Despite the lightning quickness of his first pass, Hunter had spotted the two Forgers warming up on the carrier’s flight line. Once he, Rico, and DuPont were regrouped, he signaled them to concentrate fire on the first jet on their next pass. He would take the second jet alone.
The three of them did a tight 360-degree loop, and less than a minute later were boring in on the carrier again. The AA fire was now tripled in intensity as gunners on the surrounding escort ships were now joining the battle. Hunter knew the enemy SAM crews—their radar no doubt switching on by the dozens—would soon be back in action.
The trio of jets split up about a mile out, Rico and DuPont going for the Forger near the front of the carrier’s flight deck, Hunter aiming for the one nearer to midships.
Less than a quarter-mile out, Hunter started his cannon firing on the second Forger.
Although he was going just as fast as before, it seemed to Hunter like everything had suddenly gone into slow motion. As he roared in on the carrier he could see his target—apparently a two-seat version of the Forger—just starting to lift off the carrier deck. He slammed his cannon trigger and felt the F-16 shudder as the huge gun started firing. He followed the cannons’ smoke streams and watched as his shells tore open the left wing of the Soviet jumpjet, exploding its fuel tanks and spilling fire onto the flight deck.
Then, in a flash, time resumed its normal pace and he was up and over the carrier once again. Looping back and looking down through his canopy, he saw that he had completely destroyed the Forger, and that Rico and DuPont had killed their target as well. Now two major fires were sweeping the ship’s flight deck, virtually insuring that no more planes could take off until the wreckage of the two Forgers was cleared, and the fires were extinguished.
At this point it seemed like panic swept through the Soviet Task force. Two of the destroyers made tight turns and obviously started to escape, whether under orders or not, Hunter would never know. Then the Soviet anti-aircraft batteries’ crews started to fire blindly at the attacking fighters. With little or no radar yet operating, they were hard pressed to hit one of the speeding fighters—after all, they weren’t pokey A-10s.
But still, the streams of tracers and the streaking unguided missiles made the sky around the task force look like a lethal gauntlet for the F-16s.
Hunter reformed his flight and pressed ahead with the second phase of the plan: a concerted strafing run on the starboard sides of the remaining escorting ships. If the second part of his attack plan was to work, they’d need to clear the path …
As the F-16s swept in from the starboard quarter at an oblique angle to the remaining light cruiser and destroyers, all the ship’s guns were focused on them, blazing away at the strafing planes. Cannon fire laced the cruiser’s foredeck, and more shells obliterated the bridge of one of the destroyers, tearing into the superstructure.
All eyes, even those of the carrier crew, were on the six buzzing planes …
None of the Soviet sailors saw the big AC-130s loom out of the valley created by the big swells as they skimmed across the ocean’s surface in a long line, like a flight of birds of prey. Even when they were spotted, the Soviets failed to notice the howitzers, cannons, and gun barrels protruding from their fuselages.
That is, until they opened up with the first broadside.
In the lead gunship, Fire Control Officer Mike Fitch switched on the Hughes digital fire control radar, locking on to the big carrier deck and the Forgers still lined up to receive their pay-loads. The 105mm howitzer and the 40mm cannon in the rear bay tracked the carrier in unison as radar gave them target and range.
The multi-barrel Gatling gun behind the pilot was armed and ready. In their armored, soundproof battle management station in the center of the gunship, the crew monitored their weapon consoles from behind a U-shaped bank of sophisticated mission control computers.
From each station, the radar operator/navigator, electronic warfare specialist, and fire control officer could verify their target and operational status as the big airplane gained altitude and leaned over, slightly dipping its left wing toward the Soviet carrier.
“Spectre Flight, lock radar and open fire as your guns bear!” Fitch’s voice rose as he mashed the gunship’s fire buttons. Instantly the 25mm Gatling gun roared to life, spitting fiery death at the rate of 6,000 rounds/minute. The howitzer and cannon fired their first shots together, then in a staccato pounding rhythm as they remained locked onto the carrier’s deck, relentlessly pumping high explosives into the clustered Forgers.
