Lucky’s Bridge (Vietnam Air War Book 2)

by Tom Wilson

  Pearly went to work with what he had. He marked the Doumer bridge in red. The one the Navy said was heavily damaged he marked in yellow, meaning the damage was of a more temporary nature. The other Navy bridge and the one over the Canales des Rapides he marked in green, meaning they were undamaged.

  The weather had been bad the past few days and they'd been able to get few of their missions completed, but he still wished he had better results to show the generals. He wandered down to the TACC, the Tactical Air Control Center, and confirmed the afternoon mission from Takhli was to be against the Canales bridge, and that Korat would bomb the bridge at Thanh Moi. The F-4's were joining the campaign, and both Danang and Ubon would go after the big bridge at Thanh Hoa.

  The weather was forecast to be marginal.

  He told the FDO that he'd return later for results, because the elephants were dancing.

  It had started when his contact at CINCPAC, the lieutenant commander at Camp H. M. Smith, said they were getting flak from the Pentagon about CROSSFIRE ZULU. An Assistant Undersecretary of Defense was waffling about their approval of the OPlan and wanted justification for continuing the campaign, based upon direct results they were getting from bombing the bridges: how much reduction in the tonnages of supplies getting through to enemy troops in South Vietnam—things like that.

  It's too damned early for results, Pearly had said, but he was preaching to the choir, for the Navy officer agreed with him. Still, he had to answer the questions. The lieutenant commander asked for a detailed report of damage to the bridges as well as combat losses attributed to the campaign, as those were required to supplement his report.

  But then the elephants had begun to dance, and the three- and four-stars had gotten into the picture. And when the elephants danced, staff officers scurried to try not to get caught underfoot. When the lieutenant commander briefed the mixed results to his boss at CINCPAC, Admiral Ryder had called General Moss to tell him that if they couldn't start showing success, he feared the SecDef would convince the President to stop the effort. The SecDef was letting it be known more vigorously than ever that he favored cessation of all bombing of the northern regions of North Vietnam. He said the bombing was doing no good whatsoever there.

  Which was why Moss wanted the meeting with Pearly, and why Pearly needed the results of the afternoon bombing sorties.

  If they could destroy the bridge over the Canales des Rapides, they would halt rail traffic from eastern China. Eliminating the bridge at Thanh Moi would cut the Haiphong-Hanoi rail line. The bridge at Thanh Hoa was a major conduit from Hanoi southward.

  He puffed out a sigh, hoping the weather would cooperate, and the afternoon's Air Force strikes and the Navy's night raids would bring results.

  To make matters worse for Pearly, the recce photos showed that defenses had been dramatically increased at Phuc Yen and Kien An, the bases he'd identified as targets on the fake air tasking order. The traitor, the man releasing targeting information to the enemy, the one who was killing his fellow Americans, was in Pearly Gates's organization.

  Now that he knew the security leak came from his branch, he had to tell the proper authorities, and he knew he must start with General Moss.

  What a crying, awful mess.

  1000 Local—Ponderosa BOQ, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  Captain Manny DeVera

  Manny had worked with Billy Bowes the past few evenings to catch up with the paperwork left by Major Lucky. Things like memos from the wing deputy for operations, and the squadron commander, with suspenses which were long overdue. He'd finished with them the previous night. Since he wasn't on the morning schedule, he'd slept in until seven, then attended personal matters. He'd finished a letter to his stepparents and wrapped a birthday present for Sister Lucia, both things he'd delayed because of the paperwork drill.

  He'd never known a close family. Manny had been nine when he'd been placed with his adoptive parents in San Antonio, and although they'd provided him with all the essentials, there hadn't been the warmth Manny knew he'd have had with his real mother and father. But of course he'd never known his real parents, and the staff at the children's home had told him nothing except their name was DeVera and they'd never be coming back.

  At the children's home his favorite had been Sister Lucia, even though she was the strictest and seldom coddled him or told him how special he was, as the others tried to do. He was not alone in trying to please Sister Lucia. The other kids liked to say that when she said something, she by God meant it.

