“Gomez to engine room, come to two-eight-zero.”
Just two hundred meters to go till the Martinez would smash into its Communist counterpart. Smoke poured from nearly every opening of the midsection of smaller communist cargo vessel. It appeared as though the armored piercing fifty calibers had ignited a fuel tank or two. The propellers stopped churning the water beneath the enemy ship.
F-15E/Freedom One
Over Communist Cuban Air Base - Santa Cruz
20 km east of Havana
September 30, 2018 9:20 PM
“Bombs away. Lets bug out of here,” Izzy said. Cuco turned hard to starboard (right) and lit up his afterburners. After ten miles he went inverted and dove for the deck.
“Two-hundred-sixty klicks to target, Talk to me Kook, how we goin in,” said Izzy. They egressed the Santa Cruz target area at nearly one thousand miles per hour. They were eating up twenty-six kilometers per minute. In less than ten minutes they would be over their next target. Cuco eased up on the throttles and let his airspeed bleed off.
“Freedom One, this is Panhandle,” The AWACS radar plane broke the silence. “Be advised there are now twenty-six bandits airborne around Santa Clara, or heading there. Seven bogies have formed a picket line search about twenty clicks apart looking for you. They are at your… twelve o’clock, range… one-fifty klicks at… sixteen thousand feet.. You have a MiG-29 at your eleven o’clock same range…”
Cuco formulated the plan in an instant and broke in “Freedom One to Freedom Three and Four. Attack target three from east in twelve minutes. We will come in from the north.”
“Negative Freedom One,” The AWACS responded. The two strike packages now separated by five-hundred-thirty kilometers could hear each other quite well. They had a redundant links through satellite and surveillance aircraft. Obviously Freedom Three and Four in Strike Package Two were busy at the moment, so the AWACS felt free to jump in. “Strike package Two is being vectored to defend Gitmo. Four Bandits are vectoring toward…”
“Negative! Negative!” yelled Cuco.” Who was running the show here? He thought. ‘Are the Americans controlling this air battle or am I? With a somewhat calmer but stern voice he added, “Let the air defenses at Gitmo take care of it.”
The AWACS responded almost apologetically, “Gitmo is ordering them back.” Cuco just grit his teeth. To Izzy he queried, “When was that?”
“I didn’t hear it.” Responded Izzy. “Maybe we were busy.”
“AHHH,” Cuco let out an exasperated groan.
“Ok Izzy, lets see what’s in front of us here.” Cuco said, speaking of the line of enemy planes now searching for them. He popped up to five thousand feet then Izzy radiated the vast dark space in front of them and for good measure downloaded a “dump” of digitized radar pictures from the AWACS radar plane, then they returned to tree top level. The LADAR showed a gap of about fifty kilometers between two of the enemy planes to their south-east. One of the searchers was obviously out of place.
“OK Izzy, we’re going to shoot low through that gap to our three o’clock.”
“Oh yeah, that worked so well with the last guy!” Izzy tried to joke but it went flat.
“You got any other bright ideas!?” Cuco said heatedly. Cuco paused for just a moment then calmly added, “Look, we’re gonna come in low. No way their old spin scan or even their two-twenty-two’s (Chinese built type 222 ranging radar) will pick us up at twenty five klicks (kilometers).”
The search line of MiG-21’s now had a hodgepodge of three different airborne radar systems scanning the sky for them.
“OK, OK,” Izzy repented. “I just don’t like the way you said ‘low.’” Just then, the top of a palm tree zipped by at shoulder height with perfect comic timing. Both of them smiled under their oxygen masks.
“Panhandle to Freedom One, you’ve got a bandit to your two o’clock, one-seventy klicks (kilometers), twenty thousand(feet), at Mach one-point-five. Looks like he’s gonna scoot into that gap right in front of you.”
Cuco slid the throttles forward to increase his speed as he raced for the gap.
