarmed when you realize you’re the target. On two occasions, I was the target. In the first I knew I was the only target the enemy gunner, or marksman, was after.
Prime target
Both times happened when I was an artillery forward observer (FO) assigned to the 37th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Division. In Korea, the FO was a prime target. Get rid of the FO and eliminate the "eyes" of the artillery. Moreover, the individual FO had the back-up firepower from hundreds of guns. Not only could he call upon his own battalion to fire missions, he also had the option of calling upon the huge 8-inch howitzers to knock out dug-in enemy bunkers and OPs located on top of ridges hundreds of yards back of the forward elements of the enemy. The FO was the most powerful individual the infantry company commander had for wiping out targets beyond the range and capabilities of his own troops. The mortality rate of the forward observer was high during the Korean War. On Heartbreak Ridge, for example, the 37th FA Bn. lost 14 forward observers, killed and wounded.
In late January 1952 I was with Company A, 23rd Infantry on an outpost some 2,000 yards in front of the main line of resistance (MLR). We occupied defensive positions on a high knoll west of Old Baldy and approximately 400 yards south of Hill 400, a strongpoint occupied by Chicom forces.
Early one morning I left the relative safety of my bunker, turned to the right and began walking to the observation post (OP), some 30 yards distance. It was cold; it had snowed during the night and the path was slippery underfoot. The path was more like a trench, about two-feet deep, narrow and commonly used by men going to or coming from patrols. This morning, the path had only one set of footprints that led in the same direction I was going; these evidently were from my recon sergeant who had left for the OP a few minutes earlier.
A few icy spots along the path made me walk slowly and carefully with my head down; there was no hurry to get to the OP. I was about half way there when suddenly, my concentration on moving carefully changed from unhurried to urgent. The next 30 seconds seemed like eternity.
Without warning, the sound of a half dozen or so ear-numbing machine-gun bullets ripped through the snow about two feet left of the trench I was walking in, churning the mud under the snow, and scattered it in a dirty trail several feet beyond the point where each round had hit.
I didn’t duck; I hit the path with my elbows and chest, hard! Looking forward, I saw what had to be smoke from a machine gun on Hill 400 about 400 yards in front of me. Instinctively, I realized I was in a direct line of fire of the gunner and his weapon so I had to move quickly; to continue lying on the path would only allow the gunner time to adjust his aim carefully, about two clicks left deflection and spray the path I was lying with more bullets.
Fixing my eyes on Hill 400, I rose to a crouch and started sprinting forward toward the OP in the direction of the distant machine gunner. This time I saw the second burst of fire from the weapon, a split second later the rounds tore through the snow and mud, this time on the right side of the path. He had me bracketed! I had to get off that path, now!
Safe at last
Running back to the safety of my bunker was one way, but it’d be faster if I ran to the OP; the heavy layers of sandbags there would protect me from the bullets and give me a chance to call a quick fire mission on Charlie’s position. I knew what I had to do, but the distance seemed so far! I continued running while in a crouch, slipping and sliding on the ice. It seemed I was barely making headway.
The icy condition of the path caused me to slip and fall just as I reached the juncture where I was to turn right and run the remaining 10 steps into the safety of the OP. A quick glance revealed the recon sergeant crouched in the open doorway, a look of concern and fear on his face. He yelled something, but I didn’t hear. My ears were ringing from the loud staccato sound of the bullets as they whizzed by. It was fortunate that I slipped and fell because at that point another burst of machine-gun fire tore into the snow on each side of the path between me and the door opening. If I hadn’t fallen I’m sure I would have been exactly in the line of fire from that last burst!
I got up quickly, ran thrugh the doorway and hunkered in the protection of the sandbagged wall. I was safe! The sergeant asked, “Are you all right, are you okay?”
I said, “I’m fine, hand me the phone.”
