“Navigator here, Captain.”
“Gator can you get this ship in the harbor?”
There was only a slight pause. “Captain the harbor is deep all the way to the piers, but the entrance could be a little tricky. I’d prefer to have a pilot,” he said.
“So would I, but our guys are taking a pounding from a place just outside our range. If I can get in the harbor, we might just be able to hit it. Do you think you can get me in there?”
On the bridge, all eyes were on the Navigator as he looked at the chart. He made a measurement. Jones looked at the chart and scratched his head. “Captain, let’s go. I can get you in, but you’ll only have about 1,000 yards to play with.”
Hammond looked over at Admiral Thacke sitting next to him. “I can take care of business,” he said.
Thacke nodded. “Detach and proceed as desired. Kick some ass, Roger.”
Hammond pressed the button on the bitch box. “Give the course to the OOD. On the way in have sigs flash the harbor and get us some tugs to meet us. Then get the First Lieutenant and have his people ready to anchor. Got that?”
“Done, Captain,” said the Navigator. He turned to the bridge watch and the XO. “Friends, our captain has more balls than I have. You heard him.” He turned and alerted the navigation team. This was going to be hairy.
The XO took the deck and the conn, altering course and pointing the bow toward the harbor. Speed was increased to fifteen knots to expedite the maneuver. In ten minutes the ship slowed and rounded the concrete breakwater at the harbor entrance. Two large tugs met the ship and a pilot scrambled aboard. He ran to the bridge.
“You need pilot to go in harbor!” he almost shouted.
The XO glared at the man in the dark. “Sir, are you going to yell or help us in. I still have to get past one more breakwater before I get where I need to go and it’s just 4,000 yards ahead.”
“Where you going?”
“Right in the middle of the inner harbor. I intend to anchor here and I need to have your tugs keep us pointed in this direction,” he said pointing at the chart.
“Why there?” the pilot asked. Obviously he didn’t understand there was a war on.
“To get in range to shoot the enemy!” the XO almost yelled.
Behind them, the navigation team was calling out the ship’s position. At ten knots, they were almost there.
After blinking a moment the pilot looked over at the radar picture. “Steer 300,” he ordered. The XO relayed the order and the helmsman changed course slightly.
On the bow of the ship, Boats Patnaude had his guys knock all but the last chain stop loose. The crew set the brake and waited. The sound of distant gunfire was heard above the usual ship sounds they had grown accustomed to hearing. On the deck the XO could occasionally see the flash of a red light as the men attended to their duties. Things seemed to happen quickly now as the ship neared the last hurdle in the channel. A single concrete breakwater sat just at the closest point. They had been lucky that the usual small craft that used the harbor were no longer there. It could have been difficult at best.
“All engines ahead one third,” the XO ordered. His orders were relayed and repeated along with small course changes the pilot made as they finally entered the inner harbor. The ship eased the last few hundred yards to the point the XO wanted. “All engines back two thirds,” he ordered. Glancing up at the RPM indicators for the shafts, he saw that the shafts suddenly ceased their forward turns and began going in reverse. The pit log showed the ship coming to a stop. “Stand by the anchor.”
On the bow, the brake was released and a bos’n’s mate stood by to trip the latch on the stopper. The XO watched as the ship made just a slight amount of sternway. “All stop. Let go the anchor!” he shouted through the window. He watched as the big bos’n swung the sledge hammer, striking the latch and releasing the stopper. The heavy anchor dropped into the water and its chain began to rapidly clatter out of the chain locker, around the windless and through the hawse hole. Using a red flashlight the men watched for the painted links that told them how much chain had gone out. When the prescribed length was reached, the brake was applied and the chain stopped again. After another few fathoms had been released through the anchor windless everything stopped and the stoppers were reapplied.
By now the pilot had the two tugs at the rear of the ship ready to hold her in place. “Navigator, get an exact position and feed it down to the Captain,” the XO said.
In Strike, the CO received the position information and they determined the bearing and range to the artillery site. It was twenty-three miles away. Hammond looked over at the Operations officer. “Ops lets see if we can hit it a few times,” he said. The bearing and range information was passed to Main Battery Plot. In less than a minute the guns elevated nearly to their full forty-five degrees.
On deck, Boats Patnaude saw the guns rise. “You cocksuckers better cover your ears, we’re shootin’,” he yelled. The men pulled on their “Mickey Mouse” ear protection — large ear cups that effectively deadened the sound. The men wore ear plugs at the same time. Upon the Captain’s order the guns fired once again.
The concussion from the guns actually broke glass in the buildings surrounding the waterfront. The men on deck could clearly be seen in the flash of flame as the guns recoiled. The loading sequence was immediately started and the guns fired again. Boats kept an eye on the anchor chain and watched it slowly pull toward the direction of fire. On the bridge, the pilot and XO watched the gyro compass and had the tugs keep the stern from swinging around. A third salvo left the guns.
Twenty-three miles away the North Korean artillery commander thought he had placed his equipment far enough away to prevent them from being hit. His father told him about the times he fought in the first conflict, and only one kind of ship could shoot that far. He remembered something about the big ships being able to shoot twenty miles, but those ships weren’t around anymore. Well, at least they weren’t getting bombed, although he faintly heard the sound of something flying around up there.
He ordered his men to shift fire to another hot spot when he heard the sound of incoming shells. The first landed 100 yards away, sending dirt high into the air, covering his men as they tried to load their weapons. The second salvo actually passed overhead landing in some trees. The trees acted as if they had been attacked by a buzz saw. Wood splinters sailed through the air cutting through men like shrapnel. All around him people screamed and writhed in agony as the jagged splinters ripped into them. Mercifully, the third salvo landed directly along the main line of guns. More would come, but he and his men didn’t hear them. His last thought was to wonder at the guns he saw being flung into the air.
Another act from the opening salvo of the war occurred along the former DMZ. After the Tomahawks eliminated the search and fire control radars along the coasts, two B-1 bombers entered Korean airspace and loitered near the tunnels. One was north of the DMZ, the second south. Upon initiation, the bombers dropped two Mk-84 bombs fitted with a GBU-15 electro-optical guidance system on each of four small tunnels. The bombers then made their way south while still receiving the images from each missile.
Upon opening their bomb bays, the aircraft presented a much bigger target, but no radar in the vicinity was turned on. It didn’t matter. The previous air raid had forced the tunnel crews to close their doors to protect them from blasts. Unfortunately, the Vietnam era Mk-84 bomb was a 2,000 pound weapon that could penetrate up to fifteen inches of steel. The one-half-inch thick plates on the doors would prevent bullets, but not this. Inside the bombers the infrared picture clearly outlined the cool steel doors from the warmer concrete and dirt. The electro-optical sensors homed in on the difference in temperature. Both struck within five feet of each other, penetrating the doors and then detonating their Tritonal high explosive a good ten feet under the surface of the road inside. The effect was catastrophic. The bombs opened a crater that was wider than the tunnel itself causing the sides of the tunnel for fifty feet to collapse. In addition, the blast along the tunnel ceiling fractured the rock above causing it to fall as well. The shockwaves traveled down the shaft, breaking down supports and the concrete shoring. In all over 100 yards of the weakly reinforced tunnels collapsed on both ends, crushing trucks and drivers at the ends of the tunnels while trapping those in the center.