"I think we"re under attack by a MiG."
0545 Hours Local, SAt.u.r.dAY 2 NOVEMBER 1968 EAGLE STATION AT Lima SITE 85 ROYALTY OF LAos Court didn"t waste a second when he heard Spectre say their big gunship was under MiG attack. He pulled out his survival radio and called Phantom 03, who he knew was...o...b..ting over Lima Site 36. Ken Tanaka answered.
"Phantom Leader, this is Zero Three, go."
"You want a MiG, get on over here."
"Hey, hey, on my way. Orbit time is over, the mission was scrubbed. Me and the Jollys have been released."
Wolf looked up from his p.r.o.ne position behind a rock and pushed his floppy hat back. There was enough light for Court to see his craggy features. "A MiG? Is that all you flyboys think of, shooting down MiGs?"
"If you beetle-crunchers want nothing but friendlies overhead, somebody"s gotta get the MiGs. That"s what we do."
A short burst cracked over their heads. "I think they"re headed our way," Court said and ducked.
"A real d.i.c.k Tracy," Wolf said and cackled spasmodically in a sound that reminded Court of a stick being dragged along a wooden fence. They had both been up for many Hours and were getting giddy.
Court thought about what Tanaka had said about there being no current mission for the Jolly Greens. He called Moonbeam.
"Go ahead, Phantom," Moonbeam replied.
"Understand you got a spare Jolly at Lima 36-that affirm?"
"Yes. But listen, Phantom, you"re not a command post down there. You can"t be running this show, you know."
"Moonbeam, in case you"ve forgotten, this is Eagle Station, and I am the commander and we have self-FAC, Skyspot, and on-orbit authority at all times. You copy that?"
Court was reaching and he knew it. He was the ranking Air Force officer on Eagle Station, but that didn"t mean he was in command. Further, although the station had self-FAC and Skyspot authority, that was in effect only when the airplanes were fragged to them by Blue Chip, the 7th Air Force command post. The men at Eagle Station could not generate the a.s.sets, and certainly not the targets for the Skyspot missions.
And "on-orbit-authority" was a phrase he had pulled from his test-pilot days at Edwards Air Force Base. It had no basis in reality here, but Court hoped to keep the ABCCC at bay until he could get the job done from the ground.
"I"ll have to check with Blue Chip," the controller said, "and the Rescue Control Center."
"You have a Mayday situation down there, don"t you?" Ken Tanaka transmitted his question.
"That"s affirmative," Court answered. "MiGs in the air, bad guys on the ground, and two evacuees to be pulled out."
"I"ll relay that to the Jolly Green that"s just lifting off to return to its home base. It"s fully mission-capable. We"ll see what he can do.
Meanwhile I"m one mike from your position.
I"m going over to Spectre Primary."
It was light now at 35,000 feet, where Ken Tanaka flew.
The bright sun was above the horizon, shining bright new rays down on the jumbled cloud pattern that covered the green jungle and karst mountains of Laos. He lowered the nose of" his F-4D Phantom fighter and told Matt Henry, his GIB, to sweep ahead with his radar. As the plane gained airspeed he switched to the proper frequency and contacted Spectre.
"You sure you"re under MiG attack?" Tanaka asked. There had been only a half-dozen cases in the last three years of MiGs attacking US aircraft over Laos. For whatever their reasons, North Vietnamese policy was to leave the airs.p.a.ce free.
"Listen," Gunship Charlie, the Spectre pilot, panted to Tanaka, "the delta-winged sumb.i.t.c.h has already made one pa.s.s using guns, and if it ain"t a MiG I"ll kiss your radorne. He made the mistake of making a highside pa.s.s at me from the port and I threw my left wing up and fired everything I had at him. Didn"t hit s.h.i.t, but the muzzle flashes must have scared him off, but now he"s behind someplace and I ain"t got no tail gunner." In fact. he did. Staff Sergeant Bill Beddor, a scanner, was at that very moment in the p.r.o.ne position with an M- 1 6 on the open rear ramp door, quite determined to be the first Spectre crew member to shoot down a MiG. He was attached to the gunship by a long strap from his parachute harness.
"Contact, twelve o"clock low for six," Matt Henry said from the backseat. Ken Tanaka looked down at his repeater scope and saw the large and small blips that could only be the AC-130 gunship and the smaller fighter.
