Takatsu knew that, he also knew it would make no difference what rifle he carried. The last of his escort had been killed and the ambushers were breaking cover and moving towards him. Professional to the last, he noted they were carrying old Model 38 rifles, bolt-action Arisakas. He lifted his own rifle up but saw one of the old Arisakas flash and he felt terribly weak. So weak, he couldn't stand anymore and dropped down to his knees. The ambushers had drawn bolos now, the heavy jungle machetes with weighted blades. Why had they done this? Hadn't he tried to be a good governor? He never got an answer and the last thing he ever felt was the thumps as the bolos chopped into his body.
Carswell AFB. Primary Operating base, 305th Bomb Group
“Hey, Navy, what happened to your bird? Somebody drop a hangar door on it?” The strange Navy aircraft certainly looked that way, its wings were bent up, its tail bent down, the nose drooped, the rear was cranked up and it looked like it was bent in the middle. Even its coat of matt midnight blue didn't hide that fact that this was one ugly lady. There were a group of new Navy aircraft here; Convair had just delivered the last of the PB5Y-1s to the Navy and the dark blue bombers were waiting to be ferried over to Ford Naval Air Station in Hawaii. A few years earlier the Navy had experimented with a gray and white paint job but they'd gone back to dark blue now. Everybody approved, it just looked so much better. The odd-looking aircraft was going with them, part of its evaluation and test program.
“Hey, don't blame me, I drive a Phiver, that thing is just along for the ride.” The Navy pilot appeared equally disgusted by the appearance of the strange aircraft. “Commander Paul Foreman, VPB-33 Batwings”.
“Captain Kozlowski, 305th Strategic Recon Group. Sorry Sir, I thought you flew that — uhhhh —- airplane. A Fiver?”
“No problem, I used to fly Flivvers off Gettysburg but I screwed my back ejecting. It never got right again and the Navy transferred me to patrol bombers, “Now I fly a PB5Y-1 Hustler.”
“Hey whadya know? I fly the RB-58C version. Or will be soon, the 305th has only just re-equipped. We're still doing classroom. I got my bird though, her name is Marisol. How long you been flying them for?”
“About three months now. A little bit more than 30 flying hours. We've had a lot of problems getting them serviceable. The J79-GE-5s don't work so well, You're getting the GE-10s aren't you? We've got problems in the fuel system as well, the fuel sloshes around in the fuel tanks when we accelerate or slow down. That causes stability problems. We've also had trouble with the afterburners, there's something wrong there that causes intermittent yawing at supersonic speeds. Watch landing, the Phiver comes in hot and hard. We've had problems with the wheel braking system causing tire failure at high gross weights or high taxiing speeds. The other problem we're having is the pod. Thing keeps coming loose on us. We've done high-altitude Mach two weapons release with gravity bombs and we're moving to a missile release as soon as Lockheed start deliveries. We heard the first one went crazy but the second and third shots worked.”
“Sir, Can I stand you a couple of cold ones? One to cut the dust, one to wet the throat? I'd really like to know what you've learned flying these things?”
“Make it soda and you're on. I'm on alert and you know the rules. No smoking 24 hours before flying, no drinking within 50 feet of the aircraft. Don't know how much I can help you but I'll try. And forget the Sirs, my friends call me Flightcop. You don't want to know why, it's a sad story.” Foreman shook his head sadly. “Man, that sure is one ugly looking aircraft.”
Ugly or not, he would have loved to fly it. The Navy was re-equipping the carrier air groups; the fighter squadrons were replacing their old Cougars and Demons with the new F8U-2 Crusader and the fighter-bomber groups would be getting this new bird, the F4H-2. The heavy attack groups were already flying another big Douglas bomber, the A3D and a new supersonic bomber was being developed by North American. That was supposed to be really something. His back ruled out carrier operations though; his last flight from a carrier had been the escort mission over Paris twelve years earlier - the launch and recovery for that had put him in sick-bay for a week. Now, he was land-based maritime strike bombers only. Still the big birds had their compensations.
The new generations of carrier aircraft were changing the fleet in other ways as well. The old Gettysburg class, once the queens of the fleet, were now barely large enough to handle the new aircraft. The CVB designation had been phased out, reflecting that. Now all the carriers were CVs again. The new ones were much bigger, 70,000 tons plus with four elevators and four catapults. Foreman hoped that they were better protected than the old Gettysburg class; he still remembered seeing the burning wreck of Shiloh rolling over and going down. The new carriers would be needed; the Japanese fleet was still out there and still powerful. Much weaker than the US Navy, that was certain, but the US Navy had to be everywhere, the Japanese only where they chose to be. They were strong enough to have local superiority at a given point of conflict until the US could concentrate its strength. That's where the Phivers came in; they could react fast and deliver their nuclear anti-ship missiles where they were needed. Hold the line until the carriers arrived.
Just what were the Japanese up to? Were they still the Japanese? That was a question people were seriously discussing now. Japan had “conquered” China for sure, but was Japan now being absorbed by its victim? A lot of people were arguing that was just what had happened, that Japan had conquered China only to become Chinese in the process. Those who believed in that already called the state “Chipan” and the name was catching on. One result had been that the Japanese had their attention focused on land for almost three decades now and they'd allowed their fleet to take second place. That could change. Meanwhile, the US Navy had other things to think about, the mess in Africa for example and the chaos in South America. President LeMay and SAC may believe that their bombers ruled the world but from the front lines, things looked very different.
The O-club was welcoming; this was a SAC base, not NORAD. SAC pilots still remembered that Shiloh had died to open the way for the B-36s in The Big One. Foreman started to think back over the hours he'd spent in his Phiver. What would this kid need to know about her?
Nike-Ajax Site SF-19, 78th Air Defense Battalion, San Francisco, California
“Enemy bombers and missiles inbound, enemy bombers and missiles inbound. Prepare to engage.” It was the first in the series of events that preceded any missile launch. This was the warning sent by the Air Defense Command Post to the missile batteries along the imminent threat axis of an attack. Sirens were already blaring, sending personnel scurrying to their assigned battle stations. At the launching area, other groups of personnel were conducting last minute pre-firing checks and positioning the missiles on the launchers. NORAD had designed the missile sites with space-saving underground magazines capable of hosting 12 Ajax missiles. Now that the alert was in, an elevator lifted a missile to the surface in a horizontal position. Once above ground, the missile was pushed manually along a railing to a launcher placed parallel to the elevator.
As personnel readied the missiles, an incoming aircraft was picked up on a long-range acquisition radar. For the Nike Ajax system, this radar was known as LOPAR, an acronym for “Low-Power Acquisition Radar.” When the target appeared on the scope, the battery commander flipped on his IFF system to determine if the target was friend or foe. No response, the inbound was hostile. The LOPAR operator transferred the hostile contact to a target-tracking radar (TTR) that determined the target's azimuth, elevation, and range, and then automatically provided that information to a computer for use in guiding the SAM-A-7 Ajax missile. Once energized, the guidance computer received a running account of the target's changing position.