by Tom Wilson
Dark rings under her eyes betrayed her lack of rest. Something in her voice, in the purpose of her expression, made him believe she wanted more than friendly conversation.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tuesday, January 3rd, 1967—1000 Local, People's Army HQ, Hanoi, DRV
Xuan Nha
The tribunal of generals had been hastily called, and it was not a pleasant one. General Dung presided, barking questions and glowering whenever answers were given slowly.
Eight MiG interceptors had been destroyed. Seven in the air and another upon landing at Phuc Yen airfield. Two more had been badly shot up. None of the American air pirates had been destroyed or even damaged.
"Why did you send out MiG interceptors after the Phantoms, when you knew they were so dangerous?" Dung had been over the same questions several times.
The major in charge of the P-1 long-range radar at Phuc Yen said the VPAAF had requested intercept information. His controllers had seen the aircraft ingressing, flying the same altitudes and airspeeds as Thunder planes. Following Col Thao Phong's directions, they had radioed the information to the interceptor units at Phuc Yen, Hoa Lac, and Kep. The radar controllers had then directed the MiG's toward the invaders using normal procedures.
Dung was stone-faced. He waved the major from the room and turned to Xuan Nha. "Why were so few guided rockets fired at the Phantoms?"
It was Xuan's turn in the hot seat. He stood straight as a rod and spoke cautiously. "The equipment and weapons of the mobile rocket battalions were in need of repair and maintenance. After coordinating with Colonel Phong, I directed the mobile battalions to shut down and perform all necessary repairs. That left us with only the Hanoi and Haiphong area batteries, and the Phantoms stayed well out of their range."
General Dung's eyes glittered with animation. "Under whose authority was this done?"
"My own, comrade General." He had fully coordinated the stand-down with General Luc, but to say so would be inappropriate.
Dung nodded abruptly, without the slightest sign that he was willing to excuse him. "So you left the interceptors to their fate. That was quite presumptuous of you, Colonel."
There was nothing for Xuan Nha to say. Dung motioned angrily as he sat down. Dung turned back to Col Thao Phong. "Once again. Why were so many of our interceptors destroyed?"
Thao stood quickly. "By the time our interceptors could tell that the attackers were not Thunder planes with bombs, but Phantoms with only missiles, they had seen many of us, comrade General."
"And your pilots could not get away?" A sneer in the tone.
"No, comrade General. It was a dishonorable and cowardly trick the Americans played."
Dung snorted. "How many of our pilots were lost?" He knew, of course.
"Four killed. Two injured. The rest are well."
"Good pilots?"
"Major Tan was one of our finest, another was a North Korean adviser pilot. The rest are easily replaceable."
"As you are, Colonel?" General Dung waited for the pilot colonel to pass his own sentence.
Thao Phong slumped slowly, looking resigned and weary. "Yes, comrade General."
General Dung coldly nodded to General Tho, commander of the VPAAF, who sat at his elbow.
Thao Phong drew a short breath of anticipation.
"You will return to your former unit at Phuc Yen," said General Tho, "and assume Major Tan's duties." He rudely held out a hand. "Your epaulets."
Thao Phong's eyes were impassive and militarily correct, but his fingers trembled as he handed the epaulets to General Tho.
"You were promoted too quickly, before you proved yourself in the defense of the homeland. I must suffer for that poor decision, although I must say I had misgivings about the promotion from the first. Now you will lead the interceptors into the fight. Perhaps that will teach you to properly coordinate future decisions with your superiors."
The People's Army Air Force general looked contemptuously at Thao Phong, even though all in the room knew that Tho had enthusiastically endorsed the request to send the MiG interceptors out to fight alone.
"Leave us, Major Thao Phong," he said, with a disdainful flick of his wrist. The VPAAF's shame was expunged. A scapegoat had been blamed, dishonored, and demoted.
General Luc, Xuan Nha's superior officer, looked on with interest, obviously waiting for a similar nod from General Dung so he could deal with his own colonel. Colonel Trung, Xuan's former superior, sat at General Luc's side wearing a satisfied expression.
