Lucky’s Bridge (Vietnam Air War Book 2)

by Tom Wilson

  "Don't hold your breath. Moods Diller gets intoxicated with his ideas."

  "The PACAF Deputy for Operations liked the sound of his briefing."

  "The PACAF XO is a pipe dreamer just like Moods."

  Pearly shrugged. "May be, General. The PACAF XO's also the one who wants us to start using Bullpup missiles. His staff says he thinks they're high technology, and that things like that can give us the edge over the enemy."

  "He's never flown fighters. Spends most of his time at Anderson and U Tapao giving World War II pep talks to B-52 crews. How would he know anything about Bullpups?"

  "His staff says he gets excited whenever they brief them, and he's looking for something to try 'em on. They say if this campaign's approved, he'll want to use them."

  The idea did not please Moss, and Pearly wondered if he hadn't just lost his whole argument because of it.

  "What's the Navy say they'd use?"

  "They'd try their A-6's with the new precision radars, and go in at night with one- and two-thousand-pounders."

  "They're smart about that one. In France we used the biggest damn bombs we could hang on our airplanes. So big that even if we missed, sometimes the concussion would knock them down."

  "Perhaps you could call the general at PACAF and get him to change his mind about the Bullpups, General?"

  Moss sighed, as if Pearly were trying to sucker him into something he wasn't sold on. Finally he asked, "How about the other thing?"

  The "other thing" was taking the losses required to get the job done. The general was always concerned about the "other thing" when they considered difficult targets. When they'd made up their minds and the targets were hit, it was different. Once committed, Moss didn't seem to worry as much about actual losses as he had the forecasts.

  Pearly was good at determining loss rates for the various targets. Using historical statistics, pessimism, and a bit of bullshit, he was usually accurate within a single percent.

  "I feel it will cost us between five and six percent attrition for each mission, sir, with the present numbers of guns defending the bridges. I can give you better numbers when I look at the individual target photos."

  Now they both stared at the window, and Pearly found his own enthusiasm flagging. He hated talking about losses.

  "How many bridges are we talking about?" asked Moss in a quieter tone.

  "So far I've identified eleven big ones for us and nine for the Navy. There's more like two hundred if we include elevated railroads and bridges across the smaller streams."

  "It wouldn't be easy, even if we just concentrated on the major ones, Pearly. They'd be hard to knock down, harder than you think, and once we start, we'd have to keep knocking them down because they have the manpower to repair them."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Even if we knocked down every bridge, would it really stop the supplies from getting through?"

  Pearly shook his head. "If it was anyone else, I might say so, sir, but the North Vietnamese are damned resourceful. All I'm predicting is we'd slow them down."

  Moss sighed. "You know, Pearly, in 1944 we were sent out to stop the supplies from coming up to the front at Normandy. We flew our asses off and took our hits, but by God we stopped them." He paused in memory. "Sometimes we'd knock out a single bridge and stop an entire tank or truck column."

  Pearly Gates remained quiet.

  Moss shook his head sadly. "But I suppose if we'd given the Germans sanctuaries and reassurance that we weren't really going to hurt them, and plenty of time to regroup between bombings, they'd have figured out ways to resupply too."

  "General, one way or another the North Vietnamese would likely end up getting their supplies through. But they'd have to work for it, and I just can't think of any other way to slow down the flow without breaking the President's rules."

  "How many troops are we tying up in North Vietnam with our bombing now?"

  "Intelligence estimates are between four and five hundred thousand."

  "What do you think?"

  "I'd say half a million minimum, not counting the men, women, and kids on the repair gangs. I'm talking about the troops manning the defenses and the home-defense militia."

  "And this would tie up even more?"

  "Big-time numbers, general. They'd have to keep a tremendous work force in place fixing bridges, rafting supplies across the rivers, and carting the stuff between chokepoints. Even then the supplies would be slowed down."

  A colonel wearing a white mess dress uniform with elaborate fruit salad came to the doorway and peered inside.

  Moss waved him away. "I'll be a few more minutes," he called tersely, and that made the colonel look nervously at his watch.

