“Ask those officers to join me in my cabin,” the admiral said, turning from the window. “See if you can recover his hat for him.” Then he walked toward the ladder to his cabin. He stopped. “Tony, I’ll probably send for you,” he said, and then he left the bridge.
The captain looked out the window again and saw a sailor run out to the flight deck officer apparently with the message to bring the army officer’s green beret to the admiral’s cabin. The flight deck officer gestured to one of the sailors, who reached inside the Grumman and came out with two sets of web harness.
The admiral rose to his feet as the two officers entered his cabin. The first thing he thought was that they were not very military looking. They both needed shaves, and their uniforms were mussed. The little one had a .45 in a shoulder holster. The big one had what was unmistakably the butt of a German Luger sticking out of a nonstandard holster on his web belt. A brass plaque had been welded to the GI buckle. It read GOTT MIT UNS. Both had the eagle of a colonel, embroidered in black, on their collar points, and both, incongruously, carried attaché cases. The admiral saw the cases were attached to stainless steel cords running up their sleeves.
“Welcome aboard the Forrestal, gentlemen,” the admiral said.
They both saluted, somewhat discomfiting the admiral. The Naval service does not render the hand salute indoors.
“Thank you very much, Admiral,” the little one said. “My name is Felter. This is Colonel Lowell.”
Without being invited to do so, Felter sat down on the couch, laid the attaché case on the coffee table, and worked its combination lock. He took out a sealed envelope and handed it to the admiral.
“My orders, Admiral,” he said.
The admiral tore it open. There was a single sheet of paper inside, crisp white paper on which was imprinted THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. The admiral read it.
“I’m at your orders, sir,” he said. “May I suggest that I send for the captain?”
“I think that would be a good idea, sir,” Felter said.
“Admiral,” the taller one said. “Do you suppose I could have some of that coffee?”
“By all means, Colonel. Forgive me,” the admiral said. He picked up the silver pot and poured the coffee himself.
A Marine guard appeared with the lost green beret. On his heels came the captain. The admiral first handed the captain the original message (the one he had folded and put in his pocket) and then the letter bearing the signature of the President of the United States.
“May I inquire, Colonel,” the captain asked, “the nature of Operation Monte Cristo?”
“We’re going to go get the guys out of the Hanoi Hilton, Captain,” Craig Lowell said.
“I heard that was going to be a Marine landing,” the admiral said.
“Let’s hope,” Felter said, “that Hanoi thinks the same thing.”
(Two)
Fifty minutes after the Grumman was jerked to a stop on the deck of the Forrestal, two Army Vertol Chinook helicopters appeared off her stern no more than three hundred feet off the sea. Flying no further than one hundred feet apart, they approached the flight deck cautiously, creeping over the trailing edge. Their airspeed indicators showed thirty-five knots. But since the Forrestal was headed into a ten-knot wind while she made twenty knots, the helicopters were actually making five knots relative to her landing deck.
Almost at the same time, they flared and touched down. Immediately, crewmen rushed to them, and a half dozen Marines in khakis ran out from a hatch in the superstructure and formed a curved rank at the rear doors of the machines. The scream of the rotor brake could be heard over the dying whine of the engines.
A line of soldiers—all identically attired in jungle fatigues and green berets—came smoothly but not hastily down the lowered rear doors of the large, twin-rotored Chinooks. In the lowered position the doors formed ramps. The Marines guided the soldiers toward a hatch in the Forrestal’s superstructure.
Before the last Green Beret’s were out of the Chinooks, a crew chief, kicking his toe into spring-loaded step covers, climbed on top of each machine, went to rotor heads, applied a wrench, and caused the blade to fold back against the top of the fuselage. Then he turned the rotor head so as to reach the other blades.
A cluster of twenty sailors pushed each helicopter forward to the elevator, while the crew chiefs carefully made their way back on top of the fuselage to fold the rear rotor blades.
By the time both helicopters were on the elevator, two more Chinooks were landing.
