Navy. Horn's only concern was what would follow. Would the Soviets continue to fight the Tar Baby until they were totally committed or would they see the light and back off?
The crews of the aircraft carrier Gorki and her escorts had been at general quarters for over two hours without a clue as to why. Aboard the Gorki all they knew was that something out of the ordinary had happened. The officer on duty had roused the Admiral before dawn.
Shortly after that the fleet went to general quarters and began to take evasive maneuvers. At first light half of the Yak-36 fighters had scrambled from the Gorki. It wasn't until 0800 that the ship's captain had begun to release the men for breakfast and then only one third at a time. While the men ate, no one dared speculate or inquire as to why the unusual behavior. They would be told in time, one petty officer said, if they needed to know.
Admiral Boleylev and his staff would not have been able to give their men a clear answer if they had wanted to. They were operating in the dark just as the crews of their ships were. The call to general quarters, the evasive maneuvers and the combat air patrol were in reaction to a series of reports that were not clear and could mean anything. The first report, with which the duty officer had woken the Admiral, was that there had been a sudden and unexplained surge of encoded communications traffic from the American carrier battle group operating to the north of them in the Arabian Sea.
They had even intercepted several uncoded ship-to-ship communications from the U.S. S. Franklin and her escort that talked about transfer of wounded and survivors. This had been rapidly followed by an increase in air patrols by the U.S.S. Hornet's carrier battle group to the south of them and initiation of electronic jamming of the Gorki's long-range radars. The Gorki was now running blind.
Boleylev sat in the officers' mess but could not eat. The only reason he was there was that he needed a break.
His stomach was upset by acid from too much coffee and from nerves. He was pushing himself too hard. Not that he had much of a choice. The orders given to him before they sailed from Vladivostok were to proceed to the Indian Ocean, where his fleet would put pressure on and harass U.S. naval forces. On order he was to neutralize the base at Diego Garcia and commence operations against U.S. convoys headed into Iran.
The Gorki and the task force built around her were outnumbered in ships three to one and in carrier aircraft four to one. Rather than Boleylev's putting pressure on the Americans and harassing them, the Americans were doing it to him.
There were two carrier battle groups, one north of him, built around the U.S.S. Franklin and the battleship U.S.S. Utah, and one south of him with the U.S.S. Hornet. The day before, the Utah had detached itself from the Franklin's battle group and headed south toward the Gorki. Contact had been lost shortly before nightfall yesterday. This worried Boleylev, especially since patrols from the Gorki had so far failed to find the Utah that morning. In addition, the normal morning recon flight made by U.S. aircraft had not yet been reported. The two U.S. carrier battle groups tracked the Gorki constantly and alternated "practice" strikes against Boleylev's task force daily in an attempt to keep him off balance and wear down his men. On one such occasion, all the planes from both carriers popped up over the horizon and came in from all points of the compass toward the Gorki at full speed. The speed of the attack and the surprise it had achieved had almost resulted in a shooting incident.
As a result, very tight control was maintained on the ship's surface-to-air missiles. Standing orders were that they could be fired only on Boleylev's orders. He did not want to start a war with the U.S. accidentally.
In the Gorki's operations center the air-defense officer stared at his radar screen and his instruments. For the last hour and a half he had seen nothing but static. The Americans were jamming his radar. Though that could be considered a hostile act, the air-defense officer was sure nothing would come of it. The strength of the jamming 131
indicated that the source was relatively near, probably a carrier-launched EA-6B Prowler, an aircraft specially built to conduct electronic-warfare operations. Whatever the source, it rendered the ship's radars ineffectual except for very close in. To overcome this, the escorts had dispersed more widely than normal in order to increase the early-warning distance for the task force and, in particular, the Gorki.
It was the electronic-warfare officer who detected the incoming missiles.
Faint signals were heard. The electronic-warfare officer leaned forward and listened intently. When he was sure of the signals, he notified the air-defense officer that multiple Harpoon missiles were inbound. A computer plot indicated an intercept course with the Gorki and the cruiser Kynda, which was providing close-in protection for the Gorki. The air-defense officer hesitated. He had not seen anything quite like these plots before.
The radar was still unable to provide the computer with the clear data needed to positively identify them. Whatever they were, their number continued to grow: from six to ten, to fifteen, to twenty-one and still more coming. The air-defense officer finally recognized the missile attack for what it was just as a wave of similar plots began to appear from the south.
He hit the ship's alarm and shouted over the intercom that they were under attack from thirty-plus antiship missiles. With the incoming missiles too close for the jamming to have any effect, the Gorki's computer began to relay accurate information to the ship's officers and weapons systems, and antimissile missiles were automatically trained on the incoming missiles.
Green lights flashed on the control panel, indicating that the systems were locked on and ready to fire. All that was needed was the initiation of the automated defense sequence.
The air-defense officer, however, did not initiate it. He was, as the standing orders stated, waiting for the order from the ship's captain.
The captain, in turn, was waiting for the order from the Admiral, who was, at that moment, scrambling up a ladder to the control room, wondering why the antimissile missiles had not yet been launched.
Boleylev stormed into the control room, out of breath and yelling, "Fire, damn it, fire!" just as the first U.S.made Harpoon missile slammed into the Gorki just above the waterline.
The C-141 was coming into Bandar Abbas low over the Persian Gulf as instructed. Aboard it, Major General Edgar Thorton, commanding general of the 12th Infantry Division (Light), was miffed. The General wanted to make a grand entrance into Iran. Skipping over the water like a stone seemed undignified somehow. At least he had taken the precaution of sending his chief of staff and the division's public-affairs officer, or PAO, with the advance party to ensure that all would be ready when "Condor Six," as Thorton was called, came walking down the ramp into the war.
The greeting Condor Six got was far from the one that he had planned for.
As he walked down the ramp of the C-141 onto the runway, what he saw was an MP lieutenant and two hummers with machine guns mounted and manned. The 12th Division's band, the PAO and his photographers and the special honor guard with the division's colors were not there. Thorton stopped midway down the ramp and let out a stream of obscenities. Refusing to continue, he ordered his aide to find out from the MP lieutenant what was going on and why the reception for the division was not ready.