by Tom Wilson
Yank Donovan said the losses seemed awfully high. Manny told him they were down from a year ago, when fewer than 40 percent of the pilots were finishing their tours. He said it was something like 60 percent finishing now.
Why the improvement?
Because they'd learned a lot about Russian-built defensives, and no matter how much they disliked flying the gaggle, the ECM pod formations worked. SAM operators couldn't pick out individual aircraft on their radar scopes. Which allowed the Thuds to fly higher, out of most of the flak.
Maybe so, Yank had responded, but a SAM had come up and taken one of his airplanes out of the formation, so something wasn't right with what they were doing.
Manny had said that when it was apparent that a missile was committed toward a specific aircraft, they were to take evasive action in unison. He explained that maneuver.
Yank had said that was damned hard to judge when a missile was coming at you in particular, and Manny had to agree. He'd asked if the pods had been working properly. Yank had said no one had reported otherwise, but they seemed to malfunction too often. He'd added the last rancorously.
Before he'd left his office, Donovan had stonewalled his face and added a mumbled apology for his failure to follow his advice and push up the airspeed earlier, which might have contributed to Manny's shoot-down, and then sort of thanked him for not blaming him in front of the others. That small measure of humility hadn't come easily, but he'd gotten the words out.
Yank was egotistical to a fault, but in his unique way he'd tried to make things right. A real enigmatic jerk, was Yank Donovan. Then Manny began to think about the fact that a SAM had knocked down an aircraft that was supposedly in proper formation, and decided it had indeed likely been due to a faulty ECM pod. The formation should have maneuvered, but the jamming should've masked the bird.
He's spent three hours at the Electronic Countermeasures maintenance shop, learning more about jamming pods and how they worked. It was heady stuff, and by the time he broke for dinner, his mind was filled with explanations of jittered frequencies, complex scans and scan periods, pulse rates, and effective radiated power, which the ECM guys called "erps." The thing that stuck with him was the fact that when the maintenance troops brought the pods in for inspection, fewer than 50 percent worked entirely as advertised and only 70 percent provided enough erps to give adequate protection.
The pods were built by Hughes, and the company rep was a diligent, hardworking man who worried as much as anyone that the pods weren't performing well. He said one problem was that the pods' electrical components weren't withstanding the g-forces they had to endure. If a pilot pulled six g's on a pullout, the pod out on the wing experienced eight to twelve g's, sometimes more. The pod had its own ram air turbine, called a RAT, which was a small propeller that rotated and generated power, and that was also a weak link. It would be better, he said, if they could provide normal aircraft power to the pods and do away entirely with RATs.
Manny walked toward the club, trying to remember what he'd been told and thinking of solutions. The Hughes tech rep said the pilots at Korat were starting to fly with two ECM pods, replacing the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile on the right-wing adapter with a second pod.
Manny hated to see them lose a big part of their air-to-air fighting capability, but . . .
Up ahead he saw the wing commander's new secretary standing outside the club, talking with Dusty Fields. He'd seen her a couple of times in Leska's outer office and decided to find out more about her, but was always in too much of a hurry to chat. She wasn't a real beauty, more the kind you'd call cute or pixyish, he decided as he approached. But he liked the clash of dark hair, pale skin and blue eyes, as well as her trim figure. Which made him think of his last girlfriend, who'd had the way of grabbing her ankles and fucking him raw. He smiled just thinking about it.
If he was going to break his newest vow to have nothing further to do with round-eye women, it would take someone like his ex-girlfriend, Manny decided . . . or maybe Colonel Leska's secretary. He hadn't decided on the secretary—Dwight was her last name, he remembered. She carried herself poorly—slouched too much—and giggled often. That last habit was likely because she was the only American woman around, and the all-male presence made her nervous. But now she was smiling and seemed more relaxed. He decided to take another look.
"How you doing, Dusty?" he said, smiling at the girl but unable to recall her first name. He waited for Dusty to introduce them. Fields just eyed him suspiciously and moved protectively closer to the girl. Since she didn't move away, it was obvious Dusty had been using his charms and that some of it was working. The unsuspecting girl was being taken in by his glib and experienced tongue, and Manny wondered how he might set her straight about Dusty Fields.
