by Tom Wilson
When the SAM radar signal grew stronger and more persistent, Manny turned them away, westward, saying the SAM lessons would be given at a later date.
They flew to the high green mountains, where DeVera showed them the canyons through which the twisting Ho Chi Minh Trail meandered.
"There are three main routes through the mountains," Manny radioed as Buster looked down at the solid-green canopy of treetops, "and there are thousands of hiding places for the trucks in each of the passes. Trying to pick the right truck park, that might be in use at the moment, is like finding the pea in a shell game."
Buster thought he saw something on one of the roadways below. "Buick lead, Buick three. I've got something in sight on the open roadway down at our two o'clock."
After a slight pause Manny answered. "Roger, Buick three. That's a truck all right, but notice it's parked out in the open and it's not moving? It's likely a broken-down hulk they're using for a flak trap, trying to sucker us down into range of their guns. I want the remainder of the flight to stay up high here, while I show you what I mean."
The novices circled in an orbit, watching the truck as Manny left them and flew northward, descending. When he was down to 3,000 feet above the treetops, he turned back toward them, coming fast, jinking, heading straight for the truck on the road.
Furious lines of red and yellow reached upward from several sources, traversing the sky and searching for his twisting, turning aircraft. DeVera was quickly by them. He flew in a climbing turn back toward Buick flight.
"That's what I mean by a flak trap, Buicks. Don't let them sucker you in unless you're carrying cluster bombs and plan to take 'em out. Even then you want to release high, because you won't know how many guns will be shooting, or where they're shooting from."
Five miles west of the flak trap, Buster spotted something moving on a roadway.
"Buick lead, three's got something just off the road at our ten o'clock."
"Roger, three. I saw it. I think it's water buffalo. Whatever it is, there's a line of them in the trees down there. Set up your switches for dive bomb, Buicks."
The flight released a total of twenty-four 750-pound bombs on the creatures, and when they came back around for a strafing pass, Buick two called out that they were horses and pulled off high without firing his gun.
Manny DeVera gruffly called for two to get back into the strafe pattern, that the horses were undoubtedly carrying supplies. They circled and wheeled in the sky, diving and machine-gunning the specks that ran about wildly below.
On their return flight to Takhli, they practiced flying the ECM pod formation, forty-five degrees back and 1,500-feet separation. No one talked about what their bombs and bullets had done. No one wanted to think about terrorizing and mutilating horses.
As they continued homeward, Buster thought about the mission. Except for the altitude and the jungle, it had looked and felt much as it had when he'd flown combat in Korea. He knew it would be more dangerous and much busier when they flew in pack six, but the pumping of adrenaline when you knew that other men were trying to kill you was certainly the same.
0920L—VPA Headquarters, Hanoi, DRV
Colonel Xuan Nha
The general staff meeting had been in session for twenty minutes. General Giap sat at the head of the large table and ran things. General Van Tien Dung was at his elbow, periodically scanning the attendees but seldom adding arguments or commenting.
For the past three months a plan had been in place to mount an energetic spring offensive. Seventy-six-year-old Ho Chi Minh's health had rallied, but they all knew he wasn't going to last more than another year or two. Before his death, he wanted an end to the war he'd urged his people to fight for five, ten, twenty years or more. His goal was a united Vietnam, under the hegemony of Hanoi and his creation, the Lao Dong party. It would be his legacy that the subcontinent be dominated and guided by the Lao Dong.
His armies and their Pathet Lao allies were marching victoriously through the vast Laotian plains and were preparing an offensive designed to run the Laotian Army from the battlefield. They operated freely in Cambodia. They were doing well enough against the ARVN puppet army, and there was such political confusion under Saigon's laughable attempts at Western-style democracy that he knew he could prevail there, but only if the Americans withdrew.
The Washington politicians must be convinced to stop providing weapons and training to their puppets, but even more, they must disengage their troops. He knew it would take considerable military and political pressure to make it happen.
