Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3) Read online

  Tango Uniform

  Tom Wilson

  Copyright © 2015 Tom Wilson

  THEY WERE MEN OF HONOR,

  MEN OF COURAGE, MEN OF DISTINCTION . . .

  WHO MUST NOW FACE THE ULTIMATE TEST

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL PAUL "LUCKY" ANDERSON—His face horribly disfigured in a near-fatal flying accident, Anderson has always been the consummate professional warrior. But suddenly the war has gotten personal: His intelligence-officer fiancée has fallen into the hands of enemy guerrillas, and her fate is unknown.

  CAPTAIN MANNY DeVERA—Bitter over a false accusation that nearly led to his court-martial, he is about to learn the true value of loyalty and trust; DeVera has been given a critical assignment, the success of which will determine the safety and survival of his fellow pilots.

  COLONEL BUSTER LESKA—A veteran of North Korean prison camps, and respected leader of men, Leska now faces tragedy on two fronts: in the skies over North Vietnam . . . and at home, where domestic conflicts over the war are tearing his family apart.

  QUON—The famous North Vietnamese ace has fought with skill and valor against the Americans. But denounced by an insidious rival in his own government, he now lives for revenge and a chance to betray the betrayer.

  AND AN EXTRAORDINARY WOMAN

  GS-15 LINDA LOPES—Attractive, successful and reunited with the man she loves, Linda has everything. But all of that disappears in a deadly burst of gunfire.

  Please join me in a toast. Not to war, for war is destructive. Not to protestors of war, for they fail to support their countrymen. Let us drink to those who dare to fight to keep the American dream alive. Water, if you please, in remembrance of our comrades who did not return.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I must accept blame for any faults herein, for I have been blessed with the support of professionals throughout the production of Tango Uniform. Literary agent Ethan Ellenberg provided guidance and a periodic nudge in the proper direction. Editors Tom Dupree and Tom Beer kept things on an even course at Bantam's New York offices, juggling and coordinating deadlines and keeping the faith. Don D'Auria and Lise Rodgers provided hawkish eyes and sharp pens. Sales rep Jim Bourne took me under his enthusiastic wing and carted me around the Western U.S. on a memorable promotion tour, interspersed with war tales from a technical grunt's perspective and a measure of Western lore. Jim, Roz Hilden, Rebecca Cleff and Kathleen Clement taught me about the people at the heart of the business, the book distributors, with their hardworking staffs who bring the product to the bookshelves. Without them, the rest of us—authors, agents, artists, editors, publishers and representatives—would toil in vain, for readers could not buy the products.

  Jerry Hoblit again graciously exercised his memory for technical details about North Vietnamese defenses and the rugged, prescient and quite extraordinary F-105 Thunderchief. Billy Sparks spent a week telling me about how things were at Takhli during the period of the novel, detailing everything from living conditions and musical renditions, to combat missions and his spectacular shootdown and subsequent rescue. Also of immense help were discussions with, and telephone calls and letters from, officers, enlisted men and wives; commanders, flyers, P.O.W.s, and support people; Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force; Americans and Vietnamese. I've included a number of their stories in this work. All helped to establish the environment of a rather minor, yet maddeningly frustrating war held long ago in a distant land.

  Thanks.

  √ Six

  CONTENTS

  BOOK I

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  BOOK II

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  BOOK III

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  TRUTH & FICTION: Missing Man Formation

  TRUTH & FICTION

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOK I

  si•er•ra ho•tel [fighter pilot jargon, circa 1965] < phonetic alphabet acronym for "shit hot"—Informal. adj. describing something very good, outstanding.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wednesday, October 18th, 1967 0550 Local—Route Pack Six, North Vietnam

  Light spread in delicate tendrils, reaching westward from the bright sky directly in their paths. Far below, the earth was east in serene shadow, as befitted the early hour.

  The sixteen-aircraft formation flew four miles above the Red River: F-105 Thunderchiefs, the tough, workhorse fighters tasked to fly the most dangerous air strikes into the heartland of North Vietnam. A four-ship flight of two-seat F-105Fs called Wild Weasels ranged a few miles in front of them to keep the SAMs and radars busy while the fighter-bombers did their work. Several thousand feet above them roved a flight of F-4 Phantoms, their MiG-CAP, searching for enemy interceptors.

  Altogether, the various aircraft in their various roles made up the alpha strike force. They flew inexorably toward a rendezvous with fire and steel.

  North Vietnam was appropriately funnel-shaped, for through it supplies and soldiers were poured to support the hungry communist war machine fighting in South Vietnam. The Hanoi-area was the funnel's vortex, and NVA troops and supplies converged and were massed there before being moved southward along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was not a single trail, but hundreds of roads and paths snaking through a dozen mountain passes into Laos, then weaving down to eventually end in South Vietnam.