The Soviet fuel and bomb loading crews abandoned their planes on the vulnerable, cluttered flight deck, hoses flailing, spilling jet fuel across the deck surface. Bomb trucks rolled haphazardly as their drivers dove for the false safety of the superstructure or the perimeter passageways. Pilots, strapped into their seats, were struggling to escape their bonds as the first barrage ripped into the carrier deck.
The Brezhnev’s flight deck was instantly engulfed in flames and violent explosions as the gunships poured their massive payloads of multi-caliber ammunition into the big target. Tracers cascaded down in dazzling streams of light, punctuated by the thumping flashes of the heavier guns. Fireballs of oily smoke mushroomed from the carrier’s flight deck as one Forger after another was touched off by bombs and flash fires from the spilled fuel.
The fire followed the tiniest rivulets of fuel into cracks and crevices where it had settled, spreading to all parts of the exposed deck and starting to feed back on itself. Columns of smoke and flame roared as high as the top of the superstructure, where the radar mast repair crew was watching death erupt below them.
One by one, the AC-130s passed over the carrier’s deck, pounding away with their massive firepower like great airborne Men o’ War delivering broadsides to the hapless enemy. Only these broadsides were digitally controlled to keep targeted on the Soviet ship throughout the long, banking turn around the front of the Soviet task force.
Several Soviet ASW helicopters erupted in huge geysers of smoke and fire as their fuel tanks and ammunition pods exploded. Huge swatches of thick gray paint peeled off the burning ship and wafted in the sky like flaming leaves.
The stunned Soviet gunners on board the other ships began to respond with anti-aircraft and machine guns as the AC-130 flight slowly rounded the front end of the task force.
Now, just ahead of the flaming carrier lay the light cruiser and the already-battered destroyer. On board the lead gunship, Fitch quickly switched off the infrared sensors of the fire control system, realizing it would send their weapons pouring back on the flaming carrier instead of on the escort vessels.
He radioed the other ships to do the same. As he locked on to the new target, the light cruiser, he felt enemy machine gun fire rake the left side of his gunship. Even in the soundproof cocoon, surrounded by the banks of computers, he could hear the dull thud of the bullets as they struck the boron-carbide Kevlar armor.
Fitch knew the armor would hold off the smaller guns, but a big shell would blast them out of the air. Their best defense would be a good offense, he thought, suppressing the big ship’s guns with a barrage of their own.
But at this point, the scales tipped slightly—and temporarily—in the Soviets’ favor.
Two Forgers, survivors from the previous furball with Hunter and the F-16s, had finally made it back to the area. Quickly and uncharacteristically absorbing the situation, their pilots streaked toward the AC-130s, looped up and came back again near the center of the gunships’ line.
Siting one AC-130 near the middle of the line, one Forger opened fire. Instantly the gunship absorbed burst after burst of concentrated fire from the Yak’s 23mm gun pod. Within seconds its right wing shattered as both engines exploded. The big plane fell out of line and cartwheeled into the ocean in fiery slow motion, finally sinking upside down in the churning water.
Anti-aircraft fire from one of the destroyers had found its mark on a second AC-130’s rear fuselage, starting a fire that
threatened to engulf the entire aircraft. The opportunistic Forger, sensing another easy kill, bored in on the stricken gun-ship, unaware that he was crossing directly into the firing pattern of the AC-130 flight leader’s Gatling gun.
“Captain, give me ten degrees up on the port wing! Just a hair closer … Fire … now!” Fitch roared as he hammered the fire button.
The Gatling roared to life; in less than three seconds nearly 300 rounds of 25mm ammo had perforated the Forger, which disappeared under the fierce barrage of lead from the gunship. Pieces of what had been the Soviet interceptor filtered down out of the sky as the smoke cleared. But no individual part was recognizable—the airplane had simply been vaporized.
Now there was only one left …
Hunter sliced through the air at Mach 2-plus to overtake the hapless Forger, who was maneuvering near the flaming deck of the Brezhnev, trying frantically to signal the ship to activate the autoguidance system that would link with his on-board autostabilizer to land the cumbersome jumpjet.
