“November Bravo Bridge Ground Control to Air Cover. Thanks, guys! There are bodies piled up everywhere! We are closing off the bridge and starting our ground assault. Confirm that you know there are friendlies now on the bridge. Over.”
“Roger that, there are friendlies on the Bay Bridge!” stated the four pilots into their radios as they continued to pound US 1 with machine guns and rocket fire. There were large masses of enemy soldiers pinned down by ground fire and now sitting ducks from the air. Over the course of ten minutes, the four old World War II fighter aircraft threw everything they had at the last stretch of road before they had to go back to refuel and rearm.
“We are out, guys, let’s go and refuel,” Preston called to the three Mustangs, and for the first time he saw smoke coming out of his Mustang’s engine exhausts. He told the pilot he had damage and the pilot reported that his oil pressure was dropping and he would nurse her into McGuire. Preston put a mayday call out for assistance at McGuire and they escorted the damaged aircraft back, interrupting the landing pattern of the larger 747 commercial aircraft that were immediately diverted to Andrews further south.
They could still hear the two busy gunship crews over the radios, blasting the enemy forces outside JFK until the gunships were called into Newark to help on a side road teeming with Chinese troops— over 1,000 of them— who were heading into the completely burned out harbor area where Mike Mallory and his crew had spent their first couple of days.
Preston’s Mustang, with its engine now silent, flew in and landed safely on the runway, followed by one fire truck that looked like something out of a 1930s movie. Preston was sure it had somebody ringing its bell.
They followed it in, landed on a second runway, and taxied up to the fuel tankers where Air Force technicians were waiting to supply the aircraft. It would take 30 minutes to get them back into the air and they stayed in their aircraft listening to the battle on the ground.
Twice more that day they went up and fired at pockets of Chinese troops hiding in locations that were hard to get at by ground troops between the harbor and both airports. Most of the action was now centered in the Newark harbor area, and the battle had gone from mass termination to pockets of troops firing at each other, and hundreds of snipers on the roofs taking out the enemy when they saw them. By the time the three tired fighter pilots landed for the third time, the gunships were already down, the newly captured aircraft were gone and already on their way to Baghdad to pick up troops, and Preston wondered how many they had captured, and whether his Mustang’s engine was destroyed.
By nightfall, over 3,000 of the Chinese troops were being held in the terminals at the two airports, and the ten C-130s were taking out the wounded 60-100 stretchers at a time to McGuire where a hospital area in a large warehouse had been made available to process the wounded. There were now only pockets of Chinese troops in and around the harbor area, fighting against American Marines with night sights on their rifles. Since a new and final battle would commence the next day, the thousands of dead enemy bodies were checked for vital signs and satellite phones along the roads, and their numbers counted and hundreds of bodies left to freeze where they lay.
A post-battle meeting was scheduled for 22:00 hours that night at McGuire, and several tired commanders were flown in from the airports with the wounded to give their reports to a central command desk of personnel, who wrote down the events and losses on both sides. By 10:00 pm, the meeting had gathered at McGuire, the C-130s still bringing in wounded American soldiers and commanders who would report to the meeting and then return to move their troops closer in towards the harbor, kill any pockets as their circles tightened, and hopefully take up their new harbor positions by 3:00 am and get some sleep.
A tired and dirty group of over 50 Army, Air Force, and Marine commanders, the three airport commanders, and the dozens of pilots sat down in the 100 chairs set up for the meeting.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” stated a grubby and tired Colonel Patterson. “I believe that today has been a great victory for the forces and civilians of the United States and that we have won the first day. Thanks to a combined effort, we believe that very few enemy soldiers got through to the harbor area and they will certainly be found during our battle tomorrow. At Newark Airport, we managed to capture ten of the eleven aircraft, with one being destroyed by a fuel explosion. We lost a dozen good men on that aircraft as well as four ground crew members, two Chinese engineers, and two American engineers. At JFK, we somehow managed to lose control of three aircraft, all Airbuses. We believe that our squads of men were overwhelmed by troops stationed in certain aircraft as a precautionary measure by the enemy. The rest were overpowered. One lieutenant reported that there were a dozen enemy soldiers on the aircraft he had boarded. His troops killed all of them. They lost three men but managed to capture the aircraft and forced the pilots to land at Andrews. Several others reported that there were only pilots aboard, so either they were meant to be there, or we boarded them before all the troops had exited. Unfortunate, but with the loss of 54 brave men in total, of which seven were Air Force pilots, we managed to increase our growing fleet by sixteen usable aircraft, which are already halfway to Baghdad to pick up troops. By the way, we have the initial group of aircraft scheduled for arrival in Newark at 23:00 hours tonight—another 6,000 troops coming in to help with tomorrow’s battle. To recap, we lost one 747 at Newark and the only Airbus destroyed was fired on by our F-4s after the pilots refused to change course. The two other Airbuses following the lead aircraft quickly turned around. It was a total waste because the Chinese crew only had enough fuel for an hour’s flight time, but our pilots could see armed troops with guns at the heads of both the pilots in the Airbus cockpit. The onboard soldiers must have unfortunately overpowered our guys again. One 747, and a second Airbus 380, have damage from bullet holes through windows and through several of the cockpit flight controls, but they landed safely and are being checked out as we speak. If they can’t fly, we can at least use their working electronics in the dozens of dead 747-400s sitting around here in the United States. Thanks to you, our million troops overseas can be returned to the United States within three months now instead of eight.”
The colonel paused briefly for the applause from the crowd. “I believe that they have lost the ability to fly in more troops, which makes it easier for us from now on. As far as the ground battle is concerned, we got all their men out of the airports, which are safe again. We had our soldiers go in behind them and create havoc once the air cover had done their job. We believe that 12,000 troops landed in 21 aircraft. So far, we have 3,450 wounded and non-wounded enemy prisoners under guard in the two airports, and we are still flying in their wounded to our military hospital set ups here and at Andrews. We have not counted all the bodies since there are still hundreds around side roads and in alleyways, but a search is going on right now. Enemy deaths so far are close to 6,200. We have collected only seven satellite phones, and 103 backpack radios. The commanders believe that at least another 1,500 to 2,000 bodies are not yet counted, which means that we could have between 500 and 1,000 enemy troops wandering around our streets, and I’m sure several of them can communicate with each other. Hopefully they will all be accounted for by dawn.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our losses are substantial. At the airports, as I said, we lost 54 good Air Force men. Newark highways area lost 147 Army soldiers, Newark dock area lost 45 Marines, Van Wyck Expressway is short 41 Army soldiers and ten Marines, Nassau Expressway lost 59 Army soldiers, and the Belt Parkway lost 87 Marines. The total of American fatalities so far, is up to 443 with another 296 wounded, 17 critical. We have one aircraft with several rounds through its engine, which cannot be repaired before tomorrow’s battle. Twenty-four hours from now it should all be over.