“All right, Gumby. Get out of here, and get some rest. See you in a few hours.”
“‘Ten-shun on deck!”
Weary aviators rose to their feet as Wilson entered. “Seats, please,” he said by reflex, and the pilots fell back into them…those who had a seat. Ready Room 1 was standing room only, and some pilots sat cross-legged on the floor with their kneeboard cards and charts, waiting for Gumby to brief them on what they knew was going to be a tough one.
Their circadian rhythms were off, and, from his front-row seat, Wilson heard sniffles from the back as Gumby began the brief. Their young faces now lined, his aircrews were exhausted and tense. Apprehensive. The mood of the room was somber; the Chinese were hitting American jets with regularity. Rip was still missing, and word had come in that John Adams had lost a single-seat Rhino the night before to a SAM fired from a Luyang III. And now they were going to Blood Moon Atoll over 500 miles away, fighting their way in and then back out. Daytime and low altitude.
Gumby was upbeat and confident as he briefed his plan to over fifty aviators. All, including Wilson, were focused on him to not only absorb the plan and their roles in it but also to detect any uncertainty from the strike leader. Gumby gestured to the overview chart as he walked them through the time line.
“After we launch and join up overhead, we’ll move out to the west and join on our tankers at angels seven through twelve. Everyone has altitude deconfliction per your kneeboard card assignments. We each get 2,500 pounds of gas up front and two-K on the backside. By the time we go feet dry over Malaysia here, tanking should be complete. Then, you tankers buster back here for a trap, pump, and launch to catch us around 0745.”
Pens clicked and aircrew in the cheap seats murmured their comments to one another as Gumby spoke. Each jet had a vital role to play, and the young aviators could not let down the strike with a missed radio call or improper positioning or uncertainty about the threats they faced. In the back of their minds they knew this was the biggest strike the Navy had launched in decades, and against the Chinese, who were ready and waiting.
“Once we get into the South China Sea at 0630, we are going to bump it up and get down low. By then the sun will be coming up behind us, and it’s going to be a stream raid of divisions following this track south of this island, then south of this reef here. From there we’ve got open water, but who knows what vessels they have in and around Blood Moon. Gotta be ready to flex, and you Growlers and ES-3 guys must warn us.”
The plan was to attack while Blood Moon, Yawu, and Song Ca were distracted by high-altitude deception packages from the Broncos, Panthers and Air Force bombers from Guam that would come in from the north. Les Aspin jets and Diego Garcia bombers would hit Blood Moon first with cruise missiles. Gumby’s low-level jets would be detected late, further confusing the task-saturated defenders. Timing and multiple threat bearings were key. It looked good on PowerPoint… now they had to execute.
The first wrench in the plan came early.
A lieutenant from Wilson’s staff entered the ready room, interrupting the brief as she strode to the front of the room with a paper in her hand. A surprised Gumby stopped. Now what? All watched his expression as he read the paper, and when he grimaced, they knew it wasn’t because the Chinese had surrendered.
“Okay, Guam got hit last night by DFs, and we’re not going to have the bombers. Broncos and Panthers, it’s just you guys to the north. As a backup, I’m going to put one of the Growlers with you. Do your best to draw their attention, and we still have the Indian Ocean guys coming in from the west.”
Without the Guam bomber cruise missiles to soften and beat up Blood Moon and Yawu Cay, Hancock’s strike jets had to be effective. They also had to get in close. Staying low on the water meant the threat was above them, and PLA missile radars would not detect them till the Americans were in the target area.
What about Heaven’s Shield? Were Chinese partisans in banca boats with radios? Or worse, in the Malay rain forest? This plan depended on high altitude deception and strike elements from two directions to allow Gumby’s raid to come in undetected or with minimal warning.
After an exhaustive hour of covering every detail, the aviators broke up into elements. The strike jets had a call sign of Snake, and Wilson, flying a single-seat Super Hornet, had the callsign of Snake-11. He was to lead the first element. Gumby was going to be in his EA-18G Growler, jamming Blood Moon until the radar operators’ ears and eyes bled. Other strikers had AARGM to fire at radars threatening them, and the two-seat Rhinos had SLAMs that would come in last and mop up any intact targets.
Wilson briefed his aviators: his lieutenant wingman Breeder in Snake-12, a lieutenant commander department head Hutch in Snake-13, and TOPGUN bro Tails in Snake-14. They would fly Super Hornets from the VFA-152 Gun Fighters, and they were loaded out with air-to-air missiles, an AARGM, and three 1,000 pound bombs. They also had HAVE REEL pods to spoof the enemy defenses. As the first division in the target area, they would need it. Behind them, three jets had the remaining AADM’s; two would peel off and launch at Song Ca while the other would loft one at Blood Moon in another keep-their-heads-down defense of the Snakes as they delivered their weapons.
Wilson finished and excused himself. It was almost 0400 and he had to don his flight gear, sign for the jet, wolf something down in the wardroom, and check the latest threat intel. Wilson sensed something wasn’t going right, and though he didn’t know what that something was, there was always something. Guam had been hit, and the Air Force couldn’t play. Uneasy, he needed a moment, just a moment.
Ducking into his stateroom, he knelt in prayer. Please, God, your will be done…. Please bring us all back.
He stood up and contemplated Mary’s picture. Derrick. Brittany.
Okay, compartmentalize.
Wilson flicked off the light and left his stateroom with a sense of foreboding he had never before experienced.
CHAPTER 59
“Blue-on-blue. Fratricide.”
Meeting with The Big Unit in flag plot, Wilson shook his head. Fratricide. Again.
Johnson continued. “It was one of the John Adams escorts. One of their EA-18s coming back from a strike wasn’t on the right altitude and late for recovery, so they were hauling ass. The small-boy was justified, but we cannot have this.”
“We heard it was a Rhino,” Wilson said.
“No, Growler. Every loss hurts — but losing a Growler really hurts. No indications they got out. Did you guys cover RTF procedures?”
Wilson nodded, “In detail, sir, but we didn’t know this.”
“Roger. Meanwhile, the bombers out of Diego Garcia are airborne, and no news from Les Aspin is good news. You can count on a Triton radio relay which is orbiting here in the southern Sulu. Solomon Islands is here off Leyte, and the LCS Long Beach is someplace up here. I’ve got two P-8s up during this event, and I need them nearby. Once we get you guys back aboard, we’re outta here. After you launch, I’m moving us east.”