"Bingo, Bones! Look at this." There were another eight brand-new dollies, still in their crates. "Let's go to the maintenance shack!"
"No, we'll do it my way."
Bones was popular with the troops and arranged for. an early morning work party of a hundred airmen from different units—headquarters, mess hall, the motor pool.
"Okay—let's put four men on a dolly and form up in a column of fours. Menard, you lead the parade in Ozzie's Jeep. I'll be in the M.O.'s office."
At nine o'clock, Marshall was talking to the M.O. about a parts problem, when the siren on Ozzie's Jeep blared. The maintenance officer groaned as Bones followed him out of the room. Menard came by, standing up in the rear of the Jeep saluting, followed by a parade of twenty dollies, each one pushed by airmen.
Marshall didn't say another word to the maintenance officer—he didn't have to.
The dollies were just a start. The Sabres were chronically short of a whole variety of parts, primarily because the paperwork and the chain of command intervened. Without any authorization, Marshall placed an order with the North American civilian technical representatives on the field for a quarter of a million dollars' worth of the items in shortest supply. North American, entirely at its own risk, chartered an air freighter and shipped the parts immediately. Within ten days of his request, the parts were on the field, being installed. As far as the paperwork went, he assumed that someone would sort it out later, or else he'd go to jail.
Dave Menard turned into a first-rate officer in the process. At first Marshall would have to pull him away from the volleyball court or the makeshift baseball diamond—sports were big at Suwon. But within days, Menard had taken the challenge, and, following Bones's lead, got his hands greasy changing brakes or pulling engines. Some of the senior NCOs tried to hard-time him at first, but by varying his good humor with tough military discipline, Menard gained their respect. Between flying days and working nights, the two men grew close, and it dawned on Marshall that Menard was the first real friend he'd made since Bayard Riley. It helped a lot.
Around midnight, another young flyer was approaching Suwon, feeling lonely and friendless. La Woon Yung was a proud man, but his shame was great as he slipped his PO-2 biplane through the pitch-black Korean night at eighty knots. Windblown and almost deafened by the irregular pop-pop-popping of the small radial engine, the young pilot peered ahead for the glimmer of lights. Under his wings were two small bombs useful primarily for disrupting sleep.
Yung had wanted to fly MiGs but hadn't been skilled enough, and they had relegated him to this laughable job of dropping firecrackers. Women pilots had flown the same wood and fabric crate during the Great Patriotic War; it was a disgrace.
The well-lit airfield lay ahead, beyond the blur of the village, surrounded by a moving ring of headlights as trucks passed around its perimeter. The arrogant Americans used more electricity on a single base than a whole Korean city used. They had not detected him yet—the lights were still on and there was no antiaircraft fire. La Woon Yung pulled the bomb release with total indifference as he passed over the parked F-86s and then turned north.
A bank of clouds ahead blossomed with the sudden reflected glare of the explosion, and he banked around to see an F-86 burning fiercely on the ramp. Keeping the little PO-2 cocked on its wing, he noted that there were other fires. Elated, he considered returning to survey the damage and decided against it. They would learn the results from the local people by tomorrow morning. He was one of the first North Korean pilots to destroy an F-86. He would surely be decorated; perhaps he could ask to be reassigned to MiG 15 training. The war had taken quite a different turn!
At eleven the next morning, Marshall began to have serious concerns about his C.O.'s sanity. Ostrowski was still raving like a lunatic nine hours after the incident, screaming that he wouldn't stand for clapped-out pissant trainers destroying his fighters. So far he'd threatened to fire everybody in the world, from Truman on down to the firemen who had managed to contain the damage to one aircraft destroyed and four damaged.
The week before, Marshall had been given Able Squadron and told to do whatever he wanted with it, as long as he got some kills. Now didn't seem to be the best time to present his new plan of operations, but he took a shot at it. "Colonel, maybe this'll help. Let me tell you how we can get another twenty minutes on station, and get some more kills."
"Kills, kills, by God I want some kills right here on base. How in hell can I run an operation if North Korean lightplanes shoot the shit out of me? I . . ."