"You sure he was shooting?" Tanaka asked the Spectre pilot.
It could be a Navy or Marine A-4 fighter buzzing the gunship.
A dumb but not unheard-of maneuver.
Well, if he wasn"t shooting, he"s got headlights that spit cherry b.a.l.l.s that me and all my crew saw," Gunship Charlie rasped back. As the aircraft commander he had to make all the split-second decisions, and this was no time to use his table nav as a go-between. The table nav"s detection and fire control devices were air-to-ground-oriented, hence useless against MiGs. Charlie kept his ship in a right-hand orbit to keep his guns on the side the MiG might attack. "I"m at base plus three," he added. The base alt.i.tude code for the day was 5,000 feet, which meant the gunship was holding 8,000 feet.
Tanaka looked up and saw the silver MiG hang in the sky far above the orbiting AC-130 gunship. "Has he got a wingman?" he asked Spectre.
"Not that I can see, but my visibility isn"t a that good."
Ken Tanaka scanned the sky. It would be very strange if that MiG was out here without a wingman. At minimum, it was standard fighter doctrine always to travel in pairs.
"You got any other paints?" he asked Matt Henry.
"Negatron," Henry said, elated at the prospect of being the first GIB to be in on a MiG kill over Laos-or, for himself, to get a MiG under any circ.u.mstance. "Got a lock on," he said.
"You"re cleared for missiles."
"Negative," Tanaka said. "They"re too close. This has got to be guns."
Tanaka"s airplane carried an a.s.sortment of radar guided and heat-seeking missiles, either of which could lock on to the big four-engined AC-130 a lot easier than the tiny MiG. Tanaka intended to use the 20mm cannon slung under the belly of his fighter to ensure there was no mistake. He was excited. This was every fighter pilot"s dream: fight a MiG and shoot him down. Especially good if with guns.
As Tanaka"s fighter screamed on down and pa.s.sed through 25,000 feet at a speed of 600 knots, he a.s.sessed the situation. He was coming in at the rear of the MiG, which he estimated was two miles beneath him at 15,000 feet, ready to make another pa.s.s at Spectre in his...o...b..t at 8,000.
Tanaka had to slow down or he would overshoot the MiG. He throttled back to decrease airspeed. He was surprised the MiG didn"t have a wingman, and he knew North Vietnamese radar coverage did not extend this far west into Laos.
"Strange, strange," he said to Henry. "But I"m not going to look a gift bear in the mouth." His gunsight pipper was on the MiG, and the electronic range ring circling the pipper said he was at 6,000 feet from the tail of the enemy plane.
"Six thou range and 100 knots overtake," Henry said.
"Boards coming out." Tanaka pushed the b.u.t.ton on his throttle that extended the two huge metal speed brakes, also called speed boards in the early F-86 days, into the slipstream. In less than two seconds, fifty knots bled off and Tanaka pulled the boards back up.
"Piece of cake," Tanaka hummed as he settled in to apply all his thousands of Hours of study and flying time learning and teaching fighter tactics to this one pa.s.s. "Piece a f.u.c.king cake."
At 1,200 feet the MiG loomed in his sights and he started firing his cannon and saw a few sparkles on the empennage Of the silver fighter as the API (Armor Piercing Incendiary) sh.e.l.ls impacted. Immediately the MiG rolled into a vertical left bank and pulled so many Gs in his turn into Tanaka that white streamers of water condensation trailed back from his wingtips.
The turn was an attempt to force Tanaka to overshoot so the MiG pilot could then reverse his turn and be on Tanaka"s tail.
But two things were working against him. For one, Tanaka was a highly experienced fighter pilot who instantly converted his speed into alt.i.tude and prepared for another pa.s.s; for another, the MiG had sustained hits in the engine that suddenly reduced his speed. A thin line of smoke trailed from the tailpipe.
The MiG pilot, Duy Ui Tran Van Quoc, was an experienced captain who had been told his mission was so important that he had to go without a wingman. And it was strongly hinted that he was not to come back unless the Yankee gunship was down in flames. He looked down at his engine instruments and saw the temperature and pressure gages that said his engine would soon quit or explode. Quoc tilted his head over his shoulder and saw the Phantom fighter poised against the high clouds, ready to roll in for the kill. Then he looked over and saw the giant black four-engined gunship and knew what he had to do.
