He felt his High Endurance Cutter (WHEC) was up to and capable of tracking down and prosecuting such a target if he got the chance. With his seventy-six millimeter dual-purpose deck gun, his twenty millimeter Phalanx (CIWS) and particularly his eight Harpoon missiles, he was ready to catch up with any vessel that had attacked his nation and either take it down, or put it down.
Right now, he was prosecuting one such lead. A single Chinese container ship had been waiting for clearance into the Chesapeake when the attacks occurred and several other ships that were also waiting had named this ship, the Guizhou, as the shooter. He had a track on it now, about seventy miles in front of him.
"Jake, get Lieutenant Ross on the horn for me."
Less than thirty seconds later, the Captain was handed the hand set. Lieutenant Ross was the pilot of the HH-35 Dauphin helicopter that was embarked on the Gallatin. The Dauphin was a good design, perfect qualities for the multiple roles required of the Coast Guard of search and rescue, interdiction, and potential combat. The Captain keyed his hand set.
"Mallet, this is Cut-base, how do you copy? State your situation"
A clear signal came immediately back.
"Cut-base, I read you loud and clear. I am about thirty miles from the tango-01 and have him on radar.
You should be getting the feed. A single ship, looks like a container ship from here, but I am going in for a closer look."
The Captain talked briefly with his Combat Information Center. They did indeed have the radar track and already had four Harpoons targeted on the vessel.
"Ross, we have the digital feed and all targeting is already programmed. Try and get a positive ID, then get back to me. Be careful, Cut-base out."
The line was silent for a several seconds, then "I roger that Cut-base. We are closing to twenty-five miles now and reducing alt.i.tude...wait one, we are being illuminated, I say again, vessel has lit us up.Missile launch, I have a missile launch...two, three launches. Evading."
The abrupt nature of the change stunned the Captain and everyone on the bridge momentarily, but only for a second or two.
"Ross, get down on the deck and get the h.e.l.l out of their range!"
"CIC, fire! I say again,Fire ! Engage the target with Harpoon missiles!"
"Ross? Mallet?Radar, what do you have on Mallet?"
The radar officer looked at his scope and then at his screen.
"Captain, he"s off radar and we have lost the data feed."
Just then, from forward of the bridge, ma.s.sive gouts of flame kicked out of launch canisters as one after another, four RGM-84A Harpoon missiles were launched. They accelerated to near 600 knots and after an initial climb, they arched over and descended to about fifty feet above the water, continuing on their track towards the target.
Eight minutes later, when it was clear that at least three of the missiles had been shot down before they could reach the target, the Captain ordered another four missiles launched. He also ordered max speed of thirty knots and continued on towards the Guizhou.
This time, only two of his missiles were definitely shot down, but the radar image of the Guizhou was still on the screen and moving, although now the speed had slowed from twenty to eight knots. Smoke could be seen over the horizon as the Gallatin continued to close.
At a range of twenty miles, the masts and upper super structure of the Guizhou could just be seen over the horizon, with smoke still billowing up from forward of the super structure, but still below the horizon.
The Captain ordered the Gallatin to close to within firing range of their seventy-six millimeter dual-purpose gun, another twelve miles.
But they were never going to make it.
At a range of eighteen miles from the Chinese vessel, the sonar operator shouted a warning of an object in the water coming at them at unbelievable speed from off the starboard bow. The Captain ran to the starboard side of the bridge just in time to see an unbelievably fast streak, trailing a fearsome wake close on his ship and explode almost directly beneath where he was standing. It was the last thing he saw on this earth.
The USCGS Gallatin (WHEC 721) stopped dead in the water as the sea flowed into the gaping rent.
Very quickly, she settled then sank four minutes and twenty-eight seconds later at 22:07. Only thirty-three members of the crew, out of total of one hundred and seventy-seven, escaped alive.
The Guizhou, damaged by two Harpoon missile hits from the Gallatin, continued to limp further south, where she was located at 23:25 hours by a flight of two P3-C Orion"s out of Oceana Naval Air Station.
