' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song)

by Andy Farman

  The Hercules continued, passing beyond the city limits, heading down the coast but those fields they now began to encounter were bordered by tall trees, mahogany and coconut palms.

  They sank lower and lower until she was despairing of finding any suitable place. Visions of coming down on a crowded barangay flashed before her eyes but at last she saw a large open area directly ahead, rice paddies judging by the glister of water on its surface. They could not turn and bank so they could go around again. It was a straight in approach for a wheels up landing and hope they could clear the line of palms along its eastern border. This was it, their one chance and she ordered the rear cargo ramp to be lowered, to assist a quick exit.

  “Flaps 50.”

  Carcar with its quaint old rotonda and bandstand was over her right shoulder and farm workers in the fields were turning and gawping at the sight of the crippled air force transport at little more than tree top height.

  “Flaps 100…BRACE! BRACE! BRACE!”

  She unconsciously sucked in her stomach as they reach the line of coconut palms, the belly of the aircraft brushed the tree tops, carrying off palm fronds and she cut the throttles and fuel to the engines, spinning the rudder trim wheel back again as the starboard engines thrust dropped off. The nose began to drop and a left bank threatened but both pilots heaved back on the controls and stamped hard on the left rudder pedal, forcing the failing machine to flare with wings level instead of nosing in or digging in a wingtip and flipping over. Bricks have glided better, was her final thought before they hit hard, slamming both pilots forwards against their harnesses. The Hercules sent water and mud sluicing outwards as it struck and slid along, a brown bow wave bending up and over the high wings. The wet surface was not slowing them that quickly and the far edge of the field, marked by a high earth bank and yet more trees, was looming up fast.

  The nose of the aircraft, already damaged by the frigates 20mm cannon fire, crumpled as it struck the bank, flinging Squadron Leader Braithwaite against her straps a second time.

  In the hold of the aircraft a loadmaster pointed at the open cargo ramp and shouted a command at the paratroopers.

  “Get out, now!”

  No one moved, not until a 3 Para sergeant translated the Loady’s words into a command that paratroopers could understand.

  “GO!” and they went.

  It took a few minutes to remove the dead crew and troops and when Michelle emerged the paratroopers were nowhere to be seen, and she assumed they were in cover.

  The C-130 was readied for destruction and a curious crowd of locals began to gather. Filipinos seem to have cornered the market on ignoring what is on the TV to rubberneck at anything out of the ordinary. Only a local boxing hero could keep a crowd in front of the goggle box despite a nearby fender-bender or vocal dispute between neighbours.

  The first sound of gunfire occurred and Squadron Leader Braithwaite looked around for the paras. The Filipinos faded swiftly away.

  “They’ve gone already, ma’am.” a Loadie told her. “They were a bit pissed off and said something about picking a fight.”

  “It seems they have found one.”

  The roar of small arms fire and the detonation of mortar rounds and grenades sounded across the waters of the channel to the Filipino audience on Cebu. The British and French paratroopers had landed under fire from the airfield defenders. Nothing was exactly as planned; it never was except on exercise. B Company, 3 Para, was short a platoon, D Company was shy half of its strength, but at least they knew theirs was in Carcar, down the coast.

  The companies had rallied and quickly rehashed who was assaulting what.

  2 REP had lost men who had parachuted into a mine field and others who had been carried beyond the shore by the wind and drowned, burdened beneath equipment in the waters of the Cebu Straits, but both units reorganised, set up mortar lines and moved out into the assault.

  The last parachute delivered an inanimate figure to the centre of the runway, shot by the defenders after departing the final French Air Force C-160 Transall, the 2 REP Legionnaire joined other figures that were being tugged unfeeling along the ground by canopies that had not collapsed. Some bodies lay attached to parachutes that had not fully deployed, the Hercules of No. 47 Squadron had lost three of their number over the drop zone, No. 24 Squadron had lost four and not all of their loads had made it out safely.

