by Tom Wilson
"How about the rest of you? Anyone want off the mission?" Parker asked, looking first at Turk Tatro, then around at the others.
It was quiet in the room. In that minute of silence the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing changed its primary tactic for flying in high-threat areas. Until then they'd flown over the Red River Valley in a series of four-ship flights, each flight leader eager to challenge anything the enemy threw at them. These were the men headquarters relied upon to press in and destroy the toughest targets. Their Wild Weasels found and bombed yet another enemy missile site every few days. Their pilots had the highest MiG shoot-down ratio of any unit in Southeast Asia, including any of the F-4 wings whose specialty was fighting MiGs. They'd suffered considerable losses, yet they'd taken great pride in fighting not to just participate, but to win, and in being known as the "hot-charging 355th." But the bomber generals had pulled back on their leash, and from that day on they would fly their four-ship fingertip formations only to the edge of North Vietnam, then join into a huge gaggle of fighter-bombers. They would simultaneously turn on their ECM pods and fly at 20,000 feet to the target area, scarcely banking or turning, for whenever an aircraft rolled even slightly, it reduced the collective effectiveness of the jamming pods. It would be hard to be a hot-charger if you were tied to flying straight and level in the midst of a sixteen-ship gaggle and depended on Phantoms to shoot the MiGs for you.
Parker was obviously torn. He alternately glowered at a diagram of the Korat gaggle the intelligence lieutenant had placed in front of the room, and mellowed when he regarded the backlit Plexiglas listing Kep airfield as the alpha-strike target. After a full minute of silence, he nodded toward Colonel Mack and abruptly hurried from the room.
It was not a time of confidence. The pilots had great faith in themselves, but not nearly as much in the ECM pods, the devices hanging out there on the outboard pylons, built by a division of the giant Hughes Corp, that all too often did not work.
Colonel Mack briefed as if they'd been flying the formation all along, as if today would be just another mission rather than a watershed event. He said the eight four-ship flights would remain in their individual formations to the Channel 97 TACAN navigation station on the border between Laos and North Vietnam. There the flights would form into two loosely amalgamated sixteen-ship formations. They could have joined a single thirty-two-ship mob, but he felt they'd better try something more manageable their first time out, and sixteen airplane groups would prove unwieldy enough.
Then Mack motioned to the intelligence lieutenant. His last name was DeWalt, and he was skinny and had a teenager's baby face, complete with runaway acne. The lieutenant took the podium and energetically began to brief what the ECM pod formation would look like, and the merits of flying it.
As they approached the Red River, they would close to the precise spacing called for by the formation, wingmen 1,500 feet and forty-five degrees back, and proceed across the valley that way. He said the formation was designed so that, when viewed from any direction or elevation, an aircraft would be flying in each resolution cell of the enemy radars and would thus present a large white blob on their scopes.
The noise level of muttering and low cursing continued to swell.
One of the Wild Weasel backseaters muttered to his pilot, "I'm sure as hell glad we don't have to fly in that stupid formation. The pods don't put out enough power to create white blobs on anything."
The Wild Weasels would be flying well out in front of the gaggle.
One pilot just shook his head and kept whispering, "This is pure horseshit."
Lucky Anderson had decided early on that, horseshit or not, if they were to fly the formation, and the fate of his C-Flight depended upon doing it right, he wanted to learn all he could. He gained the attention of two captains in Max Foley's flight who were bitching loudest and growled, "Dammit, be quiet."
One started to argue, but Max whispered for them to listen up. Then Max looked at Lucky and nodded solemnly, obviously having come to the same conclusion.
But other voices drowned out Lieutenant DeWalt, who was still trying to brief details of the formation. Finally Colonel Mack got back up in front of the group and raised his hands.
The noise level diminished.
Mack wore his poker face, neither smiling nor frowning. "You guys remind me of a story this guy told me back in 1944, about a briefing that went something like this one. This bunch of B-25 crews were going to fly into Ploeste on the first large-scale, low-level bombing mission. First time it had ever been done, and the guys didn't like it one bit, so by God they didn't listen to the briefing officers."
