Wilf tapped Tag on the shoulder, and the SAS trooper took his first steps into the water. He, like the rest of them, was stripped down to his underwear and boots. Out in front was his rucksack, all the contents in a waterproof sack inside, helping it maintain neutral buoyancy. An additional bag had been filled with air, tied off, and was adding to the buoyancy of the heavy Bergen. His combat uniform was bagged and tied to the top, along with his personal weapon. He took small steps ensuring his boots had a good footing before the depth of the water forced him to swim, keeping his body as flat as possible, pushing his pack out in front of him. He allowed the slow current to take him, not fighting it, but swimming at a forty-five degree angle, aiming for the sandbank on the other side.
Once across, he heaved his bag out, released his SLR, and moved up the bank. He was cold, very cold, but needed to be sure they hadn’t been discovered. He gave it ten minutes, returned to his pack, put on his dry clothing, and signalled the rest of the patrol with a red-filtered torch. The three men started their crossing. It was 0235, so they still had the cover of darkness to get as far west as possible. CPU headquarters were adamant that speed was of the essence. Once all were across and fully dressed, the patrol crowded around peering at the 1:50,000 map that Wilf had lain on the damp ground.
“Well, boys, it’s a bit warmer now,” he whispered.
“A bloody hot drink would be a godsend,” muttered Badger.
His friends just grinned. All was well if Badger was moaning.
“We need to push as far as we can while it’s still dark. We have to get as close to the Deister as possible. That tab will give our bodies a chance to warm up,” advised Wilf.
“We could just go in a straight line,” suggested Tag.
“Risky,” warned Hacker. “The place will be crawling with soldiers.”
“Yes, but they’ll want to be under the cover of a canopy, near buildings or snug in a barn,” countered Wilf.
“Let’s just do it,” advocated Badger. “Get under some decent cover. We’re pretty exposed out here.”
The other three couldn’t disagree with that so, with Wilf in the lead and Bergen’s on their backs, the four men headed across the cultivated fields that stretched from south-east of Pattensen to the southern tip of the Deister. Weapons were always at the ready: Badger in the rear with his C7 carbine; Hacker next with his M-16 A2; Tag with his SLR; and Wilf’s M-16 swinging left and right as he scanned the route ahead. They stuck to hedge lines as often as possible, stopping every thirty minutes to look and listen. Apart from the popping of guns to the north and the occasional rumble of aircraft at high level, they heard and saw very little.
It was only as they got closer to the village of Hupede that enemy activity increased, so Wilf led them southwest in between the villages of Hupede and Oeire to a small copse where they could hide up during daylight hours. There they could rest, catch up on some sleep, and, more importantly, recce their surroundings as they were sure that the missile unit they were seeking wouldn’t be more than a few kilometres away.
Chapter 6
A Tomcat taxied through the steam given off by the steam-catapult from the previously launched aircraft. The plane handler looked on as a third and fourth Grumman F-14D Tomcat lined up on the carrier’s deck. The plane handler, distinguishable by his blue coat and blue helmet, lined the first one up with the catapult shuttle that lay ready on the four and a half acre deck. Two one-hundred-metre long tubes, an open slit between them, ran along at deck level, a shuttle protruding just above the deck. The nose wheel of the 27,000-kilogram aircraft nudged up against the shuttle, and the pilot lowered the tow bar until it connected with the slot in the shuttle. The holdback was attached to the rear of the nose gear strut. Jet blast deflector-number one was raised as the F-14 powered up its engines. It wasn’t possible to mistake an F-14 fighter, the ‘King’ of the US CVN flight decks: it was both powerful and noisy. Neither was it modest in size with its large wings spread ready for take-off. It dominated the flight deck as much as it did the airways. A green shirt checked the aircraft was correctly hooked up. Once the engines powered up ready for take-off, without the holdback, the brakes would not be able to hold the aircraft on their own. A second green shirt held up a chalkboard, showing the aircraft’s take-off weight for the benefit of the pilot and catapult officer. The pilot, and the catapult officer who is located in the catapult control pod, give each other a hand signal confirming they both agreed the weight being displayed was correct. Final checks completed, Lieutenant Higgs selected full power for the two General-Electric turbofan engines, and both he and his radar intercept officer braced themselves for the force of the launch. The catapult shooter depressed the button in the control pod, the holdback was jerked away from its grip on the Tomcat, and the aircraft was thrown down the aircraft carrier deck at forty-five metres per second, the fighter dipping slightly as it left the deck. Reaching its flying speed of 150 knots, the fighter was finally launched. These two Tomcats would relieve the two already providing a Combat Air Patrol protecting the ‘The Boat’, as they fondly referred to the aircraft carrier.
Their primary mission, air superiority, had a key role to play in defending the carrier and its accompanying ships. One of the key threats was from the deadly AS-4 Kitchen and AS-6 Kingfish Soviet long-range, radar-guided missiles that packed a punch. The AS-6, in particular, carried a 1,000-kilogram warhead. Carried by the Soviet long-range bombers, TU-16 Badger, TU-95 Bear and the TU-22M Backfire, they were a major threat to the aircraft carrier and its escorting ships. The Tomcat’s Phoenix air-to-air missiles, with a range of 185 kilometres, had been specifically designed to counter that threat.
Lining up behind the fighters that had just launched, a selection of aircraft were preparing to support the US Army battling against overwhelming forces that were arrayed up against them. An EC-2 airborne early warning aircraft was already on watch, but a second one would join it soon, moving closer to the proposed target area west of the Fulda Gap. A strike force was being assembled: two EA-6Bs, electronic warfare aircraft, an attack squadron of twelve A-7Es, a fighter squadron of twelve F/A-18s, and three KA-ED tankers for inflight refuelling. A convoy brought safely to the European Continent, the USS Carl Vinson was now tasked with assisting the US air force in supporting the US ground forces.
Six storeys above, on the ‘Island’, in the Primary Flight Control, Pri-Fly, two senior officers watched the activity down below on the flight deck. Surrounding them, windows angled away from the bulkhead providing an excellent view of the flight deck, comms and consul displays, the centre of operations for controlling the air activity in the vicinity of the ship was a hive of activity.