“Shit,” MacMillan said.
“Well, we shall all pretend that nobody knows,” Felter said. “We can at least do that much.”
“Dumb sonofabitch,” MacMillan said. “That pecker of his has had him on the edge of something like this as long as I’ve known him. And I’ve known him a long goddamned time.”
Sharon walked over.
“I guess Sandy told you?” she asked.
“I knew,” MacMillan said.
“So that means Roxy knows,” Sharon said.
“Roxy’s mad at Craig,” MacMillan said. “Barbara’s mad at Bellmon for not trying hard enough to get him out of it.”
“Bellmon couldn’t do anything,” Felter said. “Nobody could. The Chief of Staff is after Craig’s scalp, and Black has apparently made up his mind to let him have it.”
“Well, the best thing we can do is pretend we don’t know,” Sharon said.
“Yeah,” MacMillan said.
“I hate that damned woman!” Sharon said, and flushed.
MacMillan leaned over and kissed her.
XVII
(One)
Auxiliary Field Three
Hanchey Army Airfield
Fort Rucker, Alabama
26 December 1958
They had to roll the Big Bad Bird (a/k/a the Viper) out of the hangar twice. When they rolled it out the first time, it occurred to Colonel Tim F. Brandon that a crew consisting entirely of enlisted men pushing it out would make a better shot than what he had, one sergeant, three warrants, and two field-grade officers.
So it was pushed out again with the motion picture cameras rolling, and Colonel Brandon set up another shot: Major MacMillan and Lieutenant Greer first looking at a map, then walking around the helicopter to check the rocket canisters.
“You got about enough of your fucking pictures, Colonel?” MacMillan snapped finally. “Can we get the goddamned Bird in the air now?”
It was clearly disrespectful and insubordinate, but Colonel Brandon swallowed his resentment.
“Give me five minutes to check things on the other field,” he said and climbed into his jeep and drove off.
“Pissant,” MacMillan said, watching him drive away.
CWO (W4) Dutch Cramer checked the bins and the chute and the canisters a final time, and nodded his approval.
Lieutenant Greer climbed up the side of the fuselage, and through the pilot’s window, and strapped himself in the seat.
“Off we go into the wild blue yonder,” he crooned and reached for the Engine Start switch.
His eyes fell on Major Lowell, and for a moment their eyes met. Lowell gave him a wink. Greer gave Lowell a mocking, but friendly salute, and lowered his eyes to the instrument panel as the engine began to run.
He told himself the worst part was over. They’d all gotten through Christmas without anybody bringing up what was to happen to Lowell as of 1 Jan 1959. It had been decided among the women that they would spend Christmas eve and Christmas morning with their families (which meant that Lowell was with the Parkers) and then get together for Christmas dinner. At first, Barbara Bellmon insisted on having it at the Bellmon quarters, but she lost out to Dr. Parker, who pointed out that her quarters in the hospital (hers, as Contract surgeon, with the assimilated rate of colonel, not Captain Parker’s), were much larger and better able to hold everybody.
There had been an enormous turkey, a standing rib of beef, a ham, and lots of booze. All Greer had been able to drink, however, was a glass of champagne when they got there and a glass of wine with dinner. He would be flying the Big Bad Bird today.
Everybody else had gotten pretty well sauced up, and even General Jiggs had appeared uninvited, with his wife.
“Can any old cavalryman come in here?” he had asked, when he walked in. “Or does being able to read and write disqualify me?”
Nobody mentioned what was about to happen to Lowell, but Jiggs came pretty close when he handed Lowell a Christmas-wrapped package.
“What the hell is this?” Lowell asked, embarrassed. It had been decided among them that there would be no exchange of gifts.
“One could reasonably presume it’s your Christmas present,” General Jiggs said. “Open it up.”
Inside the silver foil imprinted with scenes of a White Christmas in Old England was a battalion guidon, a small flag bearing a unit’s number. Guidons had come into use on battlefields before the telephone and radio as a unit identifier the troops could “guide on.” The only place they were still used for that purpose in the modern army was flying from a tank radio antenna to identify the tank of the unit commander.
