The warrant officer slid down the ladder, saw the damage below, and shouted, “Shut this damn hatch! You want to sink the ship? And put that fucking phone back on and tell Damage Control what’s happened.” Then the warrant jumped through the smoke-filled hatch, feet first, into the water below. Shaking the water from her head, the warrant looked up, smoke obscuring her face; the water was waist high and rising.
“I said shut the hatch, sailor!”
“But, Warrant!” he protested, as he fumbled with the headset.
“Dammit, sailor. I’ll be all right if you’ll just shut the hatch! Now, tell Damage Control what’s going on. You can do it.” Without waiting for a reply the Gearing’s only warrant officer grabbed a nearby bunk and pulled herself forward into the smoke and waded out of sight.
The third class petty officer gripped the handle on the watertight hatch. His hands shook as he dropped it.
“Damn you. Warrant!” he repeatedly cried as he spun the wheel, sealing the compartment below from the rest of the ship.
“Damn you!” The sailor pushed the speaker on his sound-powered phone set and shoved the earpiece against his ears to seal out imagined cries from below. Then in a weak voice he reported to Damage Control Central. Afterward, he stood alone in the emergency-lighted compartment and several times successfully fought the urge to throw off his headset, open the overhead hatch, and flee topside to the perceived safety of the open air. Everything would be alright, he kept telling himself.
* * *
“Fire Control, do we have solution on the aircraft?”
“Nearly there. Captain!” A couple of seconds passed.
“There! We have a firing solution!”
“Then blow them out of the air! Fire, fire, fire!”
Cafferty pressed the intercom.
“Helo Deck, Combat; do you read?” Once again, no answer. Cafferty had no way of knowing the helicopter props were turning as it prepared to take off or that the helo deck sound-powered phone operator had plugged into the wrong circuit.
The sounds of Super RBOC, reseeding the air with chaff, echoed through Combat.
“I have video separation again! Video separation!” cried the air search operator as he announced the enemy ship’s launch of another surface-to-surface missile.
“How long to Harpoon impact?” Focused. Stay focused.
One battle at a time. Can’t lose it. Keep it together for them and the ship. What the hell is happening on the helo deck?
“Thirty and thirty-two seconds!”
The roar of the Styx antimissile shook the Gearing. What was this antique weapon doing here in modern warfare, Cafferty wondered. “Combat, Bridge; missile passed astern of Gearing about one hundred yards. Missile miss! I repeat, missile miss. It’s heading for the horizon!” A cheer went up inside Combat.
“Quiet! Focus, Combat! Stay focused!” shouted Cafferty.
God must have been watching; now fight the ship. Concentrate.
What next? What next?
The ship executed a series of zigzag movements as the enemy aircraft approached. Lieutenant Commander Leroy Nash, XO, was doing a great job maneuvering the ship.
Cafferty made a mental note to recommend the XO for a medal when this was oven-if they survived.
“I have inbound air-to-surface missile,” said the EW, interrupting Cafferty’s thought.
Ten seconds later the first air-to-surface missile hit the helicopter as it rotated on the flight deck. The explosion rattled the USS Gearing. Streams of metal and smoke rocketed a hundred feet into the air. When the smoke cleared two sailors on the helo deck were gone. The second missile exploded harmlessly off the port bow, sending a wash of water over the front of the ship. The third passed directly over the ship, between the two masts, barely missing the signal bridge, to hit the bullnose on the bow, blowing off the flagpole, but doing little damage otherwise. A fourth air-to-surface missile misfired and exploded in the air off the starboard beam, sending bridge personnel diving to the deck. The lead Libyan pilot misinterpreted the fiery damage to the helicopter as a mortal blow to the ship. Smoke from the burning helicopter obscured the enemy pilots’ view of everything aft of USS Gearing’s amidships quarterdeck.
