Battle Mountain - Book Two

The trucks gave out eleven miles short of the line.

Book Two of the Deuce Four Trilogy.

Korea, July 1950. The 24th Infantry goes into the line west of Sangju, and the summer begins to take it apart. Lieutenant Cobb counts his platoon on the road and comes up thirty-six. Military police work the roads for stragglers. A story about a wounded white officer left behind on a hill travels through the whole Eighth Army without ever acquiring a name, a unit, a date or a place.

Then the Pusan Perimeter, and the mountain. Through August and September, Battle Mountain is lost and taken back again and again, until companies are worn down to shells. Pfc. William Thompson stays at his machine gun near Haman and is awarded the Medal of Honor. Cpl. Levi Jackson gives his life shielding the wounded with his own body. And on the first of September, the North Korean offensive breaks through the 2d Battalion’s line.

Then comes the file. A new regimental commander who tells the men he has come to change “the frightened 24th” into “the fighting 24th.” A division commander’s recommendation that the regiment be dissolved. Exhaustive interviews that record the straggling and say little about the failures of leadership behind it. Courts-martial, some over in less than an hour, and a sentence of death for Lt. Leon Gilbert. First Sergeant Rand keeps the count through all of it.

Thirty-two chapters in three parts. “From the Record” passages throughout set the Army’s own history of the regiment beside the story, and a full register of sources stands at the back of the book.

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