  For two and a half years American fighters had come to nip about the periphery of Hanoi. They'd destroyed much of the city's electricity production and distribution network. Party bureaucrats had hauled in diesel generators to power their lights and air conditioners, and told the peasants and soldiers that they must suffer in support of the war effort. The Americans bombed military barracks about the city's periphery. Ho Chi Minh had evicted hundreds of thousands of civilians from Hanoi proper, telling them it was for their safety, then billeted the troops in the emptied homes, for the Americans did not bomb cities. The fighters had destroyed the road and railroad bridges between Hanoi and the sources of weapons and matériel in China and in their port city of Haiphong. The Vietnamese had enslaved half a million peasants in a massive construction-and-repair effort. They built underwater bridges for trucks and used boats and barges to haul the remainder of supplies from the ports
up the Red River to the safety of their hub city.

  The North Vietnamese Army was centrally commanded from its headquarters, which the French had called the Citadel, in the northern quartier of the city. The government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam operated in a business-as-normal mode nearby. An emergency underground facility constructed for military and civilian leaders had thus far proved unnecessary. Top military officers and government bureaucrats suffered only heavy traffic congestion as trucks, carts, and bicycles were packed into the city throughout the days—lining streets and alleyways in the southern suburbs—waiting for darkness when they could convoy their heavy loads southward.

  The capital city was the safest haven in the country, for it was protected by the American politicians. No American aircraft were to overfly Hanoi; none could venture within twenty miles of the city without the express consent of the American President and his small circle of advisors.

  But that Wednesday the American President had given his cautious approval for American aircraft to penetrate the twenty-mile circle. The target was an overpass on the Doumer Highway, a main artery of north Hanoi. The fighter pilots had been briefed that no bombs were to fall on the city of Hanoi or its suburbs, although they were glutted with supply trucks. They were to attack only the overpass, which if destroyed might partially plug a single hole in the sieve for as long as forty-eight hours while it was being repaired.

  As the air war over North Vietnam continued, it began to look like no other that had gone before. Aerial warfare had always been a system of weapons and countermeasures, and of tactical wiles to defeat both of those. But with the advent of supersonic aircraft with efficient avionics, computers, and weapons on the one side, and radars, agile interceptors, computers, and missiles on the other, there came to be little room for error. The air war had developed into a deadly game of chess. But the Vietnamese were provided with an edge, for they knew precisely what the American president would and would not allow his rooks and knights to do. On their side of the board, the Vietnamese had safe areas in which to maneuver, build, and position their forces, and their machine gained strength daily as modern defensive weapons poured into the countryside surrounding Hanoi.

  The long-range radar at Phuc Yen Air Base, immediately northwest of Hanoi, detected the alpha strike force shortly after it passed into the North Vietnamese airspace, and Phuc Yen radar controllers positioned MiGs north and south of the Americans' route of flight. As the Thuds continued east toward their target, a three-ship flight of MiG-17's was directed to attack from the north, then was warned away as the high-flying Phantoms turned toward them.

  The controllers also notified the acquisition radar operators, who in turn radioed position, altitude, airspeed, and heading to the operators of precision radars directing surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft artillery fire. The MiG pilots were ordered to stand clear so the SAMs and AAA would have clear fields of fire at the Thuds.

  As the formation crossed the Red River and continued over the wide valley, now in the hot zone dubbed as route pack six alpha, the precision radars tried to paint them and feed information to their weapons systems, the Mach three missiles and big artillery.

  Each aircraft flew with an electronic countermeasure pod under its right wing, which radiated a trickle of noise preset to the frequencies of the Soviet-built SAM and AAA guidance radars. The jamming created a series of bright lines that danced on the radar scopes and shielded the aircraft from detection. The radar operators looked for gaps caused by aircraft with weak or malfunctioning jamming pods.

  First Lieutenant Joe Walker

  Joe carefully craned his neck, first in the dimension to his right, then to his left. He was number three in Wildcat flight, leader of its second element. When they'd crossed into North Vietnam, they'd joined with three other flights to form the sixteen-ship formation, and Wildcat lost its identity, becoming a part of the Takhli alpha strike called Bear Force.

  Joe scanned carefully, focusing at various distances from the aircraft. It was not a natural task, but one that had to be learned. If your eyes were improperly focused, you could stare at a distant aircraft and never see it. If the aircraft happened to be a MiG setting up to fire a heat-seeking Atoll missile, the error could be fatal.

  Although apprehensive about the current situation, Joe was happy with his lot. He loved flying fighters and had wanted to do nothing else since childhood, when he'd hung models from his ceiling and immersed himself in stories of the pioneers of flight, reading about men like Glenn Curtis, Billy Mitchell, and Jimmy Doolittle.

