The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath

by T I WADE

  It seemed that the rest of her wing was staying in one piece. Her pilot was very experienced and had brought her around 270 degrees gently and was lining her up with the most northern runway of the airport.

  The damaged aircraft was still a mile or so out when Preston closed in to the side of the aircraft and saw her wheels go down. Fire was beginning to envelope the rest of the wing.

  “You need to use your inner-port engine extinguisher, Dave,” stated Preston concentrating on the aircraft getting closer and closer.

  “We are ready to collect you guys at the western end of the runway. Extraction chopper incoming!” stated somebody over the radio, but Preston was busy willing Blue Moon on.

  She had a hundred yards to go when he saw her second engine catch fire and the flames spread to the fuselage.

  “Dave, open your rear door, your whole aircraft is nearly on fire. You are going to need to get out quickly,” stated Preston, and he saw the rear door begin to open.

  As the pilot put the aircraft down hard on the runway, pieces of the undercarriage flew out in all directions. The door continued to open as the aircraft, now a mass of flames on one side scraped nose-down down the tarmac and began to veer off the runway and onto the grass verge. Preston noticed a single troop transporter rushing down the runway from the east and towards Blue Moon.

  She slowed her scraping as she hit the dirt and grass on the northern side of the runway and shapes began rolling out of the aircraft’s rear.

  The flaming aircraft finally came to a sliding halt and several more shapes scrambled out of the rear. He also noticed a dozen vehicles detaching themselves from the closest terminal, less than a mile away; he pulled up and seconds later and on full power, he dropped his aircraft into a tight left turn.

  Moments later Blue Moon erupted into a massive fireball, and he felt his aircraft jump as the shock wave hit him hard. He hoped that the crew got far enough away.

  Due to his hundreds of hours flying low to the ground in his crop sprayer aircraft, Preston was used to low-level flight, and he screamed down a couple of hundred yards north of the airfield and went in fast and steep aiming for the first one of several vehicles directly in front of him. He released his two 500-pound napalm bombs at the first vehicle, an old American Dodge Ram. It was a horrible green color he noticed as he pulled back hard on the stick, felt the seat he was sitting on want to crush him from below and he pulled the Mustang into a steep vertical climb at maximum revs to get away from the blast. He didn’t know napalm bombs very well, but had learned to react fast to High Explosive bombs a few months earlier.

  The two bombs hit several yards behind the lead vehicle and a stream of hot fire enveloped the several trucks and jeeps behind it. The lead vehicle was hit by the blast, but carried on towards the blossoming fireball that was once the pride of the U.S. Air Force.

  It took Preston several seconds to climb and bank again, go into a near-vertical dive, and swing down to aim the P-51 towards the airfield again. He caught the lead vehicle in his sights and let go with his four cannons. Blobs of material rained off the old Dodge and he kept on firing until the gas tank exploded and bits of green bodywork blew out in all directions. He pulled away and looked at the scene below him.

  “Easy Girl here. All aircraft resume your attack positions and runs. Stay away from the eastern edge of the airport, extraction chopper going in.”

  * * *

  Charlie Meyers was in the front seat of their M35 Mexican troop transporter, which was hiding between the closest buildings, across the way from the northern perimeter of the airport.

  He and his men, mostly on the roof of the truck and surrounding buildings which were nothing more than burnt out houses, watched as the old propeller aircraft gracefully swept in from the east one at a time, swept around the end of the terminals and then south to line up with the highway just out of their view. It was like watching an air show.

  First, three graceful P-51s came in a mile apart, left the terminal buildings alone and then a lone P-38 Lightning followed behind them. It was the most beautiful aircraft he had ever seen, and Charlie was one of the last to ever see it.

  Lieutenant Meyers shouted for the men to get aboard, and then told the driver to head through a gaping hole in the fence after the pilot of Blue Moon came over the radio saying that his aircraft was hit. He heard another pilot tell the crippled aircraft to head for the airfield, and he told the driver to halt the truck in the fence break and wait.

