In the background, I could overhear the communication between other fighters and AFACs. I called Larry and told him that there wasn’t anything to be found around Podujevo, and asked, “Do you have anything else for us?” “Taco, check with Stew Two-One. He’s working over near G-Town,” Larry said. We sometimes referred to the major cities in Kosovo by their first initial. It kept the chatter down and gave the Serbs who were listening something else to figure out. He quickly passed me coordinates and pushed me to the backup frequency. I sent Rip to the assigned frequency for the eastern half of Kosovo, checked him in, and was almost immediately contacted by Stew 21.
“Taco, Stew Two-One, good voice; say ordnance and playtime.” I recognized the voice of Maj Bumpy Feldhausen, one of the boys from Pope. I replied, “Stew, Taco, One’s got two by CBU-87, Maverick, and the gun. Number Two has four by Mk-82s. We’ve got another 20 minutes of playtime.” “Roger,” Bumpy said, “we’ve got some arty positions in the tree line in our target area. We’re halfway between G-Town and Vranje. Confirm you have the coordinates.”
Artillery positions between G-Town and Vranje
I looked at the INS. “Another five minutes away,” I told him.
“Copy all. I want you guys in at 200 and below. We’ll hold over you, 210 and above, and we can provide your cover. When you get into the target area, I’ll give you a talk-on.”
“Taco Zero-One,” I replied. Switching frequencies, I compared fuels with Rip. We’d have enough for about 15 minutes in the target area. I plotted the position of the target on one of my 1:50 maps. It was within a kilometer of the corner of the map, halfway up the side of a hill on the eastern side of a fairly nondescript small valley. It wasn’t going to be easy finding it—especially without being able to reference the map features to the immediate south and west of the target. To see all of that, I would have to juggle two other 1:50 maps in the cockpit along with the one I already had out and the 1:250 that I was using for navigation. It wasn’t an easy thing to do.
We were almost there—only three miles away. I looked out and saw Stew 21 circling over the valley to the south, slightly higher than us and about four miles away. “Stew, Taco’s visual, ready for the talk-on,” I announced.
“Right beneath you, there’s a fairly long town in the middle of the valley, oriented north-south. Call contact.”
I looked down into the valley. There were a lot of towns. I came back inside, checked my map, checked the compass, back outside. Yep, there was the town that he was talking about, and it was pretty much north-south. “Contact,” I replied and then added, “Confirm that there is a hardball road leading through the length of the town.”
“Affirmative,” came the answer. “Let’s call the length of that town one unit. Now look on the eastern side of that town. There’s a dirtball road leading southeast up into the hills. Call contact.”
I looked down. There were a lot of dirtball roads, some more prominent than others. “I see a lot of dirtball roads,” I said.
“Right, this one is the most prominent one. It leads out in a straight line to the southeast and hits a tree line in the hills about two to three units away from the town.”
I looked down. None of the roads that led out the town to the southeast ran into a tree line. I checked my orientation. OK, I was looking to the southeast of the town. No trees. My frustration started to build.
“Stew, Taco’s not contact with that tree line,” I admitted.
“It’s right underneath me now. I’ll put down a mark to show you.”
I looked up to watch him. He wasn’t over the town. Where was he? I looked off to the south. Searching, searching… I had lost him while I was looking for the target. One potato, two… wait a minute—there he was—only he was a lot further south than he should be. How was he going to mark this target area from so far away? Then it dawned on me—I was looking at the wrong hillside. I swore to myself. How could I be so stupid? I had been looking at the wrong area. My INS pointed to the area that I was looking in, but it must have drifted. I looked about three miles south, underneath the area where Bumpy was circling. There was another elongated town in the valley, with a hardball road leading through it. “Stupid idiot!” I cursed at myself for a novice mistake!
I called Rip on FM to say that we had been orbiting too far to the north and were shifting south. Rip acknowledged, and we started south just in time to watch Bumpy roll in and put down two Willy Pete rockets on the side of the hills. One landed near but on the north side of a dirtball road; the other Willy Pete landed about 200 meters north of that.