  After he'd been with his new family for a couple of years, he'd returned to visit the rock-tough old nun and found she'd not changed an inch.

  "It's a hard world, Manuel," she'd often say, never using the familiar "Manny" as his new parents and the other sisters did. When she was pleased with him, she'd add, "But you will succeed as long as you always remember to work very hard, respect God's will, and never spend a day without thanking Him for giving you breath and the chance to do your best."

  Sister Lucia was as devout an American as she was a Christian, but her patriotism held a special flavor. While she knew that pride was sinful, she said there was no harm being very pleased that God had made Manny a Westerner, a Texan, and a Mexican-American.

  According to Sister Lucia, the east coast of the United States had been settled and shaped by Anglos, but most of the rest of it was the result of hardworking Spanish pioneers. And of course it was much better to live where things had been set up properly in the first place, as they'd done.

  Easterners huddled in huge cities on their coast, trying to turn things into Little Europe. Show one a high mountain or an arid plain, and he'd likely make a long face and want to go home. Show the same to a Westerner, she said, and he would come to terms with it and live there in harmony.

  Of course, she'd say, there were some Easterners who had acted like Westerners. Like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and the hero of her own time, Franklin Roosevelt.

  And never forget, she would say, that it was Mexican-Americans who had taught the other Westerners their special kind of fortitude.

  According to Sister Lucia, Texas would never have been freed from the strangle-grasp of conniving Santa Anna by Sam Houston and his small band of Anglo and German settlers—they'd still be living in the state of Tejas in northern Mexico—had it not been for the brave support and the shed blood of the Mexican community. Read the Hispanic names of men who died at the Alamo, she would say, and remember who fed the soldiers and gave them information about their enemy.

  And what would America be, Sister Lucia would ask with a frown, without Texas?

  According to Sister Lucia, Mexican-Americans still supported America well. There were higher percentages of Hispanic volunteers serving in World War II and Korea than from any other ethnic group, and they'd won a higher percentage of medals for bravery.

  Manny DeVera had finished his second year of college, working night and day to do it, and when he'd been accepted for flight-cadet and pilot training by the United States Air Force, it had been Sister Lucia he'd told first. She had not only let him get away with his moment of boasting, she'd placed her hands over her mouth and shaken her head in wonder, and then hurried him to the other sisters so he could tell them.

  His adoptive father had felt it his duty to counsel Manny and ask him to reconsider, since he would be wasting a hard-earned education. Anyone can fly airplanes, he'd said.

  When he'd volunteered for combat and was about to be sent to fly and fight in Southeast Asia, he'd returned to San Antonio.

  Sister Lucia had grown misty-eyed when he told her.

  "If I'd had a son . . . ," she'd started, but then she'd drawn herself stiffly upright and did not finish. Instead she'd changed the subject and fussed at him for not regularly attending mass. She said she would pray for him each morning and night until he returned.

  His adoptive mother had accepted his going as a tragedy, and his stepfather was angry that he'd again ignored his advic
e.

  Sister Lucia wrote weekly, telling him how wonderful it must be to live in the exotic East. He never mentioned the war, so she did not either, but he read her letters and treasured her words, and promptly answered them. Besides Sister Lucia, a couple of girlfriends who had endured to become real friends, and the members of C-Flight, there was no one to give a good damn whether Manny DeVera survived or was shot down in flames.

  He finished his labeling of the package containing the present for Sister Lucia's seventy-fifth birthday. The birthday would be in four days, and it wouldn't get there in time, and for that he was truly sorry. He looked at his neat handiwork. He was good at wrapping packages.

  That afternoon he would see if he was as good at dropping bombs. An hour earlier he'd gotten a phone call from Billy Bowes telling him they were on again, which meant they would be returning to the damned bridge at the Canales des Rapides.

  1045 Local—Command Post

  Captain Billy Bowes

  Manny entered the command post and Billy waved him over.

  "Sorry I'm late," Manny said. "Had to take care of a couple personal things."

