“This way!” he shouted to his friend while waving his arms. Others in his squad heard his voice and ran toward him as well. With nearly a dozen men with him, Corporal Wright turned to the pathfinder.
“Round up our rucks and get them piled up near that cluster of trees over there,” he ordered. “We’ll take over from here.”
The pathfinder nodded, obviously relieved that someone more senior had assumed control, and went about collecting the paratroopers’ rucks while they sought out the enemy.
“Let’s go!” ordered Wright. His little gang of soldiers moved forward, hunting for targets to kill.
The motley gang made it to the edge of the drop zone and nearly ran into a group of maybe twenty PLA soldiers, less than thirty meters from them. The two groups of soldiers brought their weapons to bear on each other as they each dove for cover.
“Frag out!” shouted Flowers as he threw one of the small cylindrical devices toward a cluster of PLA soldiers near the perimeter fence.
BAM!
Pop, pop, pop, crack, ratatat, ratatat.
Corporal Wright sighted in on two enemy soldiers who were attempting to set up a machine gun. He squeezed the trigger multiple times, sending round after round at them until he saw them both stop moving. Looking to his right, he saw one of his soldiers clutch at his neck, blood squirting out between his fingers as he tried to stop the bleeding.
Crump, crump, crump.
Multiple Chinese and British grenades sailed back and forth between each side.
“Charge!” yelled a voice that sounded familiar to Wright.
He didn’t hesitate in the least once the order had been given, jumping up from his covered position screaming like a banshee. Running forward, he saw the terrified look on the faces of three PLA soldiers as he continued to scream, racing right at them. At this point he was practically firing from the hip as he emptied the remainder of his magazine on the three of them. Without thinking, he jumped right into their positions and reached for his Sig Sauer P226 with his right hand. He turned to his left and fired three quick shots at a PLA soldier who was trying to shoot at one of his comrades.
With the immediate threats neutralized, he placed his Sig back in his holster and replaced the empty magazine on his SA80 with a fresh one. “Damn, that was close,” he thought, and he vowed never to let himself run out of ammo again.
“Everyone on me!” shouted Lieutenant Shay.
Pointing to the ridge with the radar tower on it and those 23mm antiaircraft guns, the lieutenant said, “We have to take those guns out or more planes are going to get shot down. We’re going to collect our rucks, and then we’re going to double-time it around the airfield to get at that ridge. I’m not sure if the Gurkhas made it or not, but we can’t leave those guns untouched.”
With the orders given, the platoon set about rounding up their rucks from the drop zone and proceeded to head off to capture the radar station.
Brigadier Sir Nick McCoil couldn’t believe how terribly this airborne assault had started. Not only had the Spectre gunship the Americans had sent to provide them ground support on the airfield been shot down, but two additional German Eurofighters had also been destroyed while trying to fill in for the gunship. Then a swarm of those new PLA fighter drones had jumped their air cover and had succeeded in shooting down five of his transport planes before they’d had a chance to offload their paratroopers. He’d lost an entire company of French Foreign Legion troops, a company of Gurkhas and three platoons from 2nd Battalion, 2 PARA. To add further insult to injury, he’d somehow managed to severely sprain his left ankle on his landing, making it nearly impossible to walk.
“Twenty-six years as a paratrooper and the only time I get injured is during the most important combat jump of my career,” he mourned.
As he propped himself up against the side of a tree, Brigadier McCoil grabbed the radio handset his radioman held out for him.
“It’s connected to the strike group commander,” the soldier replied. The young sergeant turned to look for his pad of paper to write down anything important. A captain and major also knelt down near them as a couple of other soldiers secured the perimeter around them.
“Major, I want that damn airfield captured now! We have to get out of this drop zone,” McCoil barked at one of his operations officers.
Then he directed his wrath toward the admiral on the other end of the radio receiver. “This is Gladiator Actual. Where the hell is my damn air cover? I’ve lost five transports — that’s nearly seven hundred paratroopers! I’d better get some more air support, or my next call is to General Bennet himself!” he shouted into the receiver, the sounds of machine gunfire and explosions still going off in the background.
After holding the receiver to her ear for a minute and not hearing anything, Admiral Cord was about to hand it back to one of the communications officers when a distinctly British accent shouted into her ear. The sounds of explosions, men shouting and machine-gun fire in the background made it feel like she was right there in the thick of the action. She had to hold the receiver an inch away from her ear as the British brigadier ripped her a new one over the lack of air support.
She shot a quizzical glance to the Ford’s air boss and captain. Then, placing her hand over the receiver, she whispered, “What the hell is he talking about?”
The air boss leaned in, grimacing. “He’s talking about Kestrel flight being ambushed. We lost six Super Hornets in the dogfight. He lost nearly half of his first wave of paratroopers.”
Captain Fleece just shook her head. She was still in shock that they’d lost that many Hornets after the Air Force had done such a good job of clearing out the SAM sites.
“Gladiator Actual, this is Task Force 92 Actual. I’ve just been brought up to speed on your current situation. I’m directing all available fleet assets to assist you. Please have your forward air controller coordinate with my CAG on specific strike packages you need, and where you need them. I will also ensure your second wave of transports has more protection this time. Out,” she said. He handed the handset over to the Commander, Air Group to work out the finer details with the good general. She wasn’t about to listen to him chew her out one more time.
She went to find the task force’s operation officer. When she did, she stared daggers at Captain Zach Grady as she motioned for him to come to her. As Grady approached, she leaned in close and turned her body away from the others, speaking in a low voice. “I just got my head torn off by the British airborne commander for Operation Gladiator. He says nearly half of his first wave of transports were shot down before they reached the airfield and none of the antiaircraft guns at the base were destroyed. Want to fill me in on what the hell happened, Captain?” There was a sternness in her voice that she seldom used, but she was certain if she didn’t get to the bottom of what had gone wrong and fix it, Admiral Richardson or Admiral Lomas would have her head on a platter.
Turning a bit red at being talked down to by a female admiral, Captain Grady tried to reply in the usual macho dismissive manner he tended to use when speaking to a female officer. “Stuff happens, Admiral. We nearly lost an entire squadron of Super Hornets flying escort for them. They’re lucky they even made it to the drop zone, what with the number of enemy fighters the PLA jumped our guys with. The Chinese ambushed us with sixty of those new drone fighter planes. We’ve never fought them before and had no idea what their real capabilities were.” He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.