F.C.N. Martinez
October 1, 2018. 5:35 AM
Thomas could not believe they were going to pull it off. He was hauling two boxes of ammo up to the bow when he heard the roar of a missile. He looked up to see an object that looked as big as a car streaking skyward on a gigantic plume of fire and thick white smoke. It had launched from the missile boat that was now pulling away from its powerless companion. The missile flew far to the southeast and began circling back toward the three ships now within knife fighting range of each other.
The instant the missile boat’s forward thirty millimeter gun became unmasked it hammered the bow of the Martinez furiously. Three of the Free Cubans lay where they dropped, their bodies blown apart while the two remaining wounded seamen crawled away from their positions.
Thomas was thrown off his feet as thousands of tons of steel screeched in anguish beneath him. The bow of the Martinez crumpled as it crushed the aft section of the Communist cargo ship in slow motion. It plowed the ship over and rolled it on its side. The communist ship was listing at nearly sixty degrees and taking water over its scuppers, filling the ship with water.
The missile boat brought all four of its thirty millimeter guns to bear, each thrashing the Martinez with five hundred rounds per minute. Thomas stayed on deck feeling he must keep his eye on what was happening since he was in charge. Far in the distance the missile had finished a one-hundred and eighty degree turn and was heading back to the entangled ships.
The sleek warship turned a great circle around the Free Cuban ship firing non-stop.
Thomas kept behind cover as he raced for a fifty caliber machine gun still stored in its container below the hand rail. It was loaded and ready to mount on the rail just as easy as sliding its mounting post into a hole. Unfortunately he would have been slaughtered before he could mount the gun. He drug the gun over to the hawsehole, the large hole for the ship’s anchor cable, and saw it would make an acceptable place to stick the barrel through.
He was content to destroy the remaining two missiles still in their housing on the Communist warship. He did not want any more of his compatriots to be on the receiving end of those monstrous things. With the missile bearing down on him he would be dead in a few seconds anyway. He pointed the gun through the hole, placed the post in a link of the anchor chain and fired the gun. He fired a quick burst to spot where the tracers were going. The gun bounced wildly but held in place. In an instant he corrected his aim and squeezed the trigger vowing never to let up. Through the smoke and noise and the bucking gun he sensed something had happened. Despite his vow, he stopped firing long enough to see the missile boat in the final stages of being blown in halfxliv. He did not have time to feel joy however. The next thing he saw was another malevolent STYX missile hugging the ocean surface a mile out coming right at him. At this distance it was only a speck spewing a trail of smoke. The gun barked out tracers that went wildly in that direction and immediately the missile exploded at an impossibly distant range.
Thomas stared in disbelief. All his foes were silenced. “God… God has been very good to us,” he breathed heavily.
Then for all the dead and dying to hear he yelled, “God had been good to us my friends. We got them. We got them all.” He paused and sobbed, “my dear dead friends.”
In the coming years Thomas Gomez would be elevated as one of the great Free Cuban heroes of the war. The machinist’s mate who courageously took control of his wounded ship and rallied his men to win a battle against insurmountable odds. The man who single handedly destroyed an OSA II class fast attack missile boat and an anti-shipping missile with a machine gun, or so Thomas believed. God had indeed been good to him, but not in the way he had thought.
American submarines passively monitored the battle very closely. They knew very well that the missile boat was destroyed by the Littoral sea mine torpedo. All the mine needed was for the boat to separate
itself from the cargo vessel that was keeping it safe. Once its magnetic signature matched its acoustic signature the torpedo was free to engage. By Thomas Gomez’ good fortune the warship was hit by the torpedo before the enemy could return his fire.
The nearly unbelievable shooting down of the missile at such a great distance was another bit of good luck. Months after the war it was determined that the missile probably did not receive its final targeting data and self-destructed after losing contact with its stricken mother ship.
Guantanamo Naval Base, Free Cuban Zone, Cuba
October 1st, 2018 “L” Day
Press conference 9:20 AM
Joshua Marti turned to the reporter and the glaring camera lights. “Free choice is our political doctrine. It is the foundation upon which we will build and govern this nation. It is simple in its concept and execution. Decisions come easily when you ask yourself ‘what will make people as free as they can possibly be without infringing upon the freedoms of their neighbor.”
