by Don Brown
“Still closing, Captain. Time to impact thirty seconds!”
“Fire Phalanx!”
“Fire Phalanx! Aye!”
Chit-a-chit-a-chit-a-chit-a-chit-a-chit-a-chit … The Phalanx sprayed a wall of hundreds of bullets into the air from the electronically controlled “Gatling guns” that looked like the droid R2-D2 from Star Wars. If the missiles missed, some of the 20mm armor-piercing tungsten bullets now being fired at the rate of four thousand rounds per minute might connect.
“Time to impact — twenty seconds!”
All eyes on the bridge were glued forward. Every forehead was full of sweat.
“Time to impact — seventeen seconds.”
“Come on, baby! Clip that missile,” Captain Harrison mumbled.
“Time to impact — fifteen seconds …
“Ten seconds …
“Dear Jesus,” Hampton said.
“Nine …
“Eight …
“Brace for impact!”
All over the bridge, men grabbed tight onto steel railings. Some closed their eyes.
Boom!
The explosion occurred in the air just in front of the ship, and the fiery wreck of a missile landed on the front of the flight deck and skidded back, running into an F/A-18.
Boom!
The F/A-18 burst into flames. The fireball swooshed around the crew of the RAM missile launcher that had just launched the barrage of shots into the sky. Sailors rushed out of the fireball, their uniforms aflame. Black smoke billowed high from the fighter jet as flames consumed the jet’s fuel.
“Fire on the deck! Fire on the deck! Sailors down! All firefighting units! All medical personnel! Report to the flight deck! On the double!”
Kim Yong-nam Military Prison Camp
Keith sat at the head of the cot and placed his hand on Robert’s forehead.
“How’s he doing?” Frank was sitting on the top bunk and looking out into the courtyard.
“Gotta be a hundred and two or a hundred three,” Keith said. “Maybe even higher.” He reached down and felt for Robert’s pulse. “He was doing better, but now his heart’s racing.”
“Forcing him out in the snow won’t help matters,” Frank said, his eyes still peeled outside. “I hate those maggots.”
“Tell me about it,” Keith said. Robert rolled away, his face toward the wall. He was shivering.
“He’s got the chills,” Keith said. He pulled the blanket up and tucked it around his old friend’s shoulders.
Keith looked up and whispered, “Lord, if you are still there, please don’t let him die. Not yet anyway.”
Robert moaned softly.
“If only we could get this fever to break.” He reached down and dipped his right hand into the pan of water and sprinkled a few drops on his friend’s head. Then he rubbed the water across Robert’s forehead. “He’s so hot this water’s gonna steam up,” he said. “What’s going on outside?”
“Not good,” Frank said. “Looks like they’re getting ready to shoot Pak.”
“Dear Lord, no!” Keith said. “Those people are animals.”
“She’s tied to the tree. The three stooges are lined up with their rifles, the colonel is parading out in front of her, throwing his arms around like a Nazi drill sergeant trying to impress his little woman.”
“Aaaahhhh!” Robert rolled over on his back, his face a pasty white, his mouth and eyes locked wide open.
“I’ve seen that look before.” Keith put his hand on the side of Robert’s neck. “He’s not breathing! His heart’s stopped! Dear God, no!”
Keith reached down, cleared Robert’s tongue out of the way, pinched his nose, cradled his head back, put his mouth on Robert’s mouth, and blew with all his might.
Robert’s chest rose, then fell.
“Come on! Breathe, Robert, breathe!” Keith said as he pulled his mouth away from Robert’s open mouth.
Frank had scrambled down from the bunk and stood over Keith’s shoulder.
“Blow again,” Frank said.
Keith inhaled deeply, then repeated the procedure.
Robert’s chest rose, then fell again.
And once again …
Robert’s chest rose, then fell, again.
“Come on! Breathe!” Keith shouted, then reached a finger into Robert’s mouth and tried again to move his tongue away from the back of his mouth.
