Stand BY-Y-Y to Start Engines

by Daniel V Gallery

  The Admiral nodded and switched the plane's intercom to the task group frequency so the whole plane's crew could listen in.

  Over the intercom came the word, "Guadalcanal to flights one, two, three, and four - report number of planes in company with you."

  Each air patrol leader came back with the same report: "Six."

  The copilot looked at Admiral Bates. "Twenty-four jet fighters up on a night like this?" he said. "They'll have trouble controlling them. I'll bet some will get in their own way."

  "Yeah," said the Admiral pensively, "or in ours, maybe... Flash your lights and start the boys fanning out."

  Soon the picket destroyers, whose radars could see through fog, spotted the incoming P2Vs and flashed word to the Guadalcanal. In CIC fighter director officers went to work, broke off pairs of Banshees from each imaginary patrol, and started vectoring them out to intercept the various bomber groups.

  It was easy enough for Admiral Bates, watching his own surface radar scope on which the Guadalcanal was now visible, to dope out that the pair of fighters vectoring 090 was the one trying to intercept him.

  Soon the air was full of radio traffic. The picket destroyers spotted more P2Vs coming in from all directions, and fighter directors vectored more imaginary jets out to meet them. Despite the fact that they had to handle many targets and twenty-four fighters at once, there was little confusion. Six pairs of Banshees got their vectors, rogered for them, and were on their way without jamming the frequencies.

  The copilot remarked to Admiral Bates, "They've got good radio discipline - these guys are professionals."

  "Yeah, they're pretty good," said the Admiral, staring intently .into the blackness.

  Then the Guadalcanal ordered: "All fighter planes turn out your lights. We will make these attacks under war conditions."

  "What the -?" growled Admiral Bates, stiffening in his seat. "Those guys must be nuts. It was agreed we would use lights... Well, we've got ours on. If they run into each other it's their funeral."

  The Admiral picked up his mike and broadcast to his group: "This is Admiral Bates. All P2Vs make sure your lights are on. Night fighters are coming in without lights."

  Before he was half through, the Guadalcanal's direction finders, who had been waiting for the squadron commander to identify himself, pounced on the transmission and got an accurate bearing. "Zero nine zero," they reported.

  Over the intercom in the Admiral's plane the order came in: "Guadalcanal to cap four, vector four more planes 090. We will make a three-way split attack on target approaching on that bearing."

  "Six of them coming in at us in this soup!" muttered the Admiral.

  The Gauadalcanal was still 100 miles ahead of Admiral Bates and the six jet fighters, according to the chatter on the radio, were converging on him at speeds as high as 600 knots - one mile every six seconds. Vectors to the fighters came fast now. Apparently the task group fighter directors meant to bring six Banshees in on one target almost simultaneously.

  Then came a plaintive call from one of the Banshees. "Guadalcanal, this is Cap Four Baker - I can't see a thing ahead of me up here."

  "Roger, Cap Four Baker. Keep going. Don't worry, we won't let you hit him."

  By this time Admiral Bates and all his people in the P2V were in cold sweats. Suddenly there were six jubilant tallyhos over the radio in rapid succession.

  The Admiral grabbed the mike and asked his tail gunner, "How close did those guys come?"

  "To close for comfort, Admiral," huskily replied the gunner, who couldn't see a thing but had heard every word over the intercom.

  A few seconds later the following came in out of the night: "Guadalcanal from Four Baker, I didn't like that run. You brought me in too close. I almost chopped his tail off."

  "Guadalcanal to Four Baker. Roger. Sorry. We'll be more careful next time. Rendezvous with your section leader for another attack."

  That was enough for Bugler Bates. He made some blistering comments, winding up with "Let's get out of here while we're still in one piece."

  Grabbing his tactical mike he broadcast: "This is Admiral Bates. Exercise canceled. All P2Vs return to base. Reverse course immediately and get out of this rat race."

  The other P2Vs, who also had been eavesdropping, rogered promptly and cheerfully. The nearest P2V at this time was forty-five miles from the Guadalcanal.

  Down in the Guadalcanal's Combat Information Center, Curly Cue finally made himself heard over the jubilant whooping and hollering, and yelled: "Get back on those microphones, every one of you guys. We've still got twenty-four planes to bring down out of the soup. We can't just cut off the program and leave them - and our public - in the air."

  As soon as Admiral Bates' plane rolled to a stop in front of the tower at San Francisco, the Admiral scrambled out and burned up the direct line to Radio Seattle with the following dispatch.

  To: Com TG81

  On tonight's exercise I personally observed flagrant violations of safety rules by your planes. Fighters operated without lights and hazarded lives of P2V crews by making dangerously close passes. In two cases collision averted only by expert evasive action of P2Vs. Recommend drastic disciplinary action on offending pilots.

  This dispatch was delivered to Admiral Day on the Guadalcanal just as she broke out of the fog an hour before dawn 1000 miles from San Francisco and started launching bombers to attack the city. Admiral Day wrote his reply in high glee, checking the wording carefully with his legal officer, who was an expert at framing statements which, although literally true, could be a bit misleading.

