by Tom Wilson
Benny Lewis briefed his new split-the-flight Weasel tactic, and after hearing it all, Mack gave him a nod. He and Pudge had thought it out well, and anything that might keep the SAMs off their backs while they concentrated on their bombing was okay by him.
Before the meeting broke up, Mack impressed on the guys that the brass wanted no screwups, that they were not to harm a single hair on the metal head of the steel mill.
There was a foul-up at the tankers. First Brigham, the radar at Udorn, had trouble getting the right fighters with the right tankers. Then Green Anchor 21 was unable to deliver fuel due to a pump system malfunction. That meant that eight fighters were held up, because they had to shift to another KC-135 tanker. They all delayed, finally dropping off the tankers fifteen minutes late, so then they had to push up their throttles in an attempt to make up the time. They had to, because the strike force from Korat was hot on their heels.
As they passed over the TACAN station at channel 97, on the Laos/North Vietnam border, a Thud in Mack's flight, flown by the lieutenant on his wing, came down with fluctuating oil pressure, so Mack told him to return to base alone. If it hadn't been such an important strike, he'd have sent someone with the lieutenant.
Then, as if that wasn't enough, Toki Takahara, in Swede's flight, said he had a fuel feed problem. He bounced his aircraft around a little, though, and the system seemed to correct itself.
The gremlins came and departed early, satisfied, for the rest of the mission was textbook perfect.
They went charging out over the valley with all the jamming pods turned on, jinking and turning, Weasels out in front eight or ten miles calling out the SAMs. As they passed over Thud Ridge, the target stood out clearly, like it had a neon sign on it, and just when Mack led the flight into the pop-up, Benny and Pudge both launched Shrike missiles into the target area at a SAM radar from different directions.
Mack led his two tigers down the chute, and they got their CBUs off just at the right altitude. As they jinked away, he saw sparkles going off and the gun-flashes diminishing.
He led his flight north a few miles, then reversed, just in time to see bombs from Swendler's and Lutz's flights impacting, gouging big craters in the tracks and tossing open-top cars around. Then Duffy Spencer's flight added to the smoke, dust, and turmoil by taking out the big loading platform.
About then someone called SAMs, but Pudge Holden was launching his Shrike and trying to follow up with bombs, and the SAMs went wild, zipping straight past them to explode like spectacular, bright-orange fireworks. Benny Lewis was bombing a SAM site south of the target area. The air was clear of SAMs while the superb pilots of the pig squadron made hash of the rail siding.
Benny Lewis
He turned up his right wing and watched Tiny Bechler's bombs exploding in a short string across the site.
"No threats!" yelled the Bear. "Pudge must have put the other guy off the air, because there's no signal."
But flak was still thick over the site they had just bombed, so Benny kept jinking hard.
"Red Dog two, we're at your two o'clock," he radioed for Tiny's benefit, and he watched him bank hard in their direction.
"No threats," the Bear repeated.
"We got signals from Hanoi?" asked Benny. He still had one Shrike missile left.
"Two SAMs, out of range," said the Bear.
"Let's get a Shrike off at one of them, and get the hell out of here."
"Come right twenty more degrees."
Benny reefed the stick against his right leg, watched his heading, and steadied on a course toward Hanoi. He jammed the throttle full forward and pulled the Thud's nose up ten degrees.
"That stirred 'em up, Benny!" the Bear called. "I'm putting a tracking SAM on your attack scope. Watch him, he's preparing to fire missiles!"
A three-ring strobe stuttered on his attack scope at their twelve o'clock. Benny centered his needles. Close enough. He pickled, watched the Shrike streak away from the pylon, then pulled the aircraft hard right and down.
"SAM launch, but disregard." The Bear grunted under the stress of the g-forces. "He only had time to center us in one beam."
They both panted as Benny pulled out of his maneuver and they sped toward the protection of Thud Ridge.
Maybe, thought Benny, the bastards aren't ten feet tall after all.