USS Harry S. Truman
the Yellow Sea
Move move move!” Fireman Senior Chief Matt Cantor waved an arm, imploring the enlisted members of his hose team to get topside ASAP. The team ran up the steel ladder from the hangar bay, up to the flight deck. The heavy oxygen tanks they carried on their backs added a challenge, and they had to hang on to the ladder railing to avoid falling backward.
Cantor was the second to reach the deck. Flame-heated wind whipped into his face, like the hot swoosh gushing from an oven that had been left on broil. The source of the heat was the front section of the carrier’s giant flight deck. It was ablaze. Angry flames leaped toward the sky, spewing plumes of black smoke.
Two F/A-18 Super Hornets that had been sitting in the cat position waiting for takeoff burned like dry tinder in a hot desert, the tips of the flames reaching fifty feet into the air. Behind the burning jets, flight crews were pushing two more F/A-18s back away from the flames. A common panic seemed frozen on the faces of men pushing the planes, all aware that a stray flame could set off highly combustible jet fuel. Several men were facedown on the deck opposite the flames.
“Put on your oxygen masks! Grab that hose! Let’s go! Move it!” Cantor grabbed the nozzle, and five men picked up the rest of the hose as if they were cradling a giant boa constrictor. “Okay! Hit the water! Let’s hose down those planes!”
Cantor donned his mask. And as he did …
Whooooooooooshhhh …
The force of the water rushing through the hose almost knocked Cantor off his feet. “Hang tight, baby!” he yelled at his men as he wrestled the hose under his arms. “Let’s go!”
They all moved forward toward the leaping inferno, step by step. Cantor aimed the blast of water at the closest burning plane. Just then … Boom! … more flames leaped up from the back of the plane! A secondary explosion …
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”
A sailor, his uniform ablaze, sprinted across the deck. He screamed and waved his arms and ran toward the side of the flight deck.
“Hose down that guy!” Cantor redirected the water toward the burning sailor. The water hit the sailor, pushing him in the back, knocking him off his feet. He pushed himself back up. His uniform still on fire, he turned his burning back to the gushing water. At that moment, a hot crosswind swept back across the deck, knocking the sailor off his feet again and pushing him almost to the edge of the deck.
“Hold off! Hold off!” Cantor yelled, pulling the hose away from the sailor.
Another powerful gust of heat-generated wind swooshed across the deck and the sailor disappeared over the side.
“Man overboard! Man overboard!”
Tweet … tweet … tweet … tweet … tweet … tweet …. One level below the flight deck, where hot flames still lapped the front of the vessel, six sharp blasts of the alarm whistle bounced off the steel bulkheads of the hangar deck.
“Man overboard! Man overboard! Man overboard! Starboard side!”
Boatswains Mate Chief Walter Drodz, in command of Rescue Team 2, donned a white hard hat and a red life preserver and sprinted around two F/A-18s to the starboard side of the ship, to the bullet-shaped rubber-ringed rescue craft with its outboard engine.
Four other men, all wearing red life preservers and different color hard hats, raced toward the rubber-ringed boat. They were the man-overboard squad. They stepped one by one into the craft that was dangling in the air, hanging by three giant ropes attached to winches just on the underside of the massive flight deck.
“Lower the boat!” Drodz shouted. The winches, working in reverse
, lowered the boat down, down, down. Splash. “Crank it!” he ordered. A second later, the outboard fired up. “Let’s go!”
Detached from the ship, they moved out across rolling swells, out toward where the man had been spotted moments ago in the watchman’s binoculars.
Drodz, seated in the front of the boat, could not resist the temptation to look back over his shoulder. Thick smoke and flames were rising from the front of the carrier.
“There he is!” one of the men shouted. That brought Drodz’s head back around. The sailor was floating facedown. Only the back of his charred blue shirt was visible. The uniform had been ablaze, but the fire-repellant substances had worked, at least partially.
“Pull over to his left.” The boat moved alongside the floating sailor. Just then a large swell rolled under the boat, raising it and moving it away from the floating body. The two came back together as they slid down the back of the swell into the trough.
“Let’s get him out of the water!”
