The Warbirds

by Richard Herman

  “It’s nice to know our Arab allies are flying a Combat Air Patrol today,” Jack said.

  “They’re up,” Waters said. “The UAC tells me we have a dedicated CAP for this mission. I’ll believe it, though, when it happens. The crews have been briefed to jettison their loads and abort the mission if they see or hear MiGs in the area and no friendly CAP is around. It’s one hell of a target, Jack. A major convoy strung out for over twenty miles along a narrow road and headed for the Strait of Hormuz.” Jack nodded and wished he was going.

  The Long Track radars that fed early-warning information to the SA-6’s fire control first detected the inbound Phantoms. The missile operators slewed the target-tracking antennas of the Straight Flush fire-control radar toward the attackers and raised the triple-mounted missiles into a launch position. The first Wild Weasel detected the H-band frequency of the tracking radar and sent a Shrike down its beam, destroying the tracking radar and control van. Neighboring sites immediately placed their radars on standby and went to a visual launch mode. The string of Phantoms behind the lead Weasel dropped to two hundred feet above the ground, below the minimum altitude of an SA-6. The Weasel and his wingman were blasting open a corridor onto the convoy.

  Two soldiers on the ground fired shoulder-held SA-7 Strelas at the F-4s as they flew past. But the fast-moving F-4s were doing jinks back and forth and hoped the 1.5-Mach missiles could not match their turns and catch them before running out of fuel.

  Radio communications warned close-in defenders the attack was underway and three batteries of ZSU-23-2 Triple A came active. The gunners of the rapid firing, two-barrel twenty-three-millimeter guns spewed the sky the moment they saw the aircraft, not waiting to establish a tracking solution. Before a Weasel’s wingman could pepper the area with CBU, driving the open-gun pit crews to cover, one ZSU laced a Phantom with a short burst. The big fighter cartwheeled into the ground and the next bird in the stream of attackers had to fly through its fireball. The wingman rolled in and pickled two canisters of CBU onto the ZSU-23-2, creating seventeen Shiite martyrs.

  Twelve self-propelled ZSU-23-4s manuevered into position with the convoy. The four-barreled guns, mounted on a tank chassis, had kept pace with the trucks, providing them with running protection. The tracking radar on the ZSU’s fed tracking data to SA-9 SAMs, a small missile with an infrared seeker-head similar to the SA-7 Strelas. But the SA-9 was mounted on a scout vehicle, had a larger motor and warhead and was a far more lethal weapon…

  The 45th started to work the convoy, hitting the lead truck first, bringing it to a grinding halt. The SA-6s behind them kept the Phantoms from popping too high for a bombing run, and the twenty-foot missiles streaked overhead whenever the operators thought they could launch. The second flight’s lead Phantom started his pop and was raked by a ZSU-23-4. But only two bullets struck the left wing. The pilot jettisoned his load on the way up and ballooned as he checked for battle damage. His wizzo detected a new threat on his RHAW gear, an SA-8. He called for the pilot to turn twenty-degrees off the threat so as to visually acquire the missile. The pilot shouted “Tallyho” as he turned into the missile and pulled up, generating an overshoot when the ten-foot-long SA-8 could not turn with him—the missile’s command guidance tried to make the turn, but the missile broached sideways and tumbled out of control.

  The pilot searched for the second missile he knew was coming—SAMs were always launched in pairs or triplets—and found it. Again he turned into the missile, causing it to overshoot as he slammed the Phantom back down onto the deck. But he had bled off his airspeed to 300 knots in avoiding the two missiles. The wizzo jabbed at the chaff-and-flare button, shooting flares and small canisters of chaff from the dispensers on the wing pylons, leaving a trail behind the plane in an effort to deceive the missiles. But a ZSU-23-4 gunner now had the relatively slow-moving Phantom visually and mashed his fire-control trigger, sending over five hundred rounds at the F-4 just as an SA-6 exploded three feet under the fighter’s belly. The one-hundred-seventy-five-pound warhead broke the Phantom in two and the warbird vanished in a burst of smoke and flames. The second SA-6 that had been launched at the Phantom could not find a target and went ballistic.