Colonel Mack
It was going damned well when Mack led his chopper flight outbound, back toward the west. Two 333rd squadron pilots were hit over the target by 57mm guns, but they both made it back. In the poststrike report, the radio calls to Red Crown were upbeat. Bombs on target.
The Weasels reported that Pudge Holden had hit a SAM radar with one of his Shrikes. Benny Lewis had done the same, then had followed his Shrike missile in and bombed the site, reporting a clean kill. Pudge said he may have hit a SAM site with his own CBUs, but didn't put enough confidence in it to take credit for a kill. But the SAM radar had not come back on the air to launch missiles at the strike force, and that was damned good. The Weasels had done a fine job and Mack congratulated them.
Target BDA photos showed they had pounded the siding to pieces, that Korat had done the same fifteen minutes after Takhli had departed, and that U.S. Navy A-6's had then further pulverized the target, turning it from rubble into mulch. Estimates said it would be a minimum of a week, perhaps even longer, before the siding could possibly be placed back into partial operation. The East European–supplied automated features of the loading facility would be out until new equipment could be brought in and installed.
Also very important was their report that, as directed, no one's bombs had landed anywhere close to the steel mill.
Mack came from the debriefings feeling good. The target had been an important one, yet they had destroyed it and lost no one. He tempered his elation when he remembered that Takhli would be striking the same target for the next few days, to drive home the president's, or whoever's, point with the North Vietnamese.
Today they'd had their best pilots at work, and it was obvious the gomers had been surprised by the major strike at Thai Nguyen. The defenses had been substantial, but certainly not what they would bring to bear if they knew the Thuds would return. He wondered how determined the enemy would become to protect their steel mill?
Mack stared out at the flight line from his office, sipping coffee. Somehow, then, he knew that the showdown had begun, and he worried, wondering if he had done nearly enough to prepare the men. Then he questioned if anyone could prepare for what they might be about to face.
27/1600L—Iron and Steel Works, Thai Nguyen, DRV
Xuan Nha
Xuan stood back a kilometer distant and surveyed the massive steel mill, the hordes of workers who were returning to their various duties after the all-clear siren had sounded, and the big trucks beginning to arrive again with their loads of ore.
He had just come from the rail loading facility, where he'd witnessed the carnage of two days of intensive bombing. Sixteen special cars, designed by the Soviets to carry heavy loads of steel plates, angle-iron, and crude ingots, were now mangled and ruined beyond repair. Loading docks, now rendered to splinters. The modern central control booth, an electronic wonder of Czech origin, now unrecognizable. Switches and boxcars, skilled and unskilled workers, forklifts and cranes, several kilometers of parallel tracks, now a jumble of metal, flesh, lengths of wire, and wood.
This time the intelligence gatherers of the Minister of External Affairs had not told them the strike was coming. They must be encouraged to do better.
The Minister of Industry, a favorite of the Enlightened One, had been visiting Thai Nguyen when the Thunder planes had first come to bomb the rail loading facility. It was providential that his party had not been there.
Upon his return to Hanoi, the minister had complained, with fearful look and dazed expression, that the loss of the rail facility seriously crippled their ability to transport the output of the great Thai Nguyen mill. Heavy trucks must be diverted to the mill
until the siding was rebuilt, and they were more vulnerable to attack than the railcars that had been moved under cover of night.
The minister had looked horrified, and asked the generals if they could now expect attacks upon the steel mill itself.
The Enlightened One had been terribly upset after being told of the attack. He had sunk into a bout of gloom, even asked once in a very old man's voice whether anything could be worth losing everything they had gained and built.
It was a flagrant escalation of the war of terror, said the Enlightened One's prime minister and friend, Pham Van Dong. He wondered if they should move their timetable forward and begin bickering about negotiations, as they planned to do later, to stop the bombing. General Giap argued that they were not ready for such political maneuvering. The military forces in the south were slowly regaining footholds in the countryside, lost the previous year and during the recent Operation Cedar Falls, but it would take time to consolidate any degree of control.