Marshall let him rant for a while, then cut in. "We were spending too much time on the ground and in the climb-out. From now on, Able Squadron is going to eliminate the engine run-up and emergency fuel checks on the ramp, and we'll make running takeoffs. We're going to stop circling over the field to join formation; instead I'm going to head straight for MiG Alley, and the troops will form up as we climb. When we get to our combat altitude, we're going to be cruising at a minimum of .8 Mach."
Ostrowski was beginning to calm down, listening closely. "The safety officer's going to be down on you like a ton of bricks—you're talking about violating procedures."
Marshall took a chance, using Ostrowski's language instead of his own. "Fuck him." The verb stretched out as if it had four U's in it. "Who's the CO. of this outfit, you or the safety officer?"
As Ostrowski's rage ebbed, Marshall told him the next part of his plan. Official policy, straight from the President, demanded that there be no intrusion into neutral Chinese airspace, not even in hot pursuit. But there had been signals recently that General Frank McKinley, the new commanding general of the Fifth Air Force, would look the other way on a border violation, if it was done quickly and well.
"You don't have to hear this. But if I see any MiGs I'm going to hit them, no matter which side of the Yalu they're on."
Beaming now, Ostrowski said, "I didn't hear it, but I like it! When do you start?"
"Tomorrow morning. But there's one more thing. I'm going to schedule my troops to have a practice dogfight on every mission we don't engage the MiGs."
"Go get 'em, Tiger."
As Marshall walked away, he realized he liked the sound of his own tactics, and particularly the sound of the words my troops.
That night, on the way back from the mess hall, he bumped into Coleman and Fitzpatrick, suited up for flying, but not carrying their hard hats.
He made an effort to be civil. Coleman was the CO. of Baker Squadron, and they had to get along, and Bones asked, "You guys on the roster?"
As usual, Coleman didn't speak, but Fitz said, "Yeah, on Bed-check Charlie's roster. We borrowed a T-6 from the Mosquito Squadron. Our armament guys stuffed a thirty-caliber machine gun in it. We're going out to loiter around the edge of the field around midnight and see if we can hammer him."
"Don't bust your ass."
Marshall walked away, resentful of Coleman's continuing hostility, and thinking that it wasn't very smart to risk two veteran pilots to shoot down some poor North Korean PO-2. Then it hit him. It was part of the change. Coleman had the ace bug as bad as he did—and a victory was a victory, PO-2 or MiG.
At midnight Coleman and Fitzpatrick were circling at four thousand feet. The base wasn't lit up as it was the night before, but the pressure for maintenance kept enough lights on for Bedcheck Charlie to find it.
Fitz had ferried the T-6 over from Taegu West, complete with its standard armament of twelve 2.25 aircraft rockets the FACs used for marking targets. He hadn't flown a T-6 in years, but he'd conned the CO. of the FAC squadron into thinking that he was a high-time instructor in the airplane. The machine gun had been in storage, and it took the armament boys less than two hours to get it installed and belted up.
Airplanes spoke to Fitz the way marble speaks to a sculptor, and he was perfectly comfortable, even in the rear seat, content to be airborne, willing to let Coleman take the credit if the PO-2 showed up and they got lucky. One of a fast-disappearing breed of pilot
s, he had no interest in promotion or glory. He liked to fly airplanes, all kinds, fast or slow, and as long as the Air Force would let him do that, he'd be happy. He had volunteered for F-86s because they were the hottest thing around, but he had no special interest in shooting anyone down. He'd seen enough combat to know that it was mostly waiting and then blam, instant terror, as sorjie poor schmo got killed. Guys like Coleman and Marshall amused him—they liked to fly, but they were really interested in getting ahead.
Yet Coleman was a handy guy to know, and he was probably going places—his kind always did.
In the front seat of the T-6, Coleman had turned down all the instrument lights to let his eyes acclimate. It was up to him to pick up the PO-2. Radar was no help against the little biplanes, wood and fabric ferrets slinking down the Korean valleys. But if the PO-2 crossed the field, he'd be silhouetted against the lights.