  All the hardened positions had been attacked by the carrier aircraft from USS John C Stennis prior to the arrival of the airborne forces although not all were completely destroyed. Once these and the defenders foxholes were taken the assaults axis shifted to the buildings. Those who surrendered were blindfolded and corralled before being sent to the rear holding area, those who didn’t were killed in place as the paras and legionnaires reached them, moving from room to room, building to building without pause.

  At last the final resistance was snuffed out and the NATO troops reorganised, breathing heavily, sweat soaked, carrying injuries and wounds they chose to ignore, and all suffering from a desperate thirst. House clearing, FIBUA, uses up men, ammunition and the contents of water bottles at a ferocious rate.

  Beyond the airfields boundary lay the remains of the town of Lapu Lapu, and there the Chinese troops filled rifle magazines, checked their arcs of fire and waited.

  Silence fell over the airfield, but only briefly. No rest for the wicked, with the exception of the half strength D Company, 3 Para which got the cushy job of manning the perimeter. Shouted commands took the place of gunfire, and the hurried unloading of the equipment began. The men converged on them, the pallets of ammunition and equipment that sat beneath large collapsed cargo parachutes. The gunners of 7 Parachute Regiment RHA ran to their guns, unstrapping them from their pallets before manhandling them into a gun line.

  The arrival of the C-17s of the US 1st Brigade brought more ground fire from defenders north of the airfield in the partially demolished town of Lapu Lapu.

  As the USAF Globemasters approached two abreast from the west at 800ft, the RAF Globemasters approached in single file from the east at 50ft, looking for all the world as if about to make wheels up landings. Rear cargo ramps opened and the lead aircraft descended further, to just twelve feet above the tarmac and flying almost the entire length of the extended main runway before a drogue ‘chute pulled a pallet from its belly. A second pallet sat inside its cargo hold but the shedding of so much weight would cause the aircraft to ‘bounce’ up beyond safe delivery height. Having despatched half their loads the No. 99 Squadron C-17s flew around to make a second delivery. Only one aircraft despatched parachutists at a more sedate altitude. On landing these men ran to the runway and likewise collected the pallets contents.

  Despite being ‘on the same side’ there were no waves, no cheers and no sign of any ‘hail fellow, well met’ from the men of 3 Para. The newcomers mounted their vehicles, started up and moved off, the lead Scimitars commander first unfurling a large standard and attaching it to his armoured vehicles antennae. Grinning vehicle commanders raised two fingers at the airborne brethren as the squadron of vehicles followed the flapping emblem of the Guards Division.

  “Well.” said 3 Paras CO. “At least they made the effort to actually arrive this time.”

  Lt Col Jim Popham, 111th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, was number ‘1’, the lead man of the first stick in the leading pair of aircraft. With his left hand he supported his equipment container which rested on his left foot. His right hand ‘guarded’ the D Ring of his reserve parachute, preventing its accidental snagging. Activating a parachute within an aircraft tended to have fatal consequences for the wearer and catastrophic ones for the aeroplane when the jumper was dragged out and took a section of fuselage with him. He used his left foot to help him heave the equipment container forwards as he took his place just a step from the open jump door. Above the door the red light glowed, the glass of its neighbour a dull and unlit green. He wondered, not for the first time, why no one had writte
n a comedy sketch about a brothel in the clouds. His left hand gripped the containers handle and the right hand now supporting him against the doorway. He remained there, the toe of his right boot forward of the left where it would add purchase when the moment came. The boot was the only part of him not in shadow; bright sunlight illuminated it and his neighbours now drying vomit that decorated it. Ignoring the pain in his back from bearing so much heavy equipment, and straps almost tight enough to cut off circulation, he waited calmly, setting an example. There was some graffiti beside the door, a ‘Chad’, its big nose and eyes protruding over a brick wall “Chad Says Mind the First Step…It’s a Doozy!” Looking out he saw it was a beautiful morning, blue skies and a blue sea. He was at the starboard door so his view was of the Cebu Strait and the island of Bohol. It was quite a sight, calm and idyllic, he was enjoying the view when the dull green glass became shiny emerald.