The muttering grew even quieter.
"This guy I talked to drew a bad airplane, so he didn't have to fly on that mission. Anyway, that's all I had to say. Let's get back to the lieutenant's briefing, so you can continue to ignore what he's trying to tell you." He started to return to his seat.
A captain from the 333rd squadron asked, "How'd the low-level attack work out, Colonel Mack?"
"The guy didn't know if it worked or not," said Mack.
The pilot looked puzzled.
"None of them made it back. Not one."
That got their attention, and it became quiet.
Mack stared out at the men until he knew that his point was sinking in, then added, "Since you don't want to listen to the lieutenant about this formation, I guess you're all hoping you'll get a broken airplane, like that guy I talked to back in 1944."
"Not a bad idea," muttered someone. This generated a few laughs.
"I don't think maintenance can break that many airplanes," said Mack.
"I've got faith that our maintenance can break anything we give 'em," said Turk Tatro in his southern drawl, eliciting a roar of laughter.
Mack shook his head. "Nope. Some of you are going to have to fly. Tell you what, only the guys who are going to get good airplanes have to listen . . . the rest of you go on into the next room and talk."
"That room ain't big enough," growled Turk Tatro.
More laughter.
"On the other hand," said Mack, casting his eagle's stare out at the men, "I'm awfully intrigued to see what Kep runway looks like from a new perspective . . . say from a forty-five-degree dive-bomb delivery?"
"Amen," said Max Foley. "Lieutenant, tell us more about the silly-assed formation."
Colonel Mack nodded for Lieutenant DeWalt to continue his briefing and sat down.
The pilots remained attentive throughout the remainder of the briefing. Mack had given another of his not-too-subtle lessons in leadership, and like the others in the room, Lucky thought it had been rather neat.
First Lieutenant Billy Bowes
At the mission briefing Major Lucky Anderson had handed out flight plan and lineup cards to the members of Shark flight. Bob Liebermann would fly Lucky's wing. Turk Tatro was number three, and Bowes number four. They would be a four-ship flight only during the first and last parts of the mission. The rest of the time, going to and from the target, Shark would be at the tail end of the second sixteen-ship formation and would be last to bomb the target.
The gaggle provided one advantage the pilots liked. They would ingress at higher altitudes, so there would be no need to pop up to delivery altitude when they approached the target. The aircraft could simply wing over into their dive-bomb deliveries. On the flip side, it would be more difficult to pick out the target from the higher altitude. As Colonel Mack had pointed out, it was a good thing they were starting out with an easy target. It would be hard to miss the long runway at Kep, even from 20,000 feet.
The various flights would break away, dive-bomb the target, then rejoin the gaggle on its way back to the west, toward Laos. First on the target would be Mack's Tuna flight, and they would attack the gun emplacements around the periphery of the air base. Next would come five flights of Thuds carrying 500-pound Mark 82's with delay fuzes. The weapons were sleek, had good accuracy, and with the delay fuzes, were good at penetrating hard surfaces. Those
Thuds would attack and crater the runway.
The final two flights, including Shark, would carry CBU-29's, which were clamshells containing hundreds of cluster bomblets, baseball-sized frag grenades. After release the clamshells would start to spin, and after a few revolutions they'd open and spew out the bomblets. Then the bomblets would themselves spin and become armed. Some of the bomblets would detonate upon contact with the ground, spraying the area with deadly fragments. Others would lie there for up to half an hour, like grenades with their pins pulled, and randomly explode. The CBU-29's would destroy aircraft or personnel that happened to be in the open.
After the mission briefing, when the men believed they knew what the lieutenant had been trying to tell them about flying the Korat gaggle, they broke up for individual flight briefings, and Major Lucky led them to a smaller room and shut the door.
As soon as the door was closed, Turk Tatro erupted, "By damn, I don't like that formation one bit."
