Lucky’s Bridge (Vietnam Air War Book 2)

by Tom Wilson

  The glove was shredded on top, and bright liquid oozed down and dripped from his wrist. The web between thumb and forefinger had been sliced, and the meaty part of his thumb gaped in an open wound. Blood had obviously flowed more profusely at first, for the glove was thoroughly soaked. Now, with the hand held high, it was slowed to a trickle.

  He'd been so frightened that he hadn't noticed. He remembered only the wasp's sting. He looked closer, wondering if they might send him home. The thought was pleasant.

  Then Manny remembered Lucky's radio calls and carefully looked beyond the raised hand to survey the telelite panel and gauges. He spoke a few sounds into his mask to get the burrs out of his voice before broadcasting to the world outside.

  "Talon three's bird is responding to the controls,'' he called, his voice increasingly sure. "Oil and hydraulic pressures are good, and I've got enough fuel to make it to the tanker."

  He flexed his fingers and they seemed to work. He'd be able to handle the refueling. Everything was going to be just fine.

  1054 Local—Danang AB, South Vietnam

  Major Lucky Anderson

  Lucky had checked out the rattletrap pickup kept at base ops for transient aircrew use and followed the field ambulance to the Danang hospital. Then he'd waited for fifteen minutes while they examined Manny's wound.

  A crusty major came out and waved Lucky into the examination room, where a hospital tech was cleaning Manny's wound. The flight surgeon said there was no real damage to speak of. Although the hand looked gory, he said it should heal quickly. He'd just need a lot of antiseptic, a couple dozen stitches, and a penicillin shot, followed by a handful of aspirin and a good night's sleep. Nothing critical had been severed, so there was no reason to med-evac him to the regional hospital at Clark Air Base. Couple of weeks to let it heal, and he'd be back on flying status. He added, with a Santa Claus smile, that Manny would get a Purple Heart.

  Manny had remained quiet through it all, too quiet, Lucky thought, and tried not to look crestfallen when he found he wasn't going to Clark. Lucky reasoned that there were a lot of pretty Filipinas and a few round-eyes at Clark, and as hot-blooded as Manny was, it wasn't so surprising he was let down.

  Then he reflected about how Manny had failed to answer the repeated radio calls and how he'd stayed in afterburner when it was uncalled for and he was only using up precious fuel, and Lucky grew concerned again. But then he wondered how any of them might act if they thought they were bleeding to death in a lonely cockpit over enemy territory?

  Fuck it, Lucky concluded. When he returned to Takhli, he'd send Manny off on a good R and R, maybe to Bangkok or the Philippines. Get Doc Roddenbush to call it some kind of recuperative leave. He'd probably come back rearing and ready to fight.

  He left Manny at the clinic, said he'd be back, and drove the battered pickup to the command post to find out how the rest of the mission had gone.

  Bad news.

  Wolf, the last flight in the strike force, had lost two birds when they'd been setting up to bomb a rail siding. Just when they were most vulnerable, two different sites had fired SAMs, and to evade them, they'd dived into a maelstrom of flak. Both Thuds had taken multiple 57mm hits and had climbed out trailing smoke and fire. The first pilot had made it only a few miles before he'd had to jump out. No radio contact, so he was thought to have been immediately captured. The other pilot had ejected into the foothills of Thud Ridge and was on the run.

  Lucky felt shitty about losing the two pilots. He knew them both, from A-Flight of his own 354th squadron. He found he'd thoroughly chewed up the cigar he'd been mouthing, and angrily shucked cellophane from a new one.

  He called the Takhli command post, and the deputy for maintenance said he'd send a team to Danang to patch up Manny DeVera's Thud so it could be flown home. Then B. J. Parker broke in on the line and curtly told Lucky to return to Takhli ASAP with the good birds, because with the two losses they were running short of airplanes.

  So Lucky hurried toward base operations, where they'd parked the aircraft. Halfway there an Army MP stopped him and gave him a ticket for speeding.

  "Where's your driver's license, sir?"

  All Lucky had on him was his Geneva Convention ID card, which gave only name, rank, and service number. He tried to explain the rule about having to leave their wallets behind when they flew combat missions. The MP was unsympathetic and told him he shouldn't be driving without a military license, and added that violation to the ticket.

