Joint Task Force #3: France

by David E. Meadows

  Xavier didn’t wait for a reply as he turned and departed Combat to the traditional “Captain out of Combat” cry coming from behind him. On the bridge, they’d duplicate the operations log in Combat with a notated time of his entry and exit from the compartment. His mind felt foggy from the fatigue of being awake for nearly three days with only short naps on the bridge or a few power naps in his at-sea stateroom. This wasn’t his first search for survivors at sea. People lost at sea had only minutes in the worst case, hours in the best, to survive. Many times, it’s serendipitous luck when a ship recovers a survivor. Helicopters cover more surface and have more flexibility to rescue someone than a surface ship that must maneuver against tide, waves, and wind.

  He closed the door to his stateroom and flipped on the bedside lamp. Xavier unclasped his trousers and let them fall on the deck. He lay down, reached over the side of the bed, and lifted the trousers off the deck and tossed them onto a nearby chair. He made the slam-dunk sign with his two fingers. “Dos Puntos!”

  Three days they had searched. If you haven’t recovered a survivor in three days, the prognosis was slim that you ever would.

  IN COMBAT, COMMANDER FULBRIGHT PICKED UP A SHIP’S telephone and dialed the ship’s judge advocate, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kilpatrick. It never occurred to her to wait until reveille. An order was an order was an order, and you executed orders immediately. Plus, the last thing Fulbright wanted was an officer of hers blindsided. Though she had told the captain that Kilpatrick was aware of the report, it never hurt to double check your statements and confirm information.

  CHAPTER 4

  ADMIRAL DICK HOLMAN, COMMANDER, AMPHIBIOUS Group Two, jiggled the handset into the metal holders of the cradle. “Well, Leo, looks as if Rear Admiral Lower Half— selectee—Bennett is going to be your new boss sometime next year. Maybe he can straighten out your lax nature.”

  “Xavier’s a good man, Admiral, even if he is Naval Academy. I look forward to serving with and under him until he can bring someone in to relieve me.”

  “Relieve you? What a fantastic idea, Leo. I should have thought of that years ago.” Holman pushed his chair away from his desk and stood, holding his hand over his eyes. “Shut the blinds, if you would, Leo. These Virginia suns are too bright in the afternoon. Where’s the clouds when you need them?” Holman scrunched his face. “We’ve been ashore for nearly a month.”

  “And we notice it, too, sir.”

  “Don’t give me that crap about me being irritable when I’m ashore too long. I’m an aviator. Being at sea doesn’t count; buzzing clouds in the sky does. Besides, what’s the purpose of being in the Navy, if you can’t be at sea, above the sea, or at least pulling into some exotic port?”

  “Don’t forget under the sea.”

  Holman faked a shudder. “Right, you can’t bail out of a submarine if something goes wrong.”

  “As a submarine captain told me once, Boss, there are more aircraft in the ocean than there are submarines in the air.”

  “Leo, don’t you have something to do?” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “We ought to be doing something. The Boxer finish with its dock-side repair work?”

  Captain Leo Upmann pushed himself upright off the couch to the side of Holman’s desk. “No, sir. They need another couple of weeks, Admiral. They’re working on the turbines and apparently believe one of the shafts is bent. They’re seeing if it’s fixable or if they’re going to have to replace it.” He started twisting the round plexiglass rod that controlled the blinds.

  “How long will that take?” Holman asked sharply, referring to the engineering problems on his flagship. “I thought the major work they had to do was upgrading some combat systems on board. The engineering casualty was supposed to be easy to fix.”

  Holman’s flagship, the USS Boxer, was tied up at Norfolk Naval Station where deep-draft warships moored. Here he sat at Amphibious Group Two headquarters on Little Creek Amphibious Base shuffling papers and waffling platitudes about shipboard readiness and personnel retention. Granted, you couldn’t fight and win wars if ships weren’t ready, and people beat feet for the civilian world. They were very important items for a great Navy, but couldn’t he do that at sea—off the coast, out of sight of land and bureaucrats—as well, if not better, than day-in and day-out, pulling-in and pulling-out an office chair as he rushed to beat the administrative traffic pouring into his inbox?