“Good people, genuinely committed to this concept of liberty, can disagree where one’s freedoms end and another’s begin but I have great confidence that through brotherly kindness and goodwill all issues can be settled by those representatives who have been duly elected by the people.”
“Let me enlighten you about my personal beliefs. And I admit that they cannot be disproved because they are a matter of faith. I know in my soul that free choice is Christ’s way. It may seem counterintuitive, seeing that so many of our brothers and sisters choose to do wicked or evil things with that free agency, but there it is. Coercion is Satan’s way.”
“And what will you do with all the investments that Spain and other countries have made in Cuba. Will they be confiscated along with all the property of the Communist government?” a reporter asked.
Marti responded, “Our policy on that subject is four words long. Thou shalt not steal. The money investors have spent building hotels and the like will be safeguarded.”
Another reporter raised his hand “Mr. Marti, we have unconfirmed reports that your forces suffered no casualties going through Canemera while reporting Communist KIA’s at 27 just on or near the causeway leading into the city. Are you pleased with your progress?” Joshua responded quickly “I am pleased that this initial push went well. I am most pleased that we have no reported casualties, while I must extend my condolences to the families of the fallen foe.” The reporter perfunctorily blurted out “Excuse me Sir but that sounds a little disingenuous. Surely you are not trying to tell us you’re overly concerned about the enemy dead!” Joshua responded “I don’t think I am overly concerned with enemy dead, although this is not the first time someone has raised that concern. Let me tell you a little something about the enemy dead. When a truly murderous man is killed it is a victory for mankind. In my experience however these truly bad men will hide behind as many of their Soldiers as they can get between themselves and their Maker. I can guarantee that most of these dead are not the murderous monsters that need killing. They are in fact children of a Father whom I love. He grieves over their loss. That said, let there be no mistake about the cause that we are engaged in. It is the cause of liberty, Freedom and democracy. Its author is our God. We will pay any price, make any sacrifice necessary to do his will”.xlv
With that the news conference was over. Joshua walked slightly bent with age. He shuffled out of the rickety WWII era wooden structure and down the dirt road to his briefing with General Zip Petra in the General’s bunker. Standing on the side of the dusty road was a young reporter with a camera slung over his shoulder and a small digital recorder in his hand. As Joshua approached, his two bodyguards eyed the reporter for a second then, losing interest in him, their eyes scanned more distant objects. The young reporter shoved the tape recorder towards Joshua and said, “Do you have any reservations about trying to overthrow the duly elected President of Cuba.” Joshua stopped and looked at the young man with sad but kind eyes. The young man started again but was silenced by Joshua’s upraised finger and a quiet “uhht”. He looked at the young man’s name tag. “Smith. I’ll call you Smithy. Is that alright?”
Joshua reached out and affectionately grabbed the young man’s arm and responded, “I will not respond to every untruth that comes out of your mouth, son. If I did so, soon I would be floundering in a frothy sea of lies. Let me say this, because it is what I would want someone would say to me if I were in your position.” Joshua raised his palm slightly. “In the sacred name of our most Holy Father in Heaven and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, with love and all sincerity I call upon you to repent. Turn away from the path you are on. Serve the Lord your God and only him.” He paused and placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder and continued, “He loves you, son, and wants you back.” The young man was a product of 18 years of secular education and indoctrination. Never in all that time had the Spirit touched him. He was stunned into silence as he felt the upwelling in his heart. Joshua put his arm around him, sensing the young man’s affectation and said, “and I love you too.” At that moment the feeling in the fatherless young man’s heart grew into a warm fire, a glow. He could feel the love flowing out of this feeble old man and pouring into him. In that moment Smithy felt a bond with this wonderful grandfatherly figure. A bond strong as steel and soft as velvet. Poignant, exhilarating, sad and sweet. Joshua looked him in the eye and said, “Do you feel it?” The young man nodded his head. “That is the Spirit of God bearing witness to you. Now you know for yourself the truthfulness of this work.”
