“The only way we’ll get to Damascus is to walk. We may be moved along faster by special trucks if the situation warrants it. Since we’ll be in the rear areas most of the time, we should have few if any casualties. That’s a lot better than a direct attack with a frontal assault along the way on some hard point. Questions?”
“What about our kitchen?”
“It will be on its usual truck, along with supply, your second packs, and two officer jeeps. We’ll get hot meals when we can and sack lunches when we can’t. We may not eat much the first day. It all depends on how fast the tanks and their mobile troops can slash forward.
“We’ll have all troops awake and ready to march at 0430. It should be light somewhere around a half hour later. We’ll follow the tanks. If they move out early, we go right behind them. Don’t spread out too far, and keep contact. We don’t want any sprinters a mile ahead of the rest of the company. Is that clear?”
“Sir, won’t we lose the tanks in the first ten minutes? They can do thirty miles an hour.”
“True, but with them out front, leading the way, we should find little resistance as we move ahead. If they get too far ahead, they’ll be ordered to stop, or the regiment will move us up with trucks. That’s all. Get some sleep if you can. Hard telling when we’ll be able to sleep again.”
Another sergeant walking back to his squad with Hillah shook his head at the idea. “If they want a mechanized attack, they should give us trucks, all of us infantry, so we could keep up. After the first hour, we won’t even hear those tanks they’ll be so far ahead. Nothing out here to stop them. I heard the air force talking on a radio. They said there aren’t any troops of more than squad size anywhere along this area until you get twenty miles into Syria.”
When he arrived at the spot where his squad was, Sergeant Hillah sat down near them, but he couldn’t sleep. War! He had known it was possible, but things seemed so settled down. Now he was looking at shooting and killing and getting wounded or killed. All he could think about then was his bride back in Al-Amirah in southern Iraq. He might never see his new baby be born. He refused to think about that. He had a war to fight, so he would fight.
When 0430 came, Sergeant Hillah had his eight men ready. All had their equipment checked, their rifles readied. Each weapon was locked and loaded, and they were in their combat order with Sergeant Hillah out in front.
An hour before, Hillah had watched the tanks come through the infantry. A tanker had walked in front of each of the lumbering, metal monsters, moving infantrymen out of the way so nobody got crushed under the treads.
Now, the tanks sat less than fifty yards from the border and the troops gathered behind each one and spread to both sides. The sixteen tanks were fifty yards apart, covering eight hundred yards along the border. That was about the distance the First Battalion spread out.
Sergeant Hillah looked at the lighted face of his wristwatch. It had been a present from his wife. At 0445 he already he could see streaks of light in the east. Would they wait until 0500 or go when it was light enough? He’d soon know.
Ten minutes later he heard the big diesel engines in the tanks turn over and then growl and purr as they warmed up.
Precisely at 0500, the tankers moved out in a line at a walking pace. The infantry came up and ran after them. Hillah’s squad was to the right side of the fourth tank in the line. It had a large 34 painted on the back. He would remember it.
The tanks picked up speed, and by the time they reached what Hillah figured must be the border, they were moving at least twenty miles an hour. Then they went faster. The troops fell behind and settled down to a slogging march forward. Each squad had a section of the desert to cover. Now their line became straighter as they connected with the next squad and moved out with five yards between men.
So far, they had not heard nor seen a shot fired. The tanks rolled forward, kicking up a dust trail across the windless desert. Soon a freshening morning breeze sent the dust cloud chasing the tanks and leaving the men cleaner air to breathe.
Sergeant Hillah bellowed at his men to keep the line straight, to watch ahead. They were not in the tank’s tracks, and there could be mines laid along here anywhere. That made the men slow just a little and watch where they walked.
A half hour after the thrust began, the infantry, slogging along behind the tanks, heard the first shots of the war. Two tanks blasted with their cannon, and the sound came rushing back toward the infantry.
“Now the war has really started,” Sergeant Hillah shouted. “Look alive now, there could be some Syrians lurking around here soon.”