On October 1st the Enlightened One had called for a closed-door meeting of key members of the Central Committee, including the seventeen-man politburo and selected others who led the Lao Dong party. Xuan's wife, Li Binh, had been there, and she'd related what had happened.
Ho Chi Minh had told the Minister for External Affairs that he and his people were doing well, that his work undermining the war effort in the United States was just as effective as what they'd done with the French in the War of Liberation. Li Binh swore that he'd looked directly at her when he spoke the compliment.
Then he'd turned to his Minister for Defense, General Vo Nguyen Giap, and stared. He'd said nothing, but Li Binh said more was voiced in that long, quiet look of the Enlightened One than he could have uttered with a thousand words. He'd motioned, and his nurse had lit and handed him a filtered cigarette. He'd drawn on it and coughed, the sound of a rasp on wood. All of that time he'd continued to stare at Giap.
"In late 1953," he'd finally said in his high-pitched poet's voice, "I asked for a great victory, and three months later you gave me Dien Bien Phu."
Giap, the Enlightened One's friend and confidante, had silently nodded. Dung, Giap's right hand, had kept his eyes judiciously lowered, unable to break the intensity of the moment with his usual gross jokes because of the gravity of the situation.
"Thus far this year," Ho Chi Minh continued, "the Americans have won every battle."
Giap found his voice. "The same was true in 1953 with the French." Cautiously, he'd added that he was positioning forces, gathering strength both in the demilitarized zone and the Mekong delta.
"It is late 1967." The Enlightened One paused to cough again, this time sounding much weaker. "Mark this date on your calendar." The room had become so quiet that Li Binh said she could hear her own breathing.
Ho Chi Minh wheezed and was successful in suppressing another cough. Then his high, melodic voice had emerged in a whisper. "I ask for a great victory. Another Dien Bien Phu. Give me ten thousand American prisoners, as you did with the French. With that, the American presidency will fail. Other men will say that if they are elected, they will stop the war. Johnson will become afraid, for he is a politician, and American politicians are much more frightened that they may lose an election than a war in a distant land. Then he will tell the people that he will immediately end the war if they will just elect him again."
Li Binh said the Enlightened One had not waited for Giap's response, that he'd beckoned and his nurse had helped him to his feet. He'd left with no further word.
Following that meeting Giap had called a series of discussions with his senior staff. The previously planned spring offensive was to be reviewed. They must find an American weakness. He was determined to perform another Dien Bien Phu miracle. Since this was Xuan Nha's first time to attend such a meeting, he didn't know what had transpired before, but it was apparent that Dung and the others were apprehensive about the gamble Giap was contemplating.
"We must not be premature," Dung cautioned. "If we are to attack successfully, we must first assure that we can sustain and supply our soldiers." Foremost, Dung was a careful logistician.
"See to it," Giap told him. Dung licked his lips thoughtfully. Then he turned to General Tho and Xuan Nha, who were seated in adjacent chairs down the table.
"We will be moving great quantities of supplies from Hanoi. You must protect them as never before." Both men agreed. Xuan Nha said he'd mov
e additional defenses to the southern side of Hanoi, and series of AAA and SAM batteries as far southward as they dared. Tho said he'd tell his pilots to concentrate their interceptors in that area.
Dung told his colonel of logistics to move his convoys more boldly, to double their present tonnages. When the colonel looked astonished at the order, Dung said they should be able to do it with the increased protection during the first, critical part of their long journey.
The colonel said he'd need more people, to repair or circumvent the many bridges destroyed by Mee air attacks, to ferry supplies across waterways, and to actually do the hauling. Thousands of new bicycles were on their way from China, he said, but they didn't have the manpower in place at the Cambodian base camps to use them.
Dung turned to Xuan. "How many militia can you spare, Colonel Nha?"
Xuan Nha had studied the home-defense forces. They were pets of General Luc, especially the elite units manning the beaches against attack, so he knew to be judicious.
"Ten thousand," he finally croaked in his ruined voice.