  Pearly's glasses slipped forward on his nose. He pulled them off and carefully polished them with his handkerchief. Moss stared incredulously at the thickness of the Coke-bottle lenses, then glanced away as if embarrassed. "How quickly could you put an OPlan together?"

  "I've got the essentials already. Another couple of days?"

  "I've got to be on time for a protocol function, but let me tell you something damn important." Moss looked evenly at him, and the muscles of his jaw bunched angrily. "Somehow our targeting information's getting to Hanoi. We've got a leak somewhere in the system."

  Pearly stared at him, slowly pushed his glasses into position and blinked.

  "I don't know how, but it's getting out," said Moss. "I've been shown photos of NVA defenses being pulled out of critical areas and built up around specified targets more than twenty-four hours prior to our strikes. Yesterday the numbers of guns around the power plants at Hanoi and Haiphong were trebled before our aircraft arrived."

  Moss lowered his voice when he next spoke. "Who've you shared this one with, Pearly? If we went after their bridges, we sure as hell wouldn't want them knowing it."

  Pearly knew it wasn't one of his own people leaking the information, so he tried to remember who else he'd told. "Intell. Some of the people at the Tactical Air Control Center. Staff officers in Hawaii and Washington on secure lines."

  "Well, start keeping it closer to your vest. I'm tired of losing pilots. I've contacted the Smith brothers to see if they can find the leak."

  CIA agents often introduced themselves as Mr. Smith. Collectively they were called the Smith brothers.

  The colonel reappeared at the door.

  Moss slowly gained his feet, still thinking hard. "I've got a reception with General Westmoreland and Ambassador Lodge. You keep working on our campaign, Pearly."

  Our campaign? Relief swept over Pearly Gates as he realized he'd won. "Yes, sir," he said as he also stood.

  "Call CINCPAC and tell 'em I'll request a trial bombing mission against one of the key bridges as soon as the OPlan's completed. You pick a good target and brief me. As soon as we've ironed out the wrinkles, I'll request a large-scale bombing campaign against every major bridge in pack six."

  "I'll advise them, General."

  "You brief your bosses about this yet?"

  "No, sir. I felt it was your call and should come from you."

  Moss looked pleased. "Tell them I called you in and told you to build the OPlan."

  "Yes, sir."

  Although it was Pearly Gates's idea, Moss would receive the credit, especially if things went right. But, of course, that was what generals and staff officers were all about.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Saturday, April 22nd, 0715 Local—Route Pack One, North Vietnam

  Major Lucky Anderson

  "This is Hillsboro, go ahead with your transmission."

  Lucky had spent five long minutes trying to raise the airborne command post that controlled the airspace and monitored flights in the southern route packs. This portion of North Vietnam was too close to the demilitarized zone with South Vietnam to escape the interest of the brass, some of whom suspected that all fighter pilots were not great at navigation and sometimes lost track of precisely where they were over the ground. Thus all flights operating
in pack one were closely monitored by Hillsboro, to make damn sure the fighters weren't near friendlies when they dropped their bombs.

  A selection of command posts and radars, some airborne like Moonbeam, Cricket, Hillsboro, Ethan, Big Eye, and Crown, some on the ground like Motel, Invert, Viking, Waterboy, Lion, and Brigham, some on ships, like Red Crown and the two aircraft carriers presently on station, all controlled various portions of North Vietnamese airspace. Sometimes the pilots listened and at other times disregarded the advisories, but they knew if you ignored Hillsboro or its nighttime replacement, Moonbeam, and mistakenly dropped bombs on friendlies, you might as well take up hula dancing, because when you landed, your ass was going to be grass.

  "Hillsboro, this is Reno lead. I've got four nickels loaded with hotel echo bombs and alpha-papa twenty mike-mike," radioed Lucky Anderson, introducing Reno flight as four F-105's carrying high explosive bombs and full loads of armor-piercing 20mm ammo for their guns. "Do you have targets for us?"