The two Mig-23s followed their missiles, raking the ship with twenty-three-millimeter cannon shells from stern to bow as they roared past. They executed a quick split as they climbed upward, one breaking to the left and the other rolling to the right. The one breaking left came within radar contact of the ship’s port Vulcan Phalanx — the good one. The CIWS locked on and immediately fired a tattoo of two hundred shells racing toward the Mig-23. As the aircraft, nose up, gained altitude the depleted uranium bullets stitched a fine weave up it. The radar-guided stream of bullets tore the fighter-bomber’s jet engines apart, laddered up its fuselage, and turned the inside of the cockpit a splattered red as it chewed through it and everything within it before blowing off the Mig-23 High Lark radar in the nose cone. Blazing pieces of what had been a Mig-23 rained from the sky.
“Scratch one Mig!” came an exhilarated shout from the bridge.
“All the King’s horses and all the King’s men won’t put that Mig-23 together again!”
A loud chorus of hurrahs echoed through Combat.
“Quiet! We’re not done yet!” shouted the captain.
* * *
The Number Two Damage Control Party rushed to the helo hangar from where they had just finished containing the flooding in main engine room number one. A minimum manned ship lacked the personnel needed for multiple damage control parties. Fire was the more dangerous element to a ship. Sailors could always pump out a flooded compartment and refloat a ship, but they could not rebuild what fire destroyed. So, when faced with the two choices, putting out a fire came first. The radioman chief led the team.
“We’ve got to shove that helo off the ship! Smitty, rig the hose while I try to shove it overboard.”
The chief jumped into the parked yellow forklift and turned the electric engine on. He pushed the pedal to the floor. The small one-man forklift moved forward and rammed the burning helicopter. The back wheels of the forklift spun as it fought the inertia to shift the helicopter.
A tilt by the ship aided the effort as the burning wreckage moved slightly toward the edge of the deck about ten yards away. The chief hunched over the steering wheel to avoid the heat. Glancing at the cockpit, he saw the outlines of the bodies of the pilots dancing within the flames.
The fire blazed up, burning his eyebrows away. Blisters began to rise across the top of his hands and his exposed neck. He turned his hands over and gripped the wheel from beneath, but this did little to protect his exposed fingers and nothing for the back of his neck.
“Can’t do it!” he shouted and took a step to abandon the aviation truck.
He had one foot off when water cascaded around him like a fine-mist umbrella. It soaked him and drove the heat away. He immediately sat back down and rammed the truck against the helicopter, shoving it toward the edge of the deck. The DC team walked behind the chief and kept the fine, heavy mist sprayed over him. The water cooled his exposed, blistered skin. A second hose team washed burning fuel over the side, keeping it away from the insides of the USS Gearing.
Suddenly, the helicopter lurched to a stop, jerking the chief forward.
“Tie-downs!” the chief shouted, pointing to the tail where a chain ran to the deck to secure the helicopter to the ship.
“Chief, no torpedoes on her!” shouted the number two team leader.
“No danger there.”
Two members of the team ran to the two remaining tie downs glowing from the heat. Despite the heavy gloves, the tie-downs burned through the fire-retardant cloth, blistering their hands. Ignoring the pain, they twisted the locks loose and disconnected them. Two other team members pulled a body found near the tail of the helo, previously hidden by the smoke, to the rear of the hanger. Nothing held the helicopter on board now except its own inertia.
The
chief pushed the pedal to the floor and the forklift, once again, shoved against the helicopter. The starboard strut of the helo shifted, trapping the left arm of the forklift.
The chief, unaware, inched the SH-60 toward the edge.
He continued the slow push of the burning wreckage until it reached the port side. As it began to ease over the side, the ship took a hard left turn.
A sharp tilt of the deck sent the helicopter tumbling overboard. The entangled forklift followed. The chief leaped, making a wild grab for the deck edge.
Seaman Jones grabbed for the chief’s outstretched hands, barely touched the fingertips, missed, and nearly went overboard himself. The chief’s head caught the edge of the deck, knocking him unconscious and leaving a smear of red along the edge. The radioman chief followed the helicopter and forklift into the sea. Someone grabbed a life ring off the hangar bulkhead and tossed it after him. The burning helicopter’s tail disappeared beneath the sea as the damage control members raced to the side.