Another bolt of anger shot through Hunter as he watched the Soviet interceptor hovering over the carrier’s burning deck, its hot exhaust gases merging with the flames and smoke, blowing them out and fanning them in a large circle around where the plane was to touch down. This was one of the guys that iced the defenseless transports, he thought. Without hesitation, he clamped down on his cannon trigger and let loose a long burst of fire.
The shells immediately tore into the length of the hovering Soviet airplane. Its forward lift engines instantly blew out and failed. The pilot, caught in the middle of the furious barrage, slumped forward on his control stick, causing the stricken Forger’s nose to drop sharply. It hung there, suspended for a brief, terrible moment as the rear engine struggled to keep the plane aloft.
Then the pointed nose of the plane plunged straight through the burning deck of the Brezhnev, propelled by its still-firing rear engine and burrowing down to the second deck of the big ship. A muffled explosion shook the Soviet carrier as the Forger’s weapon loads and remaining fuel supply blew up deep within the ship’s interior.
High above, Hunter’s wings were buffeted by the force of the blast as the ship’s main magazine was touched off three decks below by the burning plane.
The Brezhnev settled back into the water now, her back broken by the powerful explosions. Flaming fuel and oil from the fires raging on deck now poured onto the sea around the ship, creating a series of floating bonfires.
At that awesome and frightening moment, all of the Soviet gunners stopped firing and all of the American airplanes stopped attacking.
It was as if someone had blown a whistle—the battle was over …
The surviving AC-130s turned eastward and gunned their engines. Close behind were five F-16s.
Only Hunter remained, circling the battle zone at 10,000 feet.
As he stared down at the flaming, oil-slickened water, he wasn’t thinking about the destruction that had just been wrought—No, his mind was filled with thoughts of the first Soviet pilot he’d shot down earlier while trying to protect the airliners. He had destroyed the Forger—and its pilot—with such workmanlike precision it scared him.
Was that really all there was to it? Was that how easy it was to kill a man? And could the situation have been reversed? Would that Soviet flyer have blown him out of the sky so coldly, so efficiently? Would he have watched as Hunter plummeted downward into the frigid Atlantic waters? Would he have felt the same strange emptiness that was inside of Hunter now? Why was it okay for Hunter to kill and not the other way around?
Maybe Jones was right … this was the way it had to be: kill or be killed. Get the other guy before he gets you. Reduce it all down to numbers and technology, and guaranteed you’ll factor out the human equivalent. Understand that and it gets easy—too damned easy. Jones had explained the killing all right. But he never told him how to live with it afterward.
With that thought firmly entrenched in his psyche, he booted in his afterburner and streaked off to rejoin the air convoy group as it headed for Rota.
Far below and not a half mile from the battle scene, Captain Spaulding was just hauling himself aboard his inflated life raft.
He had watched the titanic battle from a dangerously close vantage point, bobbing in the sea, not daring to inflate his raft for fear the angry Soviet sailors would try to shoot him.
Now that the battle was obviously over, he clambered aboard the raft and forced-vomited the seawater from his stomach. Then, completely exhausted, he simply let the raft drift, not quite believing that he was still alive or that he had witnessed one of the most awesome air-sea battles in history.
Two hours later, still only a few miles from where four Soviet ships lay dead and smoking in the water, he watched as the carrier Brezhnev exploded once again and finally slipped beneath the waves.
Chapter 13
At Rota
ROTA NAVAL BASE SPRAWLS along the Spanish coast near the mouth of the Mediterranean.
A “home-away-from-home” port for the US Sixth Fleet in peacetime, Rota was now the choke point for incoming supplies to NATO’s southern flank. The first flight of the “air bridge” had landed, and the tons of cargo, machinery and materiel that had been so frantically loaded at Langley hours before was now being just as frantically off-loaded.
Truck convoys streamed through the airfield in endless green lines of chugging diesel smoke and grinding gears, picking up supplies for the long hazardous road trip to the fighting front, hundreds of miles away. Navy trucks ferried cargo loads to the docks, where ships of all kinds from the Sixth Fleet were jammed into the harbor, filling their holds with the supplies and ammunition that would support the Navy’s Mediterranean operations.