  "Where are you stationed, Major?"

  Lucky lied and told him he was stationed at Phu Cat Air Base and flew F-100's there. The MP should forward the ticket to his commander at Phu Cat, Lucky said. Before he let him go, the MP told him he'd likely have to attend a safe driver's course.

  Lucky impatiently hurried into base ops to find that one of his pilots was missing. Joe Walker said Billy Bowes had gone to look for his cousin, an Army Special Forces NCO stationed at Danang. Lucky angrily mouthed his cigar and told Joe to go find Bowes and tell him to get his ass back to the flight line, then to file a VFR-Direct flight plan for Takhli, with takeoff at 1315. When Lucky went out to the transient area where their Thuds were parked, Joe was anxiously asking a base-ops sergeant where the Special Forces unit was located.

  After a twenty-minute search Lucky found the transient crew chief taking a smoke break and told him to refuel the Thuds, repack their drag chutes, forget about topping off the liquid oxygen and all the other shit, and be ready to assist with engine start at 1300. The crew chief told him his F-105's would have to get into line, as his men would be launching a flight of transient F-4's at that time. Lucky went over the crew chief's head to the line chief and threatened and cajoled and finally convinced him that his three Thuds had priority. The transient crew chief was pissed off and stomping around angrily when Lucky left them.

  Lucky drove the rattletrap pickup back to the clinic, opening yet another cigar and tossing away a soggy one, wondering what the hell he'd done to deserve all this shit.

  Manny DeVera just nodded with a vague expression when Lucky told him to take his time getting back to Takhli. He loaned him twelve dollars, which was all he had with him, so Manny could buy cigarettes and a hamburger or two on his way home.

  Driving back to base ops, Lucky was stopped and given another speeding ticket by the same Army MP, who gave him even unfriendlier looks and an even windier speech about driving safely at Danang. Yeah, he told Lucky, he knew to forward the ticket to Phu Cat. He said Lucky could now look forward to having his license suspended, and maybe even receiving a letter of reprimand because two speeding tickets in one day is serious shit . . . sir.

  At base ops he found Billy Bowes waiting with his cousin, a hawk-eyed and savvy-looking sergeant first class who looked more Indian than Billy. The SFC saluted crisply, then pumped his hand and told him he'd heard a lot about him.

  Lucky felt his indigestion worsen. "Where's Joe?" he asked Billy.

  "Got me, Major.''

  "Dammit!" exploded Lucky, then sighed and just shook his head. He gave Bowes the keys to the pickup and told him to find Walker, who was searching over in the Special Forces unit, wherever the hell that was, for him.

  "And I'll file the fucking flight plan," he yelled angrily as Billy and his cousin "yessired" and fled in a belch of blue smoke.

  At 1310 Lucky was sitting in the cockpit of his Thud, ignoring the malevolent glares of the transient crew chief when Bowes and Walker showed up wearing dogshit-eating grins.

  On the flight back to Takhli, Bowes radioed his excuse for being late. He'd found Joe Walker right away, but an Army MP had stopped them for speeding and had seemed to delight in issuing them a ticket and lecturing them. When they'd said they were from Takhli, the MP had threatened to haul them in to the provost marshal's office, because he by God knew they were from Phu Cat.

  Billy asked if Lucky would help handle the matter, because Colonel Encinos, their new squadron commander, was concerned that the pilots were getting too
many tickets.

  Lucky blew up over the radio. He shouted and chewed Bowes's ass down to the bone. Then he remained in his foul mood and both Bowes and Walker kept their mouths shut during the remainder of the flight.

  1200 Local—HQ Seventh Air Force, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, South Vietnam

  Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates

  A month had passed since the disastrous attempt on the Doumer bridge with Bullpup missiles, and that morning General Moss had again pulled him aside and asked if he wasn't ready for another combat test. If they delayed much longer, Moss told him, the entire idea would likely be shelved.

  But again Pearly had put him off.