They were loafing along at 100 mph, nose high, Fitz amusing himself doing perfect pylon eights using the middle of the field as the pivot point; he'd just passed through top dead center of his turn when Coleman yelled, "I got it! There he is!"
Two thousand feet below, an elated La Woon Yung, head still turning from last night's praise, toggled off his bombs and turned his PO-2 north. Just beyond the field boundaries, he circled, hoping to see a repeat of the previous evening. There was a small fire, but nothing important. Disappointed, he straightened out as Coleman came level behind him.
"Watch your airspeed."
Fitz was nervous—Coleman was slamming the airplane around at eighty knots, nibbling at a stall, too slow for comfort in drastic turns.
"I'm just going to fire and walk the bullets in on him."
Coleman pressed the firing button. Nothing.
"Jesus, this mother's armed, but it's not firing."
La Woon Yung glanced back, saw the T-6 and half-rolled his PO-2, split-S'ing toward the ground to disappear like sugar into coffee.
"Where'd he go?"
"Coleman, drop the gear. I got the fucking airplane."
As Coleman hit the hydraulic button and slammed the gear lever down, Fitz closed the throttle and shoved the T-6's nose forward.
"Drop fifteen degrees of flaps; be ready to haul the gear up if I call for it."
Coleman was disoriented as Fitz pulled the T-6's nose up.
"Gear up—look out at about the two o'clock position, low."
Coleman's peripheral vision picked up the phantom of the PO-2 flickering over the treetops.
"You figure out the fucking guns yet?"
"Still not working."
"Okay. Arm the rockets, and fire when I tell you to."
La Woon Yung had lost sight of the T-6 and had straightened out, anxious to get back to his own lines, to enjoy again the respect given a Sabre-killer.
Fitz wallowed in at low speed behind the little biplane, making coarse control inputs to track it. Visibility was bad from the backseat, so Fitz crabbed as if he were side-slipping in to land. He knew that if the enemy pilot saw them, he would be able to evade—there was no way the T-6 could maneuver with him. As the North Korean drew closer, Fitzpatrick felt a curious mathematical detachment, interested more in analyzing the performance of an unfamiliar airplane flown in awkward circumstances than concern that he was about to kill. He realized that he was as annoyed with Coleman for not being able to make the machine gun work as he was irritated that the Korean was ruining an otherwise perfect night for flying. Still, they had business to do.
"When I say fire, salvo all twelve."
"Roger." Coleman leaned down to make sure the firing panel was set correctly.
Fitz eased the power on and slid the T-6 directly behind the PO-2, creeping up on it until he was within fifty yards.
"Fire."
The T-6 disappeared momentarily in an incandescent ball of flame and smoke as the twelve rockets left their rails. Seven of them missed the PO-2 entirely. Two hit its wings, one passed harmlessly through the fuselage, one hit its fuel tank, and one exploded when it struck La Woon Yung in the back. He had been a hero for exactly twenty-four hours.
"Great shooting, Coleman. That gives you number four."
In the front seat, ecstatic, Coleman missed the irony.
***
Chapter 6
Panmunjom, Korea/September 22, 1952
At Kaesong, the only real agreement had been to move the conference site to Panmunjom, where the peace talks quickly grounded to a halt over a single issue—the forced repatriation of Chinese and North Korean prisoners. The United Nations insisted that it would not force anyone to return to North Korea or China against their will, while the Communists insisted that it was not a negotiable matter. While the perfectly uniformed, frigidly discourteous negotiators fumed at each other across their green baize-covered tables, neatly punctuated with water carafes and lined tablets, terrified young infantrymen on both sides died in petty attacks across the bloody ridge lines. Simultaneously, ominously, the biggest buildup of airpower in the jet age began. By September, U.S. intelligence reported that the Communist air order of battle had seven thousand planes, primarily jet fighters and jet bombers, disposed in an arc around Korea. At the sharp end of the United Nations stick were less than two hundred Sabres.
