The Cubans had their search radars wired into sector facilities, which performed the functions of air traffic control (ATC) for civilian aircraft and early warning and ground control interception (GCI) for military aircraft. ATC radars in developed countries rarely searched for non-transponder-equipped targets, but due to the dual usage of these radars, such sweeps were routine. Consequently one of the controllers in the Havana sector was the first to notice a cloud of skin-paint targets closing on the Cuban coast from the south.
His call to the supervisor was echoed by a call from a controller looking at targets headed south toward the north coast of the island.
The shift supervisor stood frozen, staring over the operator’s shoulder at the radar screen. He had wondered if something like this might not happen after Alejo Vargas’s television speech, but when he asked the site manager about the possibility of Cuba being attacked by the United States, the man had laughed. “The world has changed since the Bay of Pigs, Pedro. You are safe — have courage.” The response humiliated the shift supervisor.
Now the supervisor picked up his telephone, called the manager in his office. “You’d better come see this,” he said with an edge on his voice. “Come quickly.”
The manager was looking over the supervisor’s shoulder when the first Tomahawk crashed into the antenna of the main search radar on the southern coast. In seconds three more radars went off the air.
The stunned men turned their attention to the radars on the north coast, and were just in time to watch the blip of a Tomahawk from Hue City fly right down the throat of the radar and knock it out.
The supervisor turned to the manager and calmly said, “Apparently the war you didn’t believe would happen is happening now.”
The stunned manager watched in horror as screen after screen went blank.
“The Americans rarely leave things half-done, or so I’ve heard,” the supervisor continued. “I would bet fifty pesos that this building is also a target of a cruise missile. If you gentlemen will excuse me, I think I will go home for the evening.”
With that, he turned and walked briskly from the room.
“Everyone out,” the facilities manager shouted. “Outside, everyone outside.”
The men at the consoles needed no urging. They bolted for the doors.
The shift supervisor was outside, walking quickly for the bus stop, when he heard a Tomahawk. He fell to the ground and covered his head with his hands as the missile dove into the roof of the sector control building and its 750-pound warhead exploded with a thundering boom. Within the next fifteen seconds, two more missiles crashed into the building.
After waiting another minute just to be sure, the supervisor stood and surveyed the damage. Clouds of tiny dust particles formed an artificial fog, one illuminated by flame licking at the gutted building. The stench of explosives residue and smoke lay heavy in the night air.
One hundred fifty missiles swept across central Cuba, some coming from the north, some from the south. The targeting had been done quickly, but the information that made it possible had been mined from databases painstakingly constructed from satellite and aircraft photo and electronic reconnaissance over a period of years.
Four dozen Tomahawks were targeted against every known radar dish within a hundred miles of the missile silos — search, air traffic, antiaircraft missile, and artillery radars — all of them, two missiles for each antenna.
Another fifty Tomahawks attacked every Cuban Air Force base along the five-hundred-mile length of the island. Some of the Tomahawks carried bomblets instead of high-explosive warheads: these swept across aircraft ramps, scattering bomblets over the parked MiGs, damaging them and setting some on fire. Other cruise missiles dove headfirst into the Cuban Air Force’s hangars, weapons storage facilities, and fuel farms. Fixed antiaircraft surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites received two or three missiles each.
Alejo Vargas learned of the American attack when the telephone he was using went dead in his hand. He frowned, jiggled the hook, then replaced the handset on its base. Only then did the dull boom of the explosion in the central Havana telephone exchange reach him. A Tomahawk had dived through the roof.
More explosions followed in quick succession as two more cruise missiles hurled themselves into the telephone exchange. One of the problems the Americans faced with the employment of cruise missiles was assessing damage after the attack. The solution was to fire multiple missiles at the same target to ensure an acceptable level of damage.
The thought that the presidential palace might be a target never occurred to Alejo Vargas. He went to the nearest window and stood listening to the roar of Tomahawks overflying the city on their way to radar and antiaircraft gun and missile installations sited around José Martí International Airport. The five-hundred-knot missiles were invisible in the darkness, but they weren’t quiet.
The missiles had passed when someone near the harbor opened up with an antiaircraft gun firing tracers. The bursts of tracers went up like fireworks and randomly probed the darkness as the hammering reports echoed over the city.
Colonel Santana came into the room and joined Vargas at the window. “The telephone system in the city is out.”
“It’s probably out all over Cuba,” Vargas replied.
“They are attacking much sooner than you thought they would.”
“No matter. The results will be the same. Get a car to take us to Radio Havana. I will make an address to the nation.”
“The Americans may use missiles on the radio stations or power plants.”
“It is possible, but I doubt it. Get the car.”
Santana went after a car as Vargas thought about what he would say to fan the fires of patriotism in every Cuban heart.
The two C-130s Hercs and four EA-6B Prowlers that had left Key West were level at ten thousand feet when they crossed the northern shoreline of Cuba. The C-130s actually were flying with their wingtip lights on so that the Prowlers could easily stay in formation with them. Inside the Hercs the pilots were using global positioning system (GPS) units to navigate to the missile silo sites.
The Prowler crews watched their computer displays and listened to their emission-detection gear, waiting for the Cubans to turn on a radar, any radar. The night was deathly quiet. The Tomahawks had done their work well.
As the Hercs crossed over the first of the dairy farms, two men leaped from each plane. Forty seconds later two more went as they crossed over the second possible lab site. Then the Hercs made a gentle, lazy 270-degree turn to get lined up for the run-in to the missile silos.
José Martí Airport and the surface-to-air missile sites that surrounded it were only thirty miles west. Not a peep from them. If the Tomahawks missed any of the mobile radars, the operators had not yet screwed up the courage to turn them on, for which the Hercules crews were thankful. The Prowler crews, however, with HARM missiles ready on the rails, were feeling a bit disappointed. After all the sweating, there should be more action.
Aboard USS United States, the datalink from the E-3 Sentry AWACS over Key West revealed the aerial fire drill going on over Havana as commercial flights tried to find their way into José Martí Airport without the aid of air traffic controllers with radar. Some of the flights announced they were diverting, and headed for the United States or Jamaica or the Cayman Islands. The others queued up and landed VFR as Jake Grafton watched the computer displays with his fingers crossed. While he didn’t want to be responsible for the crash of a civilian airliner, he couldn’t delay this operation until there was a temporary lull in civilian air activity.
As the first Here approached silo one, two men leaped from the open rear door. Seconds later, two more leaped from the second transport.