  “Bandits two o’clock high on me!”

  “Abort!”

  “Jettison!”

  These calls wracked the radio frequencies as the first MiGs were sighted rolling in onto the lead F-4 coming off the head of the convoy. A Phantom pilot turned hard into an oncoming Flogger and selected guns while his wingman tried to maneuver into a sixty-degree cone behind his lead to provide him protection. The wingman never saw the Flogger that popped up at his own six o’clock and launched an Aphid air-to-air missile at its minimum range of sixteen hundred feet. The missile leaped off its pylon under the glove of the variable swept-wing and was still accelerating when its infrared heat-seeking head found the Phantom’s right tailpipe, exploding, destroying the aft section. A classic air-to-air kill: the victim never saw his killer.

  Bull Morgan was leading the last flight of four and twisted in his seat, looking for the bandits and his CAP. When he couldn’t find the promised friendly CAP, he ordered his flight to jettison their loads hot, hoping for luck to destroy a chance target. They cross-turned one hundred-eighty-degrees and headed for the Gulf. As they did, Bull ordered his flight into a “fluid four”…The second lead pilot moved into a line-abreast position roughly six thousand feet away from Bull; each wingman flew two thousand feet away from his lead on the extreme outside of the formation, slightly back, porpoising to a high-and-low position.

  “Fox Three.” Bull ordered his flight to select the only air-to-air weapon they were carrying. His flight was at least in a good defensive formation for maintaining a visual lookout for bandits as they ran for feet-wet. And Bull kept cursing the missing CAP under his breath as he searched the sky. He finally found the sons of bitches orbiting over the Gulf, well clear of any threat.

  The first Mayday call reaching the Command Post jerked Waters, Farrell and Jack to their feet and out the door, piling into the wing commander’s pickup. Jack rolled into the truck’s bed as Waters gunned the engine and sped for the approach end of the runway. They skidded to a halt beside a crash truck, the UHF radios inside the trucks tuned to the control tower’s frequency. An ambulance with Doc Landis soon joined the three waiting men, worry written on the doctor’s face. Slowly, they counted the returning Phantoms.

  Bull’s flight came down final, the first to land. “We launched thirty-six,” Waters said, and each man started an internal count. The colonel visibly flinched when the third recovering flight checked in with three. The stranglehold of tension eased some when the straggler appeared, declaring a Mayday. They scanned the sky as eight more birds entered the pattern. “That’s twenty,” Waters counted. The lone ship called the tower, declaring he was going to eject. “Nothing wrong with a nylon approach and landing,” Waters said. They watched the aircraft turn inland before pointing out to sea, crossing the runway at four thousand feet.

  Jack offered Waters binoculars he had found in the pickup, but the wing commander only shook his head. The lieutenant then focused them on the Phantom, examining it for battle damage. Half of the vertical stabilizer had been shot away and both tail pipes had major damage. Heavy smoke was streaming from the right engine. Immediately after crossing the runway both canopies flew off, and in quick succession the back and then the front seat rocketed above the dying F-4. The Phantom continued its glide out to sea, curling to the left while chutes streamed behind the men, snapping open as the seats fell away. The parachutes drifted back to the runway while crash crews ran toward them and the plane crashed into the Gulf. “The Martin-Baker wins again,” Waters said, referring to the ejection seat and grateful for the results.

  A flight of three checked in with the tower, but this time there was no straggler and any sense of relief Waters felt was quickly swept away. “Twelve more to go, twenty-three accounted for,” Waters intoned. Two more flights of four
called the tower as the men heard a calm voice on the UHF declare a Mayday—it was Sooner from the 379th. Jack held out the binoculars for Waters and this time he took them, scanning the sky. He found the Phantom’s characteristic smoke trails, marking the path of two returning aircraft. Waters reached into the truck and grabbed the radio’s mike. “Tower, this is Zero-One.” The control tower acknowledged, recognizing the standard call sign of a wing commander. “Are those two the last inbounds?”

  “Roger, Zero-One. No more inbounds at this time,” the tower confirmed.

  Waters threw the mike back into the pickup. “Three missing…”

  Sooner’s voice came over the radio. “Good afternoon, Rats Tower. Declaring an emergency at this time, I’ll be taking the barrier.”

