Carrier c-1

by Keith Douglass

They started back toward the buildings. Gunfire rattled and popped from the south, where Marines were setting up their perimeter. From the sea came the deep-voiced whup-whup-whup of CH-46 Sea Knights, twin-rotored, banana-shaped helos loaded with troops and weapons to reinforce the Kolmo beachhead.

  He thought of the Russian ship in the harbor. What, Peters wondered, were the Russkies making of all this?

  0712 hours

  Tomcat 205

  From five thousand feet, Tombstone could see the whole of Wonsan Harbor spread out for his inspection. Smoke still rose from the hangar buildings southwest of the airfield and from the grounded frigate to the north, but overall damage had been slight. The waters off Blue Beach were swarming with Mike boats and other Naval landing craft, as well as an armada of AAVPs making their endless churnings between shore and the Marine ships just visible on the horizon.

  "Shotgun, Shotgun, this is Homeplate, do you read, over?"

  "Homeplate, Shotgun. What can I do for you boys?"

  "We've just had word from the beach. Kolmo Airfield is secure. Cavalry Two is now inbound. Please deploy to cover their approach, over."

  "Copy, Homeplate." Tombstone banked the Tomcat, his eyes scanning the blue-gray of the ocean to the east. He saw a number of helicopters: Super Stallions still dragging their mine sleds, SeaCobra gunships working close support with the grunts, Marine Sea Knights heading for the captured airport.

  Then he saw them, four RH-53D Sea Stallions with Marine markings, flying in a wedge formation low over the water. According to plan, they would set down at the Kolmo Airfield and await the call from Nyongch'on. When the camp was completely secure, they would make the last short hop to the airstrip at Nyongch'on-kiji.

  "Homeplate, Shotgun. I have Cavalry Two in sight. Will comply."

  Batman pulled up close to Tombstone's starboard wingtip. "Well, pardner," Batman said. "Now we find out if this shindig was worth the price of admission."

  "You're right there. Ready, everyone? Let's go give the grunts a hand."

  The four Tomcats peeled out of formation and dropped toward the sea.

  Far below, the Marines hurried to throw up their perimeter south of the airport. The runways were too pitted and cratered by the Intruder bomb runs of a few hours before to be usable by regular aircraft, but the helicopters would have no trouble finding a place to set down.

  And soon, very soon, it would be the helicopters' show… the final act.

  0720 hours

  Nyongch'on perimeter

  "Make smoke," the voice said over Morgan's radio.

  "Roger that." Morgan nodded to Gunnery Sergeant Walters, who popped the pin on a smoke grenade. Green smoke billowed out, a cottony cloud in the morning sun.

  "I see green smoke," the radio voice said. "Come on in."

  Second Platoon rose and began walking the final hundred yards toward a gap torn in Nyongch'on perimeter fence. Craters marred the road, and Morgan saw the burned-out hulk of a Russian-made ZSU.

  Captain Ford was waiting for him. "About time you showed up, Lieutenant." He grinned, teeth white in his camo-smeared face. The smile vanished as Marines approached, carrying stretchers. "How many casualties?"

  "Two wounded," Morgan replied. "Not too bad, considering. Oh… and a Navy guy, Lieutenant Grant." He pointed. "We found him up there, pretty badly hit. He saved our asses. We're also bringing in a KIA, one of the SEALS."

  "Corporal!" The captain signaled. "See the wounded get to the Waldorf."

  "Aye aye, sir!"

  "Oh, yeah, we also found these." Morgan handed the captain a packet of folded papers. "Took them off a dead NK colonel. They looked important."

  "Good work, Lieutenant," Ford said. "Pull up a seat and take a load off."

  "Thank you, sir. Morgan savored the silence, broken only by the clink and trudge of Second Platoon coming in. The rumble of bombs sounded to the northeast. "It's quiet."

  "Too quiet. They hit us three times before dawn, then broke off. We think they're gathering for a hard push."

  "And Cavalry Two?"

  "Waiting." The captain wiped his eyes with his hand. "At Kolmo Airfield. Hear the thunder? That's A-6 Intruders laying a carpet. When all the SAM sites are cleared, Cav Two will come on in."

  Morgan smiled. "I'm glad we didn't miss that." He watched as the last of his men filed through the gap in the fence.

