“Mike, do you see the bridge underneath where I am? Over.” Preston asked.
“Roger, I have the bridge visual,” Mike Mallory replied from the Cargomaster, now over the area.
“I suggest that with your shorter landing distance, you go in on the southern side of the highway just before the bend to the bridge and get your guys out. I’m worried that there might be trouble under the bridge. The bend will cover you and then Lady Dandy can go in. Mike, Lady Dandy will need all the available space, and pilots, stay on the ground if it looks safe. I recommend you guys go in and clear the bridge first. Martie, you are back-up if need be.”
Mike went in while Preston flew off along the highway further to the west, searching for any vehicles moving along the highway. He heard the Cargomaster go in over the radio and then Lady Dandy landed and both aircraft stayed on the ground, saving fuel.
Ground fire erupted from under the bridge several seconds later, as Preston turned to fly back. It was only two guys with one vehicle, he heard over the radio, and the men on the ground soon had the situation secure with a machine gun taking out the enemy from an easy 400 yards. Martie hadn’t needed to get involved, but circled at 5,000 feet just in case.
Preston turned again and flew for another ten minutes, not seeing a single vehicle moving. He decided that 50 miles was far enough, and returned at low cruise to the two aircraft on the ground.
The men who had just gone in were already in a line across both highways and across the fences and into the woods on the southern side and working their way eastwards and towards the first attack area. Preston spoke into his radio.
“We have a line up and walking along both highways westwards of you and walking in your direction ground control. They cleared a bridge, found two injured guys and a broken vehicle. Over.”
“Roger that. We have a line up and will do the same, walking towards them,” came the reply. “We see a straight piece of road for about 100 yards and then it curves to the right. What is ahead of us? Over.”
“You have 100 yards before the road curves to the right for another 400 yards, then it curves to the left and the main attack was in the middle of this straight piece, which is about 1,800 yards long and full of smoking vehicles. By the time you get to this stretch, you should be able see our guys coming the other way. One of us will stay up here until you meet up. Then we need to… hold on. Martie, is that a tractor coming up to the highway bridge from Heflin?”
“Roger, he’s being stopped by our troops,” replied Martie, now lower and circling at 2,000 feet.
“He’s a farmer from the area, asking if he can help,” the troop leader reported over their radio.
“Get a situation report from him and ask him if he has any friends with aircraft in the area. They could fly into their local Air Force base and get supplies.
He also told Martie to go in and land and conserve fuel, but be ready for take-off.
For an hour, Preston flew over the two lines of men slowly converging on each other. The eastern group had just arrived on the final straight part when they got fired upon from the south side woods, a mile to the west of where the aircraft were waiting. He noticed three vehicles in the trees as far in as they could go, and he relayed a message to the ground troops. He pulled his P-38 away and went north at full power, climbing rapidly to 8,000 feet. Preston turned, fired several rounds with the cannon, and swept back into the area where he had seen the vehicles. He let go with the Hispano cannon a mile out and he watched as the large cannon rounds danced across the grass and into the area where the vehicles were hidden. A massive explosion rose up to meet him as he straightened out and radioed the guys on the ground to go in.
He watched as the line of Marines ran into the smoking area, began a firefight, and dispatched the last of the Chinese hit squads.
That was the end of Mr. Deng and his group. Preston flew around for another 15 minutes and saw that the second group of soldiers had already reached the site and searched for anybody alive in the carnage.
Just before he went in to land where the other three aircraft were waiting for him, he counted 43 stationary vehicles that he could see, and one under the bridge that made 44.
It was weird standing in the middle of a U.S. Interstate, with two World War II aircraft, a FedEx aircraft, and a DC-3 while chatting with a farmer sitting on a tractor older than the aircraft themselves. The farmer was about 70, born during the Second World War, and had been given the 1930s tractor by his father. It was the only thing left on his farm, which still worked, and he explained to Martie, Buck, Mike, and Preston that he could run his farm with it for the next century, or at least his sons could. Preston asked him about airports and military bases and the farmer told him that the closest Army base was Anniston Army Base due west. It had a lot of ammunition dumps and supplies. As far as airports, he thought the town with the same name would have the closest one.
Mike Mallory suggested to the farmer that he should drive over to the base and get food if need be, and Preston stated he would fly in to see what was going on there.
“Martie, why don’t you fly into Moody Air Force Base,” and he showed her on the map where it was, about 30 miles north of the Georgia-Florida border. “Tell them about General Allen and ‘Allen Key’ and see if they have anything flyable. If they do, tell them on behalf of General Allen to fly it up to Seymour Johnson. If they can’t refuel you, go straight into Robins Air Force Base in Macon, Georgia— it’s on your way home—and tell them the same thing. Hopefully they will give you fuel, but you should still have enough to get home. I’ll go into the Army base here and find out what the Army has in the area and try to get it moving up north.”
By this time, half of the ground troops were filing aboard the two aircraft and Mike and Buck took off to get the men back home. They would only have time for one more flight in and out during daylight and might have to get the last troops out the next morning.
Preston asked the farmer on the tractor if he could pull a few vehicles off the highway—three would be enough—so that anybody could land closer to the burned out wrecks on the other side of the bridge, and the farmer went about his mission with excitement.
An hour later Preston was sitting in the Army base commander’s office telling him the whole story. He had seen a straight piece of road inside the barracks. The 800 yards of two-lane tarmac road was clear, with no electrical wires, and he had gingerly put the P-38 down with several yards to spare on both sides.
The Army was pretty worried about an old aircraft landing in their private area, but it did have U.S. Air Force markings on it. For an hour, Preston told Colonel Peter Grady everything that had happened and that they were expecting an attack by the enemy in New York in about two weeks. The president was currently in North Carolina and was expected to start a food distribution program in a couple of days.
“What do you have that’s operational, Colonel,” Preston asked.
“We have 12 old transporters, and another ten loaned to the area’s National Guard that we can go and pick up,” he replied. “Apart from three old jeeps we use around here and a couple of fuel tankers from the 1980s, we have tried to start everything, and that’s all that works.”