The Warbirds

by Richard Herman

  The telltale flickers of the trawler’s search radar lighted Thunder’s warning gear immediately after takeoff. Jack dropped low to the water while C.J. moved up, letting the radar positively identify him. They used the warning gear as cues, porpoising up and down, making sure the trawler could periodically paint them on radar as they flew down-track. Jack could barely see the soft green formation lights on C.J.’s bird in the growing haze and darkness when he violently rocked his wings, signaling C.J. to collapse into a tight formation. The major slid his fighter onto Jack’s wing and they dropped down to the surface of the water, changing course trying to elude search radars.

  Unexpectedly C.J. slowed down to below 300 knots, too slow for the area they were in, then broke silence with a short transmission. “Aborting, engine failure, frozen.” The major’s number two engine had lost its oil pressure and frozen, the compressor blades not turning and consequently creating a ferocious drag for the remaining engine to overcome.

  Jack started to turn with him and return to base before realizing that he had to continue the mission. He jerked the Phantom back onto course and headed into the night alone. “No choice,” he said to Thunder. “We’ve got to hit the target to keep the MiGs looking for us.”

  “New heading three-two-nine degrees in thirty seconds,” Thunder replied, navigating to the target. Then: “Contact, IP,” Thunder told him. Jack saw the crosshairs on his scope move out and freeze on an indecipherable glob while the bearing pointer on the Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI) swung and pointed to the IP. Jack cut the corner and headed straight for the Initial Point, wanting to drop his bombs and run for home. But without the protection that C.J. offered him from SAMs, he felt naked. “Contact, target,” Thunder said, and again the radar crosshairs moved over a bright return on the scope.

  This time, Jack did not cut the corner and flew over the IP, giving Thunder time to refine the placement of his bombing cursor. The visibility improved as they started their bomb run. Jack selected visual mode for the delivery when he saw the outline of trucks and buildings on the near horizon in front of them. His thumb depressed the pickle button when the target-pipper on his sight was centered on the buildings, and six bombs rippled off, walking across the farm buildings the PSI had recently turned into a fuel dump. The impact on the ground was instantaneous as the fuel exploded, lighting the sky and silhouetting the lone Phantom against the night. Jack jinked hard, going as fast as he could without lighting his afterburners and giving the enemy a beacon to find him. He was just turning south when an explosion rocked the Phantom, almost twisting the stick from his grasp.

  Neither he nor Thunder saw the SA-9 that was homing on the heat-signature of their tail pipes. The turn south had rotated their hot exhaust away from the missile’s infrared guidance head. The guidance program then tried to follow the Phantom through the turn by feeding cutoff into the missile’s trajectory. The guidance-head lost the heat signature halfway through the turn but went into a memory mode and speared Jack’s bird on the lower left side, below the cockpits. Most, not all, of the small warhead’s charge was absorbed by the variable ramp that led into the air duct of number one engine and the bulkheads surrounding the cockpit. The J-79 engine, damaged when it sucked in debris from the explosion, did continue to operate, sending out signals that it was hurt.

  The pain was a lion to be tamed, but Jack had never dealt with a lion before. The lion walked through him, clawing and ripping. “Thunder, talk to me, babe…” Silence. He wanted to twist in his seat to check on his friend, except the lion wouldn’t let him as it came on him, bringing a fog that threatened his consciousness. Jack fought it, fought the lion trying to drag him into the encroaching fog…“Okay, check. Fly the goddamn airplane,” he ordered himself, going through the routines he had practiced so often to analyze and handle such an emergency. “Thunder, talk to me.” He wasn’t sure if he had said it aloud so he repeated it, and again still no answer. He could feel the fog now, numbing, confusing him—the lion snarled and the searing pain brought him awake as two thoughts battered at him: fly the bird; help Thunder…

  He labored to quiet the lion. What’s the matter with me? Fly the jet. He checked his instruments, started to navigate home. The engine instruments were normal; no, the oil pressure on his number one was a little low, but still within limits. Concentrate on basics: breathing, bleeding, bones—the three Bs of first aid. Where had he learned that? Fly the airplane. His internal monologue continued as his hands went through their assigned tasks. Forcing his eyes down, he checked his feet, directing his flashlight at the floor. Nausea came over him when he saw his feet soaked with blood.