  "That's for sure, Lieutenant," Ford said. "That's for damned sure."

  0740 hours

  Flight deck, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  AN/3 Dale Carter was tired. His division had been on alert and on the job for nearly sixteen hours straight now, an uninterrupted agony of work as Jefferson's aircraft were launched, recovered, and launched again. Long days were the rule rather than the exception on board aircraft carriers, even during normal times. During a crisis such as this one, every man on board was expected to work around the clock. Most of the crew took this in stride, even preferring work to the boredom of below-decks routine. There was sharp pride in the certain knowledge that it was they, the men of the U.S.S. Jefferson, who kept the big ship going and her planes flying.

  Carter, carrying a heavy lug wrench in one hand, was coming around the open door of the forward bomb elevator where red-vested ordies were jack-assing a rack of Mark 82 GPs onto a hand cart for transport to a flight of waiting Intruders. Fifty yards away, his division chief waved, then pumped his fist up and down. Double time!

  Breaking into a run, Carter ducked underneath the bulk of an A-6 already locked into the number two catapult, engines howling and ready for launch. Exhaustion, and the fact that Carter was still new to carriers, bluffed his thinking. He turned sharply left, taking a shortcut in front of the Intruder.

  Someone yelled a warning, but he couldn't catch the words through his ear protectors and the shriek of the Intruder's engines. Before he even had a chance to scream, he was swept from the deck, caught in a black maelstrom of wind and noise and plunged headfirst into the aircraft's starboard intake.

  Carter's body was more than enough to wreck an engine, but it was the lug wrench which did the real damage, shearing off turbine blades and blasting them through the aircraft's thin skin like shrapnel. Fuel vented from a dozen punctures in the wing tank, gushing across the hot engine manifold.

  Flames boiled into the sky as if from a bomb blast, and every sailor on the deck was hammered flat by the concussion. The catapult officer tumbled to his knees, his uniform wreathed in flames until a sailor, less stunned than others, knocked him down and pounded them out.

  "Emergency! Emergency!" shrilled from the 5-MC. "Fire on the flight deck! Fire on the flight deck! Fire and damage control parties man your stations!"

  Air operations on the Jefferson came to a halt.

  0815 hours

  Air Ops, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  How long can we keep them up?" Admiral Magruder's voice sounded grim over the batphone.

  Lieutenant Commander Mike Leahy looked at the huge, transparent status board where every aircraft not within Pried-Fly's control pattern was listed, complete with its fuel state. "Admiral, we have two KA-6Ds airborne with full loads. That's better than twenty-one thousand pounds of fuel each, but it won't last long. Four of VFA-161's Hornets are inbound now, and they'll be on bingo fuel when they hit the marshall. We were going to have to tank them up just to get them trapped."

  "The deck is closed," Magruder said. "Another hour at least."

  "So I see, Admiral." One of the Air Op monitors showed the flight deck from a vantage point high up on the island looking down onto cats one and two. The fire was out, the wreckage shoved over the side by the Tilly. Green shirts were working now to replace a damaged catapult shuttle, while men used hoses to wash oil and bits of wreckage from the deck. "We're not going to be able to keep our planes flying, sir. Not with only two tankers up."

  "Understood." He heard the admiral sigh. "Okay. Start working out a rotation schedule between here and Ch'unch'on. I'll give them a buzz and have them get a KC
-135 airborne stat."

  "That'll do it, Admiral." He thought for a moment. Ch'unch'on was a South Korean air base used by the U.S. Air Force, the closest of several such bases in the country. Allowing for a detour around North Korea, it was a one-hundred-twenty-mile flight from Jefferson's position. "We'll feed the Hornets from the KAs and send them back in. If they can get a tanker up out of Ch'unch'on, we shouldn't have to use any South Korean bingo fields at all."

  "Okay. Great, if you can do it. Keep me posted." The batphone went dead.

  Leahy considered the phone for a moment before replacing it in its cradle. Calling in South Korean-based assets could well up the ante in the escalating battle with the Koreans.

  Not for the first time, Leahy was very glad he did not have the admiral's job.

  0800 hours

  Nyongch'on perimeter

  "Here they come again! Pour it on them, Marines!"