He had been trained in Russia, where the ram tactic was known and taught. It had not been taught to Soviet pilots since the Great Patriotic War, but had been taught to third-world pilots who pa.s.sed through the Russian schools.
"Look out, Spec, he"s making a direct pa.s.s at you from your nine,"
Tanaka warned as he rolled in. The MiG was boring in on Spectre directly from his nine o"clock position.
"Yeah, and his headlights are blinking at me," Gunship Charlie said.
Charles L. Branski was a burly man, and he hau ed back on the big control yoke with ease as he kept his head turned left, staring at the attacking MiG. He handled the bank angle while his copilot used the rudders to keep the turn coordinated.
"He"s smoking, he"s slowing down," Tanaka said.."I think he"s gonna ram and I can"t get to him in time."
Still in the left turn, Gunship Charlie pushed the nose of the big ship down, and the MiG followed. He pulled back on the yoke to raise the nose, and the MiG had enough forward speed to do the same. There was no doubt, the MiG had the residual momentum, even if its engine quit, to ram Spectre.
"All guns on the line," Gunship Charlie Branski yelled on the intercom, and rolled out of his turn for a second, giving the MiG an easy shot at them. Two of the MiG"s 27mm sh.e.l.ls ripped through the top of the fuselage of the gunship, sending slivers into the pressurization lines and the delicate computer. Ignoring the impacts, Branski rolled in right aileron to raise the left wing and pushed left rudder to keep the big nose from swinging to the right and, in this cross-controlled position, fired everything he had at the approaching MiG.
The steady roar of the 20mm Gaffing guns combined with the slam-slam of the twin 40mm cannon created a din in the aft cabin of the big gunship the crewmen were used to. What they were not used to was the guns firing in anything but a left bank. Gunship Charlie Branski had to keep the left wing up, not down, to fire at the approaching MiG. The Fire Control System he used was not equipped to solve the geometry of an approaching fighter, nor the calculus of the changing speeds.
Empty casings spewed out of the guns in such a way as soon to cause a jam. The gunners had to brace themselves in an entirely new manner. One fell backwards and shattered his elbow. Staff Sergeant Bill Beddor grabbed his M-16 and wedged himself" into position and hammered away at the approaching fighter.
The table nav told Branski there were no injuries from the 27mm sh.e.l.l impacts and, as far as he could tell, no system damage.
Tanaka put in his burners and streaked toward the attacking MiG. He could see the first bit of flame from the enemy"s tail, but it was obvious there was no damage to the flight control system, and forward momentum would carry the North Vietnamese plane into the side of the gunship. He saw the MiG was not firing: either out of ammunition or the engine damage was enough to take out the system that enabled the guns to shoot.
Looking through the gunsight superimposed on his left-hand window, Gunship Charlie Branski saw the tracers of his guns converge far behind the MiG that loomed larger in size each second. The guns were harmonized far beyond the 1,000 feet through which the fighter was now flying. Branski had about three seconds in which to do something, and he did it. He sawed and yanked the rudder pedals and control yoke in an abrupt and rough gyration that made the nose of the giant plane describe a figure eight in the air. Performing that violent maneuver forced the guns on the left side to depart from the neat lines of fire and spray a wild pattern of sh.e.l.ls directly into the path of the MiG.
At 200 feet from the AC-] 30, Duy Ui Tran Van Quoc and his MiG-21PF became a giant fireball, raining parts that instantly slid from view behind the AC-130.
"I got him, I got him!" Beddor screamed into the intercom.
"My G.o.d," Ken Tanaka said in awe as he yanked his Phantom out of the way of the MiG parts.
"What"s going on up there?" Court Bannister asked on FM from beneath the thin cloud layer over his position. "When you gentlemen are through playing around, I would appreciate some firepower down here."
"Glad to oblige, Phantom," Gunship Charlie Branski said, trying to keep his voice as deep and cool as possible considering he was the only C-130 pilot in the world who had ever shot a MiG down with his airplane. "Just tell us where you need the lead."
Court pulled out the hand-held beacon and turned it on. "You got my flash on your scope?" He asked. The table nav said he had the plume loud and clear on his scope.
