“ASW, this is Captain Spangle. You’ve done a good job, son. How soon to impact if we maintain this course?”
“Captain, I would give us less than a minute. At this range, Captain, even if we turned now, they could lock on our props. Sir, we really need to do something,” the petty officer replied, his voice shaking.
“TAG, this is the Captain. Is NIXIE activated?”
“Yes, sir. It’s activated and transmitting, but Captain, at this course and speed, the torpedoes would have to go through us to get to it. I recommend come left to course”—the TAO drew out the word “course” as he did a quick calculation—“zero five zero. That would open up the NIXIE to the torpedoes.”
“If I do that, Commander, what are the chances that all six will lock up on the decoy?” He knew the answer, but wanted confirmation.
“Captain, if we turn now, at least two to three of them may be decoyed to our NIXIE and even miss us. If we don’t turn immediately, we’re going to be hit by all six.”
“Captain, this is ASW. Time to impact forty seconds! We need to do something, sir,” the sonar technician cried.
“Thank you, sonar.” Captain Spangle reached in his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and flipped open the photo section. He took a quick look at his wife, who had stopped her own career in marketing to support him in his, raising their two daughters and one son, while he spent the years at sea defending the nation. He smiled. His son was so proud of batting over.300 in this year’s Little League. One daughter was a cheerleader at Norfolk Catholic High School, and the other was the star point guard on the school’s basketball team. The next time he saw them he was going to make sure they understood how proud he was of them and how much he loved them. He folded the wallet and put it back in his pocket — yes, the next time. He had missed too many “next times” because of the sea. He hoped the Navy got to his family before the press did.
“Thirty seconds to impact!” “Boats,” he said as he looked at the bridge chronometer. “Broadcast torpedoes starboard side, impact thirty seconds.”
The boatswain mate of the watch lifted the 1MC and passed the word.
Tears leaked down Captain Warren Lee Spangle’s cheeks in the final seconds of his life. Standing silently in the center of the bridge, he faced the bow so the bridge team wouldn’t see the tears. It wasn’t fear that caused his emotion. A great sadness descended and enveloped him. He thought about so many of life’s future moments that he’d planned and wanted to enjoy and share and now would never see.
Captain Holman hurried onto the bridge wing of the carrier, his helmet straps swung unfastened alongside his huge neck. He lifted his binoculars and focused them on the USS John Rodgers, now less than two thousand yards, one nautical mile, from the giant carrier and closing USS Stennis at an oblique angle.
“XO, are the helicopters ready?” Holman asked.
“Yes, sir. We have two Sea Kings airborne astern of us. Two more are launching, and we are prepping a fifth SH-3. We should have liftoff of the next two any second and overhead Rodgers within a minute.”
“Okay, but not before the …” His voice faded before he finished the sentence. He was going to say not before the hits. He and everyone, in unnatural silence on the bridge and in Combat, recognized the imminent sacrifice of the USS John Rodgers. The carrier would survive, but at a cost that civilians would never understand, in an act they could never appreciate or comprehend — an act of honor and courage.
Holman jumped as the first explosion hit the bow of the Rodgers, followed quickly by a second. The bull-nose portion of the Rodgers disappeared in a cloud of smoke and debris as the forty-kilogram warhead exploded. Three more explosions followed one after the other along the length of the destroyer. An explosion far to the stern of the destroyer sent ocean waters racing a hundred feet into the air.
Holman figured a torpedo had been decoyed into the NIXIE.
The concussion from the blasts knocked Holman and the XO off their feet. The gigantic black master chief, standing behind Holman, reached out and stopped the heavy bridge door from slamming shut and crushing Captain Holman’s midsection. Then the master chief reached down, grabbed Holman by the arm, and with one tug, pulled the overweight captain to his feet as effortlessly as he would pick up a suitcase.
The taller XO, gasping, pulled himself up hand-overhand to the bridge wing.
A huge pall of smoke boiled upon itself where the USS John Rodgers had been. It was already stretching hundreds of feet into the air when a burst of flame broke through the spreading black cloud. Secondary explosions erupted along the length of the John Rodgers, causing the three men to involuntarily duck below the bulkhead.
When they stood, Holman stared at the conflagration. “Hold the helicopters until the smoke clears,” Holman said with awe in his voice. He had never seen anything like this-never — in twenty-eight years of service.
The wind blew the smoke northward, rolling toward the Stennis.
“Increase speed, port ten-degree rudder, steady up on course two seven zero,” Holman shouted through the open hatch.
The carrier lurched to port, the deck tilted slightly as the high-value unit eased out of the smoke.
Pieces of ship and debris rained down on the ocean surface and the USS Stennis flight deck. Where the USS John Rodgers had been, it was as if nothing had existed. No ship, just a vacant expanse of ocean littered with debris where less than a minute ago 330 officers and sailors had manned a 563foot warship. Sucked into the storm of war, vanquished with honor, but gone, as if they never existed, to become a footnote in Naval history.
Holman looked at the XO and pulled his handkerchief out of his back pocket. He wiped his eyes and then handed it to the XO. “Get the smoke out of your eyes, XO. We’ve got a calling card to deliver. When this is over, I think you know what medal I am going to recommend Captain Warren Lee Spangle for.” “Captain,” the OOD said, sticking his head out onto the bridge wing.
“Ramage has the submarine pinpointed. Hue City has joined Ramage, and the two are running abreast, using active sonars to herd the submarine into the Strait of Gibraltar. SH-60s are being vectored onto the location. Ramage reports she expects to commence attack within one minute.”
“Thanks, Commander,” he said to the young lieutenant commander who was the officer of the deck. “Keep me appraised.”
He turned to his executive officer. “XO, it appears that we will be attacking the submarine within the Strait of Gibraltar. Radio the Spanish and British garrisons at Gibraltar and Al geciras and tell them what has happened and our intentions. Ask them to clear the strait of all shipping as we are engaged in battle. Ensure the HMS Invincible battle group behind us is aware of what is happening.”
“Sir, Admiral Sir Ledderman-Thompson has been monitoring our communications. He is aware and has dispatched forces toward our area.”
Overhead above the USS Stennis, the gigantic battle flag of the United States whipped in the westerly winds as sailors hurriedly cleared debris of the USS John Rodgers from the flight deck.
The phone on the bridge wing rang. The executive officer picked it up, and after several exchanges put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Captain, the ASW S-3 Vikings are ready for launch, sir, but we need to turn east again to bring the wind across the bow.”
“Go ahead, XO. Make it so.” Not many of the S-3 aircraft remained in the Navy inventory, and all of them belonged to the reserves.
The executive officer lifted the phone and gave the go ahead. After hanging up, he stuck his head into the bridge and gave the necessary orders to reverse the course of the Stennis. The OOD looked at the captain, who nodded in approval of the XO’s orders.