Gulf of Mexico over Red Tide Algae Bloom
Captain Emily Marsten was weary to the bone. She commanded her twelfth mission in 24 hours, three-hours rest between flights. Each formation had grown to100 planes each, compounding the danger of mechanical failure or pilot error. The flights averaged a loss of six planes per mission. That’s six percent, acceptable in wartime aerial combat or bombing runs, but totally unacceptable to her. She was losing friends every hour. They were her brothers and sisters. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, but the 73 pilots lost to the blood sea, or trying to land with a dead stick on a patch of rocky scrub haunted her.
Every plane got a thorough mechanical check after each flight, and junked if it didn’t pass muster. More planes came in daily to replace those lost, or junked. This presented another problem for pilots. No pilot knew if the plane they were assigned was a new arrival, or had survived over 100 missions and was on its last legs. This wore on pilots terribly.
“30 seconds, people. Stay frosty. Wait for my command.” She radioed to her flight. Gone was the snappy banter, wisecracks and jokes. All had seen too many comrades die a horrible death to consider humor appropriate. A hundred men and women flew on in silence, only the sound of their engine for company. Veteran pilots of a dozen missions had learned to listen to their engine’s noise intently. Several had turned back from a mission based solely on a change in pitch. With few exceptions, their decisions had saved their lives, enabling them a chance at survival by making it to a beach. The beaches of Galveston were littered with the carcasses of broken planes. Marine units patrolled the beaches in Humvees equipped with winches to pull plane hulls off the beach, freeing the area for other planes to land if they needed to set down quickly, to pick up a stranded survivor, or haul out a body.
“On my command. Release!” No more bombs away. Rachel, her roommate died on that first flight. The next three minutes were the tense time. No conversation, no commands, just concentration. Hold your course, and pray the mechanicals didn’t go sideways. They were the longest three minutes of her life, until the next flight mission, then it started all over again.
Finally, the tanks were dry. “Break formation, break formation.” The outer pilots peeled away. This would continue until her plane, at the apex of the V formation was the only plane still on course. On the first mission, 32 planes peeling away took two minutes. On a 100 plane formation, the same maneuver required almost seven minutes. Emily’s plane would be separated from the rest of the flight by almost twelve miles. As the planes on both wings peeled away, Emily was free of the formation., and no one had died. Yet. She pulled the yoke towards her to gain altitude, and turned left in a gradual bank. That’s when she spotted the lone crop duster struggling.
Engine trouble was obvious. The small plane would rise to gain altitude, sputter, losing power, then start descending to a dangerous altitude over the Red Tide. The engine would catch in the dive, and the plane would rise again. He was losing on each rise, and descent. The plane was never able to gain the previous high altitude, and every descent towards the red sea was lower than the last. It was a simple mathematical equation. Kate increased her air speed to catch up, knowing it would eat up precious fuel, and she was farther from home than any other pilot.
“Not on my fucking watch. Not again.” Emily spoke loudly to herself. It took several minutes to close the distance to the stricken airplane. It was a newer model, with the wings attached to the bottom of the fuselage. Kate’s ride was much older and larger, with the wings over the fuselage, and struts adding support, sort of a bush pilot craft design, with aluminum covering the wings instead of canvas. The wings also contained her fuel tanks. It is why she even considered what she was about to attempt.
“Hey dive bomber. Got your ears on? Look out your port window.” She watched the struggling pilot glance her way. Both hands locked on the yoke, he was fighting for his life.
“Yeah. Busy right now.”
“I can see that. You won’t make it, not with that engine. We need to try something else. You game?” Emily asked. No answer. The plane began another descent, as power was lost. She followed him down twenty-five yards from his port wing tip. “Come on. COME ON YOU BITCH! Fire damn you, FIRE!”
The wayward engine must have heard her, and fired to life. The crop duster began to pull out, but it was going to be very close. The plane began to gain altitude just 20 feet above the blood water.
“Keep climbing, get as high as you can. I’m going to position underneath you as you climb. If you get above 500 feet, level out if you can. Wait till you feel my wing top under your landing gear.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? You can’t carry me home!”
“Yes I can. It’s been done before. My grandpa did it in 1944. He carried a shot up P-51 home on the back of his B-24. We can do this.” Emily pleaded.
“A P-51 is a single seat fighter. A B-24 was a twin engine medium bomber five times larger. We’ll both die if you try. I’m not doing it.”
“What’s your name?” Emily asked.
“Thomas. Tommy.” A voice resigned to imminent death replied.
“I’m Emily. And you don’t have a choice. It’s my call.” With her last remark, Emily dropped the yoke, increased air speed, and began to maneuver under the crippled craft. Her plane was much older and larger, with an aluminum fuselage and wings instead of fabric. Would it be enough? “You have to help. Tommy. When I’m below you, I can’t see your landing gear. You can see my wings. You have to talk me up until we make contact.”
“Fuck! Fuck me!” Tommy exclaimed.
“Maybe later, now, pull your head out of your ass and help me. You could stall again any second. DO IT Tommy!”
“OK. Jesus, are you sure? I don’t want to die, but I sure as hell don’t want you to die too.”
