by Tom Wilson
Sloppy gagged a few times more, then sighed. "I'll be best man," he announced out of the blue.
"Benny's going to be best man. You can be second best man."
Sloppy blurted, "I'm not second-best at anything," then dry-heaved.
The Bear spat for a while, then sucked in a breath and straightened. He frowned at his friend, feeling very drunk but much better. "I've also got something awful heavy to tell Benny, and maybe then he's not going to want to have anything to do with me." He shook his head sadly.
"What's that?"
The Bear just kept shaking his head. "Nothing good. Nothing good at all."
Sloppy got the hiccups, and the Bear pounded on his back until they finally went away and Sloppy was pleading for him to stop.
They went back inside. The samlor drivers were laughing at them. "Numbah one!" the ugly one said again.
"Thai numbah one," said the Bear.
"Mellican numbah one," said Ugly. He grinned, which made him uglier, took something from around his neck, and somberly handed it to the Bear. "Mellican numbah one." He motioned with his hand and made a roaring sound like a jet engine.
It was a crude, hand-fashioned stone Buddha, with a thin copper filigree wire carefully wrapped around it. A prized possession of an incredibly poor but devout man.
The Bear made a show of removing his Saint Christopher's medal and giving it to the ravaged samlor driver. "Thai numbah one," he said, meaning it.
They had one last beer and whiskey chaser.
They retrieved their drivers, went back outside, and pedaled back toward the strip. It was only ten minutes before curfew time. At two in the morning the Thais shut everything down, the idea being that only Communist terrorists would be on the streets thereafter.
The air felt good on the Bear's face as he pedaled.
They stopped at the Takhli Villa just as the bartender was locking the door to observe curfew. They retrieved Johnny Radkovich, who had passed out at his table. His girl was long gone and his wallet free of cash. Ignoring the objections of the bartender that he owed for a drink, the Bear steered Radkovich out, with Sloppy supporting the lieutenant's other shoulder.
They dumped Radkovich into the seat beside the Bear's driver, got back on, and started pedaling toward the base.
They saw the headlights of a police patrol and huddled at the side of the road to hide, looking away like ostriches would. They continued on when the patrol had passed.
When they got to the base gate they gave the samlor drivers five bucks apiece, which was more than they would normally earn in a week, and ignored the complaints of the air policemen as they let them in. Johnny Radkovich came awake and grew belligerent with the cops, but the Bear cooled him down and he slipped back into his comatose state.
They walked the mile to the Ponderosa, supporting Radkovich a couple of times when he tried to lie down to sleep on the side of the road. When they got there, they dropped Johnny onto his bunk. The Bear went to bed, and Sloppy, knowing he'd never be able to find his way to his hootch in his condition, spent the remainder of the night on the dayroom couch.
12/1300L—357th TFS, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Benny Lewis
"It's damned important we start taking out the SAM sites, Pudge. We can't get to the command-and-control radar, so we've got to concentrate on protecting the strike force. The best possible way to do that is to knock out the SAM site that's closest to the target area."
Pudge agreed. "Maybe they'll start to use more caution about firing missiles if they think we're going to pounce on their asses every time they do."
Benny was with Pudge Holden in the squadron pilot's lounge, verbally polishing the new tactic to deal with the SAMs. The same one that had worked with such disastrous results on the day Ries and Shaky Anderson had tried it.
Rule one, they decided, was not to use the tactic unless both Weasel crews had good working receivers. Rule two was to confirm there were SAM Fansong radars on the air, and that it was not going to be an all-MiG day. Rule three was that even though they were separated, the elements must support one another.
Benny said, "Let's say I'm lead and you're number three. After we cross the Red River, you swing out about a mile off my left wing, on the side away from the threat. We fly across the valley like that. Then as we approach the target area, I call the split and you swing out even farther, okay?"
"Yeah. I move out a couple more miles so we got the target between us."
