Thud Ridge (28 page)

"BREAK RIGHT,
Tomahawk three! Migs behind you." Those had been bogies all right, and the vultures had played it smart. They had loitered out of contention until the bottom flight, now critical
on
fuel, had started to gather its forces, rejoin, and climb up through the Migs' best altitude on their way out in quest of fuel.

"Which Tomahawk has Migs?"

"Tomahawk three. I'm hit and I'm burning—son of a bitch. . . . Tomahawk four—this is three. What's your position?"

"To your left. I've got you."

Tomahawk three was still flying but in trouble. Maybe he paid too much attention to his trouble, but who can say? Maybe he ignored the fact that three vultures don't quit easily, especially when they have a flamer and a potential straggler in front of them. Who is to criticize three for getting a bit wrapped up in whether he was about to blow up or not? Not me. I've been there, and unless you have you just don't know.

"Four—still got me?"

"Tallyho, three."

"Anyone behind us?"

"Four here. I can't see them." Look hard, buddy. You're the flying safety expert who has read so much and studied so much about what happens when you panic. Keep that head moving. Remember all that jazz about emergency procedures? What's the next move? How did you get here anyway? You aren't an old tac fighter pilot. You didn't even get the courtesy of a check-out in the aircraft or a school before you left the States. They sent you over here as an administrator of safety and you had to wangle a local check-out on your own guts and dedication. So this must be aerial combat. This must be where that air combat maneuvering comes in. Too bad you didn't get a chance to try it before this in practice. But look hard, work hard, this is the big league, buddy, and you are in the spotlight.

"Three's moving around and heading south. I've been hit. OK, Carbine—this is Tomahawk three on emergency frequency." Hard hit as he was, he wanted to be sure the guys down there in the area knew the Migs were waiting for them. "There's Migs in the area. Three's hit and heading south— BREAK LEFT!"

Too late. Joe had tried hard to do the best possible job on the wing of his crippled element leader. They had started to take evasive action by diving, accelerating and turning when they first spotted the Migs, but the Mig-21 is most maneuver-able, and it is fast. They were at the altitude where the Mig had it all over them and that is why the Migs waited for them up there. Their only chance, once they had the Migs on their tail, would have been violent maneuvers coupled with the action they did take. They never got to the violent stage and once three had been hit hard, it would have been quite difficult to do anything
too
violent; he had lost several of the systems that contribute to maximum flight performance in the aircraft. He was lucky even to be flying with the damage he had taken, and Tomahawk three and four both knew it. The Migs played it smart by not presising their obvious advantage and overshooting their prey. They struck once, did pretty well, and hung back to wait for the best time to make their next move. They must have positioned themselves very well. On both the passes the Migs made, neither Tomahawk three nor four saw them until it was too late. Maybe Joe, as Tomahawk four, paid too much attention to his stricken element lead and not enough to clearing the area visually, but again, who is to say? They were outnumbered three to two from the start, and once Tomahawk three got tapped, the odds went up like a skyrocket, since a wounded wingman is far worse than no wingman at all. They were caught, outgunned, and outflown by a bunch of vultures working out of a stupid sanctuary in their own backyard.

"Carbine three—this is Nomad. Do you read?" At least the Spads were still trying. We never did figure out if they had finally heard Leo's desperate transmission or had just started calling in the blind because they didn't know where the crew was.

These calls and the trouble calls from Tomahawk flight had fallen on inbound ears and one of the Phantom flights cycling off the tanker was heading to the aid of Tomahawk under full steam. "Tomahawk—this is Cleveland heading inbound. How far out are you?" Before he could get an answer, the air was saturated by a new sound: double beepers again. One was our old nemesis, the other a newer and stronger one from Joe's gear as he floated earthward with all he and his family had ever hoped or planned for disintegrating in front of his eyes, and the saw-toothed ridges and the huge jungle trees reached up and waited. But the show must go on. More problems for sure, but keep punching.

"Nomad—this is Carbine. Do you have the smoke on the side of the ridge?"

"Cleveland—this is Tomahawk three. I'm headed out, low on fuel and in burner. There's Twenty-ones in the area."