  To: Com Pat Wings Pac Fleet:

  Replying to your message - believe there is some confusion about what happened last night. My planes did not operate with running lights turned out and careful questioning of all Guadalcanal fighter pilots convinces me that no planes from task group approached within 1000 yards of P2Vs. Respectfully submit your planes were not actually in danger.

  As the last plane of the bombing attack rolled off the bow, Curly Cue said to Admiral Day:

  "When Admiral Bates finds out what actually happened, I won't dare go ashore in Frisco any more."

  "Okay, my boy, don't you worry about that," said Admiral Day. "Old Bugler ought to know by now that if you believe everything you hear when you're eavesdropping on a party line, you may get booby-trapped into jumping to conclusions."

  Of course when the Guadalcanal got in to San Francisco, the story was bound to leak out. Matter of fact, as soon as the first liberty boat hit the beach it "leaked out" the way Old Faithful erupts at Yellowstone. Before long everyone in the Navy knew it and Admiral Bugler Bates had one more score to settle with his old rival Admiral Day.

  Chapter Five

  RESCUE MISSION

  Next day, the Guadalcanal, 300 miles offshore, plowed through dense fog heading for San Francisco. The fog gave all pilots a day off. The planes' crews were busy pulling engine checks and tinkering with their planes as they always do when they get a chance. In CIC, the duty section relaxed at their stations with all except the lads on search radar and distress radio half asleep. The fighter director, his feet on a desk, pored over a paperback thriller. It looked as though it would be a dull watch.

  Meantime a TransPac airliner, Flight 132, with 100 passengers aboard, was coming in from the west also bound for San Francisco. The airliner was at 20,000 on the gauges and was having a bumpy trip. The turbulent air was rough on the passengers, but it didn't bother the pilots. Thanks to radio beams and loran, they could stay on course and check their position just as well as if the sun were shining.

  The whole West Coast lay under a thick overcast, and a blanket of pea-soup fog extended far out to sea. San Francisco Airport had a ceiling of 100 feet and the visibility was close to the landing minimum.

  Flight 132 entered the clouds an hour out of Honolulu and had been there ever since. It was now well past the point of no return for Honolulu and was scheduled to land in San Francisco in about another hour. Salt Lake
City was its alternate in case SF closed in. SLC had 500 feet and three miles. In a few minutes it would be time for a routine position report to Air Traffic Control. The navigator watched the dancing traces on his loran-scope and twiddled the knobs till the traces stood still. Then he put down some numbers in his notebook, flipped a switch, and took another reading. On his loran chart of the Pacific he picked out a red line with the first set of numbers on it and ran his finger along until he came to a green line with the second number on it. There he pricked a small hole in the chart, looked at the clock, and wrote down the time. This gave him a pinpoint fix, like reading the signs where two streets intersect. He then drew a line joining this position with his last previous fix and checked to see that his ground speed and course were what they should be. They were - showing that the wind Aerology had given him was correct.

  The navigator filled in his position report and went up to the cockpit. He reported, "450 miles to go, Cap'n. We are on course. Ground speed 410. You should be right on the Golden Gate beam when we pick it up."

  "Umph," grunted the captain, "give radio the position report."

  Turning to the copilot, he said "It's getting a little bumpier. We must be getting close to that thunderstorm area Aerology told us about." A couple of extra-heavy bumps confirmed this. A minute later the gray haze they were flying through began blinking with purple light flashes, and heavy rain set in. The pilot said to the copilot, "Get on the Golden Gate beam frequency and let me know when you pick it up." Then he flipped the autopilot off, took the controls himself, and settled down for a bit of serious work on the gauges.

  Shortly after that there was a blinding flash as a bolt of lightning hit the plane just aft of the cockpit. Lightning seldom does much structural damage to a big plane, and it didn't do much this time. But it played havoc with the radios. Purple sparks flew all over the radio compartment, fuses blew, and the radioman nearly got knocked off his stool. When the sparks quit jumping, the cabin was full of smoke from burned-out wiring and all radio receivers were dead. So was the loran set.

  The radioman grabbed his interphone to the cockpit and said, "Radio to pilot - all receivers are knocked out." No answer from the cockpit. The intercom was out, too. He yanked off the headphones and staggered up to the cockpit. "All radios knocked out, Cap'n," he said.

  "Okay," said the pilot, "get 'em back in again. Did you get the position report off?"

  "Nossir. We got hit right in the middle of it."

  Scanning his instruments methodically the captain said to the copilot, "Go back and see how much damage that bolt did. See what the engineer has to say about the power plants."

  While the copilot was aft the pilot did some iffy thinking. If the radios were badly hurt, this situation could turn out to be a nasty one. An airliner on instruments depends absolutely on its radios. You can control the plane all right without radios. Your gyro horizon, compass, air speed meter, and altimeters enable you to fly safely as long as your fuel holds out. But without radio, when you are in the clouds, you can't tell where you are. Dead reckoning will give you a rough idea, but it's not good enough for a letdown through a low ceiling. To let down and land in bad weather you've got to have radio. If you try to do it on dead reckoning, especially in rough country like the West Coast, you're apt to splatter yourself all over a mountainside.