"You've got to be out even farther. Maybe seven or eight miles. Far enough that we look like separate flights on the SAM radars. We approach, keeping the target area defenses between us. Then the target area SAM shoots at one or the other of us, and that guy takes it down. The other guy watches the smoke and dust from the SAM launch and goes in and bombs the site."
"And the first guy dodges the SAMs, then pulls back up, and covers the guy bombing the site."
"You got it. But before we do something hairy like we're talking about, I want to make damn sure we've practiced and got it down right."
The next morning, they'd just been told, the single-seat strike birds would all be flying down near the DMZ along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, trying to put a stopper on the massive influx of supplies and troops that had started pouring from Hanoi to South Vietnam during the bombing halt. The Weasels would patrol the area between the interdiction targets and the threats to the north.
Pudge left to return to his hootch, and Benny found the Bear at the duty counter. As they walked toward the club for lunch, the Bear was quiet. He had lost much of the morose manner he'd displayed during the previous week.
"I'm getting married," he said as they walked.
"So I heard from Liz."
The Bear looked surprised. "You two still writing regular?"
"She's been helpful, handling the home front and all."
"We'll try to hold the wedding on the fifth of next month," said the Bear. "That's a Saturday. I called the embassy in Bangkok and reserved their chapel."
Benny nodded, head down as they walked, thinking about it.
"Will you be best man?"
"You sure you want to do this?"
"I told Lyle Watson, and he said the same thing. What the hell is this, Mother the Bear Week?"
"Remember when you told me about your other marriage, and how you weren't ever going to do it again?"
"This time it's different."
"I'll say. You knew your first wife before you married her."
The Bear sighed. "I want a lecture, I'll go to Father O'Brien."
"Catholic wedding?"
"Julie's a Methodist, and I don't feel like signing anything saying we've gotta raise our kids Catholic. Father O'Brien won't marry us, but he'll give us his private blessing. We'll get married by a Protestant minister."
"We'd better ask Colonel Mack for the time off."
"Then you'll do it?"
"Of course. I just think you're rushing things."
"I've changed my perspective some. Julie's gonna be a good wife."
Benny felt a strange lump in the pit of his stomach. "She's young."
"She's pretty, smart, socially aware, and knows what she wants. I'm hooked."
"Can't it wait until we finish our hundred missions?"
"She's also pregnant. You tell anyone I said that and I'll break your knees."
Benny felt inexplicably angry at the Bear and hurt about something else he couldn't quite define. He cleared his throat finally. "She could get an abortion."
"Fuck that. It's our kid. You didn't know, but she was a virgin when we met. That's also something private."
The lump in Benny's stomach pained him now. "Then I guess you better get married."
The cool tone got the Bear's attention. Benny hadn't meant for that to happen. It was just the thought of Julie being a virgin, and now pregnant. He wondered why he cared so much, and why the lump wouldn't go away.
"We gotta talk about something else, Benny." The Bear looked grim.
/> "Go ahead." The cool tone again, even though he hadn't wanted it there.
Max Foley yelled from in back of them, hurrying to join them.
"If you guys are going to lunch, I'll join you."
Benny told him about the tactic he and Pudge Holden had been coming up with to use against SAM sites in the target area.
Max grinned at him. "I think the best way to handle the SAMs is from as far away as I can get, but I guess you guys look at it different."
Just before they entered the club doors, Benny remembered that the Bear had wanted to tell him something and asked him what it was.
The Bear glanced at Max thoughtfully, then finally shook his head. "Forgot. Couldn't have been anything important."
13/1315L—Vinh, Route Pack Two, North Vietnam
Benny Lewis
The frag order directed them to protect strike flights bombing the trails and mountain passes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, staying between the bomb droppers on the trail and the threats to the north. The Weasel sortie was precautionary only, so they flew in a two-ship flight. The strike aircraft that normally flew their wing were added to the numbers of aircraft trying to put a stopper in the heavy flow of supplies.
