Lucky’s Bridge (Vietnam Air War Book 2) Page 5

  He paused, eyeing them. "I'm a believer in flying safety, which I learned the hard way, and you'll hear me bitch if I see you flying in unauthorized gear like Captain DeVera's silk scarf or Lieutenant Bowes's driving gloves. You ever get in a bad cockpit fire, you'll wish you'd listened. But I will forgive you if you ignore that counsel. I will not forgive other things, however—like failing to support your flight in the air."

  Captain DeVera was frowning, which didn't surprise Lucky. Manny was a good pilot, but like many fighter jocks his ego was such that he required special handling.

  "What's wrong with my scarf?" Manny growled. The silk cloth around his neck had the black-and-yellow checkerboard pattern worn only by fighter weapons school graduates.

  "It's flammable, Manny. Get in a fire and it'll either torch or smolder. Wear it when you're on the ground, but not in the air. You can give it to your crew chief before you take off. He'll keep it for you until you land."

  DeVera looked disgusted. He was something of a nonconformist, which Lucky felt was acceptable as long as he performed well in the air. Manny had a reputation as a ballsy and capable pilot.

  "It's a good-luck thing," Manny said finally.

  A number of fighter jocks carried good-luck pieces of one type or another. People who lived on the fine edge weren't especially more superstitious than others, it was just that they didn't see wisdom in pissing off the fates.

  Lucky decided enough time had been spent on the flying-safety issue, so he left it with a parting shot. "Manny," he concluded dryly, "you want to ignore what I'm telling you about fires, think about this lovely face of mine, then do what you thinks best."

  DeVera looked embarrassed, an emotion alien to his brash manner.

  "Let's get on with the introductions," said Lucky. "Captain Tatro is assistant C-Flight commander. Once you get so you can understand his Confederatese, you'll find he knows what he's talking about. Turk?"

  Tatro, lounging easily in his seat, turned toward the others. He was short and slight, burr-headed and pug-nosed, with the feisty air of a gamecock. His wide grin was seldom far from the surface.

  "The name's Turk Tatro," he said. "I came over from Kadena on the original Thud deployment in 1964. We flew mainly in Laos then, but I got in more'n a dozen missions to North Vietnam before they rotated us home. That was before the gomers got SAMs or even any MiGs to speak of, and we had ourselves a turkey shoot. When I returned here four months ago, I found everything had changed. In those two years they got everything imaginable to shoot us with, and by damn, we've got to be prepared for every bit of it. The best way is to do everything you'd do if you were going to fly a combat mission to Moscow and back."

  "Turk's flown a total of seventy-two missions over North Vietnam," interjected Lucky. "More than any of the rest of us."

  To complete a combat tour they were expected to fly one hundred sorties up north. That meant over North Vietnam. Lesser hazardous sorties, those flown over South Vietnam or Laos, did not qualify as counters. Twenty-eight more counters, and Tatro would be celebrating and going home.

  Turk continued. "One thing you guys should know," he said, "is that most pilots get shot down on their first twenty missions, while they're still learning the ropes. Which means you've gotta learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can."

  Next Lucky came to a skinny, freckled redhead with a studious mien. "Captain Liebermann?" Lucky had flown once with him, as had Turk, and they'd concluded that he was both nervous and entirely too serious. They'd also agreed that he listened hard and was learning at a phenomenal rate.

  "My name's Bob Liebermann," he said to the group, "and I upgraded into Thuds out of SAC. I flew B-52's at Loring Air Force Base, Maine."

  Manny DeVera stared at him uneasily, as if Liebermann had committed the sacrilege of even speaking of bombers.

  "Bob escaped, by damn," said Turk. Most fighter jocks distrusted bombers and all things about them, but Tatro had told Lucky that Liebermann was okay since he was so happy to be out of the eight-engined behemoths.

  "Yeah," agreed Bob Liebermann, " 'escaped' is a good word for it. I just hope they don't send me back to BUFs when I finish my tour here." "BUFs" was an acronym assigned to B-52s, short for "big ugly fuckers."

  "You feel easy flying Thuds?" asked a skeptical Manny DeVera.