“Stew, Taco’s contact with your smokes. We were looking in the wrong area,” I admitted, somewhat sheepishly. I still felt stupid.
“Roger that,” he replied. “There are four revetments in the field just on the south side of the road, south of my southern mark. I’d like you to lay down your CBUs right on the tree line—I think that they may have some of their stuff hidden in the trees. The two closest revetments to the tree line have something in them.”
“Copy all,” I replied. Then to Rip, “Shooter-cover, bombs, gun. Winds are out of the west at 60 knots.” That meant that I would be coming in with a tailwind to make this work. Even though each one of these bombs weighed about 1,000 lbs 60 knots of wind would definitely affect it as it fell for about 12,000 feet. Rip acknowledged my plan and shifted his orbit to the west, so he could look through me to the target area.
I checked all of my switches. All the lights were green, and I was at the right altitude—everything was ready. “Taco One can be ‘in’ in 10 seconds,” I said.
“Continue.”
“One’s in hot!” I rolled to the left, slicing down out of the sky. Down, steeper and steeper, my nose pointed at the earth—green and brown earth replaced the blue sky in my windscreen. In the background, I heard Bumpy’s clearance. I rolled out, straightened my wings, and waited a few moments for the low altitude safety and target enhancement (LASTE) bombing solution to stabilize and indicate that I had lined up just right of the target. I had misjudged the winds slightly and had to compensate by adding about five degrees of bank. I clicked forward on the trim to reduce stick forces and attempted to relax—I tried not to jerk the stick or make any sudden inputs that might throw the LASTE solution and the CBU-87 canisters off target. Slowly, in seconds that were like minutes, the pipper approached the target. As it got closer, it seemed to accelerate. I resisted the urge to push forward on the stick to slow the pipper’s movement and make the weapons-release point easier to judge. If I had done that, I would have “bunted” the aircraft, fooled the computer, and caused the canisters to impact long of the target. Temporal distortion is normal during a diving delivery—it just seemed much more intense now that I was doing the job for real. I waited until the pipper was superimposed on the target, pressed the pickle button, and felt the two clunks as the two canisters left the jet and started their ballistic fall.
I pulled back on the stick, felt the Gs build up as I brought the nose up to 35 degrees of pitch, and then rolled into a slight bank to the right. I looked down and could see some of the flares I had expended trailing behind my jet; my left index finger persisted in hammering away at the flare button. I continued my right-hand climbing turn towards the sun while looking back at the target area. It seemed to take an eternity, and then I saw two small puffs when the canisters opened. Half a second later, the whole area along the tree line erupted in a beautiful shower of silver and white sparkles as the bomblets detonated. It reminded me of one of my chemistry labs when we had set fire to magnesium shavings. Only this was on a much larger scale. I looked away and scanned the ground for threats.
“Good hits, Taco,” came Bumpy. “Have your wingman drop his Mk-82s north of your hits. We’re going to clear you off on this target and look for some more targets.”
“Copy all,” I said. “Two, I want you in out of the west in one minute. One’s climbing for energy,” I directed on FM. I continued my climb, slowly ascending out o
f danger, and reached the relative safety of altitude. About a minute later, I was happy with my position. “One’s cover,” I announced.
“Roger, Two will be ‘in’ in 10,” Rip replied.
“Continue.” I replied and offset myself to the southwest, where I would be in a good position to monitor his attack.
“Two’s in hot,” Rip called, as he rolled in towards the target.
I scanned the area beneath him. He was clear, and his nose was pointing at the area that was still smoking from my attack. “Cleared hot, Two.”
Four seconds later, Rip was pulling back skyward, arching away from the ground. “Two’s off, switch error,” he said. “I was in singles.”
Great—neither one of us was at our peak today. It was a simple error, but because of it, Rip had released only one of his four bombs. He was going to have to make another pass. I looked down. His lone bomb impacted on the northern revetment, throwing dust high into the air. Neither one of us had gotten secondaries, although there was some black smoke coming from the southern revetment, which had fallen under my CBU pattern. Something was burning in there.