The noise was unbearable. "You wanted to take your helmet and mask off and throw them to the floor of the machine.

"Oh, man, not another one!" came from the frontseat of Carbine one.

The Bear said simply, "Ohhhhh."

"Royal, Royal—this is Tomahawk one. Over."

"Rog, Royal, I've got another man down. I saw the chute."

"Ohhhh, man."

"Nomad—this is Carbine one. How are you doing?" But Nomad was not talking or he was not hearing.

"Tomahawk one, Royal wants you."

Carbine was approaching the time when fuel would again be a problem and the spectacular lack of success they were having with the Spads brought the thought strongly forward that things could rapidly get even worse than they were. "Carbine two, as soon as your center-line tank goes dry, get rid of it." Normally, we like to hold on to those tanks; without them you are of little value on a rescue mission. However, in this case Carbine reasoned that they were approaching the final stages of this drama, and that they had better get rid of all of the drag they could and stay in the area as long as possible. Nomad had to do the job now, or there would be little use in making plans for a return trip. The ever-increasing slant of the sun's rays, accentuating the haze hanging over the weird combination of jungle and mountain, reinforced his decision. Time was running out. We had already spent far too much time and now, with success in our grasp, we were blowing the entire deal—and there was nothing we could do about it.

Tomahawk one had stayed in the area past his fuel mini-mums, trying to steer the Nomads around, and he was already hurting, but he had no thoughts of leaving. He knew that his damaged number three was screaming south in burner and should be safe from further Mig annoyance. He was shepherding his lost number four to the ground and, fuel or no fuel, he was determined that at least Joe would touch down without further lead coming his way from other Migs. He circled until Joe touched the trees and immediately established contact.

"Tomahawk four, get out of your chute and turn that beeper off." If there was one thing we didn't need, it was more beeper noise. "This is one, turn the beeper off."

Joe was a cool customer, clean, thin, crew cut, a nice guy, and from the ground came a garbled reply as he struggled out of his chute, shut down the beeper and secured the chute and himself under the giant trees.

"Turn the beeper off, turn the beeper off, turn the beeper off." „ "Cleveland—Tomahawk three. I think the Migs got four."

"Tomahawk, Tomahawk, where are you?" provided an excellent example of a useless call that only served to further garbage up the air. If only we all thought before we punched the mike button—but things do get tense.

Trying to outguess the caller, Tomahawk one responded, "Tomahawk one here on emergency—" but he was blocked out by Carbine one still trying to get the initial job done.

"Carbine here, Nomad, see that ground smoke signal up the valley? Is that theirs or yours?" But Nomad would not talk. The jig was close to up and the Spad was right there but obviously was not hacking the program.

Leo came up on the radio. "Nomad, Nomad—this is Carbine three. You are passing directly over the top of me now." But blind Tom couldn't hack the course.

"Ooohh—they're passing right over the top of him and they don't see him." Carbine could not believe his eyes and ears. "Tomahawk—this is Carbine. Will you pass to Royal that we are only going to be able to stay here another ten minutes. And Nomad's working the area and the crew's talking to them from the ground saying that they are flying right over them, but they can't see them and they haven't even started the choppers in yet. We're running out of time."

"Roger, we got to clear some of those Migs out of here before we can get our choppers in there. Which flight's in there now?" The call from Royal showed again that they did not understand the problem.

"Rog, there's no Migs in the target area. They're between us and home. You can get the choppers in here—no sweat. Don't worry about the Migs, we'll take our chances with them at altitude on the way out. The way is clear for the choppers and you're about to blow the whole bloody issue. Get them in here."

Royal countered with "Would you contact Nomad one and tell him to tell the choppers when he wants them to come in? They're holding ten miles out or ten minutes out, I don't know which. He's got the ball."

"Nomad one—this is Carbine. Will you give the choppers a call when you want them in. They're about ten out. Nomad one—Carbine. Do you read? Nomad, if you read you are supposed to contact the choppers when you want them to come in. They are standing by, ten away."

"Royal—Tomahawk. We need a tanker. I've got two birds down to three thousand. We need one bad."