  "I've been trying to get into fighters since I got out of pilot school," said Liebermann. "I like the Thud. It's a complex airplane, though, and I've got a lot of catching up to do. I read the Dash-One day and night, even take it to the shitter with me. I think I've damn near got it memorized. I don't want to give anyone reason to send me back to BUFs."

  The Dash-One was the three-inch-thick technical publication that described all aircraft systems and included detailed checklists, and safety and flight data for the aircraft.

  "You're up," said Lucky, nodding to DeVera.

  "Call me Manny," said the big and beefy captain, showing a glittering smile of even white teeth. He looked like a youthful, very sure and very handsome Anthony Quinn.

  "I immigrated to the States by way of a shallow river crossing when I was about two years old, and"—he waved his arms expansively—"in our wonderful land of opportunity, I've gone on to become the world's greatest fighter pilot."

  "The Supersonic Wetback," said Turk, calling Manny by the nickname he had himself fostered, "does not suffer from lack of ego."

  Manny, who had glowing reputations both as an adept pilot and an uncannily successful womanizer, grinned wider. "When you got it, why hide it? I've got fifteen hundred hours of fighter time. Huns and Thuds . . . upgraded from F-100's to F-105's four years ago. I've had tours at Hahn, Germany; Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada; and Wheelus Air Base in Libya."

  "Tell 'em about Wheelus, Manny," said Lucky. "Some of the lieutenants probably didn't even know we had a base in Libya."

  "We maintain a big gunnery range there for the fighter jocks stationed in Germany to practice on. The country's run by King Idris, an old codger who likes Americans. We have a support base just outside Tripoli called Wheelus, with half a dozen fighter jocks to monitor the weapons programs and run the range. The squadrons from Germany rotate in and out of Wheelus so the jocks can stay proficient in bombing and gunnery."

  Lucky noted how the others hung on to his words. Manny had a bucket of charisma, one of those guys people liked being around and listening to. When Manny went to the bar or the squadron-duty desk, others gathered to hear about his latest exploits. It was difficult to explain his charm. Someone could tell an off-color joke, and females within earshot would frown. Manny could follow with a downright raunchy line, and the same women would giggle and give him wicked little smiles.

  "Lieutenant Walker?" urged Lucky Anderson to keep things moving, motioning to a handsome, light-skinned black man with even features.

  "My name's Joe Walker," he said in a quiet, mellow voice. "I'm from Pasadena, California, and I attended the Air Force Academy before I went to pilot training. This is my first operational assignment."

  Turk snapped his fingers. "You played football at the Academy! That's where I heard of you."

  Walker looked about shyly, until his classmate, Lieutenant Henry Horn, spoke up boldly. "Joe played end and set school records that'll be around for a long time. He caught everything they threw his way and then some."

  "By damn," admired Tatro, an avid football fan.

  Horn wasn't done. "The Baltimore Colts tried to sign him. Offered him a big cash fee so he wouldn't be hurting for money while he finished his service commitment. But Joe turned them down and applied for pilot training."

  "How come you didn't take 'em up?" Manny asked.

  Joe Walker grinned and shrugged. "I wanted to fly fighters," he said simply, and gained instant kinship within the group.

  "Henry?" Anderson urged.

  "I'm Henry Horn," answered the sturdy lieutenant with the shock of blond hair, "from Boulder, Colorado. Married a Denver girl when I graduated from the Academy, and she's
got a tiny fighter pilot in the hangar."

  "And that's all he talks about," interjected Turk.

  "This is my first operational assignment," continued Horn. "I've been here three months, since January, and so far it's been a hell of an experience." He looked around at the three new members of C-Flight. "One thing I've learned. We're fortunate to be working for Major Lucky. Listen to him, because he's got a lot to teach us."

  Anderson wondered about that. Counting Francis, C-Flight had now lost four pilots in the two months since his arrival. He spent a lot of miserable hours thinking about the lost men.

  "Lieutenant Bowes?" he said to the tallest of the lieutenants.

  Bowes's look was intent, as if he were quietly taking in everything and carefully evaluating it. Bowes, Lucky remembered, had exhibited superb flying ability. He was going to be very good, possibly the best pilot in the group. Maybe, someday, as good as he was.

