' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (49 page)

Baz was weighed down with kit as he worked his way along the track plan to Dopey’s trench with the items to be doled out.

They had O.Ps out to give warning of an enemy approaching but still, he was not happy stood above ground next to the FEBA, forward edge of the battle area, arguing with his boss.

“Sir, with due respect, you will be leading the actual fighting patrol whenever it happens and not me, plus it will be a platoon effort. So who gives a rat’s arse who lays hands on the prisoner?”

“Sergeant Cotter, I am beginning to think you are in cahoots with Hemp.” He pointed at Dopey down in his trench, watching the argument but without a clue as to what had sparked off the latest lot of fireworks.

“Sir, again, it is my decision, and my decision was based on whose turn it is next.”

“And I am the platoon commander, and I am telling you to change it.”

The crack of the shot followed just a second after Mr Pottinger had pointed at his epaulet, and before the arrival of the thump of that shot being fired, Baz was already in Dopey’s trench, below ground and shouting stand-to!

“Looks like you’re leading the fighting patrol too Sarge.” Spider remarked, on seeing the back of the platoon commander’s head pebbledash the trunk of the tree beside his own firing bay.

They lay absolutely still for an hour before edging back from the firing position, by which time fewer pairs of eyes were watching intently for them.

On reaching the burnt out area they again removed the natural cam and reversed their ghillie suits for the long crawl back to their own lines.

CHAPTER F
IVE

Vũng Tàu airbase, Vietnam

It was unbearably hot in the hangar, the parachutes sat in rows upon its floor, the men removed combat smocks dark with sweat following another mission ‘hold’, and they waited, trying not to let the nerves show.

Word came to en-plane and the men kitted up again and stood in ranks where they received their ‘Green Light Warning’ delivered by an RAF ‘Loadie’, Air Load Master.

“You are about to carry out a parachute descent. Failure to jump when the green light is displayed constitutes disobeying a direct order and disciplinary action will be taken against you. In the event of a green light failure the number one will be despatched by the Air Load Master and the rest of the stick will carry out the descent in normal order. Failure to jump constitutes disobeying a direct order and disciplinary action will be taken against you.”

No sooner had that taken place when they were again stood down, and removed their kit once more.

Most slept, they had been paraded at 0200hrs for a 0330hrs take-off that never happened. Dawn had now come and gone, cloudless blue skies were overhead, so how could a bit of weather be the holdup?

1,144 miles to the east the target was obscured by cloud as ‘a bit of weather’ became Tropical Storm
‘Hola’
and then mutated into Typhoon
‘Hola’
. High winds and parachuting do not mix well, especially when deep water is in close proximity.

A further complication was that of the
Mao
and
Kuznetsov
carrier combat groups and the accompanying ships carrying China’s 3
rd
Army’s 3 Corps to Australia. The 1
st
and 2
nd
Corps had taken ship on the southern military island of Hainan but 3
rd
Corps was required to take part in a propaganda show in Beijing, 1400 miles away as the crow flies, in eastern China. Using modern, state of the art equipment borrowed from the garrison, 3
rd
Corps paraded through the streets to raise the flagging morale of the populace before departing to take Australia by storm (unquote). Having reluctantly returned their borrowed rides the 3
rd
Corps moved to the nearby port of Tianjín, boarding and sailing over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. It was expected to head south east from there, into the broad Philippine Sea but metrology showed the building storm and predicted it would skirt the east of the islands along the Philippine Sea.  The Chinese fleet turned south west instead, which was a problem because the US 3
rd
Marine Expeditionary Force with the USS
John C Stennis
and the USS
Constellation
battle groups in the Philippines Sea heading north, expecting the Chinese to sail later in the week. The US ships altered course only to find the Chinese seemingly to matching the move. The US force altered course again but the Typhoon proved unpredictable and instead of running north it turned north west across the Philippine archipelago and the Chinese fleet swung back into the Philippine Sea, the two fleets were head to head, 700 miles apart.

Given that
Evensong
was showing the Chinese that the US carriers were apparently returning to Hawaii after Sydney was destroyed, did this manoeuvring mean that China knew the US fleet was 5000 miles closer now?

The US ships left the Philippines Sea once more, sailing into Leyte Gulf and navigating the narrow Surigao Strait under the cover of night to enter the Bohol Sea. It was familiar territory for one ship of the fleet that had already fired its guns in anger once before in those waters, pennant number BB-61, the elderly but reactivated battleship USS
Iowa,
which would provide gunfire support for the marines landing at Toledo.

The Gods love to play tricks and toy with the machinations of mortal men; at least that was how Admiral Jackson aboard the USS
John C Stennis
saw things because the Chinese turned back to the west, heading into the path of the storm, matching their move once again. However, it was not that the Chinese could now see his ships.

Malaysia had made her play at dawn, declaring war on China and bombarding the Chinese paratroopers holding the Spratly islands in preparation for amphibious landings, beating Brunei and Vietnam to the punch.