  An only child, born late in their life to upper-middle-class parents, he'd been encouraged to accept no limits upon his life. The fact that they were black, a misnomer in his case, for his skin was the tawny color of café au lait, was seldom discussed in their household. They lived comfortably in a sprawling California ranch-style home located in a quiet suburb of Pasadena. His investment-broker father methodically replaced the family Oldsmobile every three years and kept the aged beater pickup, which they called the "fun truck," in good running condition. Their pool was not the largest in their neighborhood, but it was big enough and was meticulously maintained by a Japanese gardener, who had come around once a week since Joe's earliest recollections.

  He'd excelled at team sports in high school, his best games baseball and football, and as a junior he'd been approached by scouts from a dozen major colleges. Instead, his father had helped him achieve his dream by writing, telephoning, and calling upon a dozen senators and congressmen until Joe had gained an appointment to the new Air Force Academy. Although Joe was a diligent and bright student, the prequalification exams had been difficult. And though he did well on the tests and then graduated at the top of his high-school class, he continued to worry until he'd arrived at the new Colorado Springs campus and was being hazed so thoroughly by upper classmen that he no longer had time for minor concerns.

  Like most plebes, he'd had his doubts during his first year at the Academy, but there had never been a question as to what he wanted for his future. He was going to fly airplanes, and if providence allowed, jet fighters.

  Now Joe was soaring with eagles, his right hand delicately grasping the control stick of the biggest, toughest, sleekest fighter aircraft in the world . . . and at any moment the enemy would begin to try to shoot him down in earnest.

  The Phantoms flying above and to the north had been alerted by Big Eye, the airborne radar, that a flight of MiG-17's were positioning for attack, and had run them off toward the Chinese border. The Wild Weasels up ahead radioed the force that three SAM sites were active in the target area just north of the sprawling city of Hanoi.

  His adrenaline pumped ever faster as they approached the Lo River, halfway across the Red River Valley.

  Bear Force leader, a new lieutenant colonel named Donovan, called from the front of the formation in a cool, businesslike tone, telling the pilots to check their positioning and ensure their music, meaning their jamming, was on. That was the first time Joe noticed that his ECM pod control-indicator lights were alternately flashing between green and amber.

  0600L—Senior Officers' VOQ (Visiting Officers' Quarters), Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, South Vietnam

  Colonel Buster Leska

  The wake-up call came right on time, yet seemed impossibly early. Buster tossed back the sheet and slid out of bed, still groggy. Although he was conditioned by twenty years of early rising, his days and nights were precisely reversed. Forty-eight hours earlier he'd been halfway around the globe in Washington, D.C.

  He stood, stretched mightily to remove the kinks, then began his warm-up exercises, the same ones he'd been taught as a flight cadet in 1947. First the stretches, next the leg lifts, then the bends and toe touches. Thirty of each, done in the fast cadence designed to get a heart pumping and muscles loosened.

  Buster remained in good trim for a man of forty-one years. At six three he weighed in at 198, just ten pounds more than he'd carried as a buck captain. He
was calm-natured, the way some big men tend to be, and wasn't plagued by self-doubt or a drive to prove his masculinity. He was serious by habit, but couldn't suppress a ready smile when he was pleased, regardless of the somberness of the occasion. A pleasant person, at peace with himself and his place in life.

  Leska's neatly cropped hair was shock white, but it was not a result of aging. It had been like that since his mid-twenties when he'd spent seven months in a North Korean prisoner-of-war camp. His captors had known he'd destroyed six of their best fighters, so he'd not been well received. The white hair had appeared during the first weeks of physical and mental torture.

  Now there were American pilots in other communist prisons. Buster wondered how they were being treated—he knew it would not be going well for them. He had friends there—too many friends.

  Big day today, Buster thought as he finished the warm-ups and stripped off his shorts to step into the shower. If things went right, perhaps he'd help plant the seeds to end a war that had dragged on far too long.

  He turned the water to full blast, and as he scrubbed himself, he felt his body coming alive.

  0609L—Doumer Highway Overpass (Target Area), Route Pack Six, North Vietnam

  Captain Billy Bowes

  The first two flights were in their dive-bomb attacks, swooping toward a tiny spot on the ribbon far below. Dark-gray flak bursts blossomed in their midst.

  The plan had been to hit quickly, with elements alternately attacking from various clock-positions. Release the 750-pound bombs as high as possible while maintaining accuracy, then wrench the birds around to the north and rejoin over Thud Ridge, the spine of green-clad mountains that pointed to Hanoi like a great finger.

  He saw eruptions of dirt and smoke from the first bomb explosions, and from the second. One set was errant, going off in a long string toward and into the Red River. Another bracketed the target, which was fast becoming obscured.

  Billy winged over into his forty-five-degree dive attack, then pulled left and let the aiming pipper settle in the vicinity of the target.