There were small arms and visually aimed artillery on the trail, but Wild Weasels were designed to counter sophisticated radar threats, and none of those had yet been encountered there.
After making a single pass through Mu Gia Pass and determining there indeed were no radar-directed threats there, they wandered northward to work on the tactic. They left the southern panhandle and ventured up to pack two, toward Vinh.
Benny wanted to be able to practice on some sort of enemy radar, and hoped the Vinh commander would oblige them by bringing up a Firecan AAA radar or two. It was hoping for too much to imagine he might try a SAM on them.
They progressed northward, Benny leading and Pudge flying line abreast about a mile out to his left. Neither had a wingman, so they had to simulate that part.
They tried some line-abreast maneuvering to limber up on.
Pudge turned first, ninety degrees starboard, standard hard-rate-turn. Benny waited for ten seconds and turned. When he rolled out, Pudge was a mile out to his right now, and they were still line abreast.
"That worked slick," said the Bear.
"Yeah."
They tried an in-place one-eighty, both aircraft wheeling about rapidly toward the opposite direction. They rolled out, and Pudge was now on Benny's port side, still a mile out.
Another starboard turn, Pudge turning first, Benny extending. A little ragged, but after some adjusting, it turned out okay. Again they were headed for Vinh, but now Pudge was on his right.
"What you guys trying to do, get the backseaters to puke?" asked the Bear.
"Not a bad idea," retorted Benny. "Any radar signals on the air?"
"The Barlock search radar up north, but the signal looks funny, Benny. The azimuth is jittering, shows a different heading each time it sweeps. They must've put in dummy transmitters. The Soviets do that when they're trying to screw us up. Gonna be a lot harder for anyone to home in on the radar signal like Ries and Janssen tried."
"Well, that rules that idea out."
"Yeah. I'm also getting a peep every now and then from one of the Vinh gun radars. I think they're tweaking it up or something. It'll probably come on stronger when we get closer."
"Do they know we're here?" asked Benny.
"Oh yeah. There's a Spoonrest acquisition radar at Vinh that we can't pick up on the Weasel gear. I figure that's one reason the Vinh commander is so damned good, because he coordinates all his information and has figured out what we've got. Also, we're within the range of the Barlock, and like I told you, they're all talking together now."
"You're sure they get the Barlock information this far south?"
"Benny, you do the flying and I'll do the thinking, okay?"
Benny grinned into his mask. They were beginning to work smoothly together, like a well-oiled machine, knowing what the other was thinking with a minimum of verbalizing.
A Firecan radar rattled in his earphones, and a two-ringer strobe danced on Benny's attack scope.
"Gun at twelve," said the Bear. "No threat yet."
"Red Dog two, we've got a tracking gun at twelve o'clock," Benny called to Pudge.
"Red Dog two confirms, he's at our ten o'clock," called Pudge Holden.
The Bear and Sloppy had insisted that the first tracking radar contact must be confirmed between the two element leads, to show the Weasel equipment was working in both aircraft, before they split the flight. The idea was to split at twenty miles, well before they reached the eleven-nautical-mile optimum firing range of the target area SAMs. The Bear said SAM Fansong radar scopes had range marks etched in meters, and that Soviet doctrine said to fire missiles when targets were inbound, at twenty kilometers. That was between ten and eleven nautical miles. No one asked how the Bear knew about the etch marks on Russian radars.
"We're about twenty-five miles out," said the Bear.
"Yeah," said Benny. "That's what I've got, too."
When Benny figured they were at twenty miles, he radioed, "Red Dog two, extend," jogging the aircraft left.
"Shit," mumbled the Bear, complaining about the hard turn. He never complained when they were maneuvering to dodge missiles or attack a target, only when they were lollygagging around the sky, or practicing. "Excuse me," he said then, remembering he'd cursed.
"Red Dog lead," came Pudge's radio call, strained under the g-forces of his turn, "we got a second gun on the air."
"He's right," said the Bear, still grumbling.
