“Two’s in hot,” Rip called, as he rolled in towards the target.
I scanned the area beneath him. He was clear, and his nose was pointing at the area that was still smoking from my attack. “Cleared hot, Two.”
Four seconds later, Rip was pulling back skyward, arching away from the ground. “Two’s off, switch error,” he said. “I was in singles.”
Great—neither one of us was at our peak today. It was a simple error, but because of it, Rip had released only one of his four bombs. He was going to have to make another pass. I looked down. His lone bomb impacted on the northern revetment, throwing dust high into the air. Neither one of us had gotten secondaries, although there was some black smoke coming from the southern revetment, which had fallen under my CBU pattern. Something was burning in there.
I checked the fuel. We would have enough for another pass and still have about 10 minutes to spare; no problem.
I looked at Rip, who was climbing, and then I saw something really neat. There were little white clouds underneath him that I hadn’t noticed before. They were small, like little cumulus bits of popcorn. Something wasn’t right—time slowed way down. Some of the clouds looked like they had little silver centers; then they’d disappear. Now more clouds were around him. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck—they were shooting at Rip! Instantly, it seemed time was speeding up again—just like the pipper was approaching the target. Only this was much more real, and yet—surreal. What do I say? I urgently fumbled for words as I pressed the mike switch.
“Taco Two, keep the jet moving. Climb! Triple-A beneath you.” I could now see that it was all bursting beneath him by a good 4,000–5,000 feet, so I was less worried. Rip started moving his jet a little more. The little clouds started to disappear.
“Say location.” Rip’s voice sounded controlled but worried.
“It’s stopped now. Let’s egress north. Keep climbing.” I responded.
The AAA had appeared beneath Rip when he was about a mile or two southwest of the target. As we moved away, I looked back over my shoulder and tried to get a good look at the area, but couldn’t acquire any AAA pits or military positions.
“Taco, Stew, say location of triple-A. Do you need assistance?”
Bumpy asked over the common frequency.
“Stew, stand by.” I needed a second. Get away from the threat. Pull out the 1:50. Find it on the map. Plot the position. My attempt to determine the AAA coordinates was frustrated by its location just off the southwest corner of the target map.
We circled north of the target and climbed a bit higher. If the airbursts were limited to the places where I had seen them, we should be safe. They had used only medium-caliber AAA, but if they had MANPADS it would be more of a threat. I told Bumpy and Rip what I had seen and that my plan was to climb up above 200, look down with my stabilized binoculars, and see what I could make out while Rip maintained cover.
“Roger. Let me know if you need us down there.” This was an important target for us. People had shot at us, and now we were going to finish our attack. Bumpy had every right to be interested, but, for now, it was my game.
We circled around to the south, and I scanned the area with my eyes. A road snaked away to the southwest through a pass and then continued south towards Gnjilane. On the southwest side of the road, the terrain climbed into the hills, which were dotted with trees. On the northwest side, there was a small hill with a plateau on top, and beyond that the terrain climbed into another range of hills. The hill with the plateau must have something on it—if I were a Serb, I would want to hold that ground.
Calling, “One is ‘heads down,’” I raised the binoculars and looked at the hill. It appeared no different than the surrounding landscape, which consisted of three fields of a yellow crop that was probably wheat, two solitary large trees, and what appeared to be a farmhouse in the northern corner. No tracks, no unusual shadows, no revetments. Nothing.
I scanned the fields around the hill. Still nothing. I widened my scan, moving up towards the hills in the west and a reservoir that was tucked neatly away. Nothing. After about three to four minutes of this, I passed the lead to Rip to let him take a look. He found nothing.
I checked our fuel—we had another seven or eight minutes, tops. I made up my mind. “Two, let’s go back to the original target and drop the rest of your Mk-82s there. I’ll stay in a high cover to the south and watch for any more triple-A. I want to take out the rest of those revetments, but if anymore triple-A comes up, we still have the gun and Stew flight.”
Rip agreed. We moved our orbit back to the original target, and I called cover. Within 30 seconds, Rip rolled in from the west, dropping a string of three bombs across the middle of the remaining revetments. He pulled off to the south, puking out flares and turning towards me.
About 10 seconds into his climb out, the AAA started again, and I was ready for it. I called for Rip to keep his jet moving and quickly scanned the ground. Where was it coming from? Out the corner of my eye, I could see Rip’s jet maneuvering and remaining unpredictable. But there was nothing on the ground. The AAA stopped about five seconds after it appeared. Short, controlled bursts, I thought. These guys are regular army, not just a bunch of thugs who got their hands on some military hardware. They’re disciplined, and they’re smart.
We moved north while Rip climbed back to altitude. Once he regained his energy, we moved back in to look for the AAA. I told Rip to stay high in cover, and I descended to take a better look. I dropped down to about 15,000 feet and started taking a closer look at the area around the hill and the rising terrain to the west. Nothing.
“One, come hard right and climb; they’re shooting again.”
Rip’s voice broke through my concentration. I had already been moving the jet, but now I pulled back on the stick and started a climb. My left index finger quickly started hitting the flare button. I saw some of the small popcorn clouds with the silver centers about 3,000–4,000 feet underneath me. Then they were gone. I scanned the ground, but they weren’t firing anymore. Nothing to see. I looked at our gas. Three minutes, tops. Time to call Bumpy. “Stew, Taco.”
“Go ahead,” Bumpy replied.
I said, “We just got shot at again by some of the triple-A. We’re looking for it, but no luck. We have to bingo out in about three minutes. Any chance I can give you a handoff?”
It was like asking a child if he wanted ice cream. Bumpy was on his way over before I could finish the request. I described what I had seen and when it had happened. All the time, I was looking out, trying to find some last-minute clues that would alert me to the AAA position. The three minutes came and passed with no new revelations, so I passed the target to Bumpy and left.
During the flight home we made the normal in-flight reports to ABCCC and looked each other over as we accomplished our battle-damage checks for any unexpected problems. I felt like I had come off an emotional roller coaster. It had been my first time to lead a formation in combat, and everything had happened. We had to defend against a possible air threat; we searched for, found, and attacked targets; and we had been shot at by AAA. What a mission! However, the people who had shot at us were still alive back there, and that really angered me. I still had some nagging questions: What else did I miss? How lucky did I get? I later found that these questions persisted—no matter how successful the sortie was.
Bumpy joined us after he landed and debriefed. We met at the Truck Stop—a favorite eating place on the road back to the hotel. He had not been able to find the source of the AAA either, and we had a good laugh about it over a glass of wine. That had been my first combat flight lead mission, and I couldn’t wait to do it again.