The guidon General Jiggs gave Major Lowell was frayed and stained. It was for a tank battalion, the 73rd, and someone had lettered on it, crudely, with a grease pencil: T/F LOWELL.
“I thought you should have that,” General Jiggs said.
Major Craig W. Lowell looked very much as if he was going to cry.
“Paul,” Mrs. Jiggs said, quickly, “tell them what Wonder Boy said to the colonel from X Corps. That’s a marvelous story.”
“Yeah,” General Jiggs said. “Yeah. Well, I got the story from his operations sergeant. Let me set the stage. Lowell and forty M46s had just gone up the Korean peninsula to link up with X Corps, which had landed eleven days before at Inchon. With his well-known modesty and reticence, he’d modified the guidon he had flying from his tank. That one. I mean, what the hell, if you’re going to be in the history books, make sure they spell your name right, right?
“Well, he went a little further and a little faster than the OPSORDER called for. I’d just found them myself, in an old L-4. He was a hundred miles further than he was supposed to be and about thirty-six hours ahead of the time he was supposed to be a hundred miles back, if you follow me. X Corps is nosing around just south of Suwon, when all of a sudden, balls to the leather, around the bend come a half dozen tracks, with multiple .50s and 20 mm Bofors, chased by the first of the M46s.
“The tracks were shooting at anything that moved or looked like it could move, and that included the people from X Corps. So they waved some flags, and Task Force Lowell stopped shooting at them. Lowell drives through the tracks, and rolls up to the people from X Corps. At the time he was a major with about two hours’ time in grade.
“Well, the colonel from X Corps consults his OPSORDER and announces, ‘You’re not expected here, Major, and you’re not expected for another thirty-six hours.’ So you know what the Duke says? ‘What would you have me do, Colonel? Go back?’”
They had all heard the story before, but they all laughed, and it took some of the tension away. Then Mrs. Jiggs handed Lowell a Christmas-wrapped tube. Lowell unwrapped it, glanced at it, and then started to roll it up again.
“Pass it around, Duke,” Mrs. Jiggs said. “Some people haven’t seen it.”
“Hell,” he said, but he handed it to Melody, and Greer read it over Melody’s shoulder. It was a photograph of the front page of the Chicago Tribune, and it had been sealed in plastic. It was obviously a product of the post photo lab, and Greer suspected that it had just been made.
KOREAN REPORT: The Soldiers
by John E. Moran
United Press War Correspondent
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (UP) (Delayed) September 26—The world has already learned that Lt. General Walton Walker’s Eighth Army, so long confined to the Pusan perimeter, has linked up with Lt. General Ned Almond’s X United States Corps, following the brilliant amphibious invasion at Inchon.
But it wasn’t an army that made the link-up, just south of a Korean town called Osan fifty-odd miles south of Seoul, it was soldiers, and this correspondent was there when it happened.
I was with the 31st Infantry Regiment, moving south from Seoul down a two-lane macadam road, when we first heard the peculiar, familiar sound of American 90 mm tank cannon. We were surprised. There were supposed to be no Americans closer than fifty miles south of our position.
It was possible, our regimental commander believed, that wh
at we were hearing was the firing of captured American tank cannon. In the early days of this war we lost a lot of equipment to the enemy. It was prudent to assume what the army calls a defensive posture, and we did.
And then some strange-looking vehicles appeared a thousand yards down the road. They were trucks, nearly covered with sandbags. Our men had orders not to fire without orders. They were good soldiers, and they held their fire.
The strange-looking trucks came up the road at a goodly clip, and we realized with horror that they were firing. They were firing at practically anything and everything.
“They’re Americans,” our colonel said, and ordered that an American flag be taken to our front lines and waved.