Near Duma, Syria
The flight of twelve Iraqi MiG Flogger-Ds had come out of the Syrian desert just before dawn barely a hundred feet off the sand. They slanted up enough to miss the built-up area as they thundered over the forty miles of heavily populated territory between the desert and the capital. Then they curved slightly north of Damascus and zeroed in on one of the three main Syrian military airfields.
It was just getting light when Captain Muhammad Dasht angled his Flogger-D at the parking area where he saw the lineup of twenty of Syria’s best jet fighters. He smiled as he readied his napalm bombs and his total of eight thousand pounds of more napalm and cluster bombs. He dropped four napalm bombs on the first run. On both sides of him, his wingmen did the same, saturating the whole parking strip with the blistering hot flames of the jellied gasoline.
After the first pass, he looked back and could see half the jets burning. Explosions rocked the field as one fuel tank after another on the Syrian jets blew up, scattering more flaming fuel into other jets.
Antlike creatures on the ground scurried from one to another of the jets not yet burning, trying desperately to get them into the air.
They didn’t have time.
The second pass of the twelve jets lathered the remaining fighters with more napalm and cluster bombs; then they turned to the hangars and support shops, tearing them apart with their bombs and napalm.
All too quickly, Captain Dasht realized that his plate was empty; he had nothing left but his 23mm two-barrel cannon. He made two strafing runs on more buildings and vehicles, expending his 200 rounds quickly. Then he kicked the big fighter into a climb and searched with his radar for enemy aircraft. He did slow circles but found nothing on his radar.
“Let’s go home,” he radioed the rest of his flight. They emptied their guns and lifted upward, where they would have better fuel economy and speed, and raced across Syria into the desert and then on home to their base near Baghdad. They did not lose a single plane. None of the twelve had even been fired at by enemy aircraft or from the ground. The Syrian ground defense did not seem to be working, or the strike was such a surprise that no one was on duty to man the antiair defense.
Captain Dasht smiled as he angled his Flogger-D in for a landing. So far, this war was going very well for Iraq. He couldn’t wait for the debriefing and to tell how they had wiped out at least twenty jet fighter aircraft on the ground. It would be an attack that would long be remembered in Iraqi military history.
Twelve Miles into Syria
Captain Hadr stood in his tank, watching out from the hatch. So far, he had not used the cannon. There had been no targets. His machine gun had been fired three times at infantry. The Syrian soldiers had scattered, and at least half had been killed or wounded. Each time, there had been no more than a dozen Syrian infantrymen. They would be no trouble.
His radio came on, and he listened carefully.
“Company, we may have some trouble just ahead. The lead tank reports a pair of Syrian tanks, the T-55 type. They evidently have dug in with just their cannons and turrets showing. It looks like they have been ordered to stand and fight.”
“Range?” someone asked.
“Twenty-five hundred yards. They haven’t fired yet.”
“Flank them,” Captain Kayf said.
“Go, Hadr. Take a forty-five to the right. I’ll take a forty-five to the left. Fire as so
on as you see the side of the tank. Race you.”
Both tanks slanted out on an angle and raced through the desert. Captain Hadr kept looking through his sights and range finder to his left. At last he saw a mound that looked out of place. Yes, the tank had prepared a nest. The side bank of dirt wasn’t high enough to hide the tank. He swung his machine around; the gunner sighted in on the tank and fired.
Just after the first round, Captain Kayf’s tank fired. Both rounds hit the Syrian tank and jolted large pieces of it into the air. Evidently, some rounds inside went off. The second tank in the blocking position turned and charged to the west and was soon lost in the dirt cloud it produced.
The Iraqi tanks re-formed, then charged ahead again.
“Well past the ten-mile mark,” Captain Hadr told his crew. “Wonder when we stop and regroup and let the infantry catch up?”
A moment later, a furious geyser of dirt, dust, and shrapnel exploded twenty yards in front of them.