Knowing Hill 400 was already zeroed in, I called in a fire mission with time-delay fuzes. When the fire-direction center (FDC) said rounds were on the way I raised up to peer through the BC scope. The top portion of Hill 400 erupted in smoke and dust. I saw what appeared to be the form of a man, spread eagled as his body twirled through the air. A smaller object, which I believed to be the machine gun, along with pieces of unidentified equipment, flew upward in another direction.
Perhaps both objects were figments of my imagination, to satisfy a feeling of revenge for this individual who had chosen me as a target just minutes before. True or not, the intended result was achieved: the fire from Hill 400 was neutralized.
I reported the incident to the company commander and told him I was convinced the Chinese had seen me walking on the path to the OP many times over several days. The short distance between Chinese outpost positions and our own could have revealed what I looked like to a person peering through a well-hidden high-powered telescope.
I believe they waited for me to appear on the path and decided to get me, “that troublesome enemy forward observer.” They came close. Despite their failure, they tried again, not with a machine gun but with sniper fire.
Protection afforded by the OP was excellent except for the narrow side entrance and the opening in front that faced the Chinese lines. This wider opening provided no protection from about chest high up to the reinforced roof, about two feet higher.
http://img2.exs.cx/img2/2919/fwrd-oberserver_lookout.jpg
Another close call
A second “close one” occurred a few days after the Chinese machine-gun incident.
I was in the OP with one of the infantry platoon leaders. We were tracing his upcoming patrol route on a map, pointing out and identifying actual terrain features on the ground that would be investigated later that evening.
Although crackling gunfire somewhere along the line was a common occurrance, the initial sound would catch our attention briefly, but be disregarded if the sound came from a distance and posed no threat to us. This day, however, our conversation was interrupted by the loud crack of a single rifle bullet that hit very close to the OP. Then another. The second sound was a louder crack that passed over the top of the OP.
I glanced at the platoon leader who was with me, then toward Hill 400 to see if I could see where the rounds had come from. Nothing. Another round hit a steel barbed wire support about five feet to the right side of the OP. The platoon leader said, “Sniper! I think he’s trying to zero in on us.”
I quickly searched the far hills and ridges with my binoculars for tell-tale smoke. Still nothing. I said, “He must be using smokeless ammo and I can’t see any place close in; maybe it’s long-range stuff.”
At that instant, a bullet hit a thick horizontal timber between and slightly above us, scattering pieces of wood and dust, struck a second timber, ricocheted and fell to the ground between our feet. The noise of the bullet and violent tearing of the wood within the confined space of the OP was so loud it deafened our ears. It happened too quickly to know immediately how close the bullet hit, but as we both ducked, I saw the bullet on the floor with a wisp of vapor rising above it. It was melting a hole in the snow between our feet! I reached down to grab the round, still hot to the touch. With both ears ringing, my voice sounded tinny when I looked at the platoon leader and said, “This is my souvenir of Korea!”
I still have that bullet in my display case. It’s a .30 caliber round, but when it hit it sounded more like a .50 caliber. We rose, cautiously looked out over the wall, but saw nothing.
We never spotted the sniper. We guessed the rounds had come from a long distance because at short range, a good marksman using a telescope sight would not have missed. The first three rounds were zeroing in rounds, the last was meant for one of us although I had the feeling it was more than likely meant for me. The elapsed time for all four rounds was about 20 seconds.
Later, when I got thinking about that close call, I came to the conclusion the guy was either a lousy shot or a rookie sniper. A good sniper doesn’t zero in on his target with three rounds; a good sniper takes only one shot to accomplish his mission.
During the first three weeks of January 1952, I was assigned as a forward observer to a reinforced rifle platoon of Company B, 23rd Infantry that was located on an outpost position in the Old Baldy sector approximately 2,000 yards in front of the MLR. When I arrived, I asked the infantry platoon leader what was it that made his platoon so “reinforced.”
He said, “You, you’re our reinforcement in case we need supporting artillery fire in a hurry.”
All I could think to say at the moment was, “Oh.”