  Just as General Moss had told him to do, Pearly had formed his team of staff officers and experts to help with CROSSFIRE ZULU. There was a major at the Pentagon, working in USAF/XOO, the ops shop there, a Navy lieutenant commander at Camp H. M. Smith, the USCINCPAC headquarters base adjacent to Pearl Harbor, and a major at PACAF headquarters at Hickam. Those three would deal with his requests and help to smooth the way through their respective bureaucratic mazes. At Takhli, Lucky Anderson and Max Foley, the wing-weapons officer, were excellent contacts, for they were experienced with the ways the various weapons and fuzes worked and with the tactics required to deliver them.

  But the focal point had shifted to Nellis Air Force Base, where Moods Diller was working with a new family of smart bombs. From his first contact with Captain Diller, when Pearly had learned about the capabilities of new launch-and-leave weapons that would allow the destruction of point targets with a single bomb and a single sortie, he'd been intrigued. He called Nellis Air Force Base and talked to Captain Diller almost nightly, and each time he was again encouraged to wait "just a little longer" for the new bombs.

  His latest contact had been even more encouraging, for Moods told him they were live-dropping test bombs, and that the results were surpassing even his own lofty expectations.

  Pearly had tried briefing General Moss on the smart-bomb development, but the general had snorted and said there were just too many variables that could go wrong, and that they didn't have time for the weapons wizards to come up with the secret of the universe. Let's get on with the test, he'd impatiently repeated, so we can get the campaign under way.

  But Pearly was both obstinate and optimistic. The use of smart bombs, with their one bomb, one target capability, sounded too promising. He envisioned sending just two aircraft out on a bridge mission, endangering only those men, and dropping a bridge every time they flew.

  If they could wait just a little longer, they would save lives. He wished he'd been able to pin down just how much longer they might have to wait, but Moods Diller refused to be specific. Pearly supposed that was how development people were, never wanting to make guesses and stray from scientific fact. He'd delayed the second combat test for weeks now, to wait on the smart bombs and avoid pilot losses. He knew he did not have much longer or the entire campaign would be in jeopardy.

  But damn if the smart bombs didn't sound intriguing.

  He decided to call Captain Diller again that night and tell him he had to have a firm estimate, for they simply couldn't afford to wait longer.

  1315 Local—Hoa Lo Prison, Hanoi, DRV

  Air Regiment Commanding Quon

  As soon as Quon was told that two blue-tail Thunder planes had been shot down on the morning raid, he'd canceled all staff meetings and told his driver to take him to Hanoi. When the sergeant cautioned him about the ban of surface travel for senior officers during daylight hours, Quon had shouted at him. It was not his normal behavior, for Quon treated his men well, but during the past month he had been driven as never before.

  As he strode disdainfully past the guards at the door to the. prison's entrance, he wondered at his continuing good fortune. That very morning could have been used as a lesson on how defenses should be run.

  Quon visited often with the Phuc Yen radar controllers. They knew of his quest for a particular Mee pilot of a blue-tail Thunder plane, even knew the man's name was Lokee, and eagerly joined the game. The controllers had given crisp directions to his pilots, telling them precisely how to make their flybys of the Thunder planes to pick out the blue-tails. Then, since Phantoms were protecting the Thunder planes, they held the MiGs well north in the restricted area and concentrated the efforts of the gun-and-rocket crews on the aircraft known to be blue-tails.

  One of the Mee blue-tail pilots was already in custody, the other being sought in the foothills of the Viet Bac, the mountains immediately north of Hanoi and very near Phuc Yen. Quon felt happy with his good fortune and knew that even if neither man was Lokee, he was somehow closer to him.

  The prison commander met him in the hallway outside his office, preening and smiling solicitously.

  "The prisoner is in the interrogation room, comrade Quon," he announced proudly.

  "Is this one Lokee?" Quon asked.

  The senior lieutenant looked sorrowful. "No, comrade, but he is a pilot of the Pig Squadron." As he led the way into the dismal and dirty interrogation room, Quon hoped the lieutenant was wrong, and that his search had ended.

  It was not Lokee. The Mee stretched to the ceiling hoist was a black man with very dark skin and no scars on his face. His arms were disjointed, chest and stomach ablaze with livid bruises. He panted as he looked about with a frightened, dazed expression.

