by Tom Wilson
Donovan snorted.
The wing commander fixed the light colonel with a withering glare. "We'll talk about that later, Yank," Leska said. He faced Gates. "What's the anticipated timing, Pearly?"
"Oh-seven-hundred for the first time over target. That'll be F-4's from Ubon. Korat will hit with their Thuds fifteen minutes later, and your TOT will be oh-seven-thirty."
Several attendees jotted down the times.
"There are to be no cluster bombs carried," continued Pearly, "and anyone who isn't sure of hitting his target is to pull off high and dry. They want minimum collateral damage, because it's known there are foreign nationals on base."
"Russian advisors," Donovan muttered derisively.
The briefing lasted for fifteen more minutes, at which time Colonel Leska excused everyone except Pearly and a captain wearing a fierce-looking mustache, who'd listened intently but said nothing. When the door was closed, Leska gestured.
"Pearly, I'd like you to meet Captain Manny DeVera."
Pearly smiled as they shook hands. "So I finally get to meet the Supersonic Wetback."
"The one and only." DeVera grinned.
"There was a big-time ruckus at Seventh Air Force when they tried to hang you for bombing the restricted target."
DeVera had been smiling, but he tensed at the mention of his previous troubles.
"All the support was on your side. General Moss was pissed off. He made inquiries until he got a telephone call telling him it was out of his jurisdiction and to butt out."
"That call come from PACAF?" Manny asked quietly.
Pearly nodded. "I'd better stop talking out of school, but I want you to know we were all happy as hell to see you on your way back."
Colonel Leska spoke in a low voice. "Manny's my choice to work with us on the JACKPOT project. When Major Anderson gets here, the three of us will be feeding you all the supportive information we can."
Pearly started to speak, but DeVera interrupted. "JACKPOT?"
"Remember when I told you to gather target information? To find the Achilles' heel?"
"General Moss," said Pearly, "had established contact with the Chief of Staff, like you said, and I've got two of my people pulling out different ingredients we'll need for the O Plan."
While DeVera's eyes grew wider, Buster Leska's narrowed. Pearly picked up the wing commander's concern about secrecy. "My people don't know what they're working on. We build a lot of plans, and most of them just go into the musty files."
"JACKPOT?" repeated Manny DeVera.
"A large-scale bombing campaign designed to end the war," said the wing commander. "Don't breathe a word about it outside of our discussions," Leska said firmly. "Period."
"This decision to bomb Phuc Yen have anything to do with it?" DeVera asked.
Leska considered. "Probably not. This one's been a long-running hassle between the SecDef and the military. Every time General McManus or the Chief of Naval Operations suggests bombing Phuc Yen, the SecDef's people argue it would be a dangerous escalation that isn't worth the effort. They say we're overstating the numbers of MiGs, and that we'd endanger foreign nationals." He gave Pearly an inquisitive look. "Did General McManus get in to see L.B.J.?"
Captain DeVera's eyes grew wider yet.
"Yes, sir. Two days after we sent him our first JACKPOT message, he called General Moss on the scrambler net and told him they'd met and he believed it went well."
"Then perhaps General McManus did convince him to make the Phuc Yen decision."
"I don't think so," said Pearly. "The Joint Targeting Office directed the photo recce missions before General McManus got in to see him."
"Those may have been directed by the SecDef's office, trying to prove there are fewer MiGs there than we're stating. The SecDef's people didn't want this mission to take place."
"Yesterday morning's photos," said Pearly, "show a MiG-21 near the takeoff end of the runway and two MiG-17's parked in a maintenance area."
"Where are the rest of 'em?" DeVera asked.
"In hangarettes and under camouflage," Pearly told him. "When you study the target photos, you'll see nets strung all over the place. It's going to make it difficult to get accurate bomb-damage assessment." Pearly's glasses slid forward onto the bridge of his nose, and he absently pushed them back into place with a forefinger.
DeVera glowered. "I hope to hell the MiGs are there tomorrow morning."
"If they're not," said Buster Leska, "it's going to make us military warmongers look awfully foolish for beating our drums and asking for the mission."