"Why?" asked Bob Liebermann. "Everything the lieutenant briefed was correct. I've studied the effects of jamming for large aircraft, and its got to be even easier to mask a fighter. I think it makes sense."
"Doesn't really matter what we think," said Major Lucky. "We're going to fly it."
"Doesn't mean I have to like it," grumbled Turk stubbornly.
Lucky Anderson reviewed the mission data, then used the blackboard as he talked about weapons delivery.
"We'll be last. Fifteen seconds after the previous flight enters its maneuver, we'll drop our CBUs on this area adjacent to the north end of the runway."
"I don't see anything there," complained Billy Bowes, peering at a recce photo.
"Remember what intell said? The reason the photos look so fuzzy's because the gomers have camouflaged the areas around both ends of the runway."
"It just looks indistinct to me," frowned Bowes, "like a bad photo."
Lucky smiled at him. "Let's drop our CBUs there anyway, okay Billy?"
"Okay." He thought of something else then and asked, "You think we're going to catch any MiGs on the ground?"
"The guy from Seventh Air Force who briefed us last night said they flush the MiGs at Kep when we're on the way in. So no, probably no MiGs."
"And if there are?"
"What do you mean?"
"Say we spot MiGs when we're recovering from the dive bomb . . . ?"
"Yeah?"
"Seeing how we're last in on the target, can we go back and strafe the bastards?"
Lucky stared at him. As always, Billy had difficulty reading the expression on the ruined face. Finally Lucky nodded. "You see any MiGs, call 'em on the radio. If the ground fire's not too bad, we'll swing around and shoot 'em. Just one pass, though, then we'll haul ass out of there and rejoin the gaggle."
Yeah, grinned Billy. I'm in the right flight.
0420 Local—Flight Line
At Billy's request the squadron-maintenance officer had permanently assigned him number 820, which had been the first aircraft he had flown at Takhli. Not only was he a bit superstitious about such things—he'd escaped without a scratch on that hairy flight—he also knew Staff Sergeant Larry Hughes was fastidious about his work and felt that was a commendable trait for the man in charge of the airplane upon which he bet his life.
When he went out to the aircraft that dark morning, he found that his name had been painted in bold letters on the left canopy rail. 1/LT W. BOWES. The letters were white against a bright-blue background, the same shade as the banner of blue paint across the top of the tail. The color differentiated their aircraft from those assigned the other squadrons.
Billy inspected the aircraft closely, with Sergeant Hughes at his side holding a flashlight. As they checked and double-checked, he noticed the crew chief seemed happier than usual.
Billy finished with the walk-around inspection, then headed toward the boarding ladder, pulling at the cinches of his parachute. You knew the leg straps were tight enough only when you were so uncomfortable you had to hobble around half bent over. Which was sure as hell better than the alternative—ejecting at high speed and having the blast of air break your arms and legs, maybe even pull you out of the parachute harness.
The pilots flew with a lot of gear strapped to their bodies. First there were the flight suits and web-sided jungle boots. Next came the g-suits, which zipped tightly over their legs and around their waists, designed to inflate and keep the blood from migrating to their legs when they were maneuvering hard. They wore nylon-mesh vests, with pockets for two survival radios, a couple of plastic baby bottles filled with water, other miscellany that would be valuable if they were shot down, as well as shoulder holsters for their Combat Masterpiece .38 Special revolvers. By the time the parachute was added, it was quite heavy, and the pilot was miserably hot inside it all.
Billy glanced again at the crew chief. "Okay, what's the smile for, Sarge?"
"Didn't realize I was," said Hughes.
"You look awfully pleased about something."
"We heard about your target. You guys going after a MiG base?"
"Yeah."
"Feels damned good that we're finally doing it, sir."
0500 Local—People's Army HQ, Hanoi, DRV
Colonel Nguyen Wu
Nguyen Wu had spent an awful night living a nightmare and thinking of the flaws in the plan he'd set in motion. An attack upon Quon's son was the wrong approach. It would create sympathy, making Quon even more popular and his requests more irresistible.