The 82
nd
Airborne Divisions 1
st
Brigade and the combined British and French airborne brigade were at Vũng Tàu on the coast of Vietnam, whilst the 82
nd’s
2
nd
Brigade were waiting at Phanrang 150 miles
further east, 8000 men, the maximum that could be carried to the target in a single lift, given the available aircraft.  Stood just inside the hangar, carefully in the shade were Lt Col’s Jim Popham of the US 111th Airborne Infantry, Ben McWilliams of Britain’s ‘3 Para’ and Anton Meudon of the French Foreign Legion’s 2 REP, all recent veterans of the war in Europe. They chatted quietly about their experiences as they waited for the order to don their parachutes and board the aircraft.

Morning became afternoon but by the time the temperature eased off the shadows had stretched far. The tropics do not have long, gradual evenings, they have an off-button not a dimmer switch, and as the night replaced day the troops headed back to their billets. Perhaps tomorrow would be the day?

PLAN
Zheng,
Visayan Sea, north of Panay Island, Philippines.
Same time.

Refuelled and running on the surface, in trail a mile behind a replacement support vessel, the light tanker
Sentinel Sea,
Aiguo Li’s new orders seemed to him to be keeping him where he could be shot at without any opportunity to rack up a tonnage score as other skippers were doing .

The loss of the borrowed North Korean covert submarine support vessel
Jeonseung
had been more of a blow to operations in Australian waters than the sinking of
Zheng’s
sister ship,
Zing Shènglì
. Consequently Li was now ordered to play bodyguard to the
Sentinel Sea
.

The tanker contained a hold for diverse use in plying its trade around the Pacific Rim, carrying cargo as well as fuel. It had been in Hong King when the war started and being New Zealand flagged she was impounded. Modern communications, and navigational equipment, plus an upgrade in her derrick were all that had been required to fit her out for a new line of work.

There was a sea running, the wind whipping the white capped wave tops into a haze of water particles and the rain hammered down until caught near the surface by the wind produced by Typhoon
Hola
and bent horizontal. It stung the face of the captain and the lookouts that had a week before been happy to make it from Western Australia to the Java Sea, over an area that was proving to be a graveyard for Chinese shipping and warships. Now that they were returning there were fewer smiles. The war was not going well for China.

The wind increased in fury and drowned out the sound of the diesels growling as they charged the submarines batteries. More than a few glances were cast the captain’s way, willing him to submerge the
Zheng
and continue charging the batteries using the snorkel, but Aiguo was in a masochistic mood and preferred his misery to be total. 

South of the
Zheng
and
Sentinel Sea,
Admiral Jackson was at last certain that the Chinese aircraft carriers and troop ships had been diverted away from Australia and were heading west, to reinforce the Spratly Islands, and so the US Fleet in the Bohol Sea turned north. USS
John C Stennis
now had the wind at her stern, as did the USS
Essex
and the amphibious assault ships bound for Cebu, but no longer having the wind on their beam was little comfort for the troops of the US 3
rd
Marine Expeditionary Force, those who weren’t already dry retching would puke up the last of their supper long before midnight.

Admiral Jackson was not a member of that small group known as
‘The Choir’
, he knew nothing of a secret project called
‘Church’
and
Evensong
,
Vespers
and
Matins
were prayer times for nuns and the clergy, weren’t they? He was however not one to look a gift horse in the mouth when he was suddenly presented with the position, course and speed of all enemy vessels in the region, including a small tanker and submarine heading for the north end of the Tañon Strait.

Day 1:
Operation
Vespers
(Airborne element)

0500hrs the following morning.

A soldier opposite Lt Col Popham vomited, decorating Jim’s jump boots but after wiping the back of his mouth with his sleeve the pale and wan paratrooper mouthed an apology to his commanding officer, and promptly threw up again. The typhoon had passed through the islands during the night but the airborne stream had entered its wake, the storms unsettled residue. Already full ‘Hurlers’ the waxed air sickness bags were in plentiful evidence and the air stank with the perfume of digestive juices and semi-digested food, that as ever included tomato skins and carrots even if the sufferer did not recall eating
any.

The airlift of the brigades was a complicated ballet as the transports carrying the men to war were not all the same type of aircraft.

Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Transall C-160s carrying the Anglo/French brigade were the first to depart from Vietnam, and an hour later the big Boeing C-17 Globemasters of the USAF Military Airlift Command took off in a stepped operation that was designed to deliver the last aircraft first, overhauling the turboprop powered transports and drop the US 1
st
and 2
nd
Brigades simultaneously, the 1
st
on the airfield and the 2
nd
north of the connecting bridges, preventing any interference by the Cebu garrison while the British and French took the airfield and held it.

Months before, the allied planners had considered airfield denial strikes and bombing raids of the supply depots and warehouses, but with so many Filipino’s at hand to repair and
rebuild at gunpoint it would requires constant return visits. The shallow waters of the islands would favour the defender and a smart enemy would turn them into a trap for submarines and carriers. Then of course the later work on the airfield, the runway extension and addition of the two shorter runways presented itself as a possible base of operations against mainland China. Operation
Dragon Lady
was the first effort that was penned. A colossal operation and one that was also involving most of the allied strength in the Pacific region. When first presented to Henry Shaw he had read only the first page of the proposal before taking out a ballpoint pen and adding some artwork, a stick character in ragged shorts sat on a raft built of driftwood that flew a tattered Stars & Stripes from a broomstick mast under the shadow of a mushroom cloud. A prominent letter ‘F’ was circled with a ‘Must do better’ in red ink before he handed it back.