  Gunfire crashed from among the rubble and grenade-smashed ruin of what had once been warehouses across the road, as men in mustard-tan uniforms spilled from holes and doorways, brick piles and shattered walls, storming toward the west side of the camp. Simultaneously, there was a deafening blast and a black mushroom of smoke and earth sprouted in the center of the captured camp, close by the burned-out motor pool. The first blast was followed by a second, this one squarely in the fire-blackened skeleton of a garage. Splinters and debris sprinkled from the sky like rain.

  But the Marines were too busy to notice. M-60 machine guns and M-16s barked and chattered, cutting down the KorCom soldiers halfway across the road. Those few who reached the chain-link fence died trying to climb it ― or died in heaps crowded through one of the gaps blasted through it during the night.

  Lieutenant Morgan crouched behind a pile of sandbags, watching as the surviving Koreans broke off and retreated, straggling back to hidden positions among the shattered ruins across the street. The man beside him pressed binoculars to his face. "Got the bastards!"

  "Rather a bloodthirsty attitude, isn't it, Carl?"

  Lieutenant Carl Olivetti grinned. "Actually, it was the mortars I was talking about. Spotted the smoke that time!" Olivetti was a member of the company's headquarters unit, the company's Forward Air Controller. He unfolded a map across one knee, then picked up the handset of a radio phone. "Skyhawk! Skyhawk! This is Charlie Alpha Victor. Priority target, coordinates seven-three-five by six-six-niner." He continued to call in the target data, stopping from time to time for confirmation. Another mortar explosion showered them with dirt.

  "Wish you were flying again, Carl?"

  Olivetti laughed. "Hey, like they say. I'm a Marine rifleman temporarily assigned as a pilot!" It was an old joke, one with more than the usual grain of truth to it. Marine FACs were themselves pilots assigned to Marine companies as ground spotters and liaison with Marine air. But every Marine considered himself a combat rifleman first, no matter what his specialty.

  He replaced the radio handset and turned, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Hey, Captain!" Olivetti yelled. Captain Ford ran toward them, doubled over to lower his profile. Another mortar round went off, this one at the north end of the camp.

  "Whatcha got, Lieutenant?"

  "Strike coming in, sir. We got a fix on the mortars. It should be any-"

  He was interrupted by monsters rising above the ridge behind them. They were Marine SeaCobras, two-man helicopter gunships mounting six-barreled Gatling cannons and 2.5-inch rockets. They rose above the ridge crest east of the camp in a thunder of rotor noise.

  Rockets ripple-fired from their pods, streaking across the sky on trails of white smoke, smashing into the opposite hillside with an avalanche of sound. Blast followed blast, as North Korean troops scattered beneath the onslaught.

  The attack was over in seconds. Silence, when it returned, was an unearthly stillness which lay across the barren ridges like a blanket. In the distance, Morgan could hear the rumble of high-flying jets, the popping of helicopters.

  "I think that got 'em," Ford said. He stood up looking west, hands on hips. "At least for a while."

  "I hope it's a long while, sir," Morgan said. "We're running low on five-six-two already. And forty mike-mikes too." He was referring to the ammunition used by M-60s and M-16s, and to the 40-mm grenades fired from M-203s. He pushed his helmet back on his head, feeling the exhaustion drag at him. "How much longer, Captain?"

  "Not much longer," Ford replied. He sounded tired too. He paused, as though listening. "This might be our chance now. Can't get any quieter than this."

  "Hell, why wait for them?" Olivetti said. "We'll walk out."

  "We sure as hell won't drive." They laughed. A number of Korean armored vehicles had been captured in the camp, but few of them were in working order, thanks either to the SEALs or to mechanical problems. It was Sergeant Walters's firm conviction that the Korean mess hall had served apricots for dinner the night before.

  "I just came from the Waldorf," Ford said. "The wounded are ready to move. I think it's about time to get those damned helos in here, gentlemen, don't you?"

  "Sounds good to me," Morgan said. He was mildly surprised. His first combat had carried fear but no great terror… and no great glory either. He didn't feel any different, and he was almost disappointed. After all, there was nothing much to combat but fear, dirt, mind-numbing exhaustion, and discomfort. "Let's call them in."