Two of the sailors reached over the side, and, as the next mound of water began raising the boat and the body, they snatched the sea-soaked sailor into the boat. He rolled in, face up. His face was bluish and his hair was scorched. The name on his uniform shirt was “Martinez.”
“Out of the way!” Drodz scrambled to the center of the boat, put his crossed hands over the sailor’s chest, and pushed down hard.
Water gushed from the sailor’s mouth. Drodz pushed again. More water. Then he pushed Martinez’s head back and clamped his mouth on the sailor’s mouth and blew.
The sailor gagged. Drodz rolled him on his side. More water spewed from his mouth.
The boat rode yet another swell to its peak.
“Atta boy, Martinez,” Drodz said, thumping the sailor on the back. More coughing. A little more water from the sailor’s mouth.
“Martinez. We’ve got you! You’re gonna be okay!”
CHAPTER 11
Kim Yong-nam Military Prison Camp
Firing squad! Atten-hut!” The colonel’s booming voice echoed across the courtyard as the sound of clicking boots snapped together.
Pak opened her eyes. Squinting through her tears, she saw her three executioners standing about twenty feet in front of her, all in a line standing at attention, their rifles pointing up. The colonel was standing off to one side. He was in full uniform. In his hand was something that looked like a long black club. The colonel’s assistant, who had a large black cloth in her hand, was standing to the other side of the guards.
“Staff Sergeant Mang!” the colonel snapped.
“Sir! Yes, sir!” she snapped back.
“Proceed to blindfold the condemned.”
“Sir! Yes, sir!” she snapped again and shot the colonel a stiff salute. She then turned, focused her eyes on Pak, and began marching toward her.
“Dear Jesus,” Pak whispered and closed her eyes. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …”
Pak opened her eyes. Mang was standing right in front of her.
In a whisper that could not be heard by the men standing behind her, Mang said, “It might be in your best interests to continue babbling that propagandistic religious garbage so that you will appear to be insane.” Then, in a loud voice she said, “I am going to blindfold you now. Close your eyes, cooperate, and this will be over soon.”
Come on, Robert! Breathe!” Keith yelled, as he pulled his mouth away, exhaled, then blew back into Robert’s mouth, trying desperately to get air into his lungs.
Inhale.
Exhale. Chest rising. Chest dropping.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Chest rising. Chest dropping.
“Keith.” Frank tapped him on the shoulder.
Keith heard Frank’s voice, as if it was far away. He ignored it. He wasn’t going to surrender. Running through his mind were the words: Marines don’t abandon Marines.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Chest rising. Chest dropping.
“Keith.” Another gentle tap on the shoulder.
“Shut up, Frank! I’m not giving up! He’s a Marine!”
Inhale.
Exhale.
Chest rising. Chest dropping.
“Keith, I’m sorry. It’s over.”
Inhale.
Exhale.
Chest rising. Chest dropping.
No pulse.
“Keith, stop. He knew you would’ve given your life for him. Come on, it’s over. He’s gone.”
“Noooooo!” Keith pushed himself to his feet. “Not Robert! Noooooo!”
He picked up the metal pan with water and slung it at the barred window.
Clang-a-lang-a-lang.
“Noooooo!”
The metal trash can. Near the door. He rushed at it and kicked it across the concrete floor.
“No! No! Nooooo!”
Another kick of the trash can.
“You’ve got to get hold of yourself, Keith!”
Firing squad. Ready!” Colonel Song Kwang-sun’s commanding voice echoed across the courtyard.
“Firing squad, aim!” In sharp precision, three rifles clacked to the shoulders of the firing squad, their barrels aimed at Pak, roped to the tree.
Clang-a-lang-a-lang.
Colonel Song looked off to his left. “What is that noise?”
“It sounds like it is coming from the barracks, Colonel,” his assistant said.
“It sounds like a riot in there.”
“But from old men?” Kang said.
“Firing squad, stand down!”
“But, Colonel,” Kang said, “we could finish the execution first.”
“I said, stand down!”
The men lowered their rifles.
“Chung, go check out the situation in the barracks.”