  Jack caught the cool detached tone. Sooner playing the macho fighter pilot in charge of the situation.

  “State your emergency,” the tower replied.

  “Rog tower. Smoke and fumes in the cockpit, rear canopy jettisoned. Utility hydraulic pressure out, left-hand generator out, bus tie open, numerous holes in the aircraft, loud complaints from the wizzo.”

  Jack noted that Waters was not reassured by Sooner’s black humor. He picked up his mike, mashed the transit button. “Sooner, this is Zero-One, recommend ejection.”

  “All the same to you, Boss, I’ll give this one back to Maintenance.” It was the reply Jack would have made. “Blowing gear down, now.”

  “Sooner, your right main gear did not come down,” the wingman radioed.

  “Rog, no big deal, I was taking the barrier away.”

  Waters ran his mental checklist of what systems Sooner had lost; no anti-skid, no nose-gear steering, no afterburner ignition. It was too much. “Sooner, this is Waters, deep six that puppy, we don’t need it.”

  “No sweat, Boss,” Sooner said, starting his approach.

  They watched as the Phantom touched down, a perfect five hundred feet short of the arresting cable, holding the right wing up. Sooner lowered the nose gear onto the runway short of the cable, just as the emergency procedures for the F-4 called for. And they watched in horror as the nose gear collapsed, knowing what would happen next. The Phantom bounced onto its nose and ground-looped into the right wing, skidding over the cable toward the edge of the runway. The crash trucks were already moving with Doc Landis in the ambulance close behind. The aircraft’s nose buried itself in the dirt and the fighter pitched onto its back, kicking up a shower of dirt as it skidded to a halt.

  Waters swung his binoculars onto the cockpit of the upside-down plane. He saw no smoke or flames. A silver-suited crash-and-rescue fireman ran up to the rear cockpit, which was missing its canopy, and threw himself on the ground, reaching in, unstrapping the wizzo. Flames started to engulf the aircraft as he pulled the backseater out and dragged him to Doc Landis. Another fireman was trying to break through the front canopy.

  The crash truck pushed against a wing tip in an attempt to raise the bird off its back so the fireman could pop the front canopy and release Sooner, directing its water cannon onto the fuselage, trying to extinguish the building flames. Another crash truck arrived and directed its water cannon onto the fireman but had to play back to the other truck to cool it. They could see Sooner trying to break through the canopy with a canopy knife as the flames mushroomed over the two trucks, and engulfed the fighter. Waters watched the trucks back away, cannons spraying, as the lone fireman ran out of the flames.

  Waters smashed his fist into the pickup’s door. “Overconfidence, damn overconfidence…”

  And a sickening feeling of responsibility ate at Jack as Sooner burned…Was he the one who had taught Sooner overconfidence…?

  The C-141’s engines were still spinning down when the forward hatch opened and Brigadier General John Shaw jumped down onto the ramp at Ras Assanya, somehow managing to shake Waters’ hand, shove his flight cap on and return the salute. “Welcome to Rats Ass, John,” Waters said, glad to see his old friend. “How’s Beth?” The two spent a few moments trading more small talk, postponing the reason for the general’s visit.

  “Beth’s fine, enjoying the auld sod. Got a letter for you from Sara. That what you’re calling this place, Rats Ass?”

  “One of our wizzos in his cups came up with it at the O’ Club and it sort of stuck,” Waters said, tucking the letter in a pocket for reading later when he could savor it in private.

  “You’ve got an Officers’ Club here with booze?” the general asked. “I thought the Saudis wouldn’t permit any alcoholic beverages in the country.”

  “They ignore it. We’re just across the border from Kuwait and pretty much isolated. The Kuwaitis and Saudis contracted with an English firm to build the base for the Rapid Deployment Force, but neither of them wanted it in their own country. The Kuwaitis didn’t because they’re worried about having more foreigners in Kuwait. They’ve been outnumbered by foreign workers for years and are sensitive about it. The Saudis wanted it in Kuwait to keep foreign influence and ideas out of their country. Of course, foreign arms are another thing. They compromised by ignoring the border. The Saudi border post is located on the coast road south of the base, and the Kuwaiti post ten miles north of us. We’re sort of like a no man’s land.”