I checked the fuel. We would have enough for another pass and still have about 10 minutes to spare; no problem.
I looked at Rip, who was climbing, and then I saw something really neat. There were little white clouds underneath him that I hadn’t noticed before. They were small, like little cumulus bits of popcorn. Something wasn’t right—time slowed way down. Some of the clouds looked like they had little silver centers; then they’d disappear. Now more clouds were around him. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck—they were shooting at Rip! Instantly, it seemed time was speeding up again—just like the pipper was approaching the target. Only this was much more real, and yet—surreal. What do I say? I urgently fumbled for words as I pressed the mike switch.
“Taco Two, keep the jet moving. Climb! Triple-A beneath you.” I could now see that it was all bursting beneath him by a good 4,000–5,000 feet, so I was less worried. Rip started moving his jet a little more. The little clouds started to disappear.
“Say location.” Rip’s voice sounded controlled but worried.
“It’s stopped now. Let’s egress north. Keep climbing.” I responded.
The AAA had appeared beneath Rip when he was about a mile or two southwest of the target. As we moved away, I looked back over my shoulder and tried to get a good look at the area, but couldn’t acquire any AAA pits or military positions.
“Taco, Stew, say location of triple-A. Do you need assistance?”
Bumpy asked over the common frequency.
“Stew, stand by.” I needed a second. Get away from the threat. Pull out the 1:50. Find it on the map. Plot the position. My attempt to determine the AAA coordinates was frustrated by its location just off the southwest corner of the target map.
We circled north of the target and climbed a bit higher. If the airbursts were limited to the places where I had seen them, we should be safe. They had used only medium-caliber AAA, but if they had MANPADS it would be more of a threat. I told Bumpy and Rip what I had seen and that my plan was to climb up above 200, look down with my stabilized binoculars, and see what I could make out while Rip maintained cover.
“Roger. Let me know if you need us down there.” This was an important target for us. People had shot at us, and now we were going to finish our attack. Bumpy had every right to be interested, but, for now, it was my game.
We circled around to the south, and I scanned the area with my eyes. A road snaked away to the southwest through a pass and then continued south towards Gnjilane. On the southwest side of the road, the terrain climbed into the hills, which were dotted with trees. On the northwest side, there was a small hill with a plateau on top, and beyond that the terrain climbed into another range of hills. The hill with the plateau must have something on it—if I were a Serb, I would want to hold that ground.
Calling, “One is ‘heads down,’” I raised the binoculars and looked at the hill. It appeared no different than the surrounding landscape, which consisted of three fields of a yellow crop that was probably wheat, two solitary large trees, and what appeared to be a farmhouse in the northern corner. No tracks, no unusual shadows, no revetments. Nothing.
I scanned the fields around the hill. Still nothing. I widened my scan, moving up towards the hills in the west and a reservoir that was tucked neatly away. Nothing. After about three to four minutes of this, I passed the lead to Rip to let him take a look. He found nothing.
I checked our fuel—we had another seven or eight minutes, tops. I made up my mind. “Two, let’s go back to the original target and drop the rest of your Mk-82s there. I’ll stay in a high cover to the south and watch for any more triple-A. I want to take out the rest of those revetments, but if anymore triple-A comes up, we still have the gun and Stew flight.”
Rip agreed. We moved our orbit back to the original target, and I called cover. Within 30 seconds, Rip rolled in from the west, dropping a string of three bombs across the middle of the remaining revetments. He pulled off to the south, puking out flares and turning towards me.
About 10 seconds into his climb out, the AAA started again, and I was ready for it. I called for Rip to keep his jet moving and quickly scanned the ground. Where was it coming from? Out the corner of my eye, I could see Rip’s jet maneuvering and remaining unpredictable. But there was nothing on the ground. The AAA stopped about five seconds after it appeared. Short, controlled bursts, I thought. These guys are regular army, not just a bunch of thugs who got their hands on some military hardware. They’re disciplined, and they’re smart.
