This post continues a series of decision-forcing cases. With that in mind, I recommend that, before reading the paragraphs that follow, you read (or, better yet, work through) the first two posts in the sequence.
You divided the headquarters of your company into three echelons. The first, mounted in your two jeeps, consisted of yourself, your reconnaissance sergeant, a radio operator, and a driver. It traveled between the two gun platoons, ensuring that they had everything they needed. The second, with a strength of thirty-five , marched with the regimental command post. The third, which consisted of four ammunition specialists, rode in the two ammunition trucks. (Those vehicles traveled with the regimental trains.)
When the regiment stopped for the night, you combined the headquarters of your company with that of the regimental anti-tank company, thereby creating a small rifle company. To bolster the firepower of this unit, you provided it with four .50 caliber machine guns. (These came from the self-propelled pieces of your two cannon platoons.
You then formed your two cannon platoons into a four-piece battery, and placed it in the center of the position held by the regiment. This location allowed the howitzers to fire in support of every one of the four units holding the perimeter. (These were the provisional company that you had formed, the two battalions of RCT 17, and the 2nd Battalion of the 184th Infantry, which had been advancing behind your regiment.)
In the course of the evening, your executive officer tells you that all four of the men in your maintenance section - three motor vehicle mechanics and an ordnance technician - have disappeared.
What now, Captain?
Please feel free to use the comments section to propose a solution to this problem. When doing so, please employ a first-person perspective. That is, rather than writing ‘Captain Jensen should’, please begin your response with ‘I would …’
If you are new to decision-forcing cases, you will find much of interest in the following article.
Search the combined company area for the missing personnel, to include looking inside, around and under each vehicle and tent. Question unit personnel for any information on their whereabouts.
If they are not within the unit area, form search teams headed by the Executive Officer, 1st Sergeant, Recon Sergeant and Supply Sergeant with at least one other soldier accompanying them and start looking for them in other unit areas, to include any aid stations.
If they cannot be found in 30 minutes, inform the Regimental CP that they are missing and of the steps you have taken so far. $10 says they went off to a card game, but you never know.