But Quon was attacking his competence and trying to pull his command apart, and Wu knew he must do something. As Sergeant Ng drove him to the headquarters, he decided upon an entirely new solution to his dilemma.
The next series of large-scale attacks would be upon the bridges, and Dung had impressed upon them the importance of defending them. So Wu had massed all the mobile rocket batteries to protect them and told the battalion commanders to defend the bridges with everything they possessed. He'd ordered them to attack relentlessly, to fire rockets as rapidly as enemy targets could be acquired on radar and the launchers could be reloaded, and to ignore all firing doctrines they'd previously learned or been taught by the Soviet advisors.
Several commanders had intimated that Wu was wrong both about the firing doctrine and the way their batteries were deployed on top of one another. He'd made an example, had one of the majors removed from command and demoted, before the others had grown silent.
He told them he would not condone questions, or failure, or losses of more rocket batteries. They must be accurate, destroy more enemy aircraft than ever before. They must provide the enemy with no respite, for the Mee must not be allowed to destroy a single bridge. He had seen his uncle spur the same commanders using threats and cajolery, and he had obtained superb results. The fact that his uncle had once commanded a rocket battery himself and spoke from experience did not impress him.
But good results alone might not be enough to stop Quon. While Wu's rocket forces must shoot down great numbers of enemy aircraft, Quon's MiGs must shoot down none at all.
That was the crux of his new plan.
The answer had been so obvious, he wondered how he'd missed it. His long-range radar controllers would delay alerting the MiG bases of the Mee air strike. They would delay notification until it was too late for the interceptors to position for attack. As a result, the rocket forces would get their kills, and the MiGs would not.
There was little time to set it up.
He thought about it again and realized a new problem, for it must be done so he could deny all blame if something went wrong. A breakdown of equipment?
He went up the stairs to his offices feeling pressured to hurry.
Nguyen Wu immediately called in his communications officer and carefully passed instructions, then accompanied him to the radio room. There the lieutenant spoke to carefully selected communications officers at the Phuc Yen and Kien An radars, and they to their most trusted maintenance technicians.
Cert
ain radios and land lines would be conveniently made inoperative due to problems with untraceable causes. At the critical moment the communications officers at the long-range radars would be unable to relay directions to the interceptor units, and communications between Hanoi and the bases would be broken as well. The problems would be such that no one would suspect. When the lieutenant finished with each call, he ascertained that no record of their communication had been written down. Indeed, no such conversations had occurred.
Colonel Wu was comfortable with the new plan. The first one had been born too much of emotion. This one was potentially more fruitful and less damaging if something went amiss.
Word from the command center began to pour into his office for his attention, relayed by the communications lieutenant.
Report: Agents disclosed increased activity at all four Thailand fighter bases. Large numbers of aircraft were being loaded with fuel and munitions. Report: Seven refueling aircraft had taken off at varied time intervals from Takhli. Report: Thunder planes, first at Takhli, then at Korat, were taxiing in preparation for takeoff. Report: Kien An radar detected increased air activity over the three Mee aircraft carriers.
It was surely to be the first large-scale raid upon the bridges. Wu inwardly exulted.
Report: At Ubon, some Phantoms loaded with bombs and others with rockets were starting engines. Report: Reconnaissance Phantoms were preparing for takeoff at Udorn. He smiled, called for tea, realizing that he'd moved none too soon. Another hour and it would have been too late.
Sergeant Ng, the scarred and aging warrior who acted as his personal servant, driver, and even tended his more personal needs, hurried in with a cup of bitter tea, which he sipped with satisfaction as he took a moment to relax.
Then he remembered something else, something critical. He'd implemented the new plan, but had not yet dismantled the old, much more dangerous one. He quickly telephoned Feodor Dimetriev at the Soviet embassy, but was told the colonel was not yet in his office.
Wu covered the telephone's mouthpiece as his intelligence officer interrupted to say that the command center had requested authorization to make phase-one alert notifications.