Lost in Magadan: Extraterrestrials on Earth

Sergeant Dale Matthews sat in the deep fox hole that he had dug two days earlier, taking a final long drag on his last government-issued cigarette. He flicked the still smoldering, burnt stub into the puddle of freezing water pooling up around his boots. The other men and he had not eaten in nearly three days, and they were running low on ammunition. A few days earlier, the Germans had cut them off from the rest of their division and any opportunity to resupply. They had been ordered to “dig in” by Division, and were told that it would take several days for reinforcements to arrive due to the terrible weather and improvised road blocks set by the Germans. Up to this point, attempts to deliver food, ammunition, and medical supplies by air drop had failed.

Adam, one of Dale’s foxhole mates, scrambled out of the muddy hole, keeping low, to gather a small tin bowl he had laid out to gather rain water. “I don’t trust those damn Nazi’s not to poison the creek, just to spite us,” he grumbled.

“They use the same creek as us for drinking,” Dale objected, “It would kill them, too.”

“They could be getting water supplied to them from their rear. We are trapped with no other source. They poison the water and wait. We die, they win.”

Dale could not argue with that logic. He pushed his tin coffee cup out of the fox hole. “I see your point.”

“Does it ever stop raining here? I’m freezing, don’t think I can feel my feet anymore,” Tom Brown complained from another fox hole a few feet away. Tom, short with an olive complexion, was starting to go bald at a young age. Most of the squad was from Texas, but Tom was originally from New York.

“It’s a wonder the rain even makes it all the way down to the ground. The trees are so thick; sunlight barely makes it through,” Adam said. Overcast skies and dense tree cover had been hidden the sun for days.

“You got any . . .” Tom was interrupted by a loud explosion directly over their heads. Tom and the others instinctively dove deep into their fox holes. The German artillery was set to explode 100 feet above ground, upon contact with the tree tops. The exploding shell would rain down fiery shrapnel on their heads and shoulders.

They heard a scream from 20 meters away. They knew an American had been hit. Dale looked up from his fox hole to see if it was anyone in his squad. They had learned to cover up their fox holes with branches to shield from exploding shrapnel. The branches were not a perfect defense, but it was the best they could muster under these conditions.

Tom’s foxhole buddy, Steve, stuck his head out from the branches covering his muddy hole and asked, “Whatever happened to the patrol they sent out last night?”

“Only five of the forty-eight men returned this morning. Krauts ambushed them,” Dale hollered back over the pouring rain.

“Damn Nazi’s,” Steve spat.

“I heard the lieutenant saying we were completely surrounded by a full division of Kraut.” Tom snarled.

“I don’t think it’s a full division, maybe a battalion or two.” Dale replied.

“But, we don’t really know. That’s the problem,” Adam complained.

Another loud explosion. Dale reached for his weapon, a Thompson machine gun, and peered out of his foxhole into the thick forest looking for signs of advancing German troops. On his hands and knees, Dale pulled himself to the edge of his foxhole and positioned himself, so that if he saw an approaching German, he could easily rise to a crouching position to fire his machine gun. Dale preferred the 20-round box magazine to the larger 100-round drum because the drum was heavier and more difficult to maneuver. Thompson had produced several models of the famous machinegun; earlier designs allowed for either a drum or straight magazine. The most recent design, made for the military, only allowed the straight magazine to attach.

Upon the order to “dig in,” the battalion commander choose high ground and set up two heavy M1917A1 30 caliber, water-cooled machine guns; one on each end of the elliptical shaped fortification. Like cowboys circling the wagons, the battalion was positioned in an oval-shaped formation, with the water-cooled machine guns guarding both ends of the trail. Of course, they did not have chuck wagons to hide behind, nor were they facing natives with bows and arrows. They were surrounded by thousands of Nazis that were armed with machine guns, mortars, artillery, sniper rifles, and the occasional lite tank.

The thick, jungle-like tree canopy, combined with nasty storms, made air support for both sides nearly impossible. The fallen trees, mountainous terrain, and thick forest, that had allowed the Germans to fortify, now offered cover to the trapped American battalion. The 270 Americans had fortified the high ridge trail using downed trees and rock formations to create a strong defensible position.