Now there were tanks visible behind the trucks—M46 “Patton” tanks. That should have put everyone’s mind at rest, but on our right flank, one excited soldier let fly at the trucks and tanks coming up the road with a rocket launcher. He missed. Moments later, there came the crack of a high-velocity 90 mm tank cannon. He was a better shot than the man who had fired the rocket launcher. There was a soldier in front of our lines now, holding the American flag high above his head, waving it frantically back and forth. Our colonel’s radio operator was frantically repeating the “Hold Fire! Hold Fire!” order into his microphone.
His message got through, for there was no more fire from our lines and no more from the column approaching us.
The first vehicles to pass through our lines were Dodge three-quarter-ton trucks. These mounted two .50 caliber machine guns, one where it’s supposed to be, on a pedestal between the seats, and a second on an improvised mount in the truck bed. They were, for all practical purposes, rolling machine-gun nests.
Next came three M46 tanks, the lead tank flying a pennant on which was lettered Task Force Lowell. The name “Ilse” had been painted on the side of its turret. There was a dirty young man in “Ilse’s” turret. He skidded his tank into a right turn and stopped. He stayed in the turret until the rest of his column had passed through the lines.
It was quite a column. There were more M46s and some M24 light tanks, fuel trucks, self-propelled 105 mm howitzers, and regular army trucks. We could tell that the dirty young man in the turret was an officer because some of the tank commanders and some of the truck drivers saluted him as they rolled past. Most of them didn’t salute, however. Most of them gave the dirty young man a thumbs-up gesture, and many of them smiled, and called out, “Atta Boy, Duke!”
When the trucks passed us, we could see that “the Duke” had brought his wounded, and yes, his dead, with him. When those trucks passed, “the Duke” saluted.
When the last vehicle had passed, the dirty young man hoisted himself out of his turret, reached down and pulled a Garand from somewhere inside, and climbed down off the tank named “Ilse.”
He had two days’ growth of beard and nine days’ road filth on him. He searched out our colonel and walked to him. When he got close, we could see a major’s gold leaf on his fatigue jacket collar.
He saluted, a casual, almost insolent wave of his right hand in the vicinity of his eyes, not the snappy parade ground salute he’d given as the trucks with the wounded and dead had rolled past him.
“Major Lowell, sir,” he said to our colonel. “With elements of the 73rd Heavy Tank.”
We’d all heard about Lowell and his task force, how they had been ranging between the lines, raising havoc with the retreating North Korean army for nine days. I think we all expected someone older, someone more grizzled and battered than the dirty young man who stood before us.
At that moment our colonel got the word that the young soldier who had ignored his orders to hold fire and two others near him had been killed when one of Lowell’s tanks had returned his fire. The death of any soldier upsets an officer, and it upset our colonel.
“If you had been where you were supposed to be, Major,” our colonel said, “that wouldn’t have happened!”
Young Major “Duke” Lowell looked at the colonel for a moment, and then he said, “What would you have us do, Colonel, go back?”
There shortly came a radio message for Major Duke Lowell, and he left his task force in Osan. He had been ordered to Tokyo, where General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was to personally pin the Distinguished Service Cross to his breast.
Greer wondered what Lowell would do with his guidon. Put it away probably and never look at it—even if he’d gotten more than a little shaken up when Jiggs gave it to him.
The needles were in the green. Greer depressed the stick-mounted mike switch as he picked it up.
“Light on the skids with the Bird,” he said. He dropped the nose to pick up speed and then picked the Big Bad Bird up to get over the tops of the pine trees.
“Viper,” Colonel Brandon’s voice came over the FM radio. “This is Viper Base. How do you read?”
“Loud and clear,” Greer said.
“All right, Viper, I have you in sight,” Colonel Brandon said.
Giving in to a perverse impulse, Greer dropped the Bird below the treeline so that PIO asshole couldn’t see him. Then, when he was sure Brandon was searching for him, he pulled the cyclic and picked up a quick 500 feet.
“Viper,” Colonel Brandon said, “what I want you to do is make one low level, low speed pass past the camera platform.”
Greer complied.
“All right, Viper, very nice, thank you. What we’re going to do now is do it. Take your position.”
Greer flew a half mile away. Downrange he could see the T34.
“Start the T34,” Brandon ordered.
