The instructors were giving up their off-duty hours in the evening to give the women extra tuition using the exercises that the experts recommended but Manop wasn't even sure if that was a good idea. Even if an intense effort got the women up to the minimum acceptable standard, they wouldn't be able to maintain it once they left the Academy. Then, their lack of strength would catch up with them. Still, that might not matter. The Army was recruiting women to serve as secretarial and administrative staff, freeing up men for the combat elements. They probably wouldn't need the fitness training. As long as they could get through here....
He looked at Officer-Cadet Sirisoon waiting on him. “Cadet, did you ever do sports in your school? If so, any that involve throwing things?”
“Yes, Sergeant Major. Basketball and discus.” “Show me how you throw things your way.”
Sirisoon picked up a practice grenade, took a deep breath and threw it “her way'. Manop watched intently, it was a completely different set of actions using the whole body with different muscle movements and motions. When he checked the throw, it was a lot better, not nearly good enough but a lot better. Right, he thought, we have something to build on.
“You four women stay here.” He went to the loudspeaker system. “Live grenade throw, Repeat live throw. All personnel clear the grenade pits move behind the protective berm. Instructors, inspect the pit line, ensure it is clear. Signal when confirmed then take cover yourselves. This will be a short throw. Right, You four, take cover in the bottom of the pit. You'll see why.”
Once the clearances were in. Manop took a live grenade, pulled the pin then tossed it to where the women's practice grenades had landed. It actually took a mental effort to throw a grenade that close in. He dropped into cover. A second or two later, there was a deafening explosion and the sound of fragments flying overhead. Mud dropped into the pit. The women looked at him, wide-eyed.
“If you had been standing up when that went off, you would all now be dead. You must, repeat must, learn how to throw grenades to a safe distance. There is no alternative to that as you must now understand. It is literally a matter of life and death. If you do not pass here, no matter how well you do elsewhere, you will be washed out.”
He reached into his sack and pulled out four grenades, red-painted but with a white H on them. “I want you to come here for one hour every evening and practice throwing using these. Don't worry about doing it the way the book says, it doesn't work for you. Cadet Sirisoon, show the others how you threw just now. Don't worry about using this range, there are always staff here so just tell them I sent you. Understand?”
The women nodded and Manop handed out the dummy grenades. They were heavier, half as heavy again, as the normal practice grenades. The logic was obvious, get used to throwing something heavy and the lighter practice grenades would come easily. Or so Manop hoped.
Flight Deck B-36H “Texan Lady”, Main Runway, Sheremetevo Airbase, Russia
“Pre-flight checks completed. Preliminary checklist completed.” Major Clancy was reading from the multi-page list on his clip-board. He actually knew it by heart but SAC regulations stated the list had to be read, not repeated, “Engineering reports fuel and oil pressure normal for all systems.”
“Acknowledged.” Colonel Dedmon turned Texan Lady on to the main runway at Sheremetevo, her brakes squealing with the sharp turn. The Germans had built Sheremetevo for fighters; the runways were long and wide enough but some of the turns were tight for the giant B-36s. Behind him, a JRB-36K, Dixie Cupcake was following him. She'd only arrived the previous evening; the deployment of a new K.-ship was a sign of how important this mission was.
“Start jets one, two, three four.”
“Starting jets. Engine flaps closed. Windows, doors and hatches all closed.”
“Bombardier Compartment here. Secured and ready for takeoff.”
“Engineering Compartment here. Secured and ready for takeoff.”
“Aft Compartment here. Secured and ready for take-off.”
“All crew, stand by for take-off under normal power. Engineering execute Vandenberg Shuffle. This will not, repeat not, be a maxim urn-performance take-off.”
“Thank heavens for that. Those give me a terrible ache in all the frames down my left side.” The female voice had a definitely relieved note to it. Dedmon shook his head. One day, he promised himself, he'd get to the bottom of that voice.
“Power stabilized at normal settings. Jets one hundred percent power.” There was a pause as Texan Lady shimmied from side to side as her engines were run up and down. “Vandenberg Shuffle completed. All engines in forward thrust.
“Autopilot off. Nose-wheel steering off. Let’s go guys.”
Texan Lady surged forward, not the berserk dash of a combat take-off but still something that made the sheer power of the aircraft obvious. She picked up speed as the engines animated her bulk, accelerating her down the long runway, past the buildings that housed the maintenance and repair units and the barracks that housed the base personnel. There was another building, new and well-separated from the main part of the airfield. A building that looked like a fortress, because that was what it was. Guarded by a battalion of troops, it was where the SAC kept a forward-deployed stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Then, the pitch of the engines dropped as the wheels lifted clear and she was back in her element, in the sky again after more than two weeks on the ground. TDY in Russia was a good experience but it was good to be going home, even if they were going back the long way. Next stop Honolulu, a thirty seven hour flight away. Of course, there was a job to be done first. Instinctively, Dedmon glanced back over his shoulder. Behind him, Dixie Cupcake was running down the runway, nose lifted in the first stages of rotation. She'd be with them for the first part of the flight, then once her job was done, she'd be peeling off to land at the huge air base complex around Anadyr. On the taxiway, Barbie Doll and Sixth Crew Member were waiting their turn to take off.
Theoretically it was called an “Open Skies Navigation Exercise”. The name came from a new doctrine the United States had started to enforce over the last year. Open Skies. It explicitly stated that SAC's bombers could fly where they wanted, when they wanted and would do so. It was all wrapped up in political niceties of course. The information that was gathered on such flights would be made available to all as a friendly gesture, as a confidence building measure that would allow countries to know what was going on around them.
The stated idea was that countries would know what their neighbors were deploying in the border regions so that wars would not be started over groundless fears. Open Skies would allow countries to live in peace, not in fear that their neighbors were planning a secret attack. In reality the message was much simpler, 'we go where we want, you can't stop us and you'd be stupid to try. So make the best of it. We're here and we're watching. And, yes. We're carrying them.'
Dixie Cupcake was uniquely well-equipped for missions like this. Her number two and three bomb bays contained cameras, the like of which had never been seen before. They had a focal length of 240 inches and produced negatives that were 18 inches wide and 36 inches tall. Each camera was angled sideways so that it could photograph deep into the territory on either side of it. The aircraft carried enough film to monitor a thousand miles of border and, from 50,000 feet; the resolution was good enough to pick up a golfball. Even the film was new and unprecedented, Kodak had developed a special fine grain emulsion so that detail would not be lost.