If the strike was successful, the spans linking the city with the mainland would be destroyed. If not, the afternoon strike would attempt to complete the job.
Jack Carella, with Ernie Sheridan in the backseat, would be Brad's flight leader. They had the responsibility for rendezvousing with an RA-5C Vigilante, then escorting the sleek photo-reconnaissance aircraft directly over the target after the strike. The reception would definitely not be friendly.
Brad keyed his intercom. "You got everything cooking back there?"
"No," Harry answered nervously, "I'm composing a goddamn sonata."
Brad grinned at the reply, then watched Carella and Sheridan taxi toward the starboard catapult. A few seconds later, the drenched flight-deck director gave Brad the signal to taxi forward.
"Here we go," Brad announced to Harry as he added a handful of power to get the fighter rolling.
The Phantom lumbered up the slippery deck to the port-bow catapult. Stopping behind the jet blast deflector, Brad was scanning his instruments when the F-4 on the catapult was fired. He instinctively looked out at the aircraft.
The heavily laden Phantom squatted and raced down the deck. Brad watched in disbelief as the right afterburner snuffed out halfway through the cat stroke.
"Uh, oh," Brad said as the F-4 staggered off the bow. The pilot overrotated, causing the nose to rise too high. The Phantom rudder walked across the water, kicking up spray as it yawed to the right.
"Jettison! Jettison!" the frantic Air Boss radioed to the pilot in an attempt to get him to drop his ordnance. "Eject! Eject! Eject!"
Brad watched in horror as the RIO ejected at the instant the F-4 hit the water. The explosion caused debris to rain down as the carrier plunged through the floating aircraft parts.
"Did they get out?" Harry asked, stunned by the sudden tragedy. "Any chutes?"
"The backseater made it," Brad uttered, sick at the sight of death. "The pilot went in." The ejection seats had been sequenced to fire the RIO first.
"Was it one of ours?" Harry asked hesitantly.
Brad added power to taxi onto the catapult. "No, it was from the other squadron."
Harry turned as far to the right as possible. He could see the plane-guard helicopter settling over the downed crewman.
While their Phantom was being hooked to the catapult, Brad talked to Harry. "Remember our drill if we have any problems coming off the cat."
"I've got a grip on the loud handle."
They had briefed that if Brad gave the command to eject, Harry would initiate the ejection. Brad would have one hand on the control stick and the other on the throttles.
Carella's F-4 blasted off the starboard catapult and climbed gracefully away.
Brad felt the cat shuttle take tension on his Phantom. He observed the windswept cat officer talk into his Mickey Mouse headset, then give the turnup signal.
"Here we go," Brad announced as he shoved the throttles to full power, then into afterburner. He inhaled a deep breath of oxygen, quickly scanned the engine instruments, looked at the cat officer, and saluted.
The catapult fired, blasting the F-4 down the track and off the bow. The aircraft sank precariously low to the water before it started to climb.
Breathing rapidly, Brad raised the landing gear and flaps. "Is it okay," he said in an attempt to break the tension, "if I open my eyes now?"
"You're a smart-ass," Harry grunted as the Phantom entered the low, rain-filled overcast.
Brad skillfully maintained his position behind the tanker. They were cruising at 14,000 feet between two dark cloud layers. The refueling track had been altered to avoid the severe rainstorms closer to the carrier.
After sucking the last drop of jet fuel the Phantom could hold, Brad eased the throttles back and popped loose from the refueling basket.
A small ray of sunlight filtered through the upper cloud deck. Brad glanced at the thin break in the overcast before he guided Joker 207 into position on Carella's right wing.
They cruised serenely up the coast, rendezvousing with the RA-5C Vigilante close to Haiphong. Carella checked in with the photo pilot, who answered with a simple, "Roger."
The carrier-borne supersonic reconnaissance aircraft was long and thin, like a dart. Flying in a racetrack pattern, the two Phantoms followed the "Viggie" and waited for the strike to commence.
Brad reached forward and smoothed the tape holding Leigh Ann's picture to the instrument panel. He was not going to give up.
"Will you pay attention, for Christ's sake?"
Snapping his head up, Brad was startled to see that he was drifting perilously close to Carella's plane. "Sorry, Harry." "Well, stay awake."
The three aircraft continued to circle in a holding pattern off the coast. Brad studied the Vigilante's sensor pod and the camera openings behind the nosewheel door. He looked at the small window behind the cockpit. Inside the fuselage, the observer-radar operator sat in a dark cocoon, preparing to dash across the Haiphong rail and highway bridges.
The radio calls began to increase as four Phantoms preceded the strike group over the main target. The F-4s were tasked to keep the area free of MiGs, then cover the strike aircraft out to sea
Brad could barely see the two sections of fighters as they thundered over the target and pulled up in a climbing turn. The Vigilante pilot, remaining quiet on the radio, turned and flew closer to the target area. Carella and Austin spread out on each side of the reconnaissance plane.
"Lonestar," the Red Crown controller radioed with urgency, "vector three two zero for numerous bogies." Lonestar was the call sign of the four Phantoms.
Brad watched the Lonestar F-4s drop their centerline tanks and turn to the heading to intercept the MiGs. He glanced at Carella's aircraft. Ernie Sheridan had his arms up, resting them on the canopy rail. He appeared to be relaxed and unconcerned. Just another routine day at the office.
Watching the smoke trails disappear behind the four F-4s, Brad knew that the Lonestar flight had stroked their afterburners to accelerate past the speed of sound.
"Jokers," Carella ordered, "master arm on."
"Two," Brad responded, checking his armament panel. He keyed his intercom. "Harnesses. "
"I'm set." Harry caught sight of the strike group approaching the beach. "Here comes the wrecking crew."
"Yeah," Brad replied, following the fast-moving, low-flying Skyhawks. "They better close the tollbooth."
The slower A-1 Skyraiders were approaching from a different direction. The eight Spads would bomb and strafe petroleum storage facilities near Haiphong harbor, then provide air cover for any downed aircraft.
The sky erupted with streams of tracer rounds and dark smoke from the heavy concentration of flak. Rows of antiaircraft guns pumped thousands of 23mm and 37mm shells at the Skyhawks. A half dozen surface-to-air missiles shot off the launchers next to the bridges. Black and smudgy white patches of smoke surrounded the target area.
Three flak-suppression Phantoms dived across the menacing gun positions, dropping full loads of cluster bombs on the exposed emplacements.
Suddenly the radio transmissions became garbled as everyone attempted to talk at once. The Lonestar flight leader had visual contact with the approaching MiGs, and the Skyhawk leader was pulling up for his bombing run.
Brad watched the A-4 pilot roll into a dive and fly straight through a flak trap. The predetermined airspace was where the North Vietnamese believed the attack planes would have to enter to hit the bridges. Fifty-two gunners concentrated their fire in a deadly barrage of bursting shells. The Skyhawk exploded in an orange-and-black fireball, tumbling through the air trailing a streak of flame.