“Hard left turn,” Captain Hadr yelled at his driver. He swiveled around to the right to try to find the tank that had fired at him. He couldn’t find it. A thousand yards away, a pale haze of smoke hung over some brush near a small spring. Then another puff of smoke appeared in the same spot. Hadr yelled at his gunner and spun the gun around. The tank’s old computer figured the range and settings, and before the other tank could fire again, Captain Hadr sent a round in counterbattery. It exploded in the brush, then nothing. No fire from a tank burning, no men running from the brush, no return fire, either.
“We either scared him away or hurt him,” Captain Hadr said and reported the shot to his commander.
Captain Kayf took his report. “Good shooting. In another two miles, we’ll have come fifteen. There we stop and let the rest of them catch up with us and give us some lateral support. Our flanks right now are wide open.”
They had no more action in the next two miles. They went down the gentle side of a wadi and up the other side and set up their line of tanks on a small ridge that gave them a view for eight miles to the west across the desert floor. They could see no sign of life.
“Tank commanders, pop the lid and take a look around. There must be some Syrian air out there somewhere,” the tank’s radio said. “Let’s see that they don’t catch us by surprise. Just how effective their air is depends on what kind of air-to-ground missiles they have. Let’s hope they don’t have the guided kind. Look sharp.”
It was almost an hour before any of the other elements caught up. Then it was half a dozen armored personnel carriers. They parked on the near side of the wadi and waved at the tankers. A Russian jeep pulled up next. It hesitated on the top of the wadi, then drove down and up the other side and stopped at the first tank. A bird colonel came out of the jeep and called to the tanker on top.
He was directed down three rigs to the tank company commander.
The Syrian MiG-29 Fulcrum-A came out of the desert without a hint of any forward sound. Someone shouted, then the big fighter dropped a missile. It ignited at once at two hundred feet and jetted at Mach 2 on line at the tank commander’s machine. Before the men could more than look up in wonder, the four-hundred-pound missile exploded on the front of the tank. It erupted in a shattering roar as thirty of the high-explosive cannon rounds inside the tank went off in a sympathetic detonation.
The jet screamed overhead and made a sweeping turn and headed back.
The tank was a shattered hulk of twisted metal and smoking shards. The jeep had been caught in the explosion as well, and its fuel tank went up to finish the jeep and kill the colonel and the driver.
By the time the jet came back, the .50-caliber machine guns on the armored personnel carriers were activated and met the jet head-on with a chattering fire of hot lead. It wavered early on, and the second missile missed its target, but the shrapnel killed a tank commander who stood in his machine.
The Syrian MiG-29 Fulcrum made one more run but high up, evidently surveying the mass of men and machines so far inside Syria. Then it streaked away to the west.
Captain Hadr grabbed an AK-47 and jumped to the ground. The commander’s tank was gone, disintegrated. The commander and his crew were dead, too. He had slammed three rounds at the Syrian jet when it made its second pass.
He shook his head. In an instant, the commander and his crew were dead. It could happen to him. He watched another Russian jeep drive down the wadi and up the near side. It stopped next to his tank, and a colonel looked at him.
“Captain, one of these tanks yours?”
Captain Hadr saluted smartly. “Yes, Colonel. This one, number 34.”
“You are now promoted to major and are in command of this tank group. You still have fifteen tanks. I’ll bring you a new radio so I can contact you. When we’re ready, you’ll move out in the spearhead again and work the way your company did today.
“Too bad about Captain Kayf. Things like this happen in a war. I’m Colonel Irbil. We’ll be in this position for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I’ll have a platoon of infantry out in front of you as a security patrol. Talk to your men.” The colonel shook his head. “No, let me use your radio, and I’ll talk to them.” The colonel climbed into the tank and used the tank-to-tank radio and told the men about their new commander, Major Hadr. He came out quickly and headed back across the wadi, where more and more troops and equipment were gathering.