“Yes, Colonel.” Chung slung his rifle over his shoulder and jogged over to the barracks. He opened the door and walked in. “What is going on in here?”
Silence.
Moments later, Chung walked back out and yelled, “One of the prisoners has died, Colonel!”
“Which one?” the colonel yelled.
“The one who was sick!” Chung shouted back.
Silence. No one moved. The only sound was the sighing of the wind whipping through the trees as if in mourning for the old man.
Colonel Song sensed the stare of his mistress, and her words came back to him in a rush: “Using someone like her helps to make sure that they do not die on your watch … die on your watch …” He couldn’t look at her. He just couldn’t.
“We are prepared to proceed with the execution, my colonel,” Kang said. “We can bury the dead prisoner later. And, if you would like, we can execute the one who was rioting in the barracks. I have a feeling I know which one it was! Sir!”
Colonel Song glanced at Mang Hyo-Sonn.
“The execution shall be postponed for thirty minutes —”
“But, Colonel,” Kang said.
“During which time … we shall secure the two remaining prisoners … to ensure that they do not interrupt the execution.”
“But Colonel,” Kang persisted. “We can secure the prisoners in five minutes. I will personally secure the prisoners if you would like to keep the remaining members of the firing squad in position.”
“Did you not understand my order, Staff Sergeant?” He stared at his very ambitious guard. “We will reconvene in thirty minutes. Do you understand me?”
“Sir! Yes, sir!”
USS Harry S. Truman
the Yellow Sea
Admiral Hampton folded his arms and surveyed the scene of destruction in front of him. Powerful water gushed from high-pressure hoses onto the smoking hulks of the planes. The flames had subsided, but black smoke still plumed high into the sky. Water also poured onto the wreck of what moments ago had been a North Korean missile, destroyed by Phalanx fire just before it would have crashed into the ship.
The entire front section of the carrier had morphed from leaping hot fl
ames to choking black smoke. For now, the fire teams were winning this battle. It would be some time before the flight deck was again operational. And that was a problem.
The Truman had survived. But the admiral knew that the ship’s defense system had failed. And he needed to find out just what had happened, what went wrong. Damage and injury reports were not all in yet.
He walked over to Captain Charles Harrison, who was issuing orders for the cleanup operations of his ship. “Skipper? Damage reports?”
“Lost two birds, Admiral,” the captain said. “RAM crew was wiped out on the flight deck when the missile exploded. Still unclear on how many men we have missing, but the number appears small. One man overboard, but recovered. They’re bringing him back onboard now. Medical teams treating the wounded. No final count on fatalities. Once we finish hosing down the flight deck, we’ll get these planes bulldozed overboard. We’ll be back in the business of fighting a war within thirty minutes.”
Hampton checked his watch with a tinge of impatience. “I don’t want to push you, Captain, but as soon as you can turn the ship over to the XO for a few minutes, I need to see you and the CAG on the flag bridge. We’ve gotta get some answers as to what happened and why.”
Captain Harrison checked his watch and glanced out at the flight deck. “Actually, Admiral, this might be a good time to turn the ball over to the XO for a few.”
“Very well, Captain. Make the transition and put out a call for the CAG and my deputy intel officer to meet us on the flag bridge. We need information for Washington.”
“Aye, sir,” Captain Harrison said.
He turned to the ship’s number-two officer, Commander Rawlinson Petty, who was standing next to him. “XO, take the conn. And would you round up Garcia and Porter for me?”
“Aye, Skipper.” Commander Petty said. The executive officer stepped over and took a seat in the captain’s chair.
“After you, Admiral.” Captain Harrison pushed open the door of the bridge for Admiral Hampton. Captain Tony Farrow, Hampton’s chief of staff, followed the admiral.
“Attention on deck!” the two petty officers standing guard outside the bridge barked.
“Carry on,” Hampton said.
Admiral Hampton led the two captains down a passageway, then down a short set of stairs, past at least a half dozen young sailors who jumped to stiff attention as the trio passed, before finally arriving at the flag bridge.