Each Orion employed very powerful surface search radar and carried four Harpoon missiles. Eight missiles were launched at the Guizhou from well outside of anti-aircraft missile range. Of the eight, five got through her KS-2 and CIWS defenses and scored hits on her. One of the hits produced a ma.s.sive secondary explosion in the forward section of the ship as reloads for the VLS missile system detonated.
This explosion literally blew off the Guizhou"s bow and at 23:52, she too sank beneath the waves.
The position of the Guizhou"s sinking was painstakingly noted by circling US aircraft as rescue ships were dispatched. American intelligence agencies, shocked and stinging from the day"s events, were already anxious to gather as much information regarding the new Chinese technologies and weapons systems as possible. They intended to accomplish this in whatever manner they could, from surviving crew, from wreckage floating on the ocean surface or from a deep-sea salvage operation if necessary.
As far as they were concerned, and given the gravity of the situation, the sooner that information was recovered, the better.
Epilogue.
March 16, 2006, 10:00 local time Government Conference Center Beijing, The People"s Republic of China Jien Zenim stood resolute before the cameras. In a few seconds he would deliver a historically momentous statement to the people of China and to the world. That statement would be direct. It would announce in fact what the original CAS announcement had said in principle over a year ago.
In the end, Mao had been right about where all political power derives from ... the point of a gun.
As he waited, he thought of the events of this morning. Initial reports were beyond belief in terms of their success. The Chinese portion of "Breath of Fire" was exceeding expectations, both here in Asia and in America. He was certain that the hold that America had on eastern Asia had been broken, and he was convinced that China"s leadership in the CAS would keep it that way.
As the light flashed to green, he began his prepared statement.
"People of China, it is with sorrow that I announce to you that a state of war exists between The People"s Republic of China and the United States of America. This is not what the peace loving people of China have desired, but it is now thrust upon us.
"As a result of unequivocal information that we have received and evidence that proves it beyond a doubt, it has become clear that the United States government has embarked on a systematic program to thwart the will of free peoples around the world. They have done this by plundering the resources of other nations, by undermining the social order of other nations, by ignoring the confirmed vote of other nations, and by seeking to murder the heads of state of other nations whenever it suits their presumed needs.
"We have seen this recently in the former state of Iraq, where the people voted to align themselves with the Greater Islamic Republic after the death of their head of state. Evidence indicated then that the United States might have been complicit in the death of that head of state. America then tried to thwart the will of the people by raising up and supporting a puppet, break away government in northern Iraq. They resorted to military force to force the issue. When GIR forces liberated those areas, and when the leader of the GIR unilaterally offered an end to the fighting, America resorted to an attempted a.s.sa.s.sination to thwart that leader"s attempt to bring peace.
"Now, here in Asia, we see an internal dispute among the Korean peoples. Again, the United States is seeking to exert its will. They were sending a vast armada with tens of thousands of soldiers to accomplish this.
"The People of China are a patient people. We are a peace loving people. But we are also a just people who can only stand back so long while such a bully ravages others-particularly others who have entered into peaceful and profitable economic and friendship agreements with the People"s Republic of China.
Today, the Chinese people reached their limit.
"This morning at 06:00, I ordered elements of the People"s Liberation Army to engage and interdict American forces approaching Korea and elsewhere. I must tell you that our forces have succeeded beyond our projections. You can be proud of your heroes, they have made all of China proud, and they will continue to make us proud as we push this alien mentality back across the ocean from where it came.
"In that regard, as I am sure most of you have heard, I also ordered our forces to strike America in its homeland, the same way they have done to so many other nations. The targets were all military in nature, from their command and control, up to and including their commander in chief, to their shipbuilding, air force and other bases. We have heard reports of terror attacks on American citizens and we unequivocally disavow such attacks. We have no knowledge of, and will provide no support to, such attacks.
"To the people of America I say. We are your friends. We seek peace. Use the tools and inst.i.tutions you have to remove those in your own government who use your resources in such terrible ways. Elect new leaders, who are truly interested in peace, and there will be peace.