  At times Hillsboro would have a good target, like NVA troops moving south toward the DMZ, gomer boats sneaking down the coast, or trucks spotted on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

  "Negative, Reno lead. Suggest you remain north, repeat north, of Dong Hoi. Hillsboro out." Which meant that some sort of operation was in progress near the DMZ and they were to stay clear of it, and also that Hillsboro was busy and didn't have time for them.

  Anderson led the flight into a slow turn back toward Dong Hoi, a seaside fishing community thirty nautical miles north of the DMZ. He tried calling Cricket, the other daytime C-130 flying command post in the area, but got no response.

  They flew at 6,000 feet in a loose fingertip formation, with 500 feet spacing between aircraft. On Lucky's wing was Lieutenant Walker, and the descriptive word for his flying was "smooth." He was jinking nicely, moving his aircraft about the sky unpredictably but not jerking around like a fish out of water. Manny DeVera was number three, leader of the second element, and Billy Bowes was on his wing. He had no complaints about either man's flying skills. Lucky was smugly happy about the abilities of his C-Flight. After a few more indoctrination missions such as this, they'd be right up there with the best in the wing.

  They flew north, only five miles from the coastline, passing over the heavily pocked fields of pack one. The craters were created by U.S. Navy ships as they blasted away at vehicles or troops with their big guns. A great number of the holes were nowhere near a roadway, just out in the wide expanses of sand and scrub brush. Lucky suspected the Navy used the area for training and to zero in their guns. The roads themselves were kept smooth by construction gangs, swarms of worker ants the pilots only periodically glimpsed.

  "Dong Hoi," announced Lucky as they passed by. Dong Hoi was built at the mouth of a river that emptied into a small harbor, protected by land on three sides. A ferry hidden somewhere in the area was used to transport people and vehicles across the mouth of the river at night, but no big convoys passed through the open and vulnerable area. Instead they moved in great numbers forty miles to the west, where the Ho Chi Minh Trail snaked through a dozen heavily forested mountain passes into Laos. From there they flowed southward and then poured through a hundred sieve openings into South Vietnam.

  After ten minutes of looking about, examining the coastal flatlands and low hills, Lucky began to look for a particular phenomenon to show them.

  Thirteen miles north of Dong Hoi, on a section of the coastal highway, sat an A-l Skyraider, a World War II vintage prop aircraft the pilots called a Spad. From the air it appeared in good condition, as if it had just landed and was waiting for its pilot to climb back in, crank up, and take off. Two years before, after taking a critical hit, its pilot had landed on the roadway and abandoned it. Now the gomers used it as bait for inquisitive pilots who were tempted to take a closer look. A few antiaircraft guns were hidden about the area and fired upon any fighter that drew near.

  Lucky explained the flak trap. He ended by telling them, "They're either entry-level gunners, or simply very poor shots, because they've never hit anyone."

  "Reno four," he said then, "I want you to swing out solo and fly a couple miles north, then drop down to a thousand feet and come hack up the road . . . fast."

  "Four," Billy Bowes replied cheerfully, reefing his aircraft into a hard left turn.

  "Renos, keep an eye on the trees at the sides of the road down there," radioed Lucky to the remainder of the flight.

  Thirty-five seconds later the Thud flown by Reno four came streaking down the roadway. Bees zipped upward out of light foliage on either side of the road.

  "That's twelve point seven and fourteen point five millimeter, Reno flight," called Lucky. "Every seventh or tenth round is a tracer, so there's a lot more of it than you can see."

  A few white puffs formed above and aft of Reno four, now well past the flak trap.

  "That's thirty-seven millimeter, Renos, aimed with iron sights, with manually preset burst altitudes. Up in pack six, they have so many of them, they don't aim. They use barrage fire. Just point the barrels up toward a common sector, and maybe fifty or a hundred guns pound away at that section of sky. Then another group of guns fire at the next sector and others in the next ones. That way they can pretty well cover the sky over a target and boost their odds of hitting someone. Barrage fire can be damned effective, so try to avoid flying through it."

  Bowes was circling and climbing to join them.

  "How about fifty-seven and eighty-five millimeter?" came a radio call.