They saw no sign of the chief.
* * *
“Number one Harpoon on target!” announced the surface search operator. A couple of seconds passed.
“Number two Harpoon on target!” He turned to the captain.
“Captain, they’ve hit. I show one video!”
“Combat, ASW; I have two explosions underwater. I think we’ve hit the mofo! No torpedoes in the water at this time!”
“Inbound missile. Time to impact twenty-five seconds!”
“ECM not effective!” yelled the electronic warfare technician.
“Missile is locked on!”
“SAM away!” shouted Lieutenant Howard.
The remaining Libyan fighter twisted to the right. Hares erupted from its ECM pods, successfully decoying the USS Gearing’s surface-to-air missile. The starboard CIWS fired for a full five seconds before the coolant pump burned out and the weapon system locked up.
“What happened?” Cafferty demanded.
“Starboard CIWS is out of commission. Captain. She’s froze up again!”
The fifty bullets spent before the CIWS ceased firing hit the Mig-23’s left wing, damaging the aileron and severing a hydraulic line. The Libyan pilot manually fought the controls, keeping the aircraft airborne. His fuel transfer light started blinking, forcing him to break off. The Mig-23 banked right and headed for the coast and safety.
“We have a miss. Enemy aircraft is in a starboard turn for another attack!”
“The surface video has disappeared. Captain. We’ve sunk her! Whoever fired those Styx missiles is a dead son of a bitch!”
“Ten seconds to impact!”
“Combat, Chief Engineer! Sir, I am losing another engine.
All gauges in the red. Max speed I can give you is twelve knots!”
Even as the chief engineer spoke, Cafferty felt the ship slowing. The rudders of the USS Gearing were pegged as far right as they would go as the ship turned hard to starboard in an attempt to uncover the vertical launch system in front of the bridge and hopefully bring the port CIWS into play against the inbound antiship cruise missile. He looked at the display showing the location of the Gearing: about twenty-five miles north of the Libyan coast. “Second SAM away. Third away.”
On board the fleeing Mig-23, the internal warning system began beeping incessantly in the pilot’s ears. Flares and chaff exploded from the Flogger as the Libyan fighter ran for the coast. The loss of hydraulic fluid made the aircraft barely maneuverable.
Two seconds later.
“Both misses.”
“Captain, enemy aircraft departing area,” added the air search operator.
“Signal bridge reports a smoke trail coming from the aircraft,” repeated a sound-powered phone talker in Combat.
“Styx missile impact five seconds. Five, four, three, two …”
“Missile starboard side!” XO yelled from the bridge.
Like slow motion, the sound of impact rippled through the forward bulkhead. The missile hit the USS Gearing where the forward five-inch sixty-two mount stood firing ineffective rounds at it. The blast shattered the frame integrity to the bow, causing the front of the USS Gearing to shear away at the waterline. The explosion ripped upward, tearing the gun from its mount and sending the barrel through the front of the bridge. Combat had the misfortune of being on the same level as the bow. The forward bulkhead to Combat imploded from the shock wave of the hit. Pieces of missile and shrapnel sawed through to ricochet within Combat. The electronic warfare technician died first. Murderous pieces of metal tore apart the AN/SLQ-32 EW console before decapitating her. Fires broke out at numerous locations as electrical surges and broken wires burned out and flamed up the very positions needed to fight a modern warship.
Cafferty woke on the deck with the barber chair on top of him. Blood flowed from a wound on his forehead. Dazed, he pushed the chair off and pulled himself up. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket he pressed it against the gash across his forehead.
“Bridge, Combat!” he shouted into the intercom. He wiped more blood from around his eyes. No reply. He then saw that the intercom was no longer connected to anything.
He pushed his way toward the ladder leading up to the bridge. Around him, survivors discharged CO, bottles on the small fires while others began to search for the living and injured buried under the debris. Captain Heath Cafferty dragged himself up the ladder to the bridge. The ship seemed to be tilting forward.