"To America"s allies I say, cease your support for such a monstrous government. We invite you to adopt the Three Wisdoms of which you have heard us speak. Adapt it to your particular culture and economic principles. If you do not desire this, that is fine. But, if you persist in your support of the monstrous policies of the current American administration, then we will wage war on you until you can no longer export such a base value system.
"To the people of China, and all the peoples of the Coalition of Asian States I say, let us unite and keep interlopers and intruders and those who would destroy our cultures and our peace away. Let us push them and their corporations of greed and death and vice far from our sh.o.r.es, and let us not stop until they are not capable of exporting them here again.
"Good night."
March 16, 2006, 01:20 Aspen Lodge , Presidential Bedroom Camp David, Maryland Norm Weisskopf could not sleep. He was thankful for his wife"s deep, even breathing, for her life. He was also thankful that he finally got aboard Air Force One to communicate with the military commands that protected the nation. For about half an hour they had been very close to a full nuclear exchange with China. But when it was clear than none of the missiles were nuclear, biological or chemical, that crisis had pa.s.sed.
"Well, we all failed our nation this day," thought the President. The list of estimates kept appearing again and again in his mind.
EYES ONLYTOP SECRET ESTIMATED LOSSES03/16/06.
Ship Cla.s.s Ship Name Damage Killed Injured CVN-74 John Stennis Sunk 4,758 1,108 CV-64 Constellation Sunk 5,965 48 LHA-5 Peleliu Sunk 2,760 235 LHD-3 Kearsage Sunk 1,850 653 LPD-15 Ponce Sunk 885 575 LPD-10 Juneau Sunk 774 250 LPD-8 Dubuque Sunk 1,212 38 LSD-52 Pearl Harbor Sunk 921 208 LSD-50 Carter Hill Sunk 450 376 LSD-45 Comstock Sunk 621 256 LSD-42 Germantown Sunk 345 173 CG-65 Chosin Sunk 421 85 CG-75 Lake Chaplain Sunk 389 118 DDG-73 Decatur Sunk 231 78 DD-967 Elliot Sunk 277 114 FFG-43 Thach Sunk 198 79 FFG-33 Jarrett Sunk 149 94 AOE-7 Rainer Sunk 321 123 AOE-10 Bridge Sunk 298 175 SSN 763 Santa Fe Sunk 142 0 SSN 759 Jefferson City Sunk 142 0 SSN 752 Pasadena Sunk 142 0 SSN 716 Salt Lake City Sunk 142 0 USCG-721 Gallatin Sunk 144 18 LHD-2 Ess.e.x 25% 124 221 LPD-17 San Antonio 35% 155 289 LPD-49 Harper"s Ferry 30% 106 189.
LSD-47 Rushmore 35% 154 202 LSD-43 Fort McHenry 40% 195 102.
CG-73 Port Royal 20% 89 47 DDG-65 Benford 60% 108 105 DD-965 Kinkaid 50% 67 124 TOTALS Sunk-25 Damaged-8 24,535 6,091 That was just the losses at sea. When the losses on Okinawa, the losses on j.a.pan, the losses in Korea-and then the horrific losses here in the continental United States itself were added; Bath Iron Works, Norfolk Shipyards, Newport News Shipbuilding, Ingalls Shipbuilding, San Diego, Los Angeles, Bremerton, the Pentagon, the Capitol, the White House, the unspeakable toll in St. Louis...the numbers were too much to take in; too much to contemplate. America may well have lost more people in this one day than in all of the Vietnam War!
And it was just the beginning. Reports while on Air Force One and since indicated that large Chinese invasion forces, with hundreds and hundreds of small landing craft, were gathering along the coasts of China. They looked to be preparing for incursions into Korea across the Yellow Sea, across the Taiwan Straits at the Republic of China (Taiwan) and another force that could well be targeting the Philippines.
"My G.o.d, where art Thou?" thought the President. It should bring tears to his eyes just to think on all of this and what it would mean; but he had no more tears to shed.