  Where’s that damn lion when I need him? Shock is there, has to be. Stop the bleeding, be quick about it. With his left hand he ripped the first-aid kit out of its pouch on his survival vest, shook it apart into his lap, unwrapped the large compress bandage. He patted his right side with his left hand. Nothing. Switching hands on the stick, he patted his left side. Just below his hip he felt the warm, sticky wet. He was near the leak. “Fix the leak.” A simple problem of maintenance…

  The lion came again from nowhere, challenging him with pain. He had reduced the problem to basics. He looked at his left hip. A flow of blood was coming out of his upper left thigh, not pulsing or heavy, which would have meant an artery had been severed. Why couldn’t he feel it? Shock? He grabbed the bandage and stuffed it into the flow of blood. The lion snarled as he tightened the bandage around his wound, stopping the flow of blood.

  Again he scanned the instruments, checked his fuel, calculated the course home. Looking outside, he searched for a recognizable landmark, anything to point the way back to Rats Ass. Automatically he scanned the instrument panel yet again, an ingrained part of his flying routine. He noticed the bearing pointer on the HSI was pointing at his one o’clock position. How had he missed that? He recycled the select switch on his HSI to the navigation computer mode and watched the bearing pointer slew back to the same position and the mileage indicator roll to 128 nautical miles. “Thunder, baby, I love you,” he said. In his last few seconds of consciousness Thunder had punched the coordinates for Ras Assanya into the navigation computer, showing his pilot the way home.

  “All right now, Thunder, baby, what’s the matter with you?” He reached up to his right and twisted the far right rearview mirror on his canopy bow, adjusting it to see into the backseat. He could only make out the top of Thunder’s helmet in the dim glow of the light given off by the instruments. Gently he rolled the F-4 onto its back and started a climb. The maneuver straightened Thunder out and forced his inert body into a sitting position. While still climbing he rolled the Phantom upright and leveled off. He directed the beam of his flashlight into the rear cockpit and could now see Thunder clearly in his rearview mirror. Thunder’s helmet visor was busted and splattered on the inside with blood, and his shoulders were bloody. Please, God, not a head wound…but he knew one was likely. A cold determination came over Jack to recover the big fighter. With Thunder unconscious and with a head wound, an ejection would be fatal.

  The only defense Jack had against the fighters no doubt searching for him was the ground, and so he dropped the Phantom down to the deck, skimming the flat marshlands that bordered the coast. The mileage indicator clicked to 112 miles as he saw the faint outline of a bay in the dark. He knew where he was and changed heading slightly to the east, heading in a direction away from the base. He could only hope the MiGs were being deployed as a blocking force directly between the target they had struck and Ras Assanya.

  The glowing Master Caution Light caught his attention. How long had that been on? He punched it off and checked the warning panel on his right. The “Check Utility” pressure light was illuminated and the Utility Hydraulic Pressure gauge read zero; he had lost his primary hydraulic system. He ran over the systems he had lost and what he would have to do; no brakes, no gear lowering, no flaps. He went over the emergency procedures that he had spent hours drilling into his memory: b
low the gear down, blow the flaps down, lower the hook, take the arresting cable stretched across the approach end of the runway. Hell of a time to have to act like a Navy carrier pilot…

  Eighty-five miles out from Ras Assanya the oil pressure on his number one engine fell to zero and he had to shut it down before it froze up and created the same intolerable drag C.J. had encountered. Without a choice, he started to climb, gaining the altitude he needed to fly the disabled aircraft—the telltale buzz of a strong search radar came through his earphones, the enemy had found him.

  “Well, I’ve done this one before,” he said to his unconscious wizzo. Of course, if Thunder were okay, he’d jettison the bird, but he wasn’t, so get on with it. He remembered the emergency landing that he and Landis had made at Stonewood when they had lost an engine and their Emergency Hydraulic pressure. The conditions had been perfect for an emergency landing that time and Tom Gomez had still told them to eject. Now the option wasn’t available when he wanted it the most. He keyed his radio, calling the tower at Ras Assanya. “Rats Tower, Wolf Zero-Nine, Mayday, Mayday.” For the first time, he was aware of the loud wind noise in the cockpit.