* * *
On the bridge, bodies lay helter skelter where they had fallen. Lieutenant Commander Nash was on his knees, dazed. Blood covered his face. A shard of glass in the broken bridge windows cut his hands as he leaned forward, blinking his eyes to clear his vision. Where a bow used to slice through the mirror-smooth seas, nothing remained from the waterline up. The twelve-knot speed was pushing her under. The executive officer, a mustang with twenty-six years of naval service, reached for the annunciator and pulled it down to the reverse setting to slow the ship’s forward motion and, hopefully, keep her afloat a little longer. Keep her afloat a little longer … the thought made him reluctantly admit the Gearing was sinking. His hand smeared the throttle with blood. Anything he did would only delay the inevitable. Shocked, he sat down on the deck beside the helm and shut his eyes for a moment as he concentrated on slowing his breathing.
The door from Combat banged opened and Cafferty stumbled onto the bridge. Nash opened his eyes “Oh, my God!” Cafferty mumbled as he surveyed the damage. He moved to where the XO sat, his hand on the annunciator, and helped his number two to stand.
“You okay?”
The XO nodded.
“I think I’m alright,” he mumbled.
Water washed over where the bow of the ship used to be. The ship was slipping beneath the sea. The forward tilt had already increased a couple of degrees since the captain had left Combat.
The XO moved to the front of the bridge and leaned against the remnants of the bulkhead.
“Captain, we are going to have to abandon ship. She’s sinking.” He walked over to where the navigation table used to be. He touched the two bodies there on the neck to see if by some miracle they were alive. Both were dead.
Nash shoved a few items around on the floor until he found the logbook. He tucked it under his arm, leaving a bloody hand imprint on the cover.
“I’d give her ten minutes at the most. Captain,” the XO said with a tremble in his voice.
“You fought the good battle, sir. No one else could have done it as well.” He looked at the sinking bow area.
“We have to leave before she goes down. If we go now, we can probably save those still alive before she does a belly-up.”
Cafferty surveyed the damage for a few seconds. Then reluctantly he said, “You’re right, XO.” He looked at his watch.
“Time is zero eight nineteen. Hard to believe. Nineteen minutes of battle. Nineteen minutes from a normal, routine operation to the loss of the ship.”
The XO opened the logbook
and with a pen from his pocket made a quick notation. His hands shook and he managed to write the time before shutting the book. He’d fill in the details later.
A moan drew the captain’s attention. The boatswain mate of the watch was trying to stand. His left hand held a stump where his right arm used to be. The captain rushed over, pulled his belt out, and made a tourniquet out of it.
“XO, help Boats to the life raft.”
Cafferty reached over and moved the annunciator again to the stop position. The whine of the engines decreased, bringing after it an eerie silence to a devastating scene.
Cafferty lifted the 1MC and checked the switches to ensure the sound-powered system carried his voice topside.
The XO, with the wounded boatswain mate leaning on his shoulder, departed the bridge through the port hatch.
Cafferty clicked on the 1MC.
“This is the captain. Abandon ship. Now hear this. Abandon ship.” He paused and then clicked the microphone on again.
“Listen to me, sailors.
We have about ten minutes, I figure. No more than that.
Plenty of time to search around the immediate area for shipmates and make sure they make it with you. That’s not enough time to go to your quarters for any personal gear.
I am proud of each and every one of you. The USS Gearing fought the good battle as we were trained to do. We don’t go down without taking the enemy with us. Good luck and may God be with you.”
As he hung up, the power went out. The electric engines wound down internally as the engineers secured them prior to rushing to their own abandon ship stations. Cafferty moved in a daze across the bridge, checking each body for signs of life. He picked up the sextant lying against the forward bulkhead deck and tucked it under his arm.
They would need this.
Finding no one alive, he worked his way down to Combat.
The USS Gearing had given a good account of herself.
Cafferty was right. The first American warship sunk in a sea battle since World War II, but she took a Libyan surface ship, a submarine, and at least one fighter aircraft with her. Had the cost of ensuring international freedom of the seas been worth it? Cafferty didn’t know and now was not the time to think about it.
The Sixth Fleet tsf-1 Page 23