Tomorrow morning, here at Camp David at 06:00 in the Laurel Lodge, he would hold his cabinet meeting. Dear G.o.d, some good people and close friends were gone! Alan, Timothy and Mike were all dead. Great Americans killed in the fulfilling of their duties. Apparently the three of them had been attending to other business upstairs in the White House while they waited on him to return from lunch to start the National Security meeting. The rest had already been seated down in the situation room and had been spared, albeit Jeremy and Fred had both been injured. The Vice President, the Secretary of Defense and the Director of the CIA were all dead and it was all he could do to contain his emotions.
Then at 8 a.m. he would have a joint session of Congress; at least those who were alive and healthy enough to come. They would hold it in the Chapel here at Camp David and tend to the business of declaring war on the Chinese. Congress was also decimated by this attack. Over one hundred Congressmen and thirty-seven Senators were dead in the collapsed Capitol and adjoining buildings.
More good, cream of the crop Americans: gone.
At 10 a.m. he would address the nation, and he prayed that G.o.d in Heaven would give him the strength and the wisdom to know what to say, to know how to lead his nation out of these horrific circ.u.mstances and return peace and stability to the world. It would take strength, it would take steel.
His mind wandered to the Pentagon. Over two thousand five hundred missing. Lots of good, loyal and hard working Americans who had made a lifetime out of serving their country. What about Admiral Patterson? There was an honest to G.o.d, modern John Wayne American if there ever was one-now gone-died fighting for his country.
All of those loyal, gifted craftsmen at the shipbuilding companies. So many of them gone this day too.
The DD-21 and the CVX: destroyed before they could even be completed.
My G.o.d! The John Stennis and the Constellation! Both gone? Too much to absorb; too much to take in.
And then that lying, smug b.a.s.t.a.r.d Zenim. The very idea of his audacity! How dare he make such statements over the blood he shed this day! Well, he certainly left no doubt as to who the enemy is.
"Dear G.o.d in Heaven, let it be his undoing. Fashion us as an instrument to bring about the just retribution for the Jien Zenim"s and Hasan Sayeed"s of this world, a retribution they so richly deserve."
As he thought this, he finally, mercifully, drifted off to sleep.
March 16, 2006, 09:57 Presidential Office, Laurel House Camp David, Maryland Just a few minutes from now and a nation in shock, a world on the precipice, would receive an answer from America, an answer voiced by Norm Weisskopf.
He had slept deeply for the few hours available to him. Then, this morning he had held his meetings.
There would be many, many more.
His cabinet meeting had gone well, considering the familiar faces and good friends who were not there, who would never be there again. The agency heads were receiving a lot of information and the picture of what had been done to America was becoming horrifically clear.
It was becoming more and more clear to the President that China was the princ.i.p.al enemy, the probable mastermind behind most of what was going on. China had waited until America was fully engaged in the Middle East, and then lured significant American reserves into the Far East through its proxy, North Korea, before attacking. It was deadly serious, as China had made clear with the very nature of its attack. The fact that the terror attacks across the nation had occurred at virtually the same time made it clear that they were part and parcel of the same attack, doing things that even China didn"t want to "officially" muddy its hands with.
Thousands and thousands of American civilians were dead. Millions were without electricity. Propane heating fuel was going to be short for the rest of the spring.
The nation was going to have to take some significant time and effort to secure its borders, to secure its coastlines. All efforts would be poured into mobilizing America for war: her military, her industry, her financial dealings ... her people.
The congressional session had also been heartening, considering the circ.u.mstances and the many who would never be there again. But other Americans would step in. Special elections would be held soon.
The Declaration of War had been unanimous. The President had then shared with the representatives, and the cabinet who were present in the room, what his intentions were. He was heartened by their support. The nature of the threat was clear; and exactly who the enemy was, was also clear. Other political or partisan issues would be placed aside, defeating the common enemy would take precedence over all else.
On the allied front, the British, who were also savaged with the loss of the majority of their task force, were squarely in the war beside the United States. Canada and Australia had made their own declarations of war against China. The major European nations were taking up the matter. The United States was demanding that all NATO countries honor article five of that agreement.
As the cameras turned on, the President could be seen sitting in the Presidential office of the Laurel house at Camp David, with the Presidential Seal behind him and an American flag to his side.
