"Two Oh Seven."
The two F-4s closed to less than 100 yards behind Jocko Carella's aircraft. They held their position fifteen seconds while both squadron mates topped off their tanks. Carella dropped off the lower Whale, followed seconds later by Bull Durham from the other KA-3B.
"Snowball," Brad radioed, tweaking the throttles forward, "Jokers Two Oh Two and Two Oh Seven stabilized — Two left, Seven right."
"Copy," the lead tanker pilot responded, watching Carella and Durham accelerate out in front of the Skywarriors. "Jokers cleared to plug."
Brad clicked his radio twice, adding power as the probe entered the basket. He shoved the receptacle forward a few feet and steadied the Phantom.
"Fuel flow," came the call from the tanker pilot.
"Looks good here," Brad replied, thinking about the tremendous amount of fuel the F-4 consumed in afterburner. At a normal cruise speed of 575 miles per hour, the Phantom could travel approximately 1,500 miles. Close to sea level, in afterburner, the entire internal fuel load would be exhausted in a matter of minutes.
"You're unusually quiet this morning," Brad said over the intercom while he watched Nick Palmer smoothly plug the second Whale.
Russ Lunsford pulled his seat belt and shoulder harnesses as tightly as he could, then keyed his intercom. "That's because I'm praying that I'll still be alive this afternoon."
Brad did not respond. He had seen this kind of detached behavior from Lunsford many times when they had gone on a mission. Brad knew that if he attempted to ease Lunsford's anxiety, Russ would work himself into a frenzy.
"Jokers on the Whale," the strike leader radioed, "you about ready to join up?"
Brad keyed his mike. "Ninety seconds." Monitoring the fuel indicator, Brad waited until his tanks were full. A few seconds later, Palmer reported his tanks full.
Dropping off the Skywarriors, Brad and Nick added power to catch the strike group. They switched to Red Crown and heard the strike leader giving last-minute instructions. He was leading twelve A-4 Skyhawks. The entire group then switched to strike-flight frequency. As they crossed the coast of North Vietnam, the air-group commander commenced a slow turn to approach the petroleum storage tanks west of the city of Haiphong.
Below, fourteen A-1 Skyraiders skirted around known gun emplacements, then turned to their run-in heading. At that moment, Brad heard the radio come alive.
"Bandits!" someone warned. "We've got bandits… climbing twenty west!"
The sky suddenly filled with surface-to-air missiles and concentrated barrages of antiaircraft fire. Four Phantoms from the Jokers' sister squadron, fulfilling the role of flak suppressors, thundered across the target area. They dropped their Rockeye bombs seconds before the A-4s struck the petroleum storage tanks.
Brad watched in horror as a Skyhawk flew into the ground without any attempt to pull out of the dive. The pilot had been killed by the deadly antiaircraft rounds.
"Joker One is engaging!" Dan Bailey radioed from the forward fighter group. "Heads up, Jokers. Three MiGs at two o'clock."
Scanning the horizon, Brad darted a glance at the target area. Billowing clouds of black smoke mushroomed skyward as the A-1 Skyraiders pulverized the remaining fuel dumps.
"SAMs!" Hutton said over the wild radio chatter. "Comin' up at four o'clock."
Breaking hard to the right, Brad felt the violent g force shove him down in his seat. He glimpsed the ground, then saw two surface-to-air missiles flash by the side of his Phantom. He instinctively ducked, certain that the SAMs would detonate next to him.
It was impossible to interpret the ambiguous radio calls. Many of the urgent transmissions were blocked when a number of pilots tried to communicate at the same time.
Seeing Nick Palmer sliding into a loose trail position on his right wing, Brad reversed to the left and flinched again. Two A-4s snapped over to avoid a midair collision with the Phantoms.
"Oh… God in heaven," Lunsford groaned under the g load, "get us out of here."
The adrenaline shock had caused both F-4 crews to start sucking oxygen. They frantically searched all quadrants of the sky for aircraft and missiles.
Brad saw an airplane explode at the same instant he saw three MiG-21s descend out of the clouds. He looked at Palmer, then back to the MiGs. He had not seen a MiG-21 before, but there was no mistaking the silver fighters. Two of the sleek aircraft were carrying external fuel tanks.
"Tally," someone said. "Break right! Break right!" Total confusion reigned. It was impossible to know whom the break right command was intended for.
Selecting HEAT, Brad pulled the Phantom into a modified high yo-yo. The gray sky and clouds blended with the ground. He saw Palmer's F-4, in perfect formation, slide out to the left side.
Looking back at the three MiGs, Brad was startled by a flash and jolting explosion between the two Phantoms. He quickly scanned the cockpit instruments, noting that the master caution light was glowing.
"We've been hit!" Lunsford shouted, staring at the shattered left wing. Four feet of the wing tip had been blown off by the unseen SAM. "So has Palmer! Palmer's been hit! He's drifting down!"
Brad's aircraft, with the right wing now providing more lift than the shortened left wing, rolled to the left. Lunsford snapped his head from side to side. "Our left wing… we've been hit in the left wing!"
"Come on…," Brad coaxed, holding the control stick all the way to the right. He shoved on the right rudder, but the heavily damaged Phantom continued to roll out of control to the left.
"Have you got control?" Lunsford asked, watching a rail yard and power plant appear above the canopy. "Answer me, goddamnit!"
Inverted, Brad pushed the stick forward to hold the nose up, than cautiously moved the stick to the left. "Stay with me, you sonuvabitch… I'm working on it."
"Bullshit!" Lunsford swore, noticing a new problem. "Our left engine — we've lost the left engine! I've got circuit breakers out back here."
"Well, put 'em back in."
Lunsford quickly shoved the circuit breakers in and braced himself for an ejection. His mouth was dry and his heart pounded in his chest.
The Phantom rolled upright, then yawed to the left as Brad fought to control the aircraft. The airspeed was quickly bleeding off, which caused more control problems as the F-4 entered a second roll.
Brad looked for Palmer's Phantom, but it was nowhere in sight. His own fear was transmitted to the control stick. He tried to relax his viselike grip on the stick as the F-4 again rolled to the inverted position.
"Goddamnit, Austin," Lunsford shouted when the earth and sky rotated, "get us out over water!"
Checking the airspeed indicator, Brad saw that he was going to have to use afterburner on the right engine. "What do you think I'm tryin' to do?"
He entered another corkscrewing maneuver, tapping the afterburner through the inverted position.
His right leg, fully extended on the rudder pedal, was starting to shake from the continuous strain.
A MiG slashed by the F-4, prompting a harangue from Lunsford. "We're going the wrong goddamn way! Everyone is clearing the beach."
Brad muscled the Phantom upright again, watching the decaying airspeed. He could not use afterburner to accelerate the F-4. The thrust caused the aircraft to yaw out of control to the left.
"We're lucky," Brad labored under the strain, "to be going in any direction." He sensed that he was losing control authority. Any slower, Brad told himself, and the control stick would not hold the nose up during the period of inverted flight.
"Get on the horn," Brad ordered, wrestling the controls, "and get off a Mayday."
Lunsford had become disoriented during the wild ride. "Where are we?"
Brad saw the altimeter drop below 8,000 feet. "We're five to seven miles southwest of Haiphong." He had no sooner finished the statement when he glimpsed two Phantoms settle into a distant formation with them.