Dung's look made Xuan feel exceedingly uncomfortable.
"This Wisdom thing you are building. A complex of highly sophisticated radars?"
"Yes, comrade General."
"Is it the reason your rocket sites were not prepared to fire?"
Xuan Nha hesitated, trying with difficulty to organize his thoughts.
"Well?" Dung's voice was loud.
"It is one of the reasons, comrade General."
Dung leaned toward him. "Tell me this, Xuan Nha, when Wisdom is completed, will it stop such things as happened yesterday from happening again?"
Xuan's voice emerged in an alien, pleading tone. "We will be able to work better with all our forces, not just with interceptors, rockets, or artillery. At the present we must assign the air to one or another. With Wisdom, we will work with them all."
"Is that an answer?"
"It will ensure that such things do not happen again, comrade General."
Dung looked at him, the animated eyes still angry. He turned suddenly to General Luc. "For the present, let him proceed with Wisdom."
Luc nodded respectfully.
Dung returned to Xuan Nha. "If we do not see results very shortly, we will know you personally have failed."
Xuan's heart pounded.
"You do not have long."
"A few weeks is all I will need," he tried to reason.
General Dung grunted disdainfully, as if that was out of the question and Xuan Nha was no longer worth listening to.
The generals rose together and filed stiffly from the room. Colonel Trung followed without a backward look at his former subordinate.
As he walked back across the huge parade ground toward the VPAND building, Xuan stumbled twice but recovered gracelessly. He could cope with battle, even with the certainty of impending death. Without his self-esteem, though, what would be left of a man such as he?
Xuan saw himself standing before the generals in disgrace, as Thao Phong had been forced to do, and he shuddered. Like warriors of all times and all lands, honor, courage, and pride of achievement had come to mean everything. The thought of being scorned by his men and fellow officers was a specter far worse than anything else he could imagine.
Fear churned within the pit of his stomach. There was so little time! The Wisdom complex was his only chance of salvation, but it would be weeks before it could be completed. If only . . .
Could it be hurried? He must drive his men, even the Russians, to work faster.
03/1500L—Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Benny Lewis
The Weasel crews met at the pig squadron to listen to Ries and Janssen recount how things had gone at their Saigon meeting. Les was enthused, and within a few minutes he had the others excited.
The atmosphere was upbeat.
Bear Stewart was still in Bangkok, but Benny wished he was here. If he could observe Les Ries when the pressure was off, perhaps he'd drop some of his criticisms.
Ries and Janssen alternately described the meeting. "General Roman didn't show up until the last day, and that was only to look good and pass out medals. The meeting was General Moss's own show."
Roman was the big cheese for all the Pacific Air Forces. Moss, commander of Seventh Air Force, headquartered in Saigon, had the responsibility of running the air war. The lines of authority between the two were sometimes vaguely drawn, with the resulting friction felt down to wing level. Roman was a four-star and Moss was a three-star, but the guys preferred Moss. Although he
acted like he shit sacred pellets, at least his background had been in fighters. All Roman knew or cared much about were his B-52's and bomber pilots. On the other hand, Moss knew fighters and didn't make bones about distrusting bomber people.
"General Moss seemed interested," interjected Janssen. "He listened hard, said that by God something's got to be done about the buildup of defenses."
Ries resumed. "The air-to-air guys were up first. They started off with an intelligence briefing that showed some of the MiG's had been flown out to southern China where all the new MiG's from Russia were being outfitted. The spooks had intercepted radio traffic saying one hell of a lot of MiG's would be flown in by Tuesday morning. There was a big F-4 delegation there from Ubon. They gave their pitches about flying the flight profiles of Thuds with their Phantoms to fool the gomers, and got approval from General Moss. Then they went to work planning the MiG sweep."
"They done good," said Pudge Holden, "for a bunch of ham-first Phantom drivers."
A generous amount of good-natured ribbing was normal between F-4 Phantom pilots and F-105 Thunderchief jocks. Yet the F-4 pilots respected the Thud pilots for their guts and tenacity, and more than one F-105 pilot wished he could be fighting MiG's in the more maneuverable F-4's.