"My fellow Americans. I spoke to you on February twenty-eighth about the true nature of the conflict we find ourselves embroiled in. I spoke of sacrifice, of faith, of self-sufficiency, and of unity. The absolute need for all of these was brought home to us yesterday in a dastardly, sneak attack without provocation or precedent on this nation.
"We have suffered a terrible ambush and a tremendous loss. Our White House is destroyed, along with many loyal Americans who worked there including several of the cabinet, and including, regrettably, the Vice President of the United States.
"Our Capitol building has been destroyed along with close to 150 of our representatives and senators, all of whom were going about their sworn duty to this nation.
"Our Pentagon was again attacked, and damaged terribly, much more so than the attack in September of 2001. We have lost many, many good and loyal Americans who have devoted much of their careers to the protection of our nation, of our liberties. Now they have offered their lives.
"Our military forces in the Far East were decimated and savaged in surprise attacks by ships posing as commercial vessels and by a nation professing its neutrality. This is the same nation that carried out the attacks against our homeland here that I have just described to you. It is certain that the total death toll from these attacks will be close to 50,000 Americans. A number that may exceed our total combat losses in all of the Vietnam War.
"Yesterday, we heard the brazen words of a tyrant, a tyrant who tried to couch acts of terror and reprehensible acts of treachery into flowery phrases. We reject his phrases as the blatant lies that they are. We in America have seen and fought and defeated his kind before, and we shall do so now. The time for flowery words is past. We will bury our dead, we will approach or G.o.d in our grief, and then we will fight.
"As of 9:30 a.m. EST today, March 16, 2006, a state of war exists between the United States of America and the People"s Republic of China. It will be a long war, it will be a costly war, but it will be a war fought for liberty and freedom and against the most blatant and abject tyranny the world has seen since Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
"I will not propose to speak to the citizens of other nations, but I will speak directly to Jien Zenim. I want you to listen to me Zenim, from this date forward I will never attach any t.i.tle to your name, you are not deserving of any.
"So, listen well. You have made the same fatal mistake that the j.a.panese made when they attacked America at Pearl Harbor in 1941. On that occasion, sixty-five years ago, their military leader, Admiral Yamamoto, indicated that he "feared they had awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." You have done just that, Zenim. Read your history and find out what we Americans did with Admiral Yamamoto. We discovered where he was flying and then sent our aircraft in overwhelming numbers and killed him. Then we defeated the j.a.panese armies and their navies, and when they would not surrender unconditionally, we firebombed and then nuclear bombed their cities until they did. We did essentially the same to n.a.z.i Germany and the world has been better for it. You have filled us with a resolve that is many times greater than that from Pearl Harbor, and you and any peoples who stand with you, shall suffer the consequences.
"This is not a threat. It is a promise. It is a personal promise from myself, and from any one who follows me in this office, to you, and to those who support you. We need no "coalition" to prosecute this purpose. You have filled us with our own coalition. It is called the people of the United States, and if you thought your petty, veiled threats would alter us from this purpose, you are again sadly and fatally mistaken.
"Zenim, you have admitted your cold-blooded, calculated butchery to the world, and tried to call it good. History will judge you the same way it did Hitler, and the same way it did Mao, at least in the free, civilized world where the truth of tens of millions of dead is allowed to be discussed for the genocide it is.
"I make a commitment before the citizens of America and before G.o.d. We will not rest, we will not stop, we will never,ever give up! If it takes us three years, or if it takes us ten years, our nation will overcome your dastardly and cowardly attack. We will produce aircraft carriers like the ones you sank by the dozens, we will produce technology to defeat whatever you may throw at us. We will produce weapons and methodologies that you will never conceive of in your closed, collective society.
"To our allies I say,stand with us .
"We may have been knocked to the ground, but you can count on us getting back up stronger than before, filled with a righteous indignation that we will pour out on our enemies.
"Stand with us.
"We will not forsake you. The United States of America makes a solemn commitment and promise to return to liberate any who fall under the blight that is now spreading. We shall return! There will be no iron curtains at the end of this fight, the governments currently prosecuting these invasions and this tyranny will cease to exist every bit as much as n.a.z.i Germany and Imperial j.a.pan did.
"Stand with us.