Arndeker was listening to events taking place overhead but not getting involved in the dogfights. He was at 150 ft. and banking to the left to follow the contours of a hill whilst keeping an eye out for a chimney stack on the horizon. The chimney was a visual marker, once seen he would steer a few degrees to the right of it until he reached a disused and weed choked canal which he could follow, making use of the man-made defile’s cut for it through the low hills. It would bring himself and the four F-16s with him down the right flank of the enemy armoured thrust heading for the autobahn. The mission called for them to RV with two flights of three Swedish Gripen’s and following hot on the heels of a Wild Weasel sortie by French Armee de l’air Jaguar, Mirage F-1 and 2000Ds, they were to make as many sweeps of the armoured formations as Arndeker felt were advisable. Right now he felt a suitably safe and appropriate number was probably zero, but he wasn’t able to say what he felt, i.e., “I’m tired of this game and I don’t want to play anymore,” because he was the squadron commander, an officer in the armed forces of his country and the one who set the example for his subordinates to follow. It just wasn’t acceptable to announce that he vomited at the thought of going into combat again, that his nerve was close to being shot, or that it took five fingers of vodka just to get him off to sleep at night. It wasn’t acceptable in the eyes of his peers and it wasn’t acceptable in his own either. Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Arndeker, USAF, loving husband and proud father of two was racing toward burn out and he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t see it because to open his eyes to that possibility was not acceptable either.
This sortie was a maximum effort by his squadron, with all available airframes taking part, and Lt Col Arndeker who had decided to rest his pilots where possible between sorties had no option but to comply. The first mission of the day, intercepting the inbound strike against 4 Corps, had cost the squadron his wingman, and whilst he had been at the emergency field his Exec had led the remainder against a second strike. His Exec had not returned from that one, which left his squadron with exactly five operational airframes left out of the fifteen there had been at the outbreak of the war.
Quite apart from the slowed reactions induced by fatigue, Arndeker had witnessed for himself of late a phenomenon that he had read of in pilots during the First and Second World Wars, that of a recklessness in some of his pilots, as if they were resigned to an untimely end and therefore did little to avoid it, such as flying straight and level through ground fire when they should have been jinking to throw off the gunners aim.
The German hillside flashed past and then he saw the distant concrete column pointing heavenwards. The wings of Arndeker’s F-16 came level and he checked his aircraft were still with him, they were and in anticipation of a right turn to follow the old canal the five moved into an echelon left formation.
Arndeker almost missed the canal, so choked with weed was it that it almost merged with the undergrowth on the banks. He took the flight around in a hard turn to starboard and settled down to just seventy-five feet above it with four aircraft moving into trail behind him.
“Chain Gang lead, this is Lion Dog Zero Three?”
Lion Dog was the call sign of their controller for this gig.
“Go, Dog.”
“Gang, you got Steel Talon, a flight of four Gripens approaching from your 8 o’clock, fifteen miles out.”
“Roger Dog, they’re late and there was supposed to be two fights of three?”
“They got bounced, Gang.”
It was a very clinical way of stating the fifth and sixth aircraft were spread across the countryside somewhere. “Roger Dog, have the French guys adjusted to compensate?”
“Negative Gang, their timetable is not variable so I suggest you continue as planned and on time, but it’s your call.”
The plan called for five different formations of aircraft to arrive over the battlefield at designated times in order to carry out a coordinated attack. The timing was important to maximise the shock effect of the layered defences being stripped away and leaving the enemy armour open to attack. First in were to be the Armee de l’air Mirage F-1s, engaging the Red Air Force Top CAP to allow the Jaguars and Mirage 2000Ds to destroy or force off the air the AAA radars, and by so doing opening the way for Arndeker’s F-16s and the Gripen’s to carry out attacks with Rockeye’s and Gator’s. The window of opportunity would be scarce minutes, in single figures, before the Soviet’s recovered.
Arndeker didn’t want to delay until the Gripen’s arrived and he didn’t want to leave the Swedish fliers to brave the Soviet’s anger on their lonesome either. He informed his flight and the AWAC he was switching frequencies.
“Steel Talon lead this is Chain Gang lead on TAC Six, over?”
After a moment’s delay the Gripens flight leader responded in accented English, and it took a second for Arndeker to realise he had spoken with the owner of that voice only a few hours before.
“Gang this is Talon, sorry for the delay, begin your run without us, we’ll be a couple of minutes late.”
“Talon this is Gang, we will hold for your arrival but we can only make a single pass over the target.”
“Roger Gang, I appreciate that…however, my higher has briefed us for a minimum of four passes.”
On his second radio Arndeker heard the French going in, and they lost an aircraft to ground fire almost immediately.
“Hey Ulrika, I’m sure your higher had no idea you would be delayed, but four passes is way beyond sensible…it’s a bad neighbourhood we’re visiting so hold it down to two passes and we’ll stay with you.”
Talon’s leader knew that the delay would give the Soviet’s the recovery time necessary to concentrate their fire on whoever was in the air, and it was better that their guns be divided up on nine targets rather than four.
“Roger Gang, you got a deal…and again, we do appreciate it.” Arndeker could hear the smile in her voice and felt good about himself for the first time in several days.
His F-16s passed through the final cleft in the hills and he took them in a shallow turn to port, orbiting just above the treetops as they waited for the Gripen’s.
Arndeker listened to the radio chatter; he couldn’t speak French so he tried to judge from the tone of the pilot’s voices how it was going for them.
“Chain Gang lead this is Lion Dog Zero Three, the 2000D’s and Jag’s are doing a first rate job. I’m watching radars going offline all across the target area and I advise you to begin your run now, it doesn’t get much better than this, Gang?”