Pudge asked, "They got theirs, now how about ours? Are they going to turn us loose on the SAMs?"
"I'll get to that," said Ries, waving a hand.
"You damn betcha they're going to," said Janssen, unable to hold it in.
Ries waved his bear into silence. "I gave my briefing on the second afternoon. Told 'em we had to do something about the defenses besides acting like targets for SAMs."
"What did the Weasels from Korat have to say?" asked Benny.
"They were supportive." Ries turned to Janssen. "Didn't you think so?"
Janssen agreed. "They were a lot more cautious in their approach, but they agreed in principle. Their main thrust was that the strike force should start flying in larger formations to concentrate the jamming power from the ECM pods."
The bears started mumbling among themselves. Some liked the ECM jamming pods, but grumbled that the power output was too low to be really effective. Others said the jamming just screwed up the radar detection gear so you couldn't tell when a SAM was launched at you.
Dan Janssen shook his head. "At Korat they've got more faith in pods than we do. They're even saying if everyone's got their jamming pods turned on, you don't care if they launch SAMs because they can't hit you. They want the strike force to fly up higher, straight and level. No jinking or moving around because that screws up the jamming."
"What did their wing commander say about that?" asked Lyle Watson.
"I think he may go along with it. Said they had to do something better than they're doing now to reduce losses."
"What did B. J. Parker say?"
"He said Takhli is going to wait and see the results from the tests they're running back in the States. They're supposed to finish flight-testing at Nellis sometime this month."
"What about your briefing, Les?" asked Pudge.
"I told them the Takhli Weasels want a campaign to take out the radars and SAM sites in a methodical fashion and gave our pitch. I believe General Moss was in favor, especially when the Weasels from Korat agreed it was a good idea."
"Did he give us a thumbs-up?" asked Pudge.
"Not in so many words. We had to completely change his mindset. I think we got about as good as we could expect."
"Yeah," said Janssen. "When we walked in there the general was about to rule that since the Weasels are critical resources, and there are so few of us, we can't fly except on the important JCS strikes. No more support of road recce in the southern panhandle or pack five. No easy counters. Only strike support, and mainly in pack six."
"Shee-it," said Shaky Anderson. "No one could survive that kind of pressure. It would take a year to get a hundred missions, and come to think of it, no one would ever get a hundred missions."
"No Takhli Weasel crew's survived a hundred missions yet," complained Lyle Watson. "Sounds like the general wants to keep it that way."
"We talked him out of that," said Ries. "At the end of my briefing, I told him that regardless of whether he approved the SAM campaign, we had to have a few easy missions to train the new guys and work out tactics."
The group vociferously agreed.
"Yeah," said Shaky. "I want about a hundred easy training missions."
Laughter.
"General Moss thanked us for our insights," said Ries.
"After Les's briefing he got up and shook our hands," said Janssen. "Said it was great to have the word direct from the field."
"How about the campaign to eliminate the SAMs?" asked Benny.
"When I was done, Moss had his staff guys take our briefing viewgraphs. Told them to do a study of how we can all work together to make it happen. A lieutenant colonel named Gates who said he's a friend of Bear Stewart's expects they'll call us back in a couple of weeks to go over the plan."
They all talked about the briefing, asked questions of Ries and Janssen, and were generally happy about the way things had gone.
Cpt. Dave Persons spoke up. "What'd I hear about a party?"
"Not a party," said Janssen. "Two parties on New Year's Eve, one after the other."
"President Nguyen Cao Ky showed up at the New Year's party at the club and handed out Vietnamese service medals," explained Ries. "Then he invited us to the bash at the palace."
"A country run by a thirty-year-old fighter pilot can't be all bad," said Pudge Holden.
"He's a little guy," said Dan Janssen. "His wife's a good-looking broad, but she wasn't at the party long. Took off real quick after saying something to Nguyen. I think she caught Swede Swendler looking at her with lust in his eyes."