"Red Dog lead confirms," called Benny.
They rolled out back in the direction of Vinh. Benny could see the mouth of the river, the hills against which the city of Vinh was built, and the coast immediately beyond.
Pudge Holden would also be ingressing toward Vinh, far out to his right.
Both aircraft crossed over Vinh, collecting a smattering of 37mm fire.
They wheeled around the sky, talking to one another and trying to improve their coordination.
The AAA radars were well coordinated, blinking on and off every twenty seconds—the average flight time of a Shrike missile—but they seemed confused in selecting a target. First they would track Benny, then when he banked away, they would track Pudge Holden. Then Benny would reverse back inbound and they would slew between the two targets.
"You got them nervous," muttered the Bear. "They don't know how to handle two Weasels trying to pounce on their ass."
Benny lined up on a radar and fired a Shrike just as it came on the air, but the radar blinked off in time and the Bear grumbled that the missile had missed. They heard Red Dog two also miss with a Shrike.
Benny thought about what the gomers were doing then, trying to put himself in their place, like the Bear said. He lined up with the most distant Firecan, which shortly went off the air. The other one came on to track Pudge Holden. Benny stayed lined up, waited ten seconds, watching the second hand of the cockpit clock, then pickled and the Shrike rushed off the pylon, trailing its wisp of rocket smoke. Benny turned away.
"What the hell were you shooting at?" complained the Bear, for there was no radar signal there.
Then the gun radar came back on the air, tracking them. Five seconds later the strobe disappeared.
"I'll be damned," said the Bear.
"You think the Shrike got it?" asked Benny.
"I know it did. I can tell by the way the signal drops off the air when the missile hits the antenna. Damn." The Bear sounded impressed.
Benny laughed. "I played his game. We've got them confused, Bear. They don't know which way to look with two separate Weasels looking down their throat."
Benny and Pudge rejoined south of the city, and they practiced with the line-abreast formation again.
They flew back to Mu Gia Pass. There they were assigned a FAC, flying around in his O-1 Bird Dog spotter plane, and on his cue,
dropped their bombs on a suspected concentration of troops under a canopy of trees. A few rounds of 37mm fire popped ineffectively below them, and the Bear ridiculed the inaccuracy of the gomer guns.
"For us it isn't much," said Benny, "but how'd you like to be in that little Bird Dog."
"No thanks."
They were very low on fuel, and sighed with relief when they hooked up behind the KC-135 tanker and began to receive precious fuel.
"You guys ready with your new tactic?" asked the Bear before they landed.
"Yeah," said Benny, "but we're going to keep practicing."
For more than a week they doggedly executed the simple split tactic as the strike force continued to be fragged against the targets on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Even though it became humdrum and boring, they continued, because they wanted everything to be second nature by the time they went back up north to pack six.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Saturday, February 25th—1130 Local, Command Post, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Colonel Mack
Mack had been called to the meeting in the command post briefing room with the deputy commander for operations, deputy commander for maintenance, the wing ops staff, and the other two squadron commanders. The subject was not announced. They had just been told to show up.
At precisely eleven-thirty, Colonel Parker took the podium, flashed the ten-dollar grin he usually reserved for visiting generals, and began, a tremor of emotion thick in his voice. "We've very possibly got a very important target."
B.J.'s hands clutched the podium as he explained. Washington had been incensed at the way the North Vietnamese had taken advantage of the Tet cease-fire. The president had angrily requested that CINCPAC, the four-star admiral based in Hawaii, suggest a target that would, if destroyed, gain the undivided attention of the North Vietnamese. CINCPAC's first choices had been important government targets in Hanoi, but backchannel reports said they had been rejected due to the president's advisers' fears the Chinese might become sufficiently angered and enter the war if their diplomats were subjected to bombing.
"His second choice was the Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Works, located here," Parker pointed at a location just east of Thud Ridge, "precisely thirty-five nautical miles north of the center of Hanoi. Indications are that they'll go for it."