The fourth salvos struck the facility again, setting fire to the fuel and continuing the destruction in other compartments within the pen. The sixth salvo made it into an underground weapons storage. Suddenly an explosion greater than many had ever seen erupted on the waterfront, flinging boats, missiles, and people high into the air along with the rest of the roof of the pen.
Aboard the Iowa, Hammond saw the roof lift off the facility through the camera of the RPV flying half a mile from the explosion. “Oh my god,” he muttered as he saw the carnage unfurling before him. He watched the fireball climb over the facility and he grabbed the handset. “All stations Sierra Whiskey, this is Sierra Whiskey. Cease fire. I say again cease fire. Shift to secondary target, over,” he said. The other ships began calling in their receipt of the message.
“Have Weaps shift to the second set of pens,” he said calmly. The RPV suddenly moved the camera across the waterfront and center on a long flat pier. Deep in the ship, the fire control technicians entered the bearing and range of the new target into the Ford Rangekeeper. Almost immediately, a solution was being generated and fed into the turrets. The big guns moved slightly and waited for the order to fire. That order was given only a few seconds later.
The flat surfaced pier became filled with deep cavities as the thirty-six rounds struck home. On the tenth salvo flames could be seen shooting out around the hulls of the ships that had been moored as a deception. The RPV camera caught several doors opening and people frantically running out into the deadly hail of shells. No major explosions occurred with this bombardment. Instead, flames began shooting up through all the penetrations and craters on the top of the facility. Hammond had the ships continue their bombardment until there was no doubt the facilities were destroyed. Then he ordered his ships to turn away and head back to sea.
The doors to the main storage facility were actually opened early. Truckers lined up along the main road to drive in one end and out the other. They had been told that their consignments must reach the troops in the south intact and as soon as they could get them there.
As the big doors opened in the two entrances, the trucks hurried in and to their position on the warehouse floor. Men with forklifts immediately began filling the trailers with pallet after pallet of food. The drivers had never seen this much food in their lives. It was sitting in a vast underground structure stretching nearly a mile in each direction. A second set of crews was on hand to tie down the pallets or make sure the trailer doors were closed. Within ten minutes the trucks were loaded and ready. The drivers pulled forward to the exit doors and exited rapidly so the next set of trucks could move into place and be loaded. This process had been going on every evening for the past few weeks and the supplies were not yet half depleted.
The political officer for the facility was sitting with the facility managers in the control center watching television monitors to make sure everything flowed smoothly. He was very happy with how the operation was going. The state needed these supplies as soon as they could be delivered and he was urging the managers to move faster. After several weeks of operations, they had refined the process to an efficient operation that would go on as long as it was dark outside. Lately, to meet quota, they were forced to open the doors a little early. But there was little risk of detection. With the exception of a few cargo planes that had flown over the area, no warplanes were anywhere near the operation. The plan was that, if warplanes were detected, the operation would cease and the big blast doors closed, ensuring the facility’s safety. Since the facility was 100 feet underground, nothing had a chance to reach them. More importantly, the facility was under the Kim Il Sung Stadium. No one would ever imagine the largest food storage facility in the world was there.
The Political Officer occasionally berated the managers for being too cautious. Nothing could slow them down. Even when a call was received by the listening posts outside the city reporting propeller driven aircraft flying overhead, he told the managers to ignore it. American bombers were not driven by propellers. He ordered them to maintain their operations. They could not be seen from the air. The entry and exit portals were 100 meters from the stadium and angled down at a ten degree incline straight into the warehouse floor. The lanes were 200 meters long. No light could escape.
The four C-130s made their way over the city following the river to their targets. They were flying at 20,000 feet. Using a FLIR camera in the front of the airplane, they were able to locate their targets and turn toward them. At ten miles, the rear cargo ramp doors opened and the ramp lowered to position. On cue, the parachute was released and the Massive Ordnance Air Burst (MOAB) bomb was dragged from the rear of the plane. As it left, the parachute detached as the bomb’s electro-optic seeker was locked onto the opening it saw directly in front of it. At the same time, the plane banked sharply to be heading in the opposite direction so the operator would be able to control the bomb as long as possible.
The Political Officer walked outside and cupped his ears to hear the four turbo-prop engines of the C-130s flying away. He took a deep breath and stretched. It would be a nice cool evening, he thought. The third wave of trucks just left the facility and in a few minutes the next one would be headed up the ramp. His thoughts were interrupted as a whooshing sound went by his ears.
The weapons operator on the C-130 watched the screen and the infrared image clearly showed the residual heat in the air of the tunnel. He was surprised as the bomb passed through the center of the tunnel opening. He clearly saw the walls shoot past and what looked like a floor full of supplies appear at the end just before the image was lost. He switched back to the aircraft’s system and watched as the ground appeared to lift and shudder all around the stadium. Flames shot not only up the tunnels, but also out the exits of the stadium where the vents were hidden. Then the sides of the stadium began to topple inward as the ceiling of the giant facility began to collapse.
The planners thought there were two underground facilities and had placed bombs down each of four tunnels. The ignition of four 18,000 pound warheads inside the facility had turned the enclosed space into an inferno. The blast had been contained enough so that the pressures created their own ignition and fire. Local seismologists registered an earthquake of 2 on the Richter Scale around Pyongyang, disrupting some electricity and shaking the ground for a mile in any direction. The same seismologists were also surprised to see additional small earthquakes in a number of places across North Korea.
In a small airfield near Tongho-Ri, four Ilyushin-23 bombers were being prepared for duty. The old light bombers, NATO code named “Beagle,” had been pieced together from the remnants of twenty others that had been destroyed earlier in the war. The Beagle had been developed in the late 1940s in the Soviet Union and were being maintained by only a very few countries. The North Koreans had been phasing them out; however, the situation had now changed. The North Korean Air Force had been shamed by the Party Leadership and its leaders were desperate to prove themselves again. Already a very few fighters were pieced together and being sent to guard the capital. If this worked, the air force would strike a blow against the American Navy as their shore-based batteries had.
Strapped to the bomb bay of the old bomber was one P-15 missile. The P-15 was a variant of the SS-N-2 Styx missile. It was not designed to be launched from a bomber, but the technicians had been able to jury rig the missile to ignite when launched and search for the American ships. The bomber’s own radar would help launch the missile in the right direction. In this case, there might be no need. Since an American attack on the naval facilities in Wonsan, an air and surface search radar was operating. The bombers were going to follow that signal and launch within 40 miles of the ships.