  "I'm Billy Bowes," he announced softly. "I attended the University of Oklahoma. I was an instructor pilot at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, then at Vance in Oklahoma. I volunteered for F-4's because I'd rather be killing MiGs than dropping bombs, but they sent me to Thuds. Then I asked for Korat, because I heard it was a nice base next to a big city, so they sent me to Takhli."

  He was joking. Anderson had seen his dream sheet, where they listed their choices for assignment. Lieutenant Bowes had wanted action in a hot charger unit and had specifically requested Takhli.

  Lucky said, "You'll get your chance at MiGs. We go where they are, or rather they go where we are. They're after our big, overweight asses when we're loaded down with bombs and fuel tanks on the way to the target."

  Turk Tatro again looked closely at Bowes, as if he couldn't quite place him. "You had a relative here in Wild Weasels?"

  "Malcom Stewart was his name. My cousin."

  "Bear Stewart over in the 357th squadron?"

  Billy Bowes nodded. His look was unwavering, eyes flat and inexpressive.

  Turk Tatro's face brightened with recognition. "Yeah. When he and his pilot were shot down, the Bear decided to shoot it out with a squad of gomers. He had a pistol and they had AK-47's." He shook his head sympathetically. "Big balls, but he didn't have a chance."

  "The North Vietnamese are a tough, determined enemy," said Lucky as he studied Bowes. "They work hard to kill you in the air, and once they get their hands on you on the ground, they're brutal. You can't afford to give them an inch."

  "I hadn't planned to," said Billy Bowes, and Lucky Anderson liked the answer.

  He regarded his group of war eagles. They were a cross section of young pilots you might find anywhere in the Air Force, but they were assigned to his C-Flight, and for that reason they were special in his eyes. "Let's go over the rules and restrictions," he said to them, "and what we can't do. Then we'll talk about combat flying and what we have to do to survive and get our bombs on the target."

  1120 Local—Vietnamese People's Army Headquarters Hanoi, Democratic Republic of Vietnam

  Colonel Nguyen Wu

  Nguyen Wu was tall and wraith thin, with a sunken face and eyes that darted nervously. He despised all Tay, the Vietnamese word of scorn for Westerners, and especially the Mee, the word for "Americans" taken from the French word ami. Yet he was the sort who would instantly embrace them as brethren if such was to his advantage.

  Like the others in the room, he'd been called to a meeting chaired by General Van Tien Dung, the most powerful of the generals working in the shadow of General Giap. Wu sat immediately behind General Luc, his superior officer and commander of the People's Army of National Defense. General Tho, seated beside General Luc, was commander of the People's Army Air Force. Those two were entrusted with the protection of the Democratic Republic. General Tho controlled the bases, aircraft, pilots, and their support, General Luc the antiaircraft rocket, radar, and artillery defenses, as well as the home militia. Behind the two generals sat the colonels who made the generals' wishes happen.

  They all waited patiently for General Dung.

  Colonel Nguyen Wu had risen quickly to his present rank and position. At thirty-three years of age he commanded all radars and guided rocket defenses. An important position, but one not to his liking. He was too visible, his failures too difficult to hide from the eyes of superiors. He intended to remain in the position only long enough to find a more suitable, less vulnerable one.

  Wu's attention was focused upon a fighter pilot sitting to his immediately right, a man known simply as Quon, who was one of the best-known heroes of the Democratic Republic. Quon's exploits were frequently cited in Nham Dan, the official party newspaper, and his background was familiar even to schoolchildren. The tale had appeared numerous times, for Quon was a model for the propagandists. His life's story was only slightly less familiar to the public than that of Ho Chi Minh.

  In 1943 the eighteen-year-old son of a respected Saigon family had stolen into the jungle to join one of the several guerrilla units resisting the occupying Army of Japan and their Vichy French collaborators. He'd picked upon the Viet Minh, the military arm of the secret Lao Dong party. The leader of the Lao Dong was an elusive communist named Nguyen Thanh, who had changed his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc, "the Patriot." He'd just talked his way out of one of Chiang Kai-shek's prisons in Nationalist China and announced that henceforth his name would be Ho Chi Minh, "the Enlightened One." Ho's military leader was a former history professor, Vo Nguyen Giap, and shortly after his arrival Giap had appointed Quon to join nine other bright young men on "a very special assignment." The leader of the group had been a nephew of one of Ho Chi Minh's inner circle, and he'd answered their questions vaguely and revealed little. Lieutenant Tho told them only that they'd be departing immediately, and there was a likelihood they would not come back . . . ever. He d added that any who desired to do so could drop out without censure. None did.