  He knew the call had come from DeVera, but Lucky was trying to teach them the way it should be done. "Reno flight, every time you push a mike button up here, identify yourself. "

  Silence.

  "Right, Reno three?" Lucky prodded.

  "Roger, Reno lead," said Manny DeVera.

  Bowes was pulling back into place off Manny's left wing.

  "As for your question, Reno three, fifty-seven and eighty-five use aimed fire, either optically or radar guided. The color of the flak bursts are determined by the warhead material. Fifty-seven is usually light gray, and eighty-five is darker, like one hundred and one hundred thirty millimeter. They use a combination timer and proximity fuze. The timers are preset by the gunners as the rounds are chambered."

  They were flying eastward toward the high mountains when DeVera's aggressiveness bubbled forth. "Lead, Reno three. Aren't we going to bomb the guns back there?"

  "Negative, Reno three. I like having those particular gomers on the guns. Hurt them and they might bring in someone who can hit something."

  They approached the mountains at 10,000 feet. Lucky described the limestone karsts off to their left as craggy, low hills that were honeycombed with caves.

  "You ever get shot down, there's a hell of a lot of hiding places in a karst formation," he explained. Then, after another minute, "Over at your two o'clock, at five miles, is a canyon containing one of the branches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There's water buffalo, elephants, horses, trucks, jeeps, humans, handcarts, and bicycles thick as ants down there, carrying supplies to their gomer buddies in the South. They move at night or in bad weather. Only time you'll see them in the open is if you get down under a cloud deck or if you use flares at night."

  They'd seen no good targets of opportunity during the flight, so Lucky reverted to a set of coordinates given them by intelligence before takeoff. He located the crook in the heavily treed canyon, double-checked to make sure they were at the right location, as if it made a difference, and then led the flight into a dive-bomb run on the suspected truck park. There was no ground fire, so Lucky figured there was nothing under the dense jungle canopy. Nine tons of bombs were released into the empty expanse of jungle.

  Reno flight returned to base without incident.

  0930 Local — Hanoi, DRV

  Colonel Nguyen Wu

  For the hundredth time, Nguyen wished his aunt was not away. She was so much better at things like this. But she would not return from Paris for weeks, and
he dared not wait.

  Through the long night, yesterday's argument with Quon about the long-range radars had festered and bothered him. He'd arrived at his office late, to find a message from the famous fighter pilot, demanding that they meet in General Tho's office to discuss the matter further. When Wu had gone there, he'd found that General Luc had also been invited, and the argument of the previous day had been resumed.

  The Soviet tactics adopted by the People's Army Air Force demanded that the MiGs be closely tracked and directed by highly trained radar controllers. Since Nguyen Wu had taken over and removed the pilot controllers, radar control had been poor, almost nonexistent.

  Nguyen argued that "Wisdom" had used North Korean and Russian controllers, and he had been told by "important people" never to again allow foreigners to control their defenses.

  Quon, staring coldly at Nguyen Wu, said he did not care about politics, only about victories. Just who were these important people and he would speak with them. When Wu had refused to tell him, he had smirked and intimated that Wu was lying.

  As Wu had left, his face had burned with helpless rage. He sensed that Quon was poised for the kill, that he was gathering his final ammunition to wrest control of the two long-range radars. He also knew he must act quickly and resolutely if he was to keep them.

  But the previous night he'd worked out a solution, and as he strode to his waiting staff car, he decided that it was sound. Perhaps rash . . . but nonetheless sound. The kind of plan his aunt would surely approve of. Anything less might be too little to stop the fighter pilot, anything more, and the legend might be tarnished and the party angered. Best of all, Nguyen Wu would be uninvolved. Sergeant Ng drove him directly to the Russian embassy compound, then around the perimeter road to the building from which Colonel Feodor Dimetriev commanded his contingent of Russian technical advisors.

  There was no waiting to see Dimetriev. The man knows the power wielded by Nguyen Wu, he thought haughtily as he barged directly into the inner office and voiced his demand.

  Feodor Dimetriev disliked him, a fact made apparent by his look of distaste. He refused him, saying that Wu must take up such matters with his own people.