  Olivetti was already adjusting the frequency on his radio. "Homeplate, Homeplate, this is Cavalry One. Do you copy, over?" He listened to the handset for a long moment, repeating himself once. Then, "Got them!" Ford and Morgan could not hear the reply. Olivetti squeezed the transmit button on the handset. "Homeplate, Cav One. Cavalry roundup, repeat, roundup!" He listened again. "They confirm, sir."

  Morgan let out a pent-up breath. Cavalry roundup. The next few minutes would spell success or failure for the whole operation. So far, things had been going remarkably well, despite Second Platoon getting lost.

  He found himself looking forward to getting back to the cramped and uncomfortable claustrophobia of the Chosin. He wouldn't have to wait much longer.

  0835 hours

  West of the Taebaek Mountains, PDRK

  Pak checked his radar again, then confirmed the positions of the aircraft in the group. Plan Vengeance called for thirty MiG fighters to accompany the four Nanchangs. All planes were in position, the fighters in loose formation at one thousand meters, the bombers far below, skimming the rugged uplands east of P'yongyang.

  Here, he thought, was another application of the guerrilla tactics of Mao applied to the arena of air combat. The successful guerrilla fighter, Pak knew, made use of local terrain, especially terrain with which he was familiar.

  And that was precisely what Plan Vengeance was about to do.

  Korea's backbone was the Taebaek Sanmaek, the mountain range which separated the east coast from the rest of the country, rising in places to over two thousand meters above sea level. The search radar of the American Hawkeyes had a range of almost four hundred kilometers, twice the distance from Wonsan to P'yongyang.

  That range was limited, however, by the terrain it was attempting to scan. Flying low, weaving among the ridges and rugged uplands behind the up-thrust Taebaeks, the thirty-four aircraft should escape detection… at least until they emerged from the mountain passes at Majon-ni, a scant twenty-five kilometers from Wonsan. And by then, it would be too late.

  The North Korean fighters would suffer heavy losses in the coming battle, but Pak had already dismissed the matter from his mind. A good commander learned to accept losses in exchange for tactical advantage. The PDRK could not possibly hope to match the Americans plane for plane, and so, losses would be enormous. There was no helping that.

  Pak had a single advantage, however, which should even the odds considerably, an advantage which was yet another application of Mao's strategy. When the guerrilla fighter is prepared to die to strike at an invader, then the invader has already lost.

  The MiGs would
come on in two groups, one high to attract the American radar, the other low, hugging the mountains, slipping through the well-mapped passes, to emerge practically on top of the American ships. This time, the battle would be decidedly in Pak's favor.

  CHAPTER 29

  0845 hours

  U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  "Now hear this, now hear this." The voice boomed from the 5-MC speakers across the flight deck. "Commence FOD walkdown. That is, commence FOD walkdown."

  On board a carrier, FOD stood for Foreign Object Damage, and it was a special nightmare for every pilot, every plane captain, every sailor who worked on the flight deck, where a scrap of metal, a wrench, a dropped bolt could get sucked into an engine intake and cripple a very expensive airplane. An FOD parade was conducted immediately before every flight operation.

  The walkdown was especially vital now. Crewmen had hosed down the deck, but it was always possible that a loose bit of wreckage had been missed. A line of over two hundred men stood shoulder to shoulder across the flight deck walking aft, eyes on the deck at their feet. The men moved slowly, stooping to pick up each bit of wreckage scattered by the explosion.

  Admiral Magruder watched from the Flag Bridge high above the flight deck. Operations had been suspended for over an hour now, and that had left him mighty thin in the air. Ops had been able to get a KC-135 tanker deployed north out of Ch'unch'on, and that had kept Jefferson's airborne planes in the air, but the crews were getting tired now, stretched to the limit and ready to break.

  Worse, an F/A-18 squadron, the Fighting Hornets of VFA-173, and an A-6 squadron, the Blue Rangers, had both been trapped on board by the accident, unable to rotate with squadrons already in the air. With the Javelins now deployed south to refuel with the tanker and the War Eagles flying CAP for the fleet, there were only the eight Tomcats of VF-95 to cover Cavalry Two over Nyongch'on and the bomber strikes still going on around Wonsan.

  It wasn't enough, not by a long shot.