  Being at sea meant no inbox; hence, the administrative burden of command remained ashore with a senior Navy captain who had the fun of sitting in his chair doing what he was doing now—only without his cigars. He always took those with him. Others would say he might be shirking his duty, but he preferred to think of it as training his subordinates. Then, there was that one asshole he overheard at the Officers Club who commented that the best captain’s job in the Navy was Commander, Amphibious Group Two. That was Holman’s job, and it was a two-star admiral’s job, which he knew also brokered discussion as to why after two years as COMPHIBGRU Two, Holman was still a one-star.

  Bright sunlight flooded the room as it reflected off the edges of the half-closed blinds from Captain Leo Upmann’s efforts to execute the admiral’s orders.

  “There you are, Admiral. Should give you that cramped feeling you enjoy when inside the skin of the ship.” Upmann twisted the rod a couple more times and the sunlight reflected onto the floor between Holman’s desk and the windows.

  “If I saw sunlight filtering through the sides of the ship, it would give me cause for concern.” Holman flipped open the humidor. He rolled the cigars inside it back and forth, searching for just the right one. “Let me see . . .” he mumbled to himself. Glancing up, he saw his reflection in the glass of the large framed photograph behind his desk. For a short, chubby Navy officer, he’d at least managed to keep some of his hair. He grabbed a cigar. “Well, my fine Chief of Staff, shouldn’t we go to the roof of this landlubber building and see what the fleet is doing?”

  Upmann laughed. “Let me see, Admiral, if I have this right. Shut the blinds because it’s too bright, and now rush up to the roof so we can stand directly in the sunlight?”

  Holman looked over the top of his glasses at the tall African-American. Upmann had accompanied him into harm’s way in rescuing the Americans in Liberia and most recently in stopping the terrorist attempt to land a weapon of mass destruction in America. Holman removed his aviator glasses and tossed them gently onto the center of the huge calendar that covered most of his metal desk. “ Captain Upmann,” he said, punctuating his words with his cigar. “When you make Admiral, you will understand that there is nothing those of us who wear the stars do that doesn’t have a hidden meaning specifically designed to build leadership qualities in young Navy captains such as yourself.”

  Upmann opened the door. “After you, sir. Seems if I recall correctly, I’m a couple of years older.”

  “And uglier.”

  “And taller.”

  “There you go again with those short men jokes,” Holman said as he walked through the door.

  A couple of minutes later they stood on the flat roof of Amphibious Group Two headquarters. The roof had been remodeled at Holman’s direction last year when leaks forced them to contract for a new one. If you had to put a new roof on an old building, why not take advantage of the view and build something everyone could enjoy? With a deck, a couple of picnic tables, and benches running around three sides of a raised wall that encompassed the roof area, the top of Amphibious Group Two headquarters had become a favored place for the sailors to take lunch, rest, and—heaven forbid—enjoy a fine cigar.

  Three sailors laughed at something one of them said as they sat at one of the three picnic tables on the far side of the roof. In front of Holman and Upmann, a set of binoculars, similar to the ones installed at scenic outlooks, was mounted atop a large metal pole. A small metal stool for standing allowed everyone regardless of age or height a chance to use them. The binoculars looked out across Hampton Roads
Channel so the user could watch the continuum of maritime and naval traffic as it entered and departed the deepwater port of Norfolk. Upmann had his own binoculars hanging around his neck.

  “Right, red, returning,” Upmann said, referring to the maritime navigation “rules of the road” for ships entering a port. Entering ships stayed to the right inside the red buoys that lined a harbor channel. Green buoys lined the other side of the channel.

  “Weapons free, tally-ho,” Holman responded.

  “What was that about?”

  “Look, if we’re going to come out here for fresh air and light conversation, then the least you can do is quit this surface warfare stuff about boring holes in the ocean.”

  “Moi?” Upmann responded, his open right hand patting his chest.

  “Oui, you.”