"Nomad one—Carbine.
Do you read?"

"Royal—Carbine. I've got enough for about one more turn around the target. Have you got anyone inbound to replace me?"

"I am holding Waco at a higher altitude in an orbit around you. It will be a few minutes before he gets there." Obviously the control people were not covering their slots in depth, and this was all the harder to understand because they had everybody and his brother available, and yet they had already started diverting flights back to their home bases. They probably got the word from one of the many headquarters control battle staffs down the line and did not have the knowledge or the gumption to challenge the poor decision. As a result, we were in a deeper pickle than we had been all afternoon. The sun was diving for the horizon, the haze was increasing, and we were running short on cover aircraft. No excuse for it.

Carbine knew that he could do nothing about the big picture from his spot in the action and answered, "OK, and I never did get an acknowledgment from Nomad on emergency or any other channel." The Bear came up on the hot mike to advise that he was picking up a hand beeper, as apparently either Leo or his Bear, knowing the other beeper was saturating the air, desperately turned on the beeper in their emergency radio in a vain attempt to attract the attention of the Spad flying back and forth over their heads.

The frontseat acknowledged with an "Ugh" and allowed that he had better call Nomad one more time.

"Nomad, did you understand that you are to clear the choppers in when you are ready? They are standing by." Then in complete frustration over the imeptness of the would-be rescuers and his own inability to do anything about it, he added to his Bear, "Crap, I don't even know where that son of a bitch went now."

''Royal—this is Tomahawk. Will we be able to go back in and find my guy who is down?"

Carbine had now depleted his fuel to the danger point as he waited for me and the rest of my Waco flight to drop down and relieve him. I came in as he went out, repeating the sad story I had already listened to on my radio, and as his Bear took one last glance at the panorama, he noted that smoke a bit to the north and remarked, "I don't think that smoke is them." If not, then whose was it?

As we changed the airborne guard, Leo came back at us from the ground. He made a relatively long transmission, but much of it was cut out by other transmissions and the beeper. He said something about the beeper, apparently assuring us again that it wasn't his, then, "They're coming up the hill after us—get me out of here! Get me out of here!" We listened in stunned silence and none of us bothered to tell him what we already knew and what he already knew. He came on one more time with a big loud garble, then, "THEM—get me out of here! GET ME OUT OF HERE!" We didn't. Carbine's Bear said, "'What did he say?" Carbine replied, "He said get me out of here." As I took over the low cover again, I could not get the Spads to talk to me. I made one wide arc checking for them, then went directly over the spot where the crew had been. There was nothing. No noise, no smoke, no activity, no answer to my calls. I swung wide for another check and finally Nomad gave me a call. "Waco, I've checked the area and there is nothing up here. All I found was a stuck beeper and it is garbaging the air something awful. There's Migs in the area and there's nobody on the ground and I'm leaving the area."

I don't believe I even acknowledged his call, but I knew I was now helpless and as he left for the south, I made another pass over the spot, low and directly over the little knob with the U-shaped road bending around it. I went right down on the deck over the small house alongside the road, over the open rice paddies and skimmed the tops of the trees on the knob and lit my burner as a farewell salute to my buddies. He was right. There was nothing there now—nothing I could do anything about.

9. Till Thursday

That bleak Sunday was to drag on four more days. The light was fading and Leo and company were out of business, but I still had a bellyful of fuel and there was still work to be done. Reluctantly, I left the area and struck out for where I might be able to do some good for Tomahawk four. Joe—the nice young guy who had come to us as an administrative officer, even though he was a rated pilot. Joe—the shy young man who had accepted my personal mantle of authority and roared through our almost impossibly inferior safety program within the wing like a bulldozer cleaning out rat's nests. He was not a Thud driver by trade, but he scrounged an hour here and an hour there until he could leap all the hurdles and qualify himself for combat. He had a hell of a time mastering the art of hanging behind a tanker and refueling in flight, but he did it. Joe—another one of my boys who had not managed to graduate from the toughest postgraduate school in the world, the school that demanded a hundred missions over the North in a Thud for a diploma. He was now simply Tomahawk four, down over the North.