The bomb was the size of a small truck. It had a small set of wings and some fins on the tail, but it still didn’t look like any kind of bomb or missile the loaders had ever seen. Then again, the C-130 was not like any bomber they had seen either. The bomb was placed in the cargo hold of the aircraft facing forward. A parachute pack on the back end of the weapon would be used to pull the bomb out of the aircraft. One of the men removed a cover and polished down the clear nose cone on the front of the weapon. It contained the FLIR seeker and data link that would tie the bomb to a controller sitting at the front of the cargo bay. When finished, the cover was carefully replaced.
The C-130’s crew completed their preflight list and was going over it again to make sure nothing would go wrong. No one liked the thought that this thing might have to go down with them in an engagement. Most wished the weather would sock them in.
For several days C-130s had been flown over the areas without incident. It was to gather information and to get the North used to seeing the unarmed planes around. A final check was made and the weapons handlers walked out of the rear of the aircraft. The rear ramp and doors were closed and a tractor was hooked up to move the aircraft out of the hangar and onto the ramp. The crew was already in position and switching on several systems.
Kadena Air Force base was totally dark. When the engines started, the lights came on illuminating nearly thirty C-130s on the ramp ready to take off. They began moving in a line down the taxiway to the end of the runway. On signal they increased the revolutions on their engines and began their take off roll, lifting off far down the runway. When the last plane had left, the lights around the field blinked out, returning Kadena to total darkness.
On Anderson Air Force Base, a flight of eighteen B-2s had just completed their own lift off. Each aircraft carried only one bomb apiece. They were scheduled to arrive only fifteen minutes after the C-130s had dropped their weapons. The crews shared the same thoughts — that these weapons not go off anywhere near their aircraft.
RADM Hammond’s first assignment was to take command of Task Force 75.2.1, made up of Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, and Alabama along with the Little Rock and eight other cruisers and destroyers. The force steamed up the eastern coast of Korea in total darkness and arrived off Wonsan by 9:45 pm. Two RPVs were launched earlier and gathered infrared information on their designated target — the concrete naval pens holding both the submarines and the remaining patrol boats.
The pens had been built to look like ordinary buildings, but the ceilings to them were estimated to be at least twenty-five feet thick. Further on, the piers had been purposefully built higher off the ground so that the boats could move underneath. Large ships were permanently moored beside them so it would look like a normal pier from above. Because of the earlier bombings and the loss of the majority of their fleet, the North Koreans had pressed their remaining assets into these underground enclosures for safekeeping.
The RPVs were flown over the facilities and from an angle, could see the openings that were actually cooler than the rest of the facility, still warm from the sun. In two cases, lights could be seen inside the darkened entrances. People came and went from six separate openings beside the facilities, and trucks were unloading beside three of those.
The task force steamed ten miles off the headland in a column formation. Upon satellite signal, all the big guns turned and pointed toward Wonsan Naval Base. Inside the turrets, a different kind of shell was being loaded. Before this, the ships had been firing regular high capacity shells. But two weeks earlier each battleship took on 300 armor piercing shells. Where the regular shells weighed 1,900 pounds each, these weighed 2,700 pounds. They were designed to penetrate heavy armored plate up to twenty-two inches thick, but this time the rounds would have to go up against reinforced concrete. In tests, at the optimum range, these shells could penetrate over thirty feet of the stuff.
Hammond moved his ships between fifteen and twenty miles from the target. This was done for a reason. The high angle of the shot would mean the big shells would fall almost straight down on the top of the concrete pens. Hopefully they would go all the way through and go off inside. If nothing else, the pens would never be the same again.
Sitting in Strike, Hammond and the XO sat waiting for the prescribed time to open fire. This was to be a coordinated attack of all the underground facilities. Nearly everything would hit at about the same time. The effect was to strike swiftly and suddenly from almost everywhere, confusing the enemy and putting a little of the “fear of god” into them. By traveling without running lights and with the moon not yet up, the battleships remained unseen on the horizon and relatively immune from attack. They watched the television screen with the images from the RPV, seeing people scurry around, oblivious to what was coming.
“This is almost like shooting chickens in a coop,” the XO said. “I almost feel sorry for the average sailors.”
“Yeah, but we can’t think that way. It has to be done and we’re the ones who were told to do it,” Hammond said. “Is everyone set?”
“Yes, sir. All ships report ready,” the XO replied. He glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. “One minute.”
Hammond picked up the encrypted radio handset and held it for the last few seconds. As the second hand swept upward, he pressed the button to activate the circuit. “All stations in Sierra Whiskey, this is Sierra Whiskey. Commence fire, I repeat, commence fire. Out.” Then he turned to the Strike Officer. “Batteries released.”
From shore it appeared as if a volcano had exploded far out to sea. The flame of the guns clearly illuminated the ships and signaled their charges were on their way. Once again, the well trained crewmen went through the loading cycles to load the guns as rapidly as possible, sending more of the armor piercing rounds on their way.
The sounds of tearing linen came through the air as the shells climbed high into the air before angling down on their targets. From that distance, the shells wouldn’t penetrate as far, but not by much. The first rounds landed on top of the warehouse-like structures and burrowed almost straight down. They went in twenty feet before the explosives in the warhead detonated. Unfortunately, the thickness of the concrete was more than what was anticipated by ten feet. The men inside the facility heard the explosions but felt secure when the ceiling only rained down dust.
Thirty of the initial rounds hit the target, disrupting nearly the entire top layer of concrete on the pens. The second set of rounds dug a little deeper into the facility, burrowing through the rubble and into the unharmed concrete. This time, the rubble sitting on top was lifted almost entirely off the building. Inside, the men looked up in horror as cracks began to appear in the ceiling.
The third set of rounds struck the top of the facility. Because most of the concrete was gone or severely crushed, these rounds struck the remaining concrete and burrowed into the chambers beneath, passed through the submarines or other craft moored inside, and detonated on the bottom of the concrete facility. The blast cracked the thin floor and blew down interior walls. It also sent energy upward into the bottoms of the ships above, crushing the keels and splitting them open to the sea. In almost every case, the fuel tanks were ruptured and fuel began to fill the interior spaces.