Laughter.
"Hell," said Pudge, "Swede probably thought she was just another LBFM."
LBFM was a slang term given the local bar girls. Little brown fucking machines.
Pudge Holden and Lyle Watson came over to Benny when the meeting started to break up. Benny said he was pleased with the results, but Pudge withheld judgment. "I'm sure Les gave a good briefing," he said, "but I've worked at headquarters before. Unless you get a general's approval right there when you're nose to nose with him, you've got a problem."
"You don't think we'll get approval?"
"I'd say you were right before. We should be working up our own tactics. No matter what General Moss says, he's going to trust his own staff officers more than anyone out here at the bases. Also, the Wild Weasels are beginning to capture imaginations and get attention from the Pentagon on down. Too much attention means too many interested generals."
They watched the Weasel crews congratulating Ries and Dan.
After thinking about it, Benny agreed with Pudge. "Let's just keep working on our tactics," he finally said, "and assume we're going to have to do it all ourselves."
03/1700L—People's Army HQ, Hanoi, DRV
Nicolaj Gregarian
The Russian stood with Nha before the wall map of the Bac Can area, looking at the pin-flags. Different flags showed the locations for each system and building: the P-50 long-range radar, the communications building, the adjacent command-and-control center, the P-2 acquisition radar, the experimental, electro-optic/electronic rocket system, and the two SON-9b artillery radars. Two more showed barracks areas, one for foreign advisers and visitors, the other for the Vietnamese specialists and technicians.
When Nicolaj had received the summons, he'd been at the Russian compound holding technical discussions with a group of important Soviet civilians. Scientists and systems engineers from the advanced rocket-design group at Kuybyshev. Interested in the experiment taking shape around the innocuous village of Bac Can. So prestigious a group that Soviet diplomats worldwide had been ordered to somehow get the Americans to delay resumption of bombing until the group was safely in place at Wisdom. Their Vietnamese hosts must be wondering why they w
ere receiving such vigorous diplomatic support. They would be equally confused when such support was withdrawn later in January, for the group then wished to observe Wisdom in operation under actual combat conditions.
Nicolaj had been concerned when Polkovnik Feodor Dimetriev had spoken to him earlier about the generals' tribunal, but he hadn't suspected the extent of the impact upon Xuan Nha. Any sign of anxiety was out of character for the short Annamese polkovnik, but Nha was so nervous, pacing and jumping at the slightest movement, that Gregarian wondered about his mental health.
Gregarian nodded a friendly greeting as Mayor Nguy entered the office. Nha glanced at Nguy noncommittally, although a moment before he'd shouted to Serzhant Van Ng that he wanted him. Shouting was not Nha's normal way. Neither was ignoring Mayor Nguy, the man he had entrusted with their project.
"Status?" Xuan Nha breathed, still staring at the map.
"The P-50 radar has been inventoried and is ready for installation," Gregarian said. "Site alterations and construction of the buildings are almost completed. Next come site inspection, installation of equipment, bore-siting, and testing. Then completion of the communications net and final systems testing, and the deployment of the dummy radars that will make it impossible for the Americans to locate the P-50 with their electronic systems."
Xuan Nha stared at Nguy. "You are ready?"
Mayor Nguy was to depart for Bac Can with a contingent of fifty combat engineering personnel drawn from a coastal defense project at Haiphong. More than 200 other civil engineers, taken from other projects, were already in place.
Nguy nodded. "We shall be there in five hours. The road is still very good."
Although the tribunal in Dung's private meeting room had been conducted secretly, Polkovnik Dimetriev had been told, and in turn he'd told Gregarian. He described the demotion and disgrace of Thao Phong, adding that Xuan Nha's own time clock was running and that he'd been given little time to obtain results.
There was no way for the Soviet advisers to help Xuan Nha with his personal problem. The Vietnamese were vulnerable to certain pressures, due to the vast military support from the Soviet Union, but the Vietnamese were adamant that they retain control of their people. In the past they had not hesitated to discipline other technical personnel. Xuan Nha might be no exception.