  “GO!”

  He heaved the container forwards over the sill and followed it out. As always he forgot to close his mouth, so he was still none the wiser as to whether that simple act prevented the sensation of falling, or rather plummeting. Never a keen enthusiast of parachuting, Jim had applied for the airborne because his best friend had also. The friend flunked the course and masculine pride had not allowed Jim to back out. He now endured the three seconds of very unpleasant near-panic until the canopy opened, ready to pull the reserve ‘chute D Ring, grasp the folds within and fling them from him in the hopes the two devices would not become entangled. However, looking up he saw the main parachute was a nice big circle of inflated fabric. He had a twist in his lines and kicked out violently; rolling his shoulders as he did so to rotate his body and clear it. He was now facing towards the Mactan Channel and he could not help but notice an absence of parachutes floating down on its far side.

  Where the hell was 2nd Brigade?

  First things first, he unstrapped his container and unclipped it from his harness, letting it fall the fifteen feet of its retaining rope to hang below him. To land with the heavy container still attached to his body was to court broken legs, pelvis and shattered knees.

  Jim could feel the breeze on his neck and pulled down hard on his left riser to spill air from under the right side of the canopy, turning him until he felt it against the front of his right ear. He drifted backwards at an angle, feet together, knees bent, chin on his chest and with elbows trying to touch but never succeeding. Jim kept his feet together but turned them to point half right. He saw the illusion of stasis turn to the reality of ground rush and braced to impact that ground and roll, but instead he plunged through the glass roof of an abandoned paint factory.

  When he arrived at the O Group following his units rallying he drew snorts of laughter from the other battalion commanders.

  “This week” said the CO of 3 Para in a yokel accent. “Oi will mainly be sporting the national colours of Spain.”

  Jim had come through the roof and his collapsing canopy had snagged a girder, just saving the Popham family jewels but he had ended up astraddle two of the giant containers of the factory’s product, with one leg in a vat of yellow paint and the other in red.

  The fighting in the ruins of Lapu Lapu was fierce, and bloody. Marines of the People’s Liberation Army Navy in barracks near the docks had deployed following the arrival of the British and French, and were about to launch a counter attack on the airfield when the US 82nd’s parachutes appeared above their heads. Men were shot in their parachutes, helpless to fight back, and those who landed amongst the Chinese Marines were butchered. The still standing walls and telegraph poles were snares for the parachute canopies and those who were snagged and left dangling were shot without mercy.

  The American paratroopers rallied and set about cleaning house with the same level of accord for their enemy as had been afforded to them. An empty barbed wire enclosure in the 3rd Army’s stores area had been adopted as a POW compound for the captive soldiers and airmen resulting from the Anglo/French assault, but only a smattering of Chinese marines were added to their number.

  Day 1: Operation Vespers (Amphibious element)

  0530hrs that morning.

  USS Constellation launched its CAP fully an hour and seventeen minutes late. All the tanker support in the world was not going to make up for that.

  The fleet cruised north, entering the Tañon Strait at its narrowest point with Admiral Jackson stood with his hands behind his back and both fingers crossed. Seven thousand, eight hundred yards, plus change, which was the distance from Negros to Cebu at the southern entrance to the straits.

  He had received intelligence on the Caltrop Mine from the Cebu resistance fighters via Major Garfield Brooks’ small Green Beret detachment. A naval officer involved in the minelaying operation had been waylaid whilst visiting a brothel and persuaded to tell all he knew. The mines batteries of four high speed torpedoes that produced an ultra-sonic wave before them, loosening water molecules to permit their quite scary acceleration, nought to ninety knots in three seconds. The range was only five hundred metres and the warhead was small, but all the same, it was an area denial weapon to be reckoned with. As to the mechanics and technical side, the captive either did not know or he expired rather than reveal those details. No-one one on the allied side knew how it detected approaching vessels, how it differentiated between friend and foe or how to detect the mines. Garfield had lost one of his men, a diver, in trying to learn more. Currently the biggest minesweeper on the planet was leading the formation. The USS Iowa with her thick armoured hull, laid down in 1940, was performing the role of the idiot mine detector, fingers in ears, eyes closed and stamping on the ground almost. Her armour should save her as she cleared a channel that at least was the theory.