"You two going inside for dinner?" he asked, continuing to eye the secretary. It was unfair, he thought, getting shot down the morning she'd arrived, and Fields jumping in and not waiting for him. As Manny's competitive spirit grew, she became better looking.
"We've eaten," said the girl without a first name, in a tone entirely different from the one he remembered in the office. She had a soft, melodic voice. Relaxed now, she didn't look half-bad.
Dusty didn't introduce them, just continued to look about as if Manny weren't there, as if he were waiting for something undesirable to leave so they could resume their talk. The guy has no class, Manny thought, and certainly no sense of fair play. Unable to think of a reason to hang around, he proceeded inside. Dusty had only one thing in mind. Disgusting, but the man was like that. They'd gone after the same women a few times in the past, each winning or losing about an equal number of times, but Manny felt his own lines were more honest.
He found an empty table in the dining room and thought about the fact that Dusty, a nice-looking guy with a pleasant face and a lanky body, lulled women with his schoolboy's grin and "aw shucks" demeanor. Watch out for that clever snake, Miss No-Name Dwight, he thought. Once she saw through Dusty's shallowness, perhaps he'd provide consolation. He paused at that idea. The Supersonic Wetback as consolation prize? No way. He decided to go after . . . whatever her name was . . . and beat out Dusty Fields, as he knew he could. Usually could, anyway. It would be interesting, as it always was when he and Fields competed.
Manny ordered a Salisbury steak with fried rice and asked the waitress to bring a fresh bottle of soy sauce. He used the stuff to add taste to the cardboard meals. As he waited, he thought more about the secretary and wished Dusty would fall down and bust something. Maybe break out with hives or pneumonia. She was increasingly appealing.
When the food arrived and he was about to pitch in, the girl and Dusty came through the entrance. Animal Hamlin was with them, toting his battered guitar case, and the three were laughing about something silver-tongued Dusty was saying. They angled toward the bar in back. He decided to pay a visit there after he'd eaten. Maybe sidle up beside them so he could at least learn the girl's first name. Perhaps show off some of his suaveness and show her what she was missing. No harm in that, he thought as he bit into the fried hamburger patty that tasted like a mixture of sawdust and soy sauce.
Half an hour later Manny went into the half-filled stag bar. The trio sat at a corner table. The girl listened to Dusty Fields tell a war tale while Animal plucked a tune and fooled with his guitar. Fields's hands moved vigorously over the table. Fighter jocks should be born with more hands, Manny had long thought, so they could describe their maneuvering better.
He noted that the fighter jocks in the crowd were more subdued than normal. The most-used adjective in the Thailand fighter community was "shit hot," which was spoken as one word and might be used in "that was a shit-hot mission" if a guy got a MiG or killed a tough target or destroyed a SAM site. Tonight the guys had modified the modifier for the sake of the lady in the bar. Some of the guys had flown a "sierra hotel" mission against the Bac Giang bridge up in pack six that day, for two spans had been dropped. The feeling about the round-eye female being in
their stag bar was mixed—some of the guys liked to look over and see an American woman, while others felt that the sanctity of the male domain should be retained even in a dismal place like godforsaken Takhli.
Manny got a MiG-15 from Pak, the assistant barkeep. Jimmy, the head Thai bartender, was playing liar's dice with two new Wild Weasel pilots from the 354th squadron. He was obviously winning because periodically he'd squeal joyfully. Jimmy supplemented his income by gambling with the Americans, mostly with fresh arrivals because the old hands knew not to play with him. When Jimmy won, he took his due with relish—when he lost, he'd sulk until the pilots got intoxicated and gave his money back.
Manny was about to go over and join the group at the table, had even thought of a good entrance line, but then the girl stood and Dusty escorted her out the side door. Animal Hamlin watched them go, still seated and plucking notes on his orange guitar. Damn, Manny grumbled.