The process was repeated four times. After the eight Chinooks had reached the hangar deck, a ninth helicopter appeared, an Air Force Sikorsky, the one known as the Jolly Green Giant. When she touched down, the ground handling crew pushed her immediately behind the superstructure, and lashed her to the deck.
Inside the superstructure, the Green Berets descended into the bowels of the Forrestal—down an escalator, then stairwells and through passageways until they reached an area bearing a legend: CHIEF PETTY OFFICERS’ QUARTERS—EMERGENCY TRANSIT ONLY.
There was some confusion here and some crowding. The word had been passed to all chief petty officers billeted there to immediately report to their quarters. The master at arms, the senior chief petty officer aboard, was there to inform a generally outraged Chief Petty Officer Corps that they were to go to their staterooms, get a fresh uniform and a change of linen, and report to the Petty Officers’ Mess, where their overnight billeting would be arranged. The Green Berets would be quartered in their billets.
“Because the fucking captain says so, Chief. Any other question?”
An Army full bull colonel was waiting for the Berets in the chiefs’ quarters. He was now dressed in Navy officer’s khakis, but he was still wearing the green beret.
He had the same message for all of them.
“There’s a supply room at the end of this hall. Draw a set of Navy fatigues and underwear. Then change into it. Take your dirty clothes back to the storeroom. The Navy’s going to wash everything. As soon as that’s done and you’ve had a shower, we’ll get you something to eat.”
The chiefs and the Green Berets examined one another as if looking at creatures from an alien stellar system.
“Where’d you guys come from?”
“The good fairy brought us.”
“Jesus, will you look at this? They’ve got fucking television.”
“I see you men have all been issued live ammunition.”
“Only the ones we’re sure are on our side, Chief.”
“Where the fuck is our gear?”
“On the C-5As. If you don’t get killed, they’ll get it for you.”
“When do we eat?”
“What the hell are you guys up to? How long are you going to be here?”
“We came to quell your mutiny.”
“What mutiny?”
“You mean you don’t have a mutiny? Shit, another wild goose chase.”
Eventually, the chiefs were all ushered out of their quarters and the passageways were crowded with muscular men—very few of whom were out of their twenties—in various stages of undress. The exhaust fans could not dispel all the steam from fifty shower heads running at once; the compartment became misty.
They found the Chief Petty Officers’ Mess.
“Jesus, I’m in the wrong service. Do you believe this chow?”
The menu was tomato juice, chicken noodle soup, steak to order, french-fried potatoes, stewed tomatoes, string beans, and cherry cobbler.
The milk was reconstituted.
“Hey, Colonel, what are you doing down here in steerage with the peasants?”
“Colonel Felter said I wasn’t allowed to eat with the Naval gentlemen.”
“How’s it going, Colonel?”
“Right on the dot so far.”
“Something will go wrong.”
(Three)
The helicopters crossed over the coast in a double V formation, two V’s of three Chinooks. The Jo
lly Green Giant brought up the rear. But as they passed the coast, it picked up speed until it was flying immediately beneath the first of the Chinook V’s.
The pilot of the first Chinook, at a nod from Colonel Lowell, pressed his microphone switch three times. He didn’t speak, but the activated transmitter caused a pop in the earphones of every pilot and copilot. The V formations immediately changed shape. The Chinook in front pulled ahead, and the Chinook just behind it closed on its tail. The remaining six Chinooks formed a diagonal line, one immediately behind and slightly above the other. The Jolly Green Giant picked up speed and took up a position behind the two Chinooks in the lead.
They were no more than 150 feet off the ground now, flying over rice paddies and thatch-roofed villages but below a line of hills (and thus below any known radar sites).
The prison compound appeared ahead around a curve. It was possible to see barbed wire suspended from concrete poles, and two guardhouses. Inside the compound was a six-sided building.
Colonel Lowell touched the microphone switch hanging from the headset microphone assembly on his head.