  Holman lit his cigar, worked it for a half-minute to get the ember fully spread, and then leaned forward bracing his arm along the top of the wall, staring at the nearby channel that led from the largest Navy base in the world out into the Atlantic Ocean.

  “Think it’s about time to head back out to sea, Leo?”

  “Sir, we just got off the Boxer a month ago. Some of those officers and sailors on board have families. And before we departed the great accommodations of the Boxer, we took the flattop over to the east Atlantic to help our stout British ally and our part-time French comrade search for that terrorist merchant vessel that eventually was captured right out there.” He pointed out to the ocean. “If bad weather and good luck hadn’t intervened, it could have been quite a catastrophe here.”

  “As it was, we still had twenty-six deaths in Florida and four in Georgia before the health community came to grips with it.”

  Upmann chuckled. “No one can accuse you of not having a way with words, Admiral. Tact is your best quality.”

  “How about that?” Holman muttered, pointing at the bow of an aircraft carrier emerging into view. “That’s what keeps the terrorists at bay, my fine surface warfare warrior. Without those acres of America sailing on the oceans and seas of the world, we’d find our job in the amphibious Navy a hell of lot harder to do.” He took a deep puff on his cigar. “Hell of a sight.” With his fist, he struck his chest a couple of times. “Gets you right here.”

  As the starboard side of the huge warship slid slowly into view, the forecastle became visible. “72” in large white paint broke the gray symmetry of the aircraft carrier.

  “Abraham Lincoln,” Upmann said.

  “Wonder what she’s up to today.”

  “The morning activity report from Naval Air Force Atlantic says she’s heading out to sea so those flyboys—and girls—from Oceana can keep their carrier qualifications up to date.”

  “Going to be boring holes in the VACAPES operations area,” Holman added, using the acronym VACAPES instead of Virginia Capes. He sighed. “Wish I could do a few cats and traps on her.”

  “You ever missed a landing on one of those floating airfields?” Upmann asked, watching the ship move across the water. “What do you call it when that happens? A bolter?” A bolter was when the aircraft tailhook missed one of the four trap wires crossing the deck at the rear of an aircraft carrier.

  “Every Navy pilot who ever flew a carrier-based aircraft has missed those wires at one time in their flying career. If they say they haven’t, then they’re lying.”

  Holman flicked the ash from his cigar into a nearby red bucket filled with sand. “Landing on an aircraft carrier is more of a controlled crash than a landing.” He slapped his right fist into his left palm. “You slam down on the deck, wait a second, and, if you don’t feel the immediate grip of the wire jerking you to a stop . . .” He lifted his right hand and, holding an imaginary throttle, shoved his hand forward. “You push the throttle full bore and fly around again.”

  “How many times—”

  “About three, then you either get a drink from the A-6 tanker orbiting overhead, or the flight boss will bingo you ashore, if you’re close enough.” Holding the cigar between his fingers, he jabbed his hand at Upmann a couple of times, and in a smooth motion he put the cigar back between his lips. “I can tell you, if you’ve missed the wire three times, it’s a butt-tightening experience. Leo, those bolters are what separates the men from their underwear.”

  The two watched silently as the USS Abraham Lincoln sailed past. The deck of the huge ship was higher than the roof upon which they stood. There were no aircraft on the Lincoln deck. Yellow deck cats that normally would be shuttling between parked aircraft, towing others, and waiting for instructions stood parked in a line near the forecastle. When aircraft carriers returned from deployment, the air squadrons flew off to their own base before the carriers entered port. They landed on board an aircraft carrier after it was underway and far enough out to sea so it could maneuver for best winds.

  Signal flags flew from the lines running from the signal bridge to one of the transoms on the main mast.

  “Don’t see Commander Carrier Group Four’s flag, do you?”

  “No, sir. He must be ashore, but I’m sure some of his staff is on board. After all, COMCARGRU Four is responsible for carrier training and readiness.”