Ho Chi Minh, ill and grievously melancholy, had under advice of his physician retired early. Pham Van Dong and Giap had gone to Giap's offices and argued through much of the night, both wishing to avert disaster.
This morning Dong and Giap had joined together to dissuade the Enlightened One from taking precipitous action. But when they left him, knowing how he treasured the steel mill, they had immediately called a meeting of party officials, ministers, and generals. There they quickly devised a twofold plan of action. The Ministry of External Affairs was to bring renewed international pressure on the Americans to stop the bombing. Secondly, they would seek a military solution.
Then the generals had called for Xuan Nha, for the second option called for his expertise. They asked, Was it possible to drive the American air pirates away, to make Thai Nguyen and the vastly important steel mill complex invulnerable to air attack?
Xuan Nha, swollen with pride at their attention, had told the truth—that no target could be made invulnerable to air attack. That was the way of things. But, he had gone on, they could make the target so extremely expensive that no rational human would dare to return there.
He asked for authority to make that happen.
They told him he could bring in whatever defenses were required and leave other areas, except Hanoi and Haiphong of course, undefended if necessary. He could ask for more systems from the Russians if he thought them useful, and they would back him without question. He could do whatever else was necessary and they would support him, but he must act quickly.
His orders were to discourage the Americans from making further attacks in the Thai Nguyen area, and at all costs to avert serious damage to the steel manufacturing complex.
Defending Thai Nguyen was to be considered as crucial as the defense of Hanoi.
The generals used flattery, telling him they relied utterly upon his expertise. He who had driven the Pesky planes away, who had given them so many air victories, was asked to defend Thai Nguyen, the pride of the Enlightened One.
He vowed to succeed. He would build such a deadly concentration of defenses at Thai Nguyen that the Americans would be forced to desist, and he would begin immediately.
Colonel-General Dung had looked at him very solemnly then, and had quietly spoken of faith he had never lost in the Tiger of Dien Bien Phu. Then he'd hinted that there was room on his general officer staff for a man with his technical genius.
When Xuan Nha had left the generals to hurry back to his office, he'd trembled with pride.
He had radioed Major Nguy, commander of Wisdom complex, and Maj Tran Van Ngo, commander of Tiger battalion, and they and Xuan Nha had rushed to Thai Nguyen. As the parties traveled, there were three more air raids all targeted at the Thai Nguyen railroad loading facility.
Now the all clear sirens had sounded and they stood staring at the sprawling steel mill.
Xuan Nha slowly lifted his hand, pointed, then swept his hand from left to right. "That is what we must protect." He told them of the generals' decisions and of their faith in them.
They decided to immediately bring a full guided rocket battalion, with its three rocket batteries, into the immediate area. Two more mobile rocket battalions would be placed at strategic approaches to the area. Fifty radar-directed medium-and heavy-artillery batteries would be emplaced throughout the Thai Nguyen area, one hundred more at the approaches. Automatic weapons and light artillery were to be packed into the area so thickly that the gunners would be stumbling over one another.
That would give them 162 missile launchers, 700 antiaircraft artillery guns, and 10,000 small arms within sixty kilometers of Thai Nguyen, almost half of them to be in place by the end of the next day.
Four more mobile rocket battalions and thirty more medium-artillery companies would be moved from south of Hanoi and Haiphong and placed on reserve status in Hanoi, ready to be rushed into the fight.
After agreeing upon each resolution, they would walk together to a nearby house where Lieutenant Hanh's men had strung the antenna and placed a noisy generator for a mobile radio. There they relayed the decisions back to the Hanoi command center for immediate implementation.
Hanoi confirmed when units had been alerted and were preparing to converge on the area.