"How ya doing, Animal?" he asked as he approached.
Hamlin glowered. "I wish you guys'd call me Roger." He pronounced it Rah-cher. Animal waved at Jimmy, who was staring intently at the dice cup held by one of his antagonists. "Need a drink over here," he yelled. Jimmy didn't look up. Pak hurried over with a harried expression.
"I'll buy," said Manny. "I owe you for all the help when I got shot down."
"Damn right you do." Animal grinned as he ordered.
"Where'd Dusty and the girl go?" Manny asked in an innocent voice.
Animal picked a note, frowned, and adjusted. "Penny wanted to see a movie."
Manny filed away the secretary's name as he sipped his drink. He didn't want to appear to interested, but . . . "Dusty got something going with her yet?" he asked casually.
"She's nice," Animal said vaguely, adjusting again.
"They got something going?" he repeated.
"Dusty's keeping an eye out for her. Making sure the other fighter jocks don't try to take advantage or anything."
Which meant Fields was acting the big brother, the guy with the white hat. Manny mused. That was likely the best approach with her. He wondered if there was a way to out-good-guy Dusty. Maybe, he decided. In his new job, he had a built-in excuse to visit the wing commander's office more often than a squadron pilot like Dusty Fields.
Billy Bowes, C-Flight commander for the 354th Pig Squadron, came in and sidled over to the table. "Join you assholes?"
"I dunno," said Animal. "We're pretty particular. You wash off your war paint?"
Bowes was a Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma.
Billy noted that Jimmy was busy and waved to Pak. "Somebody's gotta keep you white-eyes straight. Win your wars for you, shit like that." He ordered a round for all three, which meant Manny had the one in his hand and two more stacked up.
They talked about how the missions were going, then about how Lucky Anderson, now Lieutenant Colonel Anderson, was doing with his squadron. Morale was soaring in the 333rd, Animal said, because of his leadership. Bowes grumbled and said he wished he could change squadrons. He'd advised everyone in the 354th to wait and see about the new commander—give him a chance. Now he'd made up his mind like the rest of them. He didn't trust Yank Donovan.
"How come?" asked Animal Hamlin as he picked out the first bar of "Wildwood Flower."
"He's an egotistical, narrow-minded, self-centered asshole, that's why."
"So what? So are all your friends."
Billy ignored the comment. "Anyone in the squadron takes out a target, Donovan acts like it was him that did it. He keeps saying me, my, and I, like he's the only one doing anything."
Manny finished a drink and started on the next. A pilot walked into the bar from outside, talking with a buddy, and forgot to remove his hat before one of the guys at the end of the bar vigorously rang the bell. "Shit!" cried the pilot, whipping off the hat. Too late. A bevy of catcalls erupted as he slunk to the end of the bar to buy a free round for the house.
Animal was still mired in the conversation about squadron commanders, crowing about what a sierra-hotel guy Lucky Anderson was. How he'd elevated Dusty to become B-Flight commander and himself as Dusty's assistant. Billy was intently ignoring him, increasingly peeved because Animal had the better of the deal and he was stuck with Yank Donovan.
Finally Billy had enough. "You guys can brownnose all you want, but it doesn't—"
Animal quit picking the guitar and bristled. "Goddammit, don't you say that!"
Arguments and scuffles were common in the Takhli bar, but there were no real fights. Manny sipped his Scotch and Drambuie and watched while they bickered. By the time Manny had finished another MiG-15, his vision was blurring. He grew tired of imagining how Dusty Fields was making out with the secretary whose first name he'd again forgotten, so he broke into their conversation.
"All I know," Manny interjected, "is that Donovan sure was thick with Colonel Lyons."
Both of the others frowned, for that had nothing to do with what they were talking about.
Animal was in an argumentative mood. "Donovan's a good pilot. I saw him put his bombs on a target the other day. Took out a truck park. Best bombs in the strike force."
Manny almost mentioned the lack of proper airspeed at Phuc Yen that had helped him get shot down. He stopped as he remembered today's half apology.