  Quon sighed. So much for hope.

  "We began the questioning almost an hour ago," said the prison commandant.

  "Did he fly on the mission to Kep?"

  "Not that day, comrade Quon. He flew there on a later date, though."

  Quon went closer to the prisoner, and the man tried to concentrate his vision on his features.

  "Ask him about the man named Lokee."

  The interrogator struck the pilot in the chest with a length of pipe and barked meaningless words in the guttural Mee language.

  The prisoner cried out, then sobbed as he began to suck for breath in short gasps.

  The interrogator spoke again. The prisoner answered. They conversed more, the interrogator barking questions, the prisoner gasping answers.

  Finally the interrogator turned to Quon with a look of triumph. "He says that Lokee is the commander of a flight in the Pig Squadron."

  "I know that," Quon snapped.

  "Lokee was not in the other blue-tail we shot down."

  Quon huffed an unhappy sigh, mused for a moment, then turned to the prison commandant. "Interview this man further, and then all of your pilots from the Pig Squadron again and again until you find out everything there is to know about Lokee."

  "I have sent you all we have found, comrade Quon," said the senior lieutenant.

  "I want to know everything. What he eats, how often he shits, the women he fornicates with. Everything, do you understand?"

  "Yes, comrade Quon," smiled the senior lieutenant.

  Quon started to leave, but then turned back toward the prisoner, who was alternately sobbing and gasping in the short breaths. His ribs had obviously been damaged, for several poked out unnaturally.

  For a quick moment their eyes locked, a private moment between victor and vanquished. Then the prisoner's dilated and could not see.

  Quon nodded, pleased with what he'd seen, his hatred momentarily satisfied. He thought again about the man called Lokee and frowned, then abruptly turned and hurried out. His senses were offended by the stench in the room.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Friday, May 26th, 1300 Local—TFWC/TAF, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada

  Captain Benny Lewis

  Benny had been back to part-time work for three weeks when Moods Diller laid on his grand exhibition. He hadn't been able to spend more than an hour a day in the office, and often spent no time at all, because his flight-surgeon buddy had caught him overdoing it and pulled in the reins. Which had left Moods Diller to run the office and maintain the contacts with the outside world while Benny continued to mend.

  But
that morning Benny had taken a call from Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates in Saigon, and he was damned mad. He hadn't yet told Moods of his anger because he didn't want to screw up his show. But he was angry, and after the exhibition they would talk.

  Moods had invited delegates from Air Force Systems Command headquarters, the Air Weapons Lab, and from Tactical Air Command and Pentagon requirements offices. There were also U.S. Navy representatives from the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake. In all there were twenty test, development, and evaluation people in attendance, and several held Ph.D.'s in physics, math, or engineering. All appeared kindred in spirit, and Benny wondered about the shared IQ in the room. Likely, he thought, it was phenomenal. It would also be nice, he thought in a less charitable vein, if the common-sense quotient was half as high.

  Moods intended to show that his smart bombs worked and prove his project merited a much higher priority, to provide the dollars and emphasis he needed to build and test them.

  Diller wasted no time with protocol, even to acknowledge the presence of two colonels and assorted lesser ranks, although all were senior to him. Fortunately, they seemed much like Moods in their disdain for the unscientific world and did not complain.

  He opened with a soliloquy about the numbers of bombs required to knock out a single point target. Benny immediately noticed that he'd slowed his speech and pronounced each word very correctly. The briefing was important to Moods.

  Consider the destruction of a ruggedly constructed bridge in the face of heavy flak.

  The fact that Moods had picked a bridge for his example was not lost on Benny.

  In World War I such a task was impossible, for the aircraft could not carry that kind of tonnage. During World War II it took as many as a thousand sorties of B-24's and B-17's to eliminate a single bridge, and most times it was not even attempted. In Korea the number decreased some, because dive-bombing F-84's were more accurate. Say three hundred sorties. In Vietnam it is estimated that ninety to a hundred sorties will be required to destroy a single bridge. With a standard attrition rate for a point target in a high-threat environment, that means seven aircraft will be lost.