“Talk me up, and pray to yourself. Can you see me?” Emily asked.
“Yes. Your five yards below me, and about four yards in front of me.” Emily slowed her airspeed microscopically while pulling the yoke tenderly towards her chest.
“How about now?”
You’re two yards below my wheels. Airspeed matches…at the moment.” Tommy answered.
“OK Tommy, Showtime. Drop very carefully until you feel your wheels touch the wing. You have to straddle my fuselage evenly. Too much to one side or the other, and we both tip over. You have to keep your tail off of my plane, understand? If you damage my tail or ailerons, we go down.”
“How do I do that?” he asked.
“Airspeed. I will keep you from losing altitude. Your airspeed and mine should keep your tail lifted. You have to keep your nose up and work your ailerons. You won’t have any power so feather your prop, but you still gotta’ fly that damn thing.”
“Copy that.” Tommy was starting to sound like a military pilot again, not a scared kid.
“Do it. Talk to me so I’m ready for contact.” Emily ordered.
“Descending now. Two yards. One yard. One foot, get readyyyyy, touchdown.”
Emily felt the bump and weight, as her aircraft lost airspeed and a bit of altitude. She expected both. She was more concerned with balance. If Tommy wasn’t perfectly centered up over her fuselage, it was going to get really bad really fast. She loosened her steel grip on the yoke to see if her plane would bank left or right on its own. It did not. She breathed out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Cut your engine and feather your prop.”
“Copy that.” Tommy cut his sputtering engine, and feathered the prop. They flew on in silence for several minutes, each holding their breath waiting for the shoe to drop. Finally, Emily spoke into the tac.
“How you doing, Tommy?”
“OK. I mean good, if you don’t count almost shitting my pants.”
Emily laughed to release the tension. “Well cowboy, we have a-ways to go, but I see the Galveston beach straight ahead. See it? I make it ten or twelve miles, then we bank to port, and make a run to Municipal Field.”
&n
bsp; “I can try the beach. It’s closer.” Tommy suggested. “Less time carrying my sorry ass.”
“Too risky. Beach is narrow and curved. You’d have to circle around to come in parallel to the water with no power, all while dropping like a rock. No. I’m going to line you up with the grass along the landing strip. There’s EMT and fire apparatus we might need.”
“How you going to get me up off of you?” Tommy asked.
“That sounded a bit dirty. I’ll bet you’re a Marine pilot, aren’t you?” she responded.
“Yes Ma’am! Didn’t mean it that way. Sorry.”
“Relax, jarhead. I’m used to it. Navy here. Naval aviators are the worst for making totally inappropriate comments. And that’s just the lady pilots.” Galveston beach was approaching fast. “I’ll tell you once we successfully bank to port once we hit the coast. I don’t want you to slide off, so we need to bank very wide and slow.
“Copy that. I’m in your hands, Miss.”
Wow. That was kinda’ gentlemanly. I’m probably a decade or more older than this kid, she thought. Somebody could get physically hurt with any kind of romantic encounter. “If he gets hurt, he gets hurt.” Emily said out loud.
“Starting to bank now. Hold on, cowboy. Don’t want to lose you.” Emily commenced a long, slow bank to port, her left wing dropping slightly. “Watch your landing gear, Tommy. Anything starts to shift left, holler out loud.” The bank took several nail biting minutes to complete. As her compass bearing came around to west, Emily eased off and slowly straightened out.
“Tommy, I’m going to call the barn, and give them a sitrep. We’re 15 minutes out. Then we can discuss your dismount.”
Municipal Field, Galveston, Texas
Gunny O’Toole grabbed a male senior mechanic by the collar and threw him through the open hangar door. ”Move your ass! We have a bird with a broken wing inbound, and we by God ain’t going to lose any more pilots. Got it Shirley? Get your people to clear that field and the grassy strip next to it, like NOW! Bowman, to me! I want fire apparatus and EMT crews on BOTH sides of the field running alongside that plane as soon as it approaches. And no, I do not give a shit if your little red trucks get dirty.”
“Yes sir, Gunny! Bowman started to salute.
“Don’t call me sir, you limp dick ass licker. I ain’t no officer, peaches. I work for a living!” Soldiers, airmen, EMT’s mechanics, and officers moved as fast as they could. Gunny Colin O’Toole, could have served in the King’s Royal Fusiliers in another century. The Irishman strode down the center of the field directing men and women in his most unique way. No one dared tarry or back talk. He owned their very souls until this emergency was resolved, one way or another. A black man, Navy Chief Petty Officer James Donovan, the Navy’s equivalent of a Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant approached from the opposite direction, with the same purposeful stride, and engaging personality. They were brothers from different mothers.
“James, how’s your end looking?” Gunny asked.
“Had to kick a few asses into gear, but we’re ready on my end.” The Chief responded.
“Outstanding, James. Always a pleasure to work with a fellow Irishman. County Cork, is it? This was old banter they shared between them.
“Naw, you Mick bastard. I’m Black Irish, south side of Chicago.”
“Irish is a state of mind, brother. Let’s get outta the way. They’re inbound in two mikes.” Side by side, the two grizzled veterans walked in lock step off the field like a pair of really scary salt and pepper shakers.