*
West of MiG Alley/September 22, 1952
There might be seven thousand enemy planes out there—but Marshall wasn't getting any more MiGs than he was getting sex. He wondered what Saundra was doing; the time difference made it hard to compute—he figured she'd be working at the office. It was six at night in Los Angeles—and yesterday! He could hardly wait to recross the international date line on his way back to revive their marriage.
Yet other than the pain of missing her, he was content. His new tactics saved fuel and added spectacularly to the loiter time in MiG Alley. Ostrowski had ordered the two other squadrons to follow suit and today he was flying lead with Baker Squadron, Menard on his wing, and a sour-faced Coleman in the number three position to see how things worked.
It had been an improbable week. They had flown twelve sorties and engaged only three times, but Fitzpatrick had knocked down his first MiG with a long-range deflection shot. The gun-camera films looked like an Annie Oakley trick. The MiG was just barely visible, high in the corner of the frame, when Fitz's tracers arched out like a necklace of car headlights on a hill, and blam! no more MiG.
Strangely, Fitzpatrick had seemed discomfited rather than pleased. Menard was far more elated when he got a probable. The only thing assuaging Marshall's fast-deflating ego was the fact that Coleman hadn't scored either, mostly because he persisted in spending time down on the deck looking for more sitting-duck TU-2s. Well, he wouldn't today, not with Bones Marshall leading. He laughed at the memory of Coleman's face when he announced that the flight would turn off its IFF—Identification, Friend or Foe—signal as soon as it reached altitude and maintain radio silence. Fitzpatrick had shrugged and Menard was too green to know that it meant they were going to penetrate Manchuria.
All the recent intelligence briefings had confirmed what everyone had long suspected—the Russians were flying the MiGs. One pale faced, red-haired pilot had been observed bailing out. More important, they were operating the extensive ground radar control net. All enemy communications were now in Russian.
The Russian ground controllers exercised authority that was unbelievable to an American pilot. Ground told them when to take off, where to go, when and if to attack, what field to return to. Even more incredible, the pilot even asked for decisions about whether to eject from a damaged MiG. It was absurd—there was no way any ground controller, no matter how experienced, could tell what to do in a dogfight, or analyze what was wrong with a shot-up MiG. Yet the report was comforting—it left the airborne initiative in American hands despite the disparity in numbers.
Immediately alert as his earphones buzzed with preliminary static, he heard Dentist calling, "Hemlock Leader, I have forty-plus MiGs climbing through twenty-five thousand at Ant
ung." The controller's Southern drawl brought back unpleasant memories of Tuskegee.
He didn't acknowledge the call. He was already clearly illegal, over the Yellow Sea, thirty miles north of the Manchurian border.
"Hemlock Leader, Bandit Flight Two, another twenty plus MiGs climbing through twenty thousand at Antung. Acknowledge." It sounded like Aaaahknldge.
Good. Sixty to four—the odds were just about right, for this time the F-86s would have the altitude and speed. One slashing attack through the MiG train, clobber a few MiGs, then back across the Yalu to the regular patrol point to switch on the IFF with nobody the wiser.
"Hemlock Leader, acknowledge if you read. Bandit Flight One now splitting up, about half going heading three-sixty, half one-eighty. Over."
Splitting up! Even better, now the odds were down to maybe five to one, less than the current eight-to-one kill ratio, Sabres to MiGs.
As his eyes made the customary circuit around the sky, a quick glance in the cockpit to check the instruments, then out to check the sky again, Marshall picked up the MiGs, the two flights drawing apart like frightened schools offish. The group heading south was a more attractive target, because the line of attack would take the F-86s directly toward the Yalu. But he could see Bandit Flight Two also headed south—too many to run into after a fight.
And the group going north were probably new arrivals, out on an area familiarization flight, a bunch of Ivans just in from the farm. With a hunter's skill he closed, positioning his Sabres above three flights, eight MiGs each, level at thirty-five thousand feet, all utterly unaware that there was an American within a hundred kilometers.
Without a word, Marshall punched off his tanks, and a quick glance showed him that the other three in the flight had followed suit.
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