  Billy showed him first the flight plan, then the lineup card he'd completed. Manny was shown as flight lead, and Henry would fly his wing. Billy was number three and Smitty number four in the flight.

  Manny looked over each card in detail. Finally he said, "Looks good to me."

  "If you need to catch up on more private stuff, paperwork or anything, I'll fly as lead and plug Joe Walker into my spot. We'll probably run into bad weather and have to find an alternate target in pack five anyway."

  Billy felt awkward saying it, thinking about what Manny had tried to tell him in the dining room a few days before. This would be another tough mission, and he wanted Manny to know he could make up his own mind on those things.

  But Manny shook his head. "I'll lead."

  "So far the weather looks a little better than it's been the last few days. Not good, but not bad enough to scrub the mission before takeoff."

  They'd been weathered out of route pack six for most of the five days since their last try at the Canales bridge. Twice they'd been airborne, but the Weasels had reported cloud buildups over the target, and they'd judiciously turned back.

  Manny shrugged. "We'll just have to do our best. Who's mission commander?"

  "Colonel Mack. Bad Injin Encinos was going to take it, but he got sick or something."

  Manny nodded without comment. Thus far their squadron commander had not proved to be another John Wayne.

  "I'm waiting on a call they're trying to put through in the command center. Soon as I'm done, why don't we go have a quick lunch?"

  "Sure," said Manny; then he gave him an inquisitive look. "They're putting the call through for you?"

  "On the scrambler phone. I'm trying to reach my cousin at Danang on a classified line. Our command post got a call from Korat. One of their flight leads got a radio transmission from the ground up in pack six yesterday. Said the guy identified himself as Barracuda lead."

  "That was Major Lucky's call sign."

  "Yeah." Billy grinned. "Means he's still up there on the loose."

  "Jesus, that's good news! Where is he?"

  "He wouldn't give his location. Probably didn't want to broadcast it to the gomers. So I was going to call David, that's my cousin at Danang."

  "What can he do?" asked Manny.

  "He's in Special Forces. Got some kind of job that has to do with communications and spook work, or at least that's what I think it is. I just thought that maybe the Army's got some way of triangulating Lucky's radio calls so they can tell us where he is."

  "Sounds interesting," said Manny. "I'll wait for you."

  1512 Local—Route Pack Six, North Vietnam

  Captain Manny DeVera

  Twice they'd been forced to break up the gaggle as coveys of surface-to-air missiles zipped out of the clouds, heading directly at various aircraft. The cloud cover was low, banked at 10,000 feet. They flew up at 20,000 feet, but the missiles had a head of steam built up before they came darting out at them, and they had little time to react.

  The crew leading the Wild Weasel flight was one of the least aggressive in the wing and weren't enamored with challenging the SAMs in poor weather. When they got to Thud Ridge, they just orbited there to fire Shrike homing missiles at Fansong SAM radars to the south. They radioed that the weather looked to be good in the target area.

  Today the Weasels would provide little protection from the SAMs.

  As they approached, they could see that there was indeed a hole in the weather. It was a long, skinny one extending from Thai Nguyen to the northern edge of Hanoi, so the bridge was at the far end of the clearing. Puffs of flak forming over the target appeared almost as a part of the clouds, making it hard to tell the bad stuff from the awful stuff. The fighter pilots liked the clouds just a little better than artillery bursts, but wished neither was there.

  Colonel Mack MacLendon was in his dive delivery, trying to neutralize the target defenses with his cluster-bomblet units, yet also trying to stay out of the clouds. Manny's Rifle flight was immediately behind Mack and would be first to drop on the Canales bridge. He flew over the right edge of the oblong hole, along its western side, for although it was hidden by clouds, he knew there were no guns on the steep and craggy Thud Ridge.

  "Rifle's in the dive," was all Manny said as he rolled over, inverted.

  He leveled his wings in his dive-bomb attack, and the HSI, the gyrostabilized horizontal-situation indicator, read precisely forty-five degrees.

  Good dive angle, he whispered into his oxygen mask.

  The nose of the aircraft was squarely on the target.