Hadr went to the first tank and talked to the men, his men. Damn, he was a major now.
22
USS Enterprise CVN 65
Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock and Ed DeWitt looked at Don Stroh where the SEALs had assembled in their room on the carrier.
“So that’s it?” Murdock asked.
“That’s it,” Stroh said. “Simple little job. Those two Iranian submarines have been prowling around the Enterprise again, and we’ve had permission to go in and take them out. Yes, we have some submarines in the gulf, but it’s only three hundred feet deep except in two spots. No sub driver likes those kinds of conditions. No place to dive to in case of trouble. One sub commander told me he felt like he was a sitting duck in a bathtub here in the gulf.”
“Why doesn’t our sub sink their sub?” Murdock asked.
“That would be an official act, an act of war. We’re not at war with Iran. But when we send you men in sub rosa, it could be just a whopping big accident, or maybe Syria sabotaged them.”
“Syria,” DeWitt said. “We’re going to get dragged into that one, aren’t we?”
“I have no way of knowing,” Stroh said. “But if there were an official request from the Syrian government… I’ll let you decide that one for yourself. In the meantime, we have our small mission. Two medium-sized subs in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, which is on the Iranian side of the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Night mission,” Murdock said. “I’d guess you’ll want us to leave at first dark.”
“Thereabouts. It’s not an easy target. This sub pen is at the port, but there are a scattering of little islands and one big one just offshore. After dark, our guys say they can get you past the islands and hope not to get shot out of the sky. They can move you within two miles of the port.”
“A two-mile swim, no problem. A chopper?”
“Your old friend the Sea Knight. Plenty of room for your goodies. Take IBSs if you want. The Knight can get in there at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. It’s about a hundred and twenty miles from the carrier over there. We’re still watching the strait and flying some guard duty on it, so the Iranians might not get too upset if we stray a little. Well inside the radius range of the Knight. What’s your best choice?”
Murdock called up Dobler and Jaybird. “Let’s do some talking about it. Then we’ll let you know. It’s about 1300. Get back to you in a half hour. Oh, how big are these subs?”
“Russian built, two hundred thirty-eight feet long. Diesel power. Been in the Iranian navy since 1992. Carry eighteen torpedoes and can cause a lot of hurt. So the boss wants them
out of action. Blow off their propellers, blast a hole in the bow, or drop them in the mud of the harbor. Up to you.”
Stroh left the room without a good-bye. He’d be back. Jaybird and Dobler caught the last bit from Stroh.
“A sub?” Jaybird asked. “We’re going after an Iranian submarine?”
“Unless it comes after us first,” DeWitt said. “Sit down, and let’s talk. How can we best take out two Iranian submarines about a hundred and twenty miles away from here?”
“On the Iranian coast?” Dobler asked.
Murdock told them the where, about the islands, and the thought of going in by Sea Knight.
“Yeah, the range is okay,” Dobler said. “We can sneak in under any radar they might have. But what about patrol boats? The Iranians have a whole scumbag full of patrol boats of all sizes.”
“They also have three frigates and two corvettes with a lot of missile firepower that would make our IBSs mincemeat,” Murdock said. “You jokers want to live forever?”
“Yes,” the other three said in unison.
“Then what and how?”
“How close can a Sea Knight get us to the harbor?” Dobler asked.
“Stroh said two miles, but we’ll have to talk to the chopper pilot. He’s gonna be slicin’ and dicin’ to get in that close.”
“Even at that, we’d have to swim in with the rebreathers,” Jaybird said. “The IBSs might work, but they would be a much easier target for some patrol boat to see.”
“I’d say if they can get us within five miles of the target, we go with our wet suits and rebreathers,” DeWitt said. “Might depend on how much ordnance we’re gonna be packing.”
“First getting there,” Murdock said. They booted it around for another ten minutes. Quickly they ruled out a chopper drop on land, negated the idea of a parachute drop HALO, and came back to the Sea King and the rebreathers.
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