Pearly glanced wistfully at the map. "If they leave them in place for just one more day, we'll have 'em. We'll knock out half their air force in a single mission."
Buster nodded and got to his feet. "How about joining us for dinner before you go?"
Pearly quickly shook his head. The food at the Takhli club was rated as the worst in the combat zone. "I'd better get on back to Saigon, Colonel. The courier from Washington should arrive by the time I get there, and we'll have to issue an amendment to the air tasking order. We want this one to go off without any hitches."
CHAPTER SIX
Tuesday, October 24th, 0420 Local—Command Post Briefing Theater, Takhli RTAFB
Colonel Buster Leska
Buster had flown only the one mission over North Vietnam and knew he wasn't proficient to lead the important strike on Phuc Yen. He would have preferred that Mack MacLendon lead it, and Mack would have done so gladly, no questions asked, but it was neither fair nor right to ask it of him. He'd completed 112 missions up north before someone had noticed and Buster had ordered him taken off the flying schedule. Now he was busy briefing his replacement, Obie Zeigler, and preparing to depart. Buster had picked George Armaugh, his quiet Deputy for Operations, to be force commander. Yank Donovan had volunteered and was leading one of the middle flights. Manny DeVera had also come forward, so he was bringing up the rear, shepherding the last flight in the sixteen-ship formation.
The remainder of the pilots selected for the mission were their canniest and most accurate dive-bombers.
The pilots whooped happily when they found they'd finally be able to attack Phuc Yen. When they learned that Takhli would be third to strike the target, they complained that the others might not leave any MiGs for them. From the back of the room Buster watched and listened, wishing he were going along. He didn't like the idea of sending his men out to fly and fight on a big one without participating.
A command post ops specialist was finishing with his neat print on the Plexiglas mission board, and Buster read it carefully, pausing at each nugget of information.
OCTOBER 24
The primary targets were both at Phuc Yen, as Pearly Gates had told them. The first eight aircraft would bomb the MiGs in their revetments. The third and fourth flights, Donovan's and DeVera's, would attack the Barlock long-range radar and the adjacent control building, the eyes and brains behind the enemy's interceptor operation.
Buster wondered how many pilots had sat in this room and others like it at other airfields, wishing they could be flying this mission. Taking the fight to the enemy. Knocking out North Vietnam's biggest airfield as they should've done the first day they'd gone up there.
The pilots filled in their data cards from information on the board and spoke in low voices. Two argued about tactics to use if MiGs were launched to defend their base. Another spoke about the possibility of the MiG pilots taxiing their aircraft away from the revetments where they were normally parked. Yank Donovan argued that they should swing around and strafe the MiGs after the bombing attack, but George Armaugh told him they'd stick to the plan—make a single pass and get out of the area. The four Wild Weasel crews, the SAM killers, discussed missile sites that had been active on their last flights up there.
A lieutenant from intell came in and circled the words "Lemon Drop" and "Jawbreaker." The mission was on. Chatter from the pilots grew and filled the room. As the Deputy for Operations took the podi
um and glanced about to ensure all flight leaders were present, Buster started to leave.
Colonel George Armaugh spoke. "Did you want to say anything to the men, sir?"
The room grew quiet. Buster turned and eyed them, scanned from one side of the room to the other, then shook his head. "You guys are professionals. Just do the job."
He left the room, closing the door behind him, and turned to go to his office. Battles and wars could be won or lost, but paperwork kept growing at the same relentless rate.
0714L—Route Pack Six, North Vietnam
Captain Manny DeVera
Remain calm—stay on the offensive—think of what you'll do next, Manny's mind chanted.
The sixteen-ship formation crossed the Red River two minutes ahead of schedule, close on the heels of a similar gaggle from Korat Air Base. The F-4's from Ubon had been first to attack and could be seen in the distance at their eleven o'clock, headed back west toward safety. Throughout the Phantoms' bombing, Wild Weasels had called multiple SAM launchings, and the sounds of the emergency beepers of an F-4 crew shot down over the target area still rang in Manny's ears. Both beepers had been shut off, so he supposed they were alive.