Huge containers rolled out of giant transport planes onto flatbeds, and were picked up by towering cranes that lowered them into the gaping holds of the big supply ships.
On the flight line, loading crews swarmed each plane almost before it had stopped taxiing, popping airlift doors and opening loading hatches to disgorge the big planes’ hastily packed cargo to the waiting trucks.
As soon as one transport had been relieved of its burden, another would be hurried along the runway to take its place in the long line of stuffed birds waiting to be gutted. This was the first stop in the air bridge that stretched back across the Atlantic, to Langley and the mountains of supplies in warehouses and supply depots across the United States.
All the while, the sky was swarming with helicopters, shuttling in and out. Some were big workhorses like the Chinook, taking on supplies that could not wait to be driven to the front. Others were gunships, returning to this—one of the only true “rear areas” in the war—for re-arming and/or repair. Other choppers carried messengers, cameras, the wounded, doctors, even an occasional civilian casualty. Still others simply orbited the big base, watched the ground below like hawks for prey, ready to thwart any possible terrorist-like attack.
Still farther up, two E-3 AWACS planes were keeping watch for any enemy air strike or missile attack.
On other runways below, the decimated airliners had limped in to the airbase with tattered wings and shredded fuselages, burning engines trailing smoke. At least two had pancaked into the runway, snapping their landing gear as they touched down.
Streaks of foam drying on the surface traced the path of a DC-10 that had landed wheels-up and flipped over, its wreckage pushed out of the way by the ground crews. And everywhere there were ambulances and stretchers and wounded men.
The survivors of the A-10 flight had landed nearby, and the pilots looked over their planes with the ground crews, fingering the bullet holes and noting other battle damage. Each pilot, some furtively and others openly, had taken a look down the now-shortened line of Thunderbolts, and wondered how Captain Spaulding would have told the pilots’ families …
In the cold, but sunny Spanish skies overhead, the six F-16s flew in a tight formation over the air base.
First three
of the fighters peeled off and landed, then the second group mimicked the maneuver. Although in light of then-decisive victory against the Soviet task force, tradition may have dictated a victory roll or two, neither Hunter nor the other pilots felt this was the time or the place. They had witnessed not just a battle but a disaster in which thousands lost their lives. As such, they had no desire for grandstanding.
Hunter set his plane down last and taxied over to where the rest of his squadron was parked. As he shut down the engine and popped the canopy, the ground crews began their work, chocking the wheels and helping him unstrap.
He climbed out onto the wing and then down to meet the rest of the squadron.
For the first time, they all shook hands and formally introduced themselves. Crider, DuPont, Christman, Rico, and Samuels. They had just been names to Hunter back at Langley. The “extras” in the unfolding war epic. Now, as he took in their faces, he felt as if they were his brothers.
After the planes were secured, the pilots made their way to the briefing room near the base’s command center. It was a small auditorium, rows of chairs with small desks attached to their right armrests assembled in front of a stage where a single lectern stood in front of a series of maps hanging from the wall.
The map on top was of Western Europe, with concentric rings traced in increasing diameters around the focal point, a small dot on the south coast of Spain labeled “Rota.” The rest of the maps showed the various points on the European continent where fighting had broken out.
Drained and exhausted, Hunter had shuffled into the darkened briefing room and slumped into the nearest chair. The last thing he thought he’d hear was a familiar voice …
“Hey, flyboy, don’t I know you?”
Hunter looked up to see JT Toomey and Ben Wa, Hunter’s old Thunderbird buddies, standing over him. “Jesus Christ …” was all Hunter could say, standing up to shake JTs hand.
“Welcome to sunny Spain, my man,” Toomey said, his ever-present sunglasses reflecting the room’s subdued lights. “You’ll like it here. It’s just like Nellis, except that the Vegas hookers were expensive and the casino booze was cheap; Here, the Spanish hookers are cheap and the booze is expensive …”
Final Storm Page 9