"Good," Court said. "Stand by while I get things sorted out down here."
He pointed the nose of the beacon down the trail from which the shooting had come. "What"s their distance from us?" he asked Wolf.
"Try 200 meters. Don"t want to fire into Hak"s village."
Court dialed in 200 meters, moved a k.n.o.b to the position that indicated troops, and cleared Spectre to shoot. Instantly a dozen sh.e.l.ls rained down. Suddenly a voice from the impact area screamed, "Don"t shoot, G.o.d almighty, we"re friendly!"
The accent was pure Midwest American. Before Court could react and tell Spectre to hold fire, the guns stopped shooting and the table nav came on the line.
"Phantom, Spectre Two Four. Got some bad news. Our computer just went t.i.ts up. We can"t shoot another round. Pilot says we will have a replacement Spectre but not for another hour or so."
"Okay, okay, Spec," Court said.
"Hey," Ken Tanaka transmitted, "I"ve got w.i.l.l.y Petes and 20 mike-mike if need be, and I can call in all the fighters you need."
Court scanned the weather. Dawn gray had given way to a sullen overcast that had few breaks. "Just go on high orbit and throttle back," he told Tanaka. "The weather is Delta Sierra.
Call me when you find out about getting a Jolly Green in here."
He turned his attention to Wolf, who was sighting down the trail over the muzzle of his AK-47.
"Hey, thanks," the hidden voice said. "Don"t shoot me, now. I"m coming along the trail."
"Who are you?" Wolf bellowed in the sudden jungle silence.
"Lieutenant John Green, Air Force. I just escaped. I need help. Don"t shoot."
"Advance slowly-very slowly," Wolf yelled at the disembodied voice.
The morning air hung cool and humid. Court saw a figure detach itself from the shadows of the bushes along the path and with careful steps advance toward where they lay. He wore a USAF flight suit and had his hands up. "Hey, gosh, where are you?" he asked in a boyish voice. "Boy, am I glad you"re here."
Court could see him clearly now: young, clean-cut face, shock of blond hair, wary but pleased look on his face. Court was about to speak to him when Wolf shot him between the eyes.
"Wolf-what in h.e.l.l-"
"What in h.e.l.l, nothing," Wolf snarled back. "That man was Spetsnaz. The flight suit was clean, his face was clean, and he was wearing boots. No POW is allowed to keep his boots. And look at that thing strapped to his back. Court saw something on the back of the fallen man. "Watch this," Wolf said and fired a round into the pack, which exploded with an enormous roar.
There was a shocked silence, then a furious hail of fire came down the trail to smack into the rocks and zing off in moaning ricochets. A loud explosion against the rocks in front sent chips and dirt flying into the air.
"RPG," Wolf mumbled, meaning they were firing rocket propelled grenades at them. He leaned around the rock to fire a burst up the trail.
Another RPG burst behind them and one farther back by the bunker. "We gotta move back," Wolf said.
"We"ve got problems. Get that fighter in here with whatever he"s got."
He fired another burst and drew back. "Let"s move it," he said, rising to a crouch.
Behind the protection of the rocks, a stunned Court Bannister followed him to the mouth of the protective area in front of the bunker, where they flopped down behind the sandbags. He still had trouble believing what he had seen.
"We"re in trouble now," Wolf said. "Get that fighter in here and tell him to call for more." As he spoke, the outer door of the bunker opened and Mister Sam ran out carrying an AK and threw himself next to the two men.
"Bad news. That dumb broad stuck her head out the door, I guess to see what you guys were doing, and a fragment caught her in the leg. She"s got a piece of bone sticking out and is bleeding bad from an artery.
We"ve stopped the flow, but she"s got to be evacced immediately."
Court put the image of the round dot appearing between the blond man"s eyes and his body evaporating in the explosion out of his mind and called Tanaka on the RT.
"Got to have that Jolly in here immediately," he said to him.
"Fighters as soon as you can get them, and rockets and strafe now-right now."
"The Jolly"s inbound, Boss, and I"ve got fighters on call, but I"ll tell you the weather is bad-bad. Low ceiling in layers up to five thou, one or two miles viz, but there are a few sucker holes. I can maybe slip in down there and see what I can do."