Although it would present a difficult fire coordination problem for Wisdom, Major Nguy said it would be done. He advised Xuan that while he was sure they would efficiently destroy enemy fighter-bombers, he also felt the concentration of defenses would make them vulnerable to attacks, especially by the radar-hunters, and that he anticipated losses.
Xuan told him to make special efforts to destroy the radar-hunters, but that reasonable losses would be deemed acceptable.
Xuan also revealed that Maj Tran Van Ngo would stay at Thai Nguyen as the new area commander. He would immediately begin to survey the best possible sites for the many defensive systems. Tran was enthusiastic at the prospect of so many enemy targets.
Xuan told both Nguy and Tran Van Ngo that they were promoted to lieutenant colonel. "It was part of my initial request to the generals."
They thanked him.
He stared at the surroundings: the two vast buildings housing the blast furnaces, the buildings and shops, and the huge derrick hovering on its tremendous elevated track. He felt strangely emotional.
"It will all end here. It is our Dien Bien Phu."
They looked puzzled.
"Do you both realize that there has never been anything like this? No target on earth will be as well defended as this mill. Not Moscow nor Leningrad, not Washington, D.C. nor New York, not any place on earth."
The others looked with him, quieter as they contemplated.
"Here we will prove that in this modern day, with our sophisticated rockets and radars and computers, we can shield a target so utterly from attack that the entire concept of using aircraft in combat will be changed. This will be a historic time, perhaps the decisive chapter of the war," said Xuan Nha, still gazing out at the huge mill.
"Will the Americans come again?" asked Major Nguy.
"They will come. I feel it. They will return to bomb the loading facility."
"Again?"
"To show us they can. They are trying to frighten us."
"But it has been destroyed."
"They will return to the loading facility, and if we do not drive them away there, then they will come here to the steel mill."
"We must stop them," said a fiery Tran.
"Do not worry. Here at Thai Nguyen we will finally and decisively break the back of American air power."
Xuan slowly walked over to Quang Hanh and told him to relay that he wanted Lieutenant Colonel Wu to call in the staff and have them all prepare to stay around the clock at the Hanoi command center. He would do the same when he returned.
Xuan looked out at his two majors. He felt a special warmth for them, especially now that Thao Phong was gone. Upon those two, the battle for Thai Nguyen would succeed or fail.
He watched as Tran Van Ngo stretched, ob
viously alert and ready. He moves like a cat, thought Xuan, a true warrior. On the other hand, Major Nguy looked deep in thought, as he often did. A steady and intelligent leader.
He was lucky to have those two.
The two men stared at the steel mill, quieted by the enormity of their task, wondering.
"Can we really stop them?" Nguy asked Tran.
"If we kill enough of them, we will stop them," said Tran Van Ngo in his cocky and confident tone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sunday, March 5th—1000 Local, U.S. Embassy Housing Compound, Bangkok, Thailand
Liz Richardson
The chapel was not large, but it was nicely done with natural woods and stained glass inserts in the windows. The pastor was young and outgoing and the service was correct, even if the military attendees were somewhat intoxicated.
Benny and several of the Bear's friends were there, having come down from Takhli in a military bus. Three other of Julie's stewardess friends had also made it, and the Air Force guys were giving them the once over and vice versa.
As the nuptial vows were said, Liz felt all mushy inside for her friend. Alternately she felt envious of Julie.
The Bear kissed the bride, and his friend, the one called Sloppy, edged him aside and laid a grandiose smacker on her. Then a really big guy called Tiny picked Sloppy up, set him aside, and, towering over her, gave Julie a more gentlemanly kiss. Benny was next and was nice about it. A grinning, brown-haired fellow they called Colonel Mack was next in line. He told the others that they didn't know what they were doing, and to watch carefully, then did a scene like Valentino.
Two of the guys wore blue Air Force uniforms, one called Pudge wore a white uniform tuxedo, and all the others wore civilian tuxes they'd hastily rented from a shop near the embassy grounds. They had gotten in late the previous night, so they had been forced to hurry things.