"So," concluded Animal Hamlin, "Colonel Donovan's a little odd, but you can't argue with success. He's the best pilot in the wing."
"Bullshit," said Billy Bowes, draining his drink and waving at Pak the bartender. Billy was good at placing his own bombs. "I'd still rather work for Lucky Anderson," Bowes said.
Hamlin didn't argue that point. Manny was bored with the subject. "You hear that Colonel Mack's on the full-bull list that just came out?" he asked, his words slurred.
"Shit hot!" exclaimed Billy Bowes with a wide grin.
They talked about Mack MacLendon, who'd left Takhli a couple of weeks earlier, then about the fact that he was headed for the Pentagon, which was surely a waste of good talent.
Animal hooted, "Let's have some music," to another pilot from Lucky Anderson's 333rd Lancers squadron, and strummed heartily. Several pilots gathered around Animal's table, and on cue they began to croon:
Oh, there once was a bird,
No bigger than a turd,
Sitting on a telephone pole. . . .
By the time they'd finished the verse, others had joined and were also loudly singing.
Oh, he ruffled up his neck,
And . . . shit about a peck,
As he puckered up his little ass-hoooole. . . .
Asshole, asshole, asshole, ass-hoooole . . .
As he puckered up his little asshole.
That was only the warm-up, and the group continued to grow in numbers. Although their harmony was dubious, they compensated with volume and serious intent. They sang the camel song, about the inscrutable sphinx—about Sammy Small and how he shouted "fuck 'em all!"—about how they loved their wives and ate their shit with wooden spoons—then they sang:
Beside a Laotian waterfall,
One bright and sunny day,
Beside his battered Thunderchief,
A young pursuiter lay. . . .
and went on about how the pilot wanted the crankshaft removed from his larynx, the gears from his brain, and so forth, and ended with:
Oh death where is thy sting-a-ling,
Death where is thy sting,
The bells of hell will ring-a-ling,
For you but not for ME!
Ohhhhhh!
Ring-a-ling-a-ling-ling,
Blow it out your ass,
Ring-a-ling-a-ling-ling.
Blow it out your ass.
Better days are a-coming by and by!
They whooped and ordered more drinks, and made fun of a new arrival who'd completed his first mission that day. A pilot's first five missions were flown in the lower packs, down in the safer areas where he could learn a few ropes before taking on the big boys up in pack six. Manny had suggested that they
increase it to ten flights and was formalizing the combat introduction to make sure certain "training" blocks were filled before the new guys "graduated" to pack six.
Damn, but there was a lot to do.
His thoughts returned to the girl named . . . oh yeah, Penny!. . . and again he wondered how that cheating, no-good Dusty Fields was faring. By then the somewhat plain secretary had become downright pretty in Manny DeVera's blurry mind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Wednesday, November 15th, 1330 Local—Seventh Air Force Headquarters, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, South Vietnam
Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates
Pearly had been working relentlessly on the JACKPOT project for almost a month, but still felt he wasn't giving the job the justice it deserved. Part of the problem was the utter secrecy he had to exercise with every scribbled word. Sometimes he used his staff to get answers to questions, but whenever he added specifics to the plan, he had to do it himself.
During his visits to Saigon, Colonel Wes Snider tried to help, but he was just too new to the combat operation to provide many of the required inputs. Snider was a tall, handsome man, who looked and acted professionally in everything he did. He had a ready smile and listened to people, and even the hard-core fighter jocks in the headquarters were getting to like him. As the Pentagon's B-52 Liaison officer, he worked with the SAC ADVON people there at Seventh Air Force and the bomber units at Anderson AFB in Guam, and U Tapao Air Base, south of Bangkok.
Snider was good with every phase of bomber utilization, from enroute tactics to bombing techniques to escape maneuvers, and held the trust of the B-52 community. They might question directives coming from tactical fighter jocks, but Snider was a dues-paid member of the "first team," as B-52 crew members liked to be called. When he was in Saigon, he worked on the plan with Pearly and sat in on the JACKPOT planning sessions with General Moss.