Dung mused for a moment. "Make it twenty thousand." He waited for Xuan's response.
Xuan banished all emotion from his face. Would General Luc argue at a time such as this? Should he argue? General Dung had already mobilized fifty thousand other militia and sent them south to fight. Taking 20,000 more from their posts would leave only 200,000 to defend the perimeter of the People's Democratic Republic. The militia of the People's Army of National Defense were poorly trained and often thought, especially by those who believed there was a low probability of invasion, to be useless. If they were invaded, they argued, People's Army regular units must be quickly called home to fight.
Xuan Nha finally broke his silence. "Has the general considered that if the Mee are subjected to a defeat such as you are planning, they might bomb more vigorously here in the North? I think it is worth considering."
"More vigorously than they are already doing?" asked a colonel on Giap's staff.
"The Mee pilots are restrained by their politicians. If they were to lose a major battle, the politicians might think differently. They might believe that if they attacked us with everything they had, brought B-52 bombers up here, perhaps even bombed Hanoi, we would disengage."
Giap pondered the point. Xuan Nha was known to be uncannily accurate in his forecasts about American reactions.
"Perhaps," Xuan added, "they might even invade with their Marines."
Giap suddenly shook his head, his mind made up. "The Minister of External Affairs assures me that if we achieve a stunning victory, the Americans will lose heart in the war and stop bombing altogether. He says the danger of increased bombing attacks is more likely if we attack and fail. That must not happen. And he says no matter what we do militarily, there will be no land attack. I must believe him."
Xuan acquiesced. The time for argument was past. "I will provide the twenty thousand militia immediately, comrade General."
Dung turned to General Giap. "If we double the numbers of shipments for the next two months, we will deplete the supplies we have on the docks at Haiphong and in the warehouses in Hanoi. Should we ask the Russians for more shipments of weapons and supplies?"
"Yes, but I don't want even them to know that the offensive will be as massive as we are planning. If they increase the numbers of ships coming into port too quickly, the Mee might be alerted. I want complete surprise." They studied and argued over the map of South Vietnam for the next hour. Where would the Mee Dien Bien Phu take place? When should they attack?
Xuan Nha's own mind turned in a different direction. It was likely that General Dung's people would ask for more of the VPAND militia to help in their massive supply efforts. He tried to think of an argument to prove they were critical to the war effort and must remain under the control of the Army of National Defense.
The generals continued to debate about where to mass their troops and how many should be placed in jeopardy by striking at the Americans. Finally, General Giap decided that the matter was of such importance that he must call on certain leaders operating in the South.
"I have already requested that Le Duc Tho come north to attend our meetings," he said. "He should arrive within a week." Le Duc Tho was a member of the Lao Dong politburo, the highest-ranking politician operating in South Vietnam. He was Ho Chi Minh's personal representative there, coordinating the war effort with the party, as well as with the Ministries of External Affairs and Defense in Hanoi. Half warrior, half politician, he held the authority of a supreme on-scene commander. He was also General Tho's uncle and the source of his power. He seemed pleased that Giap was calling upon his famous relative for advice.
Giap surprised them all then, for he said he would also call for General Tran Do, deputy commander of all communist forces in the South, and Colonel Tran Van Tra, commandant of Vietnamese People's Army forces in the Delta and Saigon regions. Is Giap thinking of taking Saigon? Xuan wondered. What a bold stroke that would be.
The meeting did not adjourn until 1400. Giap and Dung departed first, followed by the remainder of the senior officers. As Tho began to rise, Xuan struggled painfully to his own feet and asked for a moment of the general's time.
"Yesterday and this morning the Mee reconnaissance Phantoms continued to overfly Phuc Yen," Xuan Nha croaked.
Tho mused. "When the flights began, I alerted the acting air-regiment commandant to prepare to evacuate the aircraft north into the Chinese restricted zone. I also asked intelligence to verify whether and when they will attack, but so far there has been no response."