  “Roger, Wolf Zero-Nine,” the tower responded. “You are weak and barely readable. Say position and emergency,” the tower controller answered, and at the same time hit the alarm button to the crash trucks and hospital clinic…

  Lieutenant Colonel Steve Farrell, waiting out the recovery of Wolf Flight in the tower, did not hesitate when Jack told him about their battle damage and the condition of the Phantom. “Wolf Zero-Nine,” he radioed, “recommend controlled ejection. Overfly the base and point that pig out to sea. Eject when you are over the runway, we’ll catch you and the bird will glide for two miles before it crashes, well clear of us.”

  “Negative,” Jack replied. “Thunder can’t take an ejection. I’m taking the approach end barrier.”

  Farrell acknowledged Jack’s decision and keyed the crash radio, telling the crash truck, clinic and Waters about the emergency.

  “Boss,” Farrell said to Waters, “if he prangs on the runway he’ll close us down. The rest of Wolf Flight is still airborne and we have to recover them—”

  “They’ve got a tanker and can go someplace else. If they have to land here for an emergency or for fuel we’ll bulldoze Jack’s bird off the runway.”

  “What if the crew is still in the plane?”

  The knot of decision grew tighter for Waters. “They go with the jet if they’re still in it.” Waters ran for his truck, wanting to be on hand to do what he could…

  The tall crew chief stood beside the crash truck, watching his Phantom, 512, come down final. His hand was on the collar of the crash team’s leader. “I’m going with you,” he told the man. “I’ll pop the canopies open for you—”

  “Get your hands off me, and you ain’t coming with us; you’ll get in the way…”

  “You hurt my bird and I’ll squash your head, shithead. Personally, you hear?” The crew chief threw the man back into the truck…

  Doc Landis sat in the ambulance, waiting. If anybody could pull this off, Locke could…

  Unconsciousness was starting to swirl around Jack again as he fought for control of the wounded F-4. The airspeed needle hovered around 280 knots, over fifty knots above the recommended airspeed for final approach. But whenever he inched off the power he could feel a loss of control and had to inch the power back in. It was going to be high-speed approach and touchdown. As he brought the Phantom over the approach lights he carefully bled the power off, inching down to 240 knots, on the very edge of controlled flight. He ripped the throttle of his good engine aft as the gear slammed onto the runway. The F-4 bounced back into the air, its hook missing the arresting cable, but the big rudder exerted enough authority to steer as Jack fought to stay on the runway, and the hook snagged the second cable two thousand feet further down the runway, jerking the Phantom to an abrupt halt.

  The ambulance reached the Phantom seconds after the crash truck, and Doc Landis held his breath as he received the unconscious pilot and wizzo that the rescue crew handed down to him.

  12 August: 1300 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1400 hours, Stonewood, England

  The shop buzzed with its normal Friday afternoon gossip as the wives from Stonewood streamed in, getting their hair coiffed for the weekend. The wives had an excursion on for Stratford-on-Avon Saturday and Sunday, so Gillian and her people were busier than usual. From the comments, some less subtle than others, it seemed a number of the ladies were using the trip as cover for a weekend with someone other than the husband. Gillian was glad when Beth Shaw arrived. She liked the older woman, a straight-on set who disdained gossip and obviously cared about her husband and his cadre.

  “Is something wrong, Gillian? You seem upset…”

  “No…I guess it’s because we’re so busy.” And changing the subject, “What’s a stand-down, Mrs. Shaw? Everyone keeps talking about it.”

  “Well, it seems the wing has stopped flying combat missions, at least for the time being,” Beth told her. “Everyone is hoping that it will become permanent and the men will be coming home. Haven’t you heard about it?”

  “The shop keeps me so busy I don’t have much spare time,” she said, deciding not to tell Beth Shaw she deliberately ignored the newspapers, TV and any talk of the war, afraid they would remind her too much of Jack.