  It wasn’t 30 seconds later when he saw the smoking aircraft coming in slowly towards the runway from the west a couple of miles away and directly in front of them.

  “We are ready to collect you guys at the western end of the runway. Extraction chopper incoming!” Charlie stated over his radio as he heard the faint throbbing of an incoming helicopter from the north. He knew that there would always be one in the vicinity of the battle just in case. “Head in slowly and stay off the tarmac,” he stated to his driver as they headed forward.

  They watched as the aircraft came in and zigzagged from side to side; her wheels went down and Charlie saw that flames were eating up her starboard wing badly. He then saw the tail door begin to open as some pilot overhead gave the crippled aircraft advice.

  The flaming aircraft hit the runway hard, and Charlie’s driver slowly accelerated as they still had at least a mile to go before he judged where the aircraft would stop.

  The troop transporter was halfway there when the aircraft came to a grinding halt, grass and dirt spewing everywhere. Men began running and rolling out of the rear door and seconds later a massive fireball went up; her munitions inside exploded, igniting her remaining fuel tanks on the other wing. The blast hit their truck hard but the driver kept on going forward.

  “Vehicles coming out of the terminal a mile away,” shouted Charlie to the men in the rear as they closed. He also saw a lone P-51 swoop up vertically, turn on a dime and come down in a fast dive towards the approaching vehicles. Two black shapes released themselves from under its wings; the aircraft went vertical again, and the whole area behind the lead truck enveloped itself into a running fireball of napalm. Lieutenant Meyers had seen this often and was extremely glad he wasn’t in that group.

  The driver was aiming for the closest group of airmen lying still on the ground as Charlie watched the P-51 go into a climb, roll and then for the second time, come down vertically, like an acrobatic aircraft, and head towards the last remaining enemy truck. Within seconds it was also a fireball, and he scanned the area to make sure that there were no more.

  His driver came to a sliding halt a hundred feet away from the closest men. There could be more explosions, and the area was already extremely hot.

  “Everybody out!” Lieutenant Meyers screamed and exited the door. “I want a perimeter for a chopper LZ! Eight men make a perimeter, the rest help with the closest men to the aircraft first. Pull them away from the burning aircraft!”

  Charlie headed for the five bodies still lying still on the ground. He could see blackened flight suits and he reached the first one and began dragging him away from the fire. The man was unconscious and looked red and sunburned. He heard the Jolly Green Giant coming in behind him, and seconds later several men arrived from the helicopter and help drag away the remaining bodies.

  Within a minute the entire crew of Blue Moon was in the chopper and it lifted off.

  “Back to our limo, let’s go and see what remains in the terminals. This fight isn’t over yet,” Charlie Meyers shouted, running back to the truck as three P-51s flew low overhead.

  * * *

  Manuel Calderón had been shocked at the quick and extremely heavy reception they received once his vehicles began moving again. His anger quickly changed to cold fear as he realized that his blind anger had led his men into a massive trap.

  His driver, obeying his fast and implicit orders, drove like a drunk on Saturday night, careening around burning vehicles and over burning men, and finally, with tires screaming, s
wung off the closet exit way. He immediately looked for an opening to head south or west.

  There were dead everywhere as they flew off the highway; they hit and killed several of his own men as the driver braked and swung the wheel to the left to get around the tight corner at the bottom of the exit. Manuel was purely a passenger and he trusted Oscar, his driver, to get him out of tight situations.

  He hung on for his life as the driver swerved around fires and over bodies on the ground, found a road to the west, and headed down and out of the ambush for a couple of blocks until several rounds began to hit the jeep from the front, one taking off Manuel’s right ear lobe. The driver slid the jeep left and began heading southwards as the shots behind them faded.

  “We are being attacked from the air and from the south, Manuel!” shouted a voice over the radio he recognized from Pedro’s army. Manuel tapped his driver on the shoulder and the driver bought the jeep to a halt. “Manuel, there are hundreds of American soldiers cutting off all the roads, even the road we came in on. My men are taking heavy fire. Orders, please!”