  With some relief he watched the small Lilo-An ferry terminal draw level, the where the channel bends sharply through forty five degrees to the northeast and begins to widen. The fleet, in single file, a sixty year old battleship at its head and aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates and amphibious assault ships could pick up the pace in order to recover the aircraft engaged on the Mactan strike. It was now just 76 miles along the strait to Toledo.

  Zheng was still on the surface but with fully charged batteries, and still following Sentinel Sea on a bearing of 255° along the Tañon Strait with Toledo on her port quarter. They would at least not have to call in at the big construction site that Mactan had become but the detour to avoid the minefields along the eastern passages of the island of Cebu was time consuming.

  Captain Li had been sleeping for a few hours before returning to the conning tower. They did of course have lookouts as even though they were in relatively friendly waters the possibility of collision at any time was very real, in peace or war. There was more space to move in the Kilo’s conning tower than there had been in the old Juliett, not much, but enough to seem roomy to him.

  Radio silence was a matter of course, and as they had signalling lamps they could still communicate with the Sentinel Sea. The captured tankers commercial band navigation and weather radars were being used instead of the Kilo’s powerful search radar.

  Li was peering up at the sky and enjoying the blue and cloudless expanse when he was returned to the business in hand.

  “Captain, the Sentinel Sea is signalling.”

  The flashing signal lamp on the tankers starboard bridge wing was easy for Li to read but he let the crewmen do their jobs. Morse had been abandoned for a while for most people but it was an effective means of transmission of short messages.

  “Message reads ‘Radar contact…’”

  The sound akin to a freight train gave the rating pause and then the USS Iowa’s 16” shells landing astern of the Zheng, and those straddling the Sentinel Sea made the remainder of the messages translation unnecessary.

  “…LARGE SHIP!” the lookout shouted, completing it anyway, as sea water drenched them.

  “Starboard 30…give me revolutions for twenty knots!”

  The tanker had been mome
ntarily blocked from their view by the water spouts but she emerged from the spray with her hull and superstructure glistering wetly in the early morning sun and unscathed. She apparently had her helm hard over now but with only 7000 yards of sea room either side it was a manoeuvre that Li would have tried only slowly and with care, but the bow wave seemed to be increasing.

  “Not a good idea.” Li said aloud, and as thick black smoke belched from the ships single funnel he shook his head critically.

  “As if that is going to help against radar assisted gunnery.”

  “Captain?” the lookout asked, as if he had trouble with the captain’s last statement.

  “Well they aren’t using Ouija board fire directors, now are they?” he laughed. “Sound the diving alarm; clear the bridge, lookouts below!”

  The next salvo directed at the Zheng landed where they would have been if they had maintained their previous course and heading.

  “Good shooting.” Li observed. “Submerge the boat…forty feet.”

  Water spouts again straddled the slower moving tanker and a large angry orange and red fireball arose as a shell scored a direct hit.

  Li pulled the hatch closed above him and secured it before sliding the rest of the way down the ladder gripping the outside.

  Either someone knew all about them or someone didn’t care and was shooting at anything that moved.

  “Sonar…what is happening with Sentinel Sea, is she stopped?”

  “Yes Captain, I can hear breaking up sounds, she’s still on the surface but going down.” he was told. “It won’t be long.”

  “Take us over there and keep this depth for the time being.” Li studied the chart for a moment.

  “Okay, there will be ASW helicopters overhead shortly and we have nowhere to run to so I want us as close to her as you can get once she goes down. Something like this worked for me before.”