  “Sounds like an Arab-type solution, all right,” Shaw said, and turned to the reason for his visit. “This has to be fast. MAC’s holding the C-141 for me and I’ve got to get to JUSMAG in Dhahran for a conference about the wing’s stand-down from flying combat missions. But I wanted to talk to you first and see the place for myself.”

  Waters bundled the general into his pickup and gave him a quick tour of the base as they drove to the COIC. Shaw waited until they were inside the COIC before going into the stand-down. “Cunningham called yesterday about the President ordering a stand-down from combat. Congress is putting him under a lot of pressure to withdraw from the Gulf area and wants to implement the Emergency War Powers Act if we hang around. They also like to believe the Iran-Iraq war is really over. Sure, like Israel and the PLO are ready to kiss and make up. There has also been a strong reaction in the press because of your losses. Some are claiming we’re getting our butts kicked…”

  “We’ve taken some hard hits on these targets.” Waters was leaning over a map, pointing out the targets they had hit. “But look at the results. Intel says the pressure is off the UAC and that the PSI is forced to regroup. And supposedly the Soviets aren’t coming through with the resupply the PSI is crying for.” Waters spread in front of the general the reccy photos that chronicled the destruction of the convoy. “We only got half our birds on target before we had to cut and run when MiGs jumped us. We still managed to pulverize the first half of the convoy and broke up any attempt to reinforce the Strait of Hormuz…And check this out.” Waters handed him the photos confirming the BDA of the mission Jack had planned. “Those six targets were totally destroyed. That mission took the pressure off Basra. John, we’re doing what we came to do.”

  “But the cost, Muddy. We can’t sustain that. Ten aircraft in two weeks. That’s an overall attrition rate of over five percent. And the rate is increasing. And you’ve lost thirteen men. That generates too much heat for the politicians to take—”

  “Like the Marines in Beirut,” Waters broke in, bitterness in his voice. “A suicide terrorist blows up their barracks and kills almost two hundred and fifty Marines and the U.S. bails out. Their sacrifice is for nothing.” Waters was standing over the table, leaning on his arms, head bowed. “These casualties hurt.” He looked up, masking his deeper feelings. “John, can you get a waiver on the restriction against wing commanders flying in combat? I can’t keep asking my men to do something I’m not allowed to do.”

  Shaw nodded, understanding Waters’ dilemma.

  “If we can get a dedicated CAP or even fly our own CAP,” Waters added, “we can cut our loss rate and do what we were sent here for.”

  “Muddy, there’s no way the UAC is going to let you fly your own CAP. You know tha
t. They claim that’s the purpose of their Air Force. There’s a lot of Arab ego tied into that decision…What’s wrong with the CAP they’re flying?”

  “They’re airborne, but they won’t go into SAM envelopes or escort us in. If we can get the Floggers off our back we can suppress the SAMs and Triple A. Jack Locke has worked out a way to hit the Gomers without a CAP and avoid getting plastered. We need to change the way we’re fragged though. Interested?”

  “Locke, huh? Okay, let’s talk to your tiger and see what he has.”

  “What abut the C-141? I thought it had to get going,” Waters asked.

  “One of the nice things about being a general, Muddy, is that the plane will wait.”

  Jack, Thunder and Carroll clustered around the flight-planning table briefing Shaw on Jack’s idea for a Wolf Flight. “General, I’m proposing we launch sorties at night to hit targets not heavily defended. We run against them in flights of two at low level and beat feet if the threat gets too hot. That’s it.”

  Shaw was surprised at the simplicity of Jack’s plan. “How do you know which targets aren’t defended?”

  Carroll picked it up. “We get reconnaissance photos of the area every afternoon. We can pinpoint the latest location of the SAMs and Triple A. The PSI only has so many SAMs and can’t cover every target. We pick a target they aren’t defending and plan a low-level to it around the known defenses. The RHAW gear on the F-4s can warn our crews if unexpected defenses start to pop up and we abort the mission.”