  “Attack the Americans!” he ordered. “Charge into their lines and kill them!” Manuel shouted back. He was in a burnt down area of old buildings and gas stations and he couldn’t see anything.

  “We can’t, they are everywhere; on top of buildings, and I see aircraft in the area. We only have four missiles left, Manuel!”

  Manuel asked and got the man’s location from him and he ordered his driver to head south again. Within three minutes he had found the man who was on top of an overpass on the highway and hiding behind the southern concrete wall. There were shots coming from everywhere: the buildings hundreds of yards on the southern side of the east/west highway, artillery fire raining down on certain areas of the highway, a tank rumbling up the road in the distance, and mortars blowing holes in the mass of vehicles, many of which were already masses of flames. There were thousands of bodies everywhere, and he realized that it would be suicide to mount an attack from the open highway.

  The first aircraft came in, and he ran to find the man with the shoulder rocket-launcher. He was a hundred yards behind and he was ready on one knee and with the launcher loaded. Manuel noticed three more missiles ready in a line next to the man. A large C-130 came into view low and was shooting his men on one of the highways. He tapped his man on the shoulder who took aim on the aircraft as it swung in front of them less than half a mile away. The missile went straight into one of its engines and it flew directly overhead with pieces of hot metal raining down on the men around him. Three smaller propeller fighters came in next, a mile or two east of his position, and threw rockets down at the highway as they flew over The launcher was ready as the fourth aircraft approached a mile east, and the missile went straight into the nose of the aircraft as it flew over, blowing it into a million pieces.

  “Return fire to the south, we are now winning the war!” shouted Manuel into the radio mike and his men seeing the death of two of the American aircraft renewed their firing into the buildings to the south of the highway.

  The noise was bad on the ears, and Manuel’s driver pointed to southeast of their position. There was another highway, the one they had arrived on, about half a mile to their south, and he saw what the driver had pointed at: two fast jets screaming in from the east and he tapped the man with the launcher and pointed to the incoming jets. The man swung around and fired at the first one, less than a mile away.

  As with all the missiles they had used up to now, it wasn’t necessary to aim exactly at the aircraft, the missiles locked onto the heat of the incoming aircraft and that was that. This time, and even though the man with the launcher was extremely accurate, the missile sped past the second jet and the plume of smoke behind it, and headed away from the target as if it hadn’t seen it.

  The rebel commander was shocked and his mouth hung open, blood still dripping from his ear. “Here come more, fire again, fire again!” he shouted to the launcher who was being loaded by his assistant helping him. They missed the next F-4, and he released his last missile at the fourth F-4 a mile behind.

  Manuel’s face went white, and he knew that he was now in trouble as the last missile acted the same as the one before and missed the incoming aircraft by less than fifty feet and headed out of the combat area in a straight line. It was the first time in his life he suddenly didn’t know what to do. He just sat in his seat and watched as two more aircraft, the same Mexican aircraft he had seen in his battles further south came in and blew the troops around him into oblivion.

  “We are being massacred! We are being murdered! We can’t hold out against the firing from the buildings! We are being hit by artillery, mortars, aircraft, napalm, bullets! We are dying, Manuel! Orders, Manuel, Orders!” shouted several commanders over his radio and, he was at a loss what to do.

  “Head back to the airport! Leave the wounded, leave the highways, go back to the airport and regroup immediately!” he shouted over the radio. “Get us back to the airport, now!” shouted Manuel to his driver, who crashed the jeep into gear and sped off the nearest exit ramp.

  The carnage was bad on the way. There were napalm fires still burning, and men screaming and burning everywhere. He ignored them and sat in the jeep surveying the remnants of his armies. There were fires and dead everywhere; thousands and thousands of bodies and vehicles in flames, but there was a movement back to the airport. His driver must have driven over a hundred bodies before he got on the side road to the highway going north to the airport. Again the highway was not drivable, the fires and exploding trucks were extreme and there were still projectiles coming in from the south.