Xuan Nha brooded. "The Mee may be bluffing, but I feel they are not. They have bombed your auxiliary fields, and it seems logical that Phuc Yen will be next. That is the way they do things, one cautious step at a time. They will attack," Xuan Nha said confidently.
Tho appeared more concerned.
Xuan touched his forefinger to his chest. "I feel it here. My men shot down one of their reconnaissance Phantoms. When the Mee pilots were interrogated, they both said they were ordered to take very precise photographs of the base at Phuc Yen."
Tho sighed. "I also believe they might attack. But when?"
"May I suggest that the critical time might be when the reconnaissance flights are stopped? They might do that to let us think they have changed their minds and won't attack."
General Tho considered his words.
"And may I also suggest that when that happens, and"—he pinned his eye on Tho—"you evacuate your aircraft from Phuc Yen, that you tell the pilots to remain silent on their radios and to fly very low so the Mee will not know they are gone or the destination."
Tho nodded very slowly.
Xuan Nha felt a glow of satisfaction as the general departed. Tho had listened and would heed his advice.
1620L—Command Post, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates
Pearly had landed only fifteen minutes before, brought to Takhli on his round of the bases to participate in the next morning's bombing attack. Before coming to Takhli, he'd visited Ubon and Korat. The bases would be bombing in that order: Ubon, Korat, then Takhli.
Assembled in the room and seated before him in the briefing theater were the key operations personnel; the wing commander, his vice commander, Deputy for Operations, weapons officer, and the three fighter-squadron commanders. They waited for Pearly Gates's words with full attention, for General Moss sent his representative to the bases only before important missions.
"During the past few months," Pearly began, "we've been permitted to attack the auxiliary MiG bases, such as Kep and Hoa Lac, and the smaller deployment bases. A month ago the Navy began pounding on Kien An, the MiG base just south of Haiphong. But we've repeatedly been denied permission to hit Phuc Yen, their biggest base, or the command and control facilities there. That permission is now anticipated to arrive tonight by courier from Washington."
Several grins appeared on the faces before him. "About time," breathed Colon
el Armaugh, the quiet Deputy for Operations. Pearly went to the back-lit map of North Vietnam and tapped his forefinger on Phuc Yen, just north and across the Red River from Hanoi, and well within the red circle marking the twenty-mile restricted area surrounding the North Vietnamese capital city.
"How many MiGs are hangared there?" asked Colonel Mack, whom Pearly remembered from prior trips.
"At one time we estimated seventy-five. More than forty MiG-17's, a dozen or so MiG-19's, and about twenty MiG-21's. They've also had two IL-28 light bombers based there, but we haven't seen them around for a while. We've seldom counted fewer than thirty-five fighters on the ground. It's their primary MiG base, with full maintenance-and-repair facilities."
"Pearly," asked Colonel Leska, "when I was at Tan Son Nhut a few days ago, you were concerned about the higher-headquarters-directed recce missions over Phuc Yen. Any chance they'll be alerted and fly out the MiGs before the strike?"
Pearly nodded, his face grim. "Yes, sir, there certainly is. When we received this preliminary alert, to stand by for tasking, I requested that the recce missions be terminated. The last photo run occurred at oh-seven-thirty this morning. We're hoping they didn't give everything away. We'll continue to monitor for a mass evacuation with our airborne radars and the Motel long-range radar at Udorn, and if we see them fly out, we'll advise you."
One of the new squadron commanders motioned a hand for attention. He was neat and well-groomed, with eyes that constantly shifted about the room. His name tag read DONOVAN, and he'd worn a sour frown throughout most of the meeting.
"Any idea why the dumb shits at higher headquarters are making it so apparent we're about to bomb there?" he growled.
"I have no opinion that wouldn't be conjecture," Pearly Gates replied.
"Who ordered the photo missions?" demanded Donovan. "The silly bastards at some headquarters trying to kill me or something?"
Me? wondered Pearly. Why not us? "The directive for recce was passed down by PACAF, but the original order came from the Joint Targeting Office at the Pentagon."