“T34 ready to roll,” a voice came back immediately.
“Move the T34,” Colonel Brandon ordered. Greer couldn’t detect any movement of the tank at first, but he saw a man hoist himself out of the driver’s seat and leap off the T34 over the left track. Then he could see that the tank was moving. He saw the man run toward the jeep which would carry him off the range.
“Viper,” Colonel Brandon ordered, “hold your position!”
Greer amused himself by doing precisely that, holding his position, a motionless hover 500 feet off the ground, the most difficult of all rotary wing flight maneuvers.
“Stand by, Viper!” Colonel Brandon ordered.
Greer did not bother to reply.
Thirty seconds later, Colonel Brandon gave the order.
“OK, Viper, kill it!”
“Jesus Christ!” Greer said, to himself. He dropped the nose, gave it the juice, and felt the forces of acceleration against his back.
When he was 300 yards from the tank, he depressed the trigger of the rocket firing mechanism for the right-side canister.
The fifty-four rockets had been manufactured at the Red River Arsenal in Texas. For facility of manufacture, the stabilizing fins at the rear of the rocket were about the last step of the manufacturing process. It had been determined that it was easier and, more important, safer, to save this step for last. All it involved was the positioning of three wedge-shaped pieces of aluminum—like the feathers of an arrow—into slots already in position at the rear of the rocket’s cylindrical body.
Each stabilizing fin was held in place with three rivets. The fins, the slots for them, and the rivets were aluminum, which does not spark. The automatic riveting machine was powered by compressed air. There was no danger of a spark there, either.
The worker who installed the stabilizing fins was required by her job description to inspect each rivet on each fin. The automatic riveting machine was a fine machine and seldom failed to do what it was designed to do. Inevitably, the riveters found the three rivets in place where they were supposed to be. Inevitably, particularly at the end of a long day, the machine operators didn’t look quite as closely as they should.
The fourth 3.5 rocket in the right-hand system on Greer’s Bird had only one rivet, the most rearward one. The near perfect machine had run out of rivets.
The single rivet had been sufficient to hold the stabilizing fin rigidly in
place during shipment and while passing through the bin into the chute when CWO (W4) Dutch Cramer had loaded the ordnance.
But the blast of firing the first three rockets in Greer’s first firing run had been sufficient to loosen the stabilizing fin. When it was fired, the fin’s nose came loose. The strength of the rivet fastening the fin to the cylinder was strong enough to keep the fin from separating from the cylinder, however. What it did was hold the fin sideward against what had now become the rocket’s slipstream. Obeying the laws of aerodynamics, Ed Greer’s fourth rocket, instead of moving horizontally toward the T34, raised its nose almost vertically.
The odds were that in such an event the rocket would pass harmlessly through the rotor arc. There were only three rotor blades, each only sixteen inches wide.
The odds went against Ed Greer and the Bird.
One of the rotor blades struck the impact fuse of the rocket 0.75 second later, and the firing mechanism detonated the explosive charge. The force blew off three-quarters of the blade and a half second later shattered the windshield of the Bird.
The Bird lost its aerodynamic lift and was simultaneously subjected to enormous out-of-balance dynamic pressures, as the engine whirled two intact rotor blades and the stump of the third.
The Bird crashed to the ground nose-first, striking it at 105 miles per hour and with sufficient force to detonate the explosive heads of the forty-seven, forty-eight, or forty-nine rockets still in the system. The precise number remaining at ground impact was never determined. There was not much left of the Big Bad Bird, nor of First Lieutenant Edward C. Greer.
(Two)
Quarters No. 1
Fort Rucker, Alabama
26 December 1958
Master Sergeant Wesley, in his dress blues, knocked at the door of the guest room (actually two rooms and a bath) of Quarters No. 1.
“Come,” General E. Z. Black said.
“That PIO colonel’s out here, General,” Master Sergeant Wesley said.
“Get the sonofabitch in here, Wes,” General Black said. The general was bending over the bed, fixing his ribbons to his tunic.
The Majors Page 36