“Fire,” he said.
From four-foot-by-three-foot windows on each side of the lead Chinooks, what looked to be four ribbons of fire reached out to the ground. Each came from a six-barrel, electrically driven version of the Gatling gun. From each gun 168-grain tracer bullets—one hundred of them per second, six thousand rounds per minute—streaked to the ground at three thousand feet per second.
First the radio shack and then the two guard towers disappeared. They were literally disintegrated by thousands of bullets.
The Jolly Green Giant flared over the building, came to a midair hover, and then crashed straight down.
“He’s down, Colonel,” the Chinook pilot, Major William B. Franklin, reported matter-of-factly.
“Get us over the building, Bill,” Lowell ordered.
The Chinook made a sharp 180-degree turn and flew back over the building, hovering thirty feet over the roof of the building in the center of the compound. Nylon ropes snaked out the back of the Chinook. Then Chief Warrant Officer Stefan Wojinski hooked his D ring to the other rope and jumped after him.
They both landed heavily, lost their balance, and fell to their knees. Lowell’s “Green Beret” version of the M-16 (the M-16A3 had a shorter barrel and a folding stock, and was designed for use as a hand-held machine pistol rather than as a shoulder weapon) fell from his hands.
A North Vietnamese soldier, his Frank Buck–style pith helmet cockeyed on his head, suddenly appeared and sprayed the roof with his AK-47.
Lowell dived for the rooftop, bile in his mouth, reaching for the Luger at his side. The M-16A3 was out of reach. And if the NKA had taken Ski out with his first burst—which seemed likely—and unless he could get the Luger in action—which seemed unlikely—he was going to get it right here.
There was a single shot, sounding somewhat like a muffled shotgun, and a 70-mm grenade crossed the roof, struck the North Vietnamese soldier in the chest, then exploded.
The NKA soldier, his torso an ugly, bloody mess, fell backward onto the roof.
“Shit!” Wojinkski said, angrily. “That sonofabitch wasn’t supposed to be there.”
He broke his grenade launcher, and the fired 70-mm case flew out. He reloaded.
Wojinski looked down at Lowell.
“You all right, Duke?” he asked, concern in his voice.
“I’m all right,” Lowell said. “Thanks, Ski.”
“You better pick up your weapon,” Wojinski said, matter-of-factly.
Lowell found the M-16A3, fired a short burst to see that it was still working, and then stood up. The remaining Chinooks were coming in to land. He walked to the inner side of the roof and looked down into the courtyard and saw Colonel Tex Williams climbing out of the Green Giant.
So far, so good.
(Four)
According to the intelligence they had—which was admittedly sketchy at best—the command post of the Dak Tae prison compound was a frame building in the center of the six-sided building’s courtyard. It housed whatever administrative offices were required. The office of the commanding officer was supposedly on the second floor, and guard rooms and what were called “classrooms” were on the first.
Although the prison (formerly a mental institution) was itself only two stories high, it had been built by the French, and was taller than the interior building, which had been built later by the Vietnamese. Moreover, the interior building was flat-roofed. It had thus been possible for the Vietnamese to stretch a canvas awning from the rain gutter line of the exterior prison over the administrative building in the center. It was not sure whether this was to provide concealment, or shade. The answer was probably both.
The problem had been how to get rid of the damn thing. Gatling guns could have torn it to pieces in less than a minute. But it was dangerously close to the masonry cells of the prisoners, whose windows opened onto the courtyard. The bullets consequently would have ricocheted around the courtyard until they entered the open, barred windows of the cells. Once inside, they would have ricocheted around the cell walls.
Lowell, who was familiar with the effects of high-speed projecta ricocheting around the interior of a tank, had flatly ruled out the use of the Gatling guns. Putting mortar shells or even a two-hundred-pound aerial bomb through the canvas suited him no better.
The solution finally reached was to drop a helicopter onto the canvas. From a height of twenty feet, a helicopter of sufficient weight would break right through the canvas, the support structure (if there was any), and the roof of any frame building below these.