“Ok Tommy, I’m kicking you out of bed. Here’s how it’s going to go down. Once we clear the trees east of the field, we’ll have a half mile of open ground in front of us before the tarmac. I’m going to drop to 150 feet. A couple hundred yards before the tarmac, I’m going to pull the yoke and climb to 250 feet, and accelerate. At 250 feet, I’m going to cut my engine. You’ll need to pull your yoke at the same time to create separation. Your forward speed should sling you off forward. As soon as your tail clears me, I will bank left for the tarmac, you bank right for the grass. Neither one of us will have power, just forward momentum and a couple hundred feet of elevation, which we will lose faster than you can imagine. Just keep straight, and set it down. You just need to be able to walk away, OK? To hell with the plane.”
What Emily didn’t share was the rapid lift would put tremendous stress on her wings. Another five minutes passed, and the tree line came into view, and passed beneath them. Her altimeter read 600 feet.
“Tommy, we’re going to drop to 150 feet now. Hold onto your jock strap.”
“Roger. Don’t feel like taking a swim today.”
“Good choice, cowboy. We’re over dry land now. Get ready to lift. Pull your yoke on my mark.”
“Mary, sweet Mother of Jesus.” Gunny Roberts was dumbfounded. “How the fuck long has she been carrying that load?”
“About 40 miles according to the radio transmissions. That lady has a pair of brass balls. I can’t believe her wing struts haven’t buckled.” Chief James replied. Neither man had ever seen such a thing in their combined fifty years of service. The approaching piggy back planes were an unbelievable sight to the waiting ground crews and emergency personnel.
Emily judged they were 200 yards from the tarmac, and 150 feet off the ground.
“Tommy, three, two, one, MARK!”
Emily pulled the yoke hard, as did Tommy and the two planes lifted their nose thirty degrees. Within seconds, they increased elevation to 300 feet, then Emily’s left wing strut buckled under the increased weight and gravity combination. She killed her engine, just as Tommy’s smaller plane slid off the front and to the left, taking out her still rapidly turning propeller. Tommy’s tail wheel was cut away, but the planes separated. Tommy’s craft was tilted to port, but he was able to correct, and level out, pulling hard on the yoke to keep the nose up. Two seconds later, his tail swiped the ground, creating enough drag for the fixed landing gear to slam onto the edge of the tarmac, bursting a tire, creating more friction. His plane veered left with the dragging wheel strut, until it too snapped, and the left wing tip hit the tarmac. The plane spun in a circle before coming to a smoking stop.
Emily’s plane no longer had even lift, her left wing bent down thirty degrees. She still had forward momentum, but was falling fast. Her broken wing spilled avgas like a faucet, and she was falling fast. She could not level out, when the left wing came off entirely. With no left wing, the remaining right wing created unbalanced lift, and flipped the plane so the remaining wing was vertical to the ground as the rushing tarmac came up to meet her. Emily’s last sight was Tommy’s crippled bird spinning to an upright stop to her left. She smiled as her port fuselage was crushed, and her plane burst into flames, the fiery hulk cartwheeling down the runway.
Holiday Inn Express, Galveston, Texas
From atop a Humvee, Commander Phillips addressed the men and women of his command, including the civilians who had rallied to help. He used a portable public address system to speak to them from the tarmac of Municipal Field.
“Ladies, and gentlemen, Sailors, and Marines, and our brothers and sisters from the Air Force and Army. I am pleased to report we have turned the tide. Pun intended. The northern advance of the algae has been halted, and the bloom reduced by half. With a 2km current moving up the coast, and the Red Tide advance stopped cold, the bloom will feed itself into the jaws of destruction our planes deliver within the next 48 hours.
The assembly of pilots, mechanics, doctors and nurses roared their approval. After a few moments, the Commander raised his arms to settle the crowd, and continued.
“I remind you, it’s not over till it’s over, and every spec of this red monster is destroyed. In the days of wooden ships and canvas, the commanders and crew reassured each other before entering battle with a simple phrase. “Hold Tight.” I ask this of you, now. Hold tight. Do not relax. Continue to perform your duties. Look after yourselves, and each other. Complete the mission.”
More cheers and applause. Someone in the crowd began chanting, and was soon joined by all present. “USA! USA! USA!” The commander again raised his arms to quiet the crowd. He continued in a solemn voice.
“Seventy-three brave men and women won’t be going home, including Captain Emily Marsten, whose courage brought a pilot home from certain death. Emily, and all the departed souls dedicated their lives in service for others. They served their God. They served their country. They served their community, their families and friends. They stood their post, often alone, so that you, and I, and every citizen of this country can sleep safely at night.” The Commander, a lump in his throat paused, then spoke softly.
“And they gave their lives as their last full measure of devotion to their country and their fellow aviators. We can only hope to match their courage. But we can honor their sacrifice. So tonight, before you sit down for a meal with your comrades, or enjoy a Fall sunset, think of your friends, your brothers and sisters at arms…with a smile, a kind thought, a small prayer, or just say thank you.
Red Tide Page 12