In a way, that felt good even though we all knew that in spite of our carefully laid out minefields, ****y traps, barbed wire entanglements and heightened ability to direct artillery fire, our defenses would be by-passed or over-run in the event of a strong Chicom offensive. At best, our mission was to provide advance warning and delay the enemy’s effort; at worst we were expendable.
A dominant hill mass, numbered on the map as Hill 1200, was located in Chinese forces’ territory about 1,000 yards northeast of my OP. By using my 20-power spotting telescope I could make out a foot trail leading almost to the top of the hill. Periodically, I would check the hill to see if I could spot enemy activity but most of the time I saw nothing.
Spotter plane
One day one of our Piper Cub spotter planes approached the hill from the south. As I looked through the scope toward this hill, I saw an enemy soldier and his machine gun come into view and begin firing at the plane. The plane, apparently untouched, turned and flew in a slow arc back toward our main line, made another turn and flew parallel to the front between the main line and the outpost line where I was. Maybe the pilot didn’t realize he was being fired upon every time he came within the machine-gunner’s range. I continued to watch as the plane made another turn, then another. He was flying in a wide circular pattern.
I began to fear for the plane and the life of the pilot. Nothing happened. The plane made another slow arc, then disappeared in the clouds further east. I called a fire mission to blast the top of the hill with a battery of 105mm shells where the gunner had appeared. It was an impressive sight to see the rounds explode, however, I was convinced the gunner could hear the incoming rounds and retreated to safe cover in well-constructed bunkers dug deep into the hill. There had to be another way.
Maybe I could time a concentration of artillery fire to arrive at the top of the hill at about the same time as the gunner appeared! But first, I needed a plane and a gutsy pilot to fly over over Hill 1200. There were several problems involved with that plan. There was no way to explain the plan to personnel at the fire-direction center (FDC) over my telephone and timing was critical. The plane had to be close to the hill to draw the gunner out into the open, and simultaneously, some distraction, perhaps the noise of the airplane engine could mask the sound of incoming artillery to the gunner. Otherwise, the machine gunner would have time to disappear into the protection of a bunker dug deep into the top of the hill before the rounds arrived at his position. He and his weapon had to be in the open. The answer was provided by a volunteer, my battalion commander, Lt. Col. Robert Backes.
The afternoon of the next day, Lt. Col. Backes paid a routine visit to the OP. I summarized the activities that had taken place since my arrival and mentioned the gunner on Hill 1200 taking shots at spotter planes. When I told him about my plan to eliminate the machine gunner he said, “Good, let’s try it tomorrow at 1400. I’ll tell the FDC about the plan and I’ll be the guinea pig in the plane. I’ll radio ‘Easy 8, okay’ when I’m in position to fly close to Hill 1200. (Easy 8 was my call sign). You call in the fire mission and just before the FDC says the rounds are ready to fire, tell me via radio. I’ll fly over the hill when you say, ‘Sunday shoot, FIRE’; this will be the signal for the guns to fire, the pilot will rev-up the engine, then we’ll get out of there fast. See what happens and let me know.”
The plan worked out just as planned. The machine gunner came out of his hole to fire at the the plane but the combination of the airplane’s buzzing noise, plus the chatter of the machine gun, apparently kept him from hearing the incoming sound of four artillery rounds. Almost simultaneously, they exploded on his position while he was still in view of my telescope. When the smoke and dust cleared, the gunner and his weapon were no longer visible.
I called in “Impede 3, this is Easy 8, TARGET, cease fire, end of mission.”
About 15 minutes later, Backes called me on the phone to ask how it went. When I told him what I’d seen, he said, “Great job!” It wasn’t I that deserved the accolades, it was the two guys in the airplane. Backes and his pilot had guts!
I reported the above story of heroic action by Lt. Col. Backes and his liaison pilot to higher headquarters; however, to my knowledge it was never recognized.
Perhaps this was due to my being the only witness.