  Holman wished he could be on board the carrier. He would have given his left nut to be given a carrier group command because so much of his Navy career had been spent on board those floating airfields. Not that being the admiral in charge of the largest amphibious command in the world wasn’t great. It was. Those large flattops he commanded, such as the USS Boxer, were larger and more capable than any World War II aircraft carrier. This new concept of Expeditionary Amphibious Warfare that combined surface warships, a submarine, and maritime patrol aircraft made his forces capable not only of projecting power ashore, but it also allowed him the one advantage he had over carrier battle groups: once he had embarked Marines, he could land.

  He may be a pilot, but he knew wars were won by taking land, and no matter how many times the Air Force and Naval Air had tried, you can’t take land from the seat of a fighter aircraft bombing unseen targets twenty thousand feet below. You took land by putting boots on the ground. He puffed out a large cloud of smoke. Still, he was a fighter pilot, an F-18 Hornet fighter pilot, and that was what he knew.

  Behind the huge ship, an older Spruance-class destroyer followed. The destroyer would be the plane guard for the flight operations, following in the wake of the floating airfield, prepared to pick up pilots or carrier crewmembers who may find themselves in the drink. The other, less talked about, mission of the destroyer was to serve as a fire ship in the event the aircraft carrier suffered a catastrophe at sea. Aircraft carriers were so large that a fire burning around the hull of the warship was hard to fight with ship’s company. The destroyer could close alongside, covering the exposed hull of the aircraft carrier with firefighting foam and water. Holman took a puff on the Cuban cigar and let the smoke out slowly. He recalled the 1960s, when three major aircraft carrier fires cost the lives of many sailors. To him, the Forrestal fire in 1967—he thought, July—off Vietnam was the worst. The fire burned for hours at an awful loss of over 130 sailors. A former U.S. senator had been one of the fighter pilots who had had to run from his burning fighter on the Forrestal. There was the Oriskany, earlier than the Forrestal fire, that killed nearly fifty sailors, and the Enterprise fire, which burned for four hours. Hard to compare the Enterprise fire with the other two. Then there was the USS Kennedy fire in the Mediterranean in the early 1970s after it collided with the cruiser Belknap. There was a slew of carrier fires during World War II, and every carrier fire had a common firefighting response involving destroyers coming alongside, throwing everything in their firefighting arsenal to save the burning flattops.

  Even with their bombs exploding and aircraft burning, every one of those carriers survived. They were magnificent killing machines that could take nearly anything an adversary could throw at them, but, like all ships at sea, fire was ironically the scourge of the ocean; the fear of the sailors
. You could always refloat a ship if it flooded, but when it caught fire there was nothing between the sailor and the deep blue sea but those gray hulls. When your ship is burning there are only two courses of action: save the ship or swim for shore.

  Upmann lifted his fist to his lips and coughed, bringing Holman out of his aircraft carrier reverie. “Admiral, Captain Davidson handed me a report today showing that Abu Alhaul and his minions may be returning to the border areas around the Ivory Coast and Liberia. Possibly setting up camps in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. Not much chance of us going in after him there.”

  “Does that mean we may have shoved the terrorist and his “I wanna die” followers out of the picture for a while?”

  “No, sir. I think it has more to do with this African nationalist who is organizing north of Liberia—in the jungles of Guinea around the northwest Ivory Coast border. Captain Davidson was very graphic in some of the things this African Nationalist Army is doing, and, with the exception of their methods, it appears the ANA likes the terrorists as much as we do. This new player on the African continent is killing Islamic militants, overrunning the Wahabi-led schools that had sprouted up in West Africa in the last decade, and killing anyone suspected of being a Moslem.”

  Holman waved his cigar at Upmann. “I’ve been following it on Fox News Channel. I’ve heard that European Command has deployed or is deploying one of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron Two’s EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft to Monrovia to fly some recce missions against them.”

  “Against the Africans?”

  Holman lifted one shoulder for a second and dropped it. “Don’t know. Most likely, knowing the aircraft capability, whatever they find, they’ll collect. Eventually the raw data will be analyzed by some souped-up intelligence type who will tell us what he saw.”

  “It’s a dirty fight.”

  “I imagine it is. Africa is full of dirty little fights that kill more people in a smaller amount of time than most of our upper-world-hemisphere conflicts.”