  Flight 132 had fuel enough to reach Salt Lake City, plus some reserve beyond that. But S.L.C. is right at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and a blind letdown there would be even more dangerous than at S.F.

  Before takeoff Aerology had told him this overcast was thick and solid everywhere. There was little chance of finding a hole that would let him duck under it. He was well past the point of no return, and the soup was thick for 500 miles behind him, so there was no point in turning back. This might be a bad jam. The only answer was to keep going and get those radios fixed.

  Soon the copilot came back and said, "No structural damage, Cap'n. Just the usual pinholes in the skin where the bolt hit. Engines are okay. But it sure made a mess of the radio shack... Passengers are a bit worried and a padre back there is giving his rosary beads a workout. We got a General aboard, too. But what he's saying is no prayer!"

  The radioman stuck his head in and said, "It looks bad, Cap'n. All my receivers are blown to hell... wiring burned out and guts all melted. Loran is shot. Main transmitter is gone too. Try your voice transmitter and I'll see if it puts out."

  The pilot squeezed his mike button and said, "Flight 132 testing 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 Flight 132 testing." Nothing came back through his earphones, but the radioman popped his head back in the cockpit and said, "I think you're putting out, Cap'n. The ammeter says you are."

  "Umph," grunted the captain. "We can't get beyond the horizon with voice, but its some help anyway. Keep working on those receivers. We gotta have at least one beam receiver."

  "Will do, Cap'n," said radio dubiously.

  Turning to the copilot the captain said, "Go back aft and have the stewardesses get the rafts out and get ready just in case we have to ditch. Give the passengers a pep talk. Break it to them gently."

  "Yeah," said the copilot, "how do you do that?"

  "Tell 'em the company is embarrassed but I may have to land them in the water. Tell 'em the gals are getting the rafts out so everybody will be comfortable after I do."

  "Okay, Cap'n," said the copilot and disappeared aft.

  The captain picked up his mike, squeezed the button, and said, "TransPac Flight 132 calling any station. TransPac 132 calling any station. Mayday. Mayday. Have been struck by lightning 500 miles west of Golden Gate. Minor structural damage but all radio receivers and all transmitters but this one are out. I am sending this message blind hoping someone picks it up. More in a minute. This is TransPac Flight 132. Mayday. Out."

  Meanwhile Air Traffic Control in San Francisco was getting a bit concerned about Flight 132. Radio had reported right away to the controller when Flight 132 broke off in the middle of his position report. After five minutes of futile calling and getting no answer, the controller alerted Air Sea Rescue and the Coast Guard and called the TransPac operations officer to the control room.

  "What do you make of it?" he asked as the air ops officer came in.

  "Could be a number of things," said Air Ops. "Number one, he has just lost his transmitters for some reason."

  "Right," said the controller. "In that case we're not in any real bad trouble. He can let down and land okay except that we can't tell him anything about other traffic. I'll cancel all outgoing flights from San Francisco and divert the incoming ones, so he'll have the air all to himself and a clear field if he comes in."

  transpac: "The next possibility is that he has lost all radios - in which case we got real trouble."

  controller: "Yeah. It's a solid overcast all up and down the coast. I don't know anywhere that he can let down safely. And the stuff is right down to the water, too, for a thousand miles to sea. Do you think he might try to let down here - on dead reckoning?"

  transpac ops: "Good God, no. Joe Tinker is one of our senior captains. He wouldn't think of it."

  controller: "So... what will he do?"

  transpac: "I think he'll come straight in at 20,000 till he thinks he has crossed the coast, figuring that we will pick him up by radar. Then I think he'll go back out to sea until he either finds a hole he can duck down through or runs out of gas and has to ditch. If I know Joe he'll make it easy for us, and we will find him somewhere along the course on which we last saw him by radar not more than 100 miles off shore."

  controller: "Sounds logical. I've already alerted the early warning net and Fighter Defense HQ to watch for on radar. I'll have all other inbound flights make a big circle, ten miles offshore as they come in, so radar can sort him out from the others when he comes in straight."

  transpac: "The last possibility is that he's in the drink already."

  controller: "The Coast Guard has a cutter on the way to his last reported position righ
t now. I'm also notifying Air Sea Rescue."

  tranpac: "That's it, then. There's nothing else we can do."

  In the waiting room at the San Francisco Airport, the man on the bulletin board changed all scheduled departure times to "delayed" and all arrivals to "diverted." To anxious inquiries by waiting passengers and friends, he explained "weather."

  Experienced air travelers could look outside and see that the weather wasn't bad enough to cancel takeoff. They paced around muttering, "If you've time to spare, go by air." Soon the board showed the new destination for all the diverted flights except 132. To inquiries about that one, the answer was "not decided yet."

  Meanwhile the Guadalcanal plowed along about 150 miles east of the stricken airliner. The radioman in CIC picked up the faint test count from the liner after the bolt had struck, but this was nothing to be concerned about. The CIC officer didn't even look up from his reading when it came over the loudspeaker.