We moved north while Rip climbed back to altitude. Once he regained his energy, we moved back in to look for the AAA. I told Rip to stay high in cover, and I descended to take a better look. I dropped down to about 15,000 feet and started taking a closer look at the area around the hill and the rising terrain to the west. Nothing.
“One, come hard right and climb; they’re shooting again.”
Rip’s voice broke through my concentration. I had already been moving the jet, but now I pulled back on the stick and started a climb. My left index finger quickly started hitting the flare button. I saw some of the small popcorn clouds with the silver centers about 3,000–4,000 feet underneath me. Then they were gone. I scanned the ground, but they weren’t firing anymore. Nothing to see. I looked at our gas. Three minutes, tops. Time to call Bumpy. “Stew, Taco.”
“Go ahead,” Bumpy replied.
I said, “We just got shot at again by some of the triple-A. We’re looking for it, but no luck. We have to bingo out in about three minutes. Any chance I can give you a handoff?”
It was like asking a child if he wanted ice cream. Bumpy was on his way over before I could finish the request. I described what I had seen and when it had happened. All the time, I was looking out, trying to find some last-minute clues that would alert me to the AAA position. The three minutes came and passed with no new revelations, so I passed the target to Bumpy and left.
During the flight home we made the normal in-flight reports to ABCCC and looked each other over as we accomplished our battle-damage checks for any unexpected problems. I felt like I had come off an emotional roller coaster. It had been my first time to lead a formation in combat, and everything had happened. We had to defend against a possible air threat; we searched for, found, and attacked targets; and we had been shot at by AAA. What a mission! However, the people who had shot at us were still alive back there, and that really angered me. I still had some nagging questions: What else did I miss? How lucky did I get? I later found that these questions persisted—no matter how successful the sortie was.
Bumpy joined us after he landed and debriefed. We met at the Truck Stop—a favorite eating place on the road back to the hotel. He had not been able to find the source of the AAA either, and we had a good laugh about it over a glass of wine. That had been my first combat flight lead mission, and I couldn’t wait to do it again.
1st Lt Scott “Hummer” Cerone
I couldn’t sleep during the night before my first sortie. In spite of the air conditioner, my room was stagnant. It was too hot to wear anything. I could taste the lemons in the orchard outside my second-floor window. The warm Italian breeze also carried in mosquitoes that buzzed in my ears throughout the night. I turned the television on and off repeatedly. My mind was racing. I was still awake when the alarm clock went off at three A.M. on 11 May 1999.
I showered and headed out, driving to the base with Lt Col Surgeon Dahl, my flight lead. Today would be his fini-flight with the 81st FS from Spangdahlem. He flew with the Flying Tigers during the Gulf War and, after today’s mission, would head back to Pope to become their operations officer. So today, I was getting to fly my first combat sortie with my soon-to-be ops officer.
In the squadron building we were briefed by intel, and then Surgeon briefed me on our sortie. We walked to life support and put on our gear—no wallets, no patches, no rings. We carried dog tags and a 9 mm Berretta. I chambered the first round before holstering it in my vest.
I experienced a special feeling walking to my jet at sunrise. My harness, G suit, and survival vest (with all its buckles, straps, and zippers) were as comfortable as Hugh Hefner’s smoking robe and silk pajamas. The sun began to trim the clouds with pink as the gray sky gave way to Mediterranean blue. I wanted to be airborne.
My jet was lightly loaded. I was carrying two cans of CBU-87 cluster bombs, which weighed 1,000 lbs each; two AGM-65D Maverick missiles; two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles; an ECM pod; and 1,000 rounds of 30 mm depleted-uranium bullets. I strapped into the jet and started the engines. Before I taxied, a maintenance van pulled up in front of my jet. SSgt “Chunk” Barth, a maintenance specialist in my squadron, ran over and climbed up the side of my jet to wish me luck on my first sortie. He shook my hand and yelled, “Go get ’em, sir.”
A-10s over Kosovo Page 31