"Good luck, buddies," he muttered for the sake of the downed pilots. Then Manny looked out at the group about him and felt a shudder of anxiety course through his body. Remain calm—stay on the offensive—what's next. He sucked in a breath and steadied himself.
He was flying with a flight of old hands from the 357th squadron, the can-do bunch trained by Colonel Mack. They were all in place. Pros, like Colonel Leska had said. The flight just in front of him was led by the new 354th commander, and he flew with men from his squadron. Smitty was on Yank Donovans wing. Billy Bowes led the second element, off to the other side. Another captain, a solid pilot named Ron Wilshire, who had a sort of hero worship for Donovan and had been an instructor in his section at McConnell Air Force Base, was his number four.
Manny took another good look around for MiGs, then glanced again at the clip of recce film he'd brought with him, which showed where the radar and command-and-control building were located just west of the northern end of the runway. The photo was mostly incomprehensible because of all the camouflage, but features of the layout had been marked by photo interpreters. Donovan's target was the command-and-control building. Manny's four would go after the radar itself. Both were just X's shown on top of the indistinct maze of nets.
The F-4's, being first to attack, had flown south of the target, feinting as if they were headed down the Red River toward the Doumer bridge, but turned up on their left wings and dived toward the runway to put their bombs along its length and crater it. If they'd done their jobs, the MiGs couldn't take off and escape.
A Wild Weasel flight called out a SAM launch in the direction of the Korat formation, and Manny strained his eyes in vain, then pulled them back to the airspace surrounding his own group.
The sixteen-ship formations from the two Thud wings flew directly toward Phuc Yen, not bothering to hide their intentions as the Phantoms had done. The shortest way between two points was a straight line.
A cacophony of voices sounded on the radio as Korat attacked the target. There was a lot of flak, they said. Manny looked about at his flight again, a queasy feeling rising in his gut.
Remain calm. He swallowed and shook his head to clear it, and a numbing sensation invaded his emotions like a thick, protective cloud. He stared ahead, looking for the target area, and saw a blanket of white popcorn puffs down low, and darker bursts in groups of six, just north of the Red River. Smoke and dust from bomb explosions rose from the airfield.
Closer now. Think of your next move.
Time slowed and Manny made corrections in still, snapshot frames, checking his lights and gauges, looking out toward the target, taking a last glance at the target photo. Click . . . click . . . click. The strike force began to climb up to delivery altitude. The mission commander called for his flight to begin their roll-in.
Manny began to react mechanically. The second flight of four left them, diving toward the revetments and cloaked parking areas. Stay on the offensive, his mind growled at him. After the single twinge of apprehension, there'd been no more. He'd not allowed his mind the luxury of feeling threatened.
It was Donovan's turn, and Manny watched closely, time still passing slowly, as the four aircraft turned earthward. They'd briefed a forty-five-degree dive. Yank's dive angle looked to be precisely that. Manny waited until Donovan's fourth aircraft entered the dive, then sucked in a shallow breath. He'd told his flight to make it quick and dirty, to dive-bomb with minimum sequencing—bam! bam! bam!—so the gunners would have too many targets.
Don't delay. Take the offensive. Get 'em! He abruptly rolled upside down, nursed the control stick back and settled at forty degrees plus, then rolled back upright. He steadied the big aircraft in its dive, jinking slightly, eyes glued on the target in the combining glass before him.
The first Thuds in Donovan's flight were releasing. Bundles of flak searched and settled about the rearmost one, a bit off to his right. Ron Wilshire? At 8,000 feet and almost at release altitude, a burst found the bird and covered it.
Manny passed through 10,000 feet, past other angry explosions, no longer jinking.
Wilshire's aircraft was still in its dive. Pieces of the airplane began to shed, trailing behind in an obscene tail of debris.
"Get out!" Manny yelled hoarsely over the radio. Aircraft parts continued to fall away, now joined by a thick streamer of dark smoke. Bombs and fuel tanks somehow popped loose and accompanied the airplane as if they were flying in formation toward the ground.