Guantanamo Naval Base Free Cuban sector
September 30 2018. L day minus 1, 5:00 PM
In an old wooden barrack that smelled of mildew and rotting wood, Joshua stood before his Generals. The hanging maps were his back drop. Eight of his top military leaders sat before him in folding metal chairs around a long folding table. He continued “…In closing let me say…be careful with the lives of these, our brightest and most beautiful.” He paused and fingered the dust on the table “These noble, courageous hearts,” another pause. “Love them as I love them. We may have thought that child sacrifice was done away with in the Prophet Abraham’s day. I feel much like Abraham going to that sacrificial alter with my most beloved son. I pray that you commanders will be the angel that stays the plunging knife… that saves both Son and Father. To this end I bless you”.
He looked them all over for a minute and continued. “Mine is the sure witness that God lives and Jesus is the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the World. Of this I testify with all my soul. And now I will leave you with a blessing. Bow your heads.” Joshua tightly closed his eyes and placed his palms together in classic prayer mode. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Ghost I bless you that the hand of God will guide you in all your actions and his Holy Spirit will dwell in your hearts. Amen.” Joshua shuffled to the coat rack where his navy blue priest’s robe hung on a white wire hanger. He slipped it on and zipped it up. He put his gold colored sash around his neck and went out the side door of the old wooden structure. As he exited the building he found himself on the top landing of a stairway about six feet off the ground that overlooked a rare piece of grass now completely blotted out by the crowd of Soldiers gathered there. Members of the Fightin’ Fourth Infantry Division assembled to hear a few words from their leader.
Joshua forced out of his tightening throat, “I am so proud of all of you.” He paused to look them over and felt the greatest poignancy he had ever experienced in His life. ‘Oh God,’ He thought, ‘Our best and bravest. To sacrifice these on the altar of Freedom. The price is so high.’ He continued. “Many of you have personally witnessed the heart-rending results of the loss of liberty. You have lived within the godless evil of communism.”
. . . I say to you with all the soberness I can, liberty and freedom is lost to all future generations of Cubans and now only blood will bring them back. Through those gates lie before you greater sacrifices and more depravations to endure tha
n you have yet known, heavy as your sacrifices and grievous as your depravations of the past have been.”
"We face a war to the death. It is part of a greater, gigantic worldwide struggle. We must face it, enter it, take part in it. In fact, we are all taking part in the struggle, whether we will or not. Upon its final issue, liberty lives or dies.” He paused for a good long while taking in their fearsome painted faces. He only saw the good and righteous boys underneath the paint.
“Be at peace in your hearts, for you are about your Father’s business.”
The only movement among the hundreds of young men were the nodding of some heads or the daubing of a few tears. They understood him completely. The troops were well versed in Brother Marti’s religious idioms.
“Fight! For you are the sword in the hand of the Lord. His power of goodness and righteousness flows through you to cut down the evil ones who would enslave the children of our Father. You shall sweep them from their seats of power and shall lay up in store for yourselves treasures in heaven. Fear not what men can do to you. Fear only falling short in the Service of your God. Love him, serve him, do his will and I promise you that he shall crown you with glorious blessings that you cannot now understand. Humble yourselves before him that his Spirit may enter your heart and you may know his will. Go with God.”
The troops were boisterous in their cheering.
120 kilometers west of Communist Cuban Air Base - Santa Clara
September 31, 2018 9:21 PM
“Let’s keep our eye on that guy,” Cuco said as he concentrated on the difficult task of flying very fast and very low.
“You got it man, just fly the plane,” Izzy worried. He was not sure at all that the tail end charley or the two MiG’s now to the north and south of them would not pick them up on their radar. The new Chinese radar systems had made the older MiGs a much more formidable weapon. All fears were relative however and right now he just did not want to be cut in half by a palm tree.
“OK we’re through the pickets, now head zero two three.”
The Cuban Liberation Handbook Page 7