  A mile north of the highway the fires and bodies gave way to clear roads, and here there were vehicles and men heading north and following orders. Manuel saw somebody he knew from Alberto’s men.

  “Where is your commander? Where is Alberto?” he shouted to them as he passed, and all he got were shrugs that they didn’t know. He entered the southern area of the airport and saw several of Pedro’s men. Again, they shrugged their soldiers. The airport wasn’t that badly damaged, the northern buildings anyway, and he shouted orders to get to the buildings and terminals to search for his brothers. He didn’t care much for the war any more.

  His driver rushed him to the rear of the terminal where he had sat out the hurricane and rushed inside the empty expanse of area which had several new fires and gaping holes everywhere in the roof and walls.

  “We will hold this airport and fight until these dogs of Americans are dead, every last one of them!” he shouted to the group of men gathering around him as the terminal filled up. “Get vehicles ready to defend and attack underneath, they will be safe from attack down here in the baggage areas. I want tons of ammo in all vehicles and we will attack the armies when they arrive. This is our Alamo and we will defend it! We have destroyed most of their aircraft; it will be hard for their soldiers to cross the runways and open area of the airport. I want every man loaded and ready to fire back once all our men have arrived. I’m sure the Americans are following our last men in. Give them cover when they run through the entrances! I want machine guns on the roof of every building; their airplanes will be back! Get all the buildings heavily fortified, we still have a chance to win this war!” shouted Manuel trying to convince himself as much as the dirty and bloody group of men around him. “I want numbers of men, and I want somebody to go and find Alberto and Pedro, my brothers!” he ordered.

  “I think I saw your brother, Alberto, when I left the airport,” stated a man who was absolutely filthy and had dried blood all over him. He was with three other dirty and bloody men Manuel did not recognize.

  Sergeant Mendez, this time, was standing in front of three of the other Seals, Sergeant Chavez and Corporals Rodriquez and Santana. They had made themselves as dirty as possible, and had dirtied and bloodied their ponchos and clothing from a generous selection of hundreds of dead bodies.

  They had been waiting in case “Extraction Three�
� returned to this building and they were in luck. Charlie Meyers and Paul didn’t want to be recognized again so soon after the disappearance of the two brothers.

  “He was sitting next to a man I didn’t recognize. It could have been your brother,” Sergeant Mendez suggested.

  “Where, where did you see my brother?” Manuel asked.

  “Over there and in front of the terminal, there are dozens of dead bodies from the air attack,” Sergeant Mendez replied pointing to the front terminal exit door from which they came in, and where the Mexican troop transporter was waiting with its engine running underneath.

  The balance of Seal Team Six had set up an ambush point around the hole in the northern perimeter they had used to enter the airport.

  “Oscar, Miguel, Carlo, come with me, bring your men and Manuel headed for the door. The area between his old command table, which was still standing, and the exit door a hundred feet away had filled up with men, and they were all looking at Manuel who was moving through them.

  Manuel, Manuel,” stated a man as he passed. “I’ve seen these men before. They were with the Panamanian men who walked off with Alberto. I was right there…” he stated as his head blew apart; Corporal Santana fired three rounds from his AK 47, point blank, three feet away.

  All hell broke loose as three of the Seals fired into the crowd around them, piling dozens of rounds point blank that went through more than one person, the crowd was so thick.

  Cover me!” shouted Sergeant Mendez, a big guy at six foot three and weighing in at 250 pounds. He grabbed the collar of Manuel’s leather jacket and pulled him off balance towards him and swung his AK 47 to connect hard with the shorter man’s head. At the same time, he swiveled around, humped the falling man’s body into a fireman’s lift and began to run for the door, firing his weapon at anybody in front of him.

  The Seal team was so fast that many couldn’t get out of the way of the shower of bullets spraying in all directions, or Manuel’s now inert body swung over the dirty man’s shoulder. Sergeant Mendez was within twenty feet of the exit ramp door when it opened and four more AK 47s began blasting at the crowd.