  “Yes, well, the wing has been so successful in its last few missions. Thankfully, no one was lost. One crew was wounded but they landed safely. There are rumors that feelers have been extended on both sides to stop the fighting. It’s in the morning papers.” Beth knew a good deal more, thanks to her husband’s recital of the 45th’s proud record, but she also knew that a general’s wife had to button up, as he put it. Still, no harm in talking some about what was in the papers. “The two wounded men were a Captain Locke and a Captain Bryant, I believe. Did you know them? I understand Captain Jack Locke is considered quite a catch…”

  Gillian stood back, the comb trembling in her hand. Jack and Thunder? She didn’t even know. What a damn fool she was. She wanted to ask Beth Shaw to tell her everything she knew…and yet…did she really want to know? Wounded, she’d said. Thank God, Jack was still alive. And Thunder. Damn it, why did she care so much? It was one sided; he didn’t even care enough to write. Stop it, she ordered herself. Stop pretending. You damn well do care…

  Beth Shaw didn’t miss the expression on Gillian’s face, or the moisture in her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry, you did know them…”

  “Yes,” Gillian said, fighting for composure. “And now, Mrs. Shaw, I think we’re just about done.”

  15 August: 2215 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1815 hours, Washington, D.C.

  The National Security Adviser preferred meeting in the Oval Office, the nation’s pinnacle of power and authority. He also hoped the President was not recording their conversation. Ever since Nixon…

  The agenda was the status of the Gulf war, and what both he and the chief executive tended to consider a fortunate turn of events. The last two raids by the 45th had been successful, more so than they had any right to expect, and the supply buildup by the PSI had been set back by at least two months. The main strike had caused most of the damage but the follow-up night missions by Wolf Flight had made a significant contribution. Neither of the men knew why the one target had been selected for the lone attack by an F-4 at night, but they were quite willing to accept the results since the 45th had managed to locate and destroy a huge petroleum dump. After all, fuel-storage areas were on the approved targets list, so the wing did not need specific permission to attack it. And since no aircraft had been lost, the war had suddenly taken on a much more positive coloration.

  “We’re getting positive noises the PSI wants to stop fighting and talk,” the adviser said. “Our intermediary is, of all people, North Korea. Makes sense in a way, though. They’re all more or less in the Soviet orbit.”

  “And what are the Soviets doing?”


  “So far, little. Reports indicate that they are disenchanted with their allies. No wonder…the leadership of the People’s Soldiers of Islam is prickly as hell, tough to influence, not to mention control, politically. We figure part of this is because the PSI is searching for a face-saving device to stop the fighting. Maybe, sir, we should give it to them. Saudi Arabia is interested in negotiations. The royal family is coming under a lot of pressure by various religious factions to throw all foreigners out of the country. A sort of Middle East Boxer’s Rebellion may be brewing.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “Perhaps if we withdraw the F-15s and most or all of the fleet out of the Gulf of Oman, they might interpret that as a de-escalation.”

  “Look, I need action on the diplomatic front,” the President said. “My people are taking major hits from the press and in Congress on this. They won’t take such attacks forever and stick by me. They may not be Sunshine Patriots but they sure as hell aren’t about to play Valley Forge.”

  “I understand…but they should at least give us some time to maneuver. We can send confirming signals back to the PSI. I suggest through Algeria as well as North Korea. Withdraw the fleet now and pull the F-15s later, when we need to sweeten the pot.”

  The President nodded. “It’s all in the timing; it’s got to be right. Send the signals and watch for a reaction. Like you say, we’ll withdraw the F-15s later…You know, I hate all this pussyfooting. We’re involved in a war…short and long term. My damn blood pressure is off the charts.”

  As for the future of the 45th Tactical Fighter Wing, it was never mentioned.

  The photos of the petroleum dump burning in the night were the capstone of the morning’s situation briefing. General Cunningham joined in the general enthusiasm. The results of the two raids by the 45th had exceeded his planners’ expectations. The recovery of all his aircrews made him think momentarily about firing a couple of the planners for being too damn cautious. The two wounded men were safe in the hospital at Wiesbaden, where their condition was reported as stable and improving.