The available rotary-wing aircraft had been individually considered, and all but one was rejected: The Bell Huey was too small. The Chinook, which had dual rotors, was rejected because of its rotor sweep; it would not fit well into the available space. The Sikorsky Sky-Crane had at first seemed a likely choice. It would be unnecessary to expand the machine if a weight—carried as a sling load—could be dropped through the canvas. But the final choice had been the Sikorsky Jolly Green Giant. It could be loaded internally to a greater weight than the Sky-Crane could drop. Its mass was immediately beneath the single rotor head, and the rotor sweep fit neatly into the available space.
Two Jolly Greens were requisitioned. One had been expended during the dress rehearsal. The second expenditure had been accomplished just now.
As the two Chinooks with the Gatling guns circled back to drop people by rope onto the roof of the prison proper, two more Chinooks came in behind them, and hovered two feet off the ground on both sides of the entrance to the prison building.
Captain Geoffrey Craig, with a Remington Model 870 12-bore shotgun in his hands, was first out the rear door.
He ran for the prison entrance with thirty Green Berets jumping out and running after him.
As soon as the men were out, the Chinooks took off and moved several hundred yards away, behind a copse of trees.
Geoff Craig knew that one of two things was going to happen at the entrance. Either the doors would be locked—in which case three Special Forces men were each equipped with an adhesive-backed satchel charge and five-second fuse. Any of these would be sufficient to blow the double doors inward.
Or else Vietnamese troops inside would rush out to do battle.
To take care of that contingency, there were two Berets with M-70 grenade launchers and two more with 7.65-mm machine guns, 120-round belts of ammunition draped around their shoulders.
It didn’t happen that way of course.
The left of the double doors opened, and half a dozen North Vietnamese soldiers rushed out. Then somebody inside concluded that discretion was the best part of valor, and hurriedly closed the door.
Geoff fired the shotgun as fast as he could at the soldiers outside. The shotgun was loaded with XX shotshells, each shell containing twelve lead pellets about the size and weight of the bullet in a .32 ACP pistol bullet.
The hai
r at the base of his neck curled as the Green Berets fired around him, the hissing crack of 5.56-mm M-16 rounds; the sharper, deeper crack of 7.62 NATO rounds; and the sort of a whistling thump of the 70-mm grenade throwers.
The North Vietnamese went down quickly, but not before they had taken out three Green Berets.
Geoff dug in the pockets of his ripstop camouflage nylons for more shells. At the same time he glanced at the downed Berets. Experience told him they were dead. Then his eye caught a fired shotshell on the ground to his left. The way it had landed he could read “DEER & BEAR LOAD” in gold letters. As he loaded the last shotshell, he looked at the building, and then up at the roofline.
Craig Lowell, carrying a cut-down M-16 barrel up in the crook of his elbow, was looking down at them.
Geoff returned his attention to what was going on in front of him.
In very much the same position a quail hunter assumes when his dogs have gone on a point, two of the Berets carrying grenade launchers walked up to him, put the stocks to their shoulders, and carefully aimed the launchers at the doors. There was a muted, shotgun-like noise, and a half moment later, the sound of the 70-mm grenades going off.
The left door fell inward.
There followed sustained bursts from two M-60 machine guns, to sweep the corridor beyond. The Berets reloaded the grenade launchers as they walked, unhurriedly, to the door. Then they fired another round into the corridor.
Geoff hoped that Tex Williams would not be in the line of fire. When the Berets with machine guns trotted to the door, and peeked inside, Geoff ran after them.
The corridor inside held fifteen dead North Vietnamese. Growing puddles of blood were on the stone floor. At the far end of the corridor was another set of double doors opening onto the interior courtyard.
Though they had been blown off their hinges by the 70-mm grenades, they were not down. And then one of the doors moved.
The machine-gunners raised their weapon muzzles.
The Generals Page 36