  The Wild Weasels began shouting about SAMs, but he ignored them.

  Wind from the east they'd briefed before takeoff, and since he saw no visual reference down below, like smoke blowing one direction or the other, he had to believe them. He offset downstream, trying to estimate thirty feet, placed his pipper, and then waited for the target to crawl up there.

  Altitude was . . . 7,900 . . . 7,700 . . . 7,500.

  Good sight picture. He pickled the bombs off.

  Flak bracketed his bird as he pulled off to his left. Too close. He went into the clouds momentarily, and that was precisely when the flak burst hit his bird.

  Whoomph! The Thud shuddered, and he knew he'd been hit.

  A flash of fear numbed him. The Thud flew clear of the cloud and he was climbing out, turning slightly left as Colonel Mack had briefed, trying to think clearly.

  They were to exit to the southeast and cross the coast north of Thanh Hoa.

  He spotted a flight up ahead. Likely Mack's group.

  He remembered his briefing to his flight and called, "Rifle lead's in the clear, south of the target."

  Rifle two said he was not far behind him, then three and four radioed that they were in burner trying to catch up.

  They were back together and joining with Mack's flak-suppression flight when Manny realized he'd lost his shakes and jangles. His Thud had been hit while he'd been blind and in a cloud, yet he'd had only the quick moment of panic. Was the unreasonable fear gone? . . . the terrible time over?

  Before they coasted out, Mack called a SAM break and a missile flashed smoothly between his number two and number three. Rifle wasn't threatened, so they hung together in their own formation, keeping a close watch on the clouds below.

  Colonel Mack called "feet wet," meaning they'd passed over the coastline. It was impossible to tell visually, because the earth below was shrouded in clouds. A couple of minutes later Manny directed Rifle flight to their squadron radio frequency and asked if anyone had seen his bombs hit.

  "Rifle two saw them, lead," said Henry. "You got a near miss right beside the center of the bridge. Shook the hell out of it, but it didn't go down. I think the winds went calm on us, and we overcompensated. Mine hit in the same place as yours, just east of the bridge."

  Damn.
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  "How about yours, Rifle three?" asked Manny.

  "You see my bombs, four?" asked Bowes. "I went into the clouds too."

  Smitty's voice was shaky. It was only his third trip to pack six, so that was understandable. "You took out the northern approach to the bridge, three. You hit short of the bridge itself, but you put a big crater right at the approach."

  Bowes didn't answer.

  "You see your own bombs impact, four?" asked Manny.

  "No, sir, but I'm pretty sure they hit short. I was trying to avoid going into the clouds, and I dropped too soon."

  "Anyone get hit?" asked Manny.

  "I think I took one in the wing," said Henry.

  "Yeah, so did I. Let's check each other over and make sure there's nothing we don't know about, then we'll go to Red Crown frequency and give our reports and get a steer to our tanker." Manny paused for a second. "Wish we could give 'em a success code, Rifles."

  As they began to look one another over, Billy made a radio call in his quiet and confident voice. "Rifle lead?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Maybe we didn't win the war today, but all things considered, I'd call that a good, standard mission," said Bowes.

  "I'll second that," called Henry Horn. "No surprises."

  Manny thought about it, and suddenly he felt pretty damn good about things. "Yeah. Maybe you're right."

  1620 Local—Plans & Programs, HQ Seventh Air Force, Saigon

  Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates

  Red Crown airborne command post had received the pilot reports of the afternoon bombing results and relayed them to the Saigon control center. The results were mixed.

  Korat reported that the Thanh Moi bridge was down on one side, and they didn't think the side still standing had enough surface to permit vehicular traffic. Takhli reported the northern approach to the Canales des Rapides bridge was badly damaged, but that the spans were all still standing. Danang reported the heaviest flak they'd ever encountered, the loss of an F-4 to a SAM, and . . . probably no damage to the Thanh Hoa bridge because it had been covered by clouds.

  Pearly went from the command center directly to General Moss's office, then waited outside for twenty minutes while Moss spoke to the senior B-52 liaison officer.