Oh Jesus! he thought momentarily, but then the numbing sensation returned, and he concentrated on the earth coming up at him. Smoke, dust, and debris from the hundred-odd bombs already released on the air base drifted about in thick clouds. Light wind from the west . . . eyes fixed on the part of the obscured area that was supposedly his target. Smoke there too.
Manny's aircraft shuddered from a near miss. Steady. The sight picture came together. He pickled, felt the lurch of bomb release, waited a heartbeat, then pulled the stick back smoothly. Another buffet from a burst of flak reminded him to jink. Dummy! He pulled the stick harder and began to move the aircraft in random motions to provide a more difficult target for gunners.
Manny looked up toward the aircraft in front of and above him, corrected toward them, performed a slight roll, and stared back to observe the target area.
Bombs from the last aircraft hit where they'd been aimed, bright flashes in the midst of heavy billows of smoke from other explosives.
A snapshot of Ron Wilshire's burning aircraft blinked before him.
He'd not especially liked Wilshire the few times he'd met him. A wiseass. Maybe it had been Yank Donovan's influence. But now . . . Jesus! The scene replayed in Manny's mind—the airplane and bombs hurtling earthward. He'd been too busy with his dive bomb to watch the impact. Gotta remain calm. Gotta stay on the offensive.
0945L—Wing Weapons Office, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Manny was weary from the long mission, and still a little hyped from the rush of adrenaline, but he was also angry. The only MiGs they'd found in the open at Phuc Yen were a couple parked far from the revetments, and those, they were willing to bet, had been a couple of hangar queens the gomers couldn't get off the ground. As far as they knew, without benefit of analysis by the photo interpreters at Saigon, the MiGs had flushed before the arrival of the first strike force.
The debriefing had been cautious and downbeat. Just before they'd begun their dive, three SAMs had zipped between a couple of Thuds and would have taken them out if the gomer SAM operators had judged their altitude better and detonated the warheads properly. The bombing itself had gone pretty well, with most of the bombs landing on or near their targets. They'd lost one, confirmed as Ron Wilshire, to antiaircraft gunfire. On the way home they'd had another near miss with SAMs.
At the debriefin
g Yank Donovan said Wilshire had been out of his prebriefed position, and that was why he'd been hammered. He'd acted as if the death of the captain who'd followed him around like a dependent pup had been an act of suicide.
Manny had disagreed. Wilshire might not have been in the precise position Donovan would have liked, but he felt it was something else. Slow timing perhaps? Donovan's mouth had twitched angrily as he'd spoken, but he'd not responded to the criticism.
Yank was a cold one, Manny decided, and entirely too confident. Donovan had been positive that his own bombs had taken out the control center—although there was no way to know with all the camouflage, smoke, and flying debris down there.
Manny sat in his office, sipping hot coffee and staring at the wall, which was still adorned with a photo taken from a frame of Max Foley's gunfilm. The photo lab had blown it up to fill a twenty-four-by-thirty-six-inch frame. It showed a stern view of a MiG-17 with fire torching brightly from its wing-root. Foley's second MiG kill. Max Foley had been a superb weapons officer. Could Manny really fill his shoes?
He thought back on the mission again and wondered if they could have done anything to make it better, to increase their odds of survival and still get bombs on target. Foley had despised the big formations that were ordered to fly by higher headquarters. He'd said that fighter pilots were supposed to fly in flights of four, not in gaggles like geese and bombers. And a goodly number of the wing's pilots, Manny included, had taken his lead and agreed. So, he pondered, did they really give enough thought to the formation they flew?
The gaggle, as they called it, was a result of tests conducted at Nellis Air Force Base, where they'd tried to optimize the effectiveness of jamming pods against SAM and AAA radars. And—like it or not—they were going to continue flying it on their way to and from the tough targets around Hanoi. If all that was so, then shouldn't they concentrate on making damn sure they did it right? He'd noted that almost half of the formation had been poorly spaced. So . . . concentrate on training the pilots to fly at precisely the correct distances and angles.