  Propaganda writers liked to pause at this juncture to explain how a truly dedicated communist must, like Quon and the others, ask only to serve.

  They'd ventured north to China, then westward to the border with the Soviet Union, where Lieutenant Tho had shown letters granting them safe passage. On toward the setting sun, across the huge expanse of barren steppes. They'd walked, taken ox carts, and once ridden in a large, open trailer pulled by a wood-consuming, steam-driven tractor with huge iron wheels. Two of them had been struck down by sickness on the long trek and left behind. Just before the snows came, they'd arrived at the furiously busy airfield of Kamensk-Uralskii on the eastern slope of the great Ural mountain range, and Lieutenant Tho had finally told them the nature of their special assignment.

  They were to become pilots. At the end of the war a socialist republic would emerge in Vietnam, and as Ho Chi Minh had convinced the right people within the Soviet Union, they would need a military air service.

  Another facet of the Enlightened One's wisdom, the writers interjected here, was his ability to determine the needs of future generations.

  The Soviets had agreed to train them to fly, then assign them to combat units to gain operational experience. The seven standing before Lieutenant Tho had turned gleeful, caught up in their sense of self-importance and sacrifice.

  At Kamensk-Uralskii they were provided with rudimentary flight instructions. Quon's were given by an elderly Russian pilot with one eye, the other lost in some earlier war for red socialism, in a battered, dual-seated I-15 biplane with canvas-enclosed cockpits and no heat except that inadvertently supplied by engine exhaust.

  The writers included Quon's joke that it had been so cold in the old airplane that their words came out frozen and had to be passed between cockpits and thawed out to hear.

  After they'd been trained in the basics of flight, they endured the remainder of the terrible Ural Mountain winter, waiting to be checked out in operational aircraft and assigned to a combat unit. Finally, and it was early 1944 by then, Quon and the others had hastily been taught to fly the sleek and powerful YAK-3 fighters, similar in appearan
ce to British Spitfires. Then they were told they would not be joining a Soviet unit but a group of Free French pilots already fighting alongside the Russians against the Germans.

  By this point it was clear that the Nham Dan writers were intimating . . . never openly saying it, of course . . . that the Russians had been prejudiced against the Vietnamese pilots. This drew somber nods from readers who had experienced the Soviets' disdain for East Asians.

  Lieutenant Tho had briefed them. Do not, he had said, let the French know we represent a new Vietnamese order. Tell them nothing. Remember that we shall kill Germans to save communism, for the Nazis are trying to destroy the cradle of Marxist-Leninist socialism. We would never help the French. We spit on the French. But do not let them know . . . yet.

  The group of eight, immortalized by Nham Dan, flew new Yakovlev fighters to an airfield west of Moscow to join the Normandie-Nieman Group, the Free French contingent that flew agile YAK-3's and better-armed YAK-9's against the Germans. There they'd been welcomed by the pilots who'd escaped France to carry on the fight.

  Three of their number had been quickly lost before they could acclimate to the furious tempo of combat flying, and two more killed as the war ground on. Together they accounted for 19 of the 273 Luftwaffe aircraft claimed by "the Group." Quon had been the youngest man in the unit, but during his fourteen months of combat he'd shot down four Ju-87 Stukas and three Bf-109 Messerschmitts. He'd gained the respect of the pilots of the Group, and his name had been read into their honor role.

  Seldom did they receive word about home. It was as if a veil covered Indochina. In mid-1945 the victorious Normandie-Nieman Group flew their Yakovlev fighters to Le Bourget airfield in Paris. Only after they'd been mustered out did they learn how things were at home. Then they celebrated as enthusiastically as the French, for Ho Chi Minh had taken charge of all of Vietnam!

  Largely due to assistance from the Americans, the Viet Minh had grown into the best equipped and best organized of the irregular military units, and at the end of the war the Japanese had turned the keys of government over to the only organized enemy group in sight: the Viet Minh. Ho Chi Minh had immediately created the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam and established his capitol in Hanoi. The Americans had supported him in all of this.