With that, he disappeared from the bridge and was soon climbing into his F-16.
In less than a minute, the jet fighter’s engine was hot and its missiles fully armed. Hunter gave the launch officer the thumbs-up sign, and in a flash of fire and a burst of steam the F-16 was catapulted off the deck. It seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Then Hunter booted it and instantly the jet throttled forward and soon disappeared over the northeastern horizon.
He was approaching the battle a minute later. It was a wild, confused scene, one that took him a few seconds to sort out. There was smoke and flames everywhere. White, streaky missile contrails crisscrossed the sky. Long streams of returning gunfire were coming from the many smaller boats of the Freedom Navy, but the direction of the fire looked to be almost horizontal. Gunners on the two Norwegian frigates on the scene — one of which was smoking heavily — appeared to be doing the same curious thing. At first, it looked as if the ships were firing at each other.
Then, as he drew closer, he saw what was happening. He had guessed right; the enemy aircraft were flying too low to be picked up on radar. But it was the kind of aircraft that startled him.
“Christ,” he whispered. “They’re seaplanes … ”
Then Peter’s words came back to him. The man had said the enemy would have “boats that fly.”
Hunter shook off a chill, then flew directly over the battle. He banked to the right to get a good look. There were two kinds of enemy aircraft that he could see. One type was a large, rather lumbering seaplane, the size of a small airliner. It looked like a bizarre variation of the US-made Albatross Air-Sea Rescue plane of the 1960s, yet it was bigger, with a longer snout and a long, thin, tube-like appendage protruding from its tail.
It took only a few moments for him to identify the strange seaplane: it was a Beriev M-12, a Soviet-built amphibian used years before for antisubmarine duty. But whoever was flying them now had made some major modifications. The original two Ivchenko A1-20D turbo-prop engines mounted on the over-the-top wing had been increased to four. Hunter knew the protrusions on the front and back of the airplane were for radar, but these airplanes were also bristling with literally dozens of gun ports and carrying many wing-launched missiles.
Their tactic was simple and easily recognizable. They would come in just a few feet above the water, passing between the target ships. Their on-board gunners would then blast away from both sides with guns ranging from .50-caliber machine guns to M-61 20mm cannons. Hunter even recognized the distinctive black puff of smoke characteristic of small howitzers.
Against these big flying boats, both the frigate and the Freedom Navy gunners were depressing their gun barrels as low as possible to shoot at the attackers. But many of the antiaircraft guns simply weren’t made to shoot at such a low angle. The enemy flyers had found a weakness and they were exploiting it.
“Ingenious,” Hunter muttered, grudgingly giving the attackers credit.
The other type of attacking aircraft was a small, swift, jet-powered seaplane — a type Hunter had never seen. These airplanes looked almost as if they were assembled from a kit of some sort. They were smaller than the smallest service-type jet, just barely fifteen feet in overall length. Their jet engine was fitted above the boat-like fuselage, sitting centered on the short, slightly sweptback wing. These fighters were also carrying missiles and cannons.
Working in tandem with the larger boats flying, the fighters too were operating at wave-top level, zipping in and out of the passages between their targets, pumping missiles and cannon shells into the Freedom Navy boats. All of the seaplanes, big and small, were painted in the same off-green ocean-camouflage color scheme, indicating an organized unit was in action. And they were performing a highly specialized, coordinated attack. Custom-made, it would seem, to stopping a large flotilla in its tracks.
Hunter was in amongst them in seconds, streaking down low between a frigate and an armed Freedom Navy trawler. A large, rather sluggish flying boat was making its way in the opposite direction when its pilot, obviously very surprised to see an F-16 coming right towards him, pulled up sharply. Hunter could hear the big plane’s engines scream as it sought altitude. In doing so, the pilot had exposed his undefended belly to Hunter. He promptly deposited a Sidewinder into its hind quarters — the missile’s heat-seeking system apparently finding something to its liking there.
The enemy airplane continued to climb for a few seconds after the missile exploded inside it, its gunners still diligently firing away at the frigate below them. Then — most likely — a fuel line ruptured, caught fire, and sparked some ammunition. The airplane was just 500 feet above the water when it disappeared in an enormous explosion, showering the ships below with a rain of fiery debris.
Hunter was already picking out his next target — one of the smaller sea fighters. A lone jet was zooming in on an armed Freedom Navy trawler that was desperately zigzagging to deny the attacker a clear shot. Hunter was on the fighter’s tail in seconds. A short squeeze of his nose-mounted 20mm cannon Six Pack proved more than enough. The sea fighter exploded instantly, pieces of flaming wood and metal bouncing off the F-16’s nose as it swept up and over the rescued trawler.
Hunter put the 16 on its ass and did a 360-degree loop. At once, he was on the tail of a large seaplane just as it was beginning its attack on a Freedom Navy converted workboat. All of the ship’s hands were on deck firing at the slow-moving airplane with everything from a shotgun and rifles to pistols. Yet the ship’s fairly sophisticated deck gun just couldn’t get a clear shot at the flying boat. The airplane’s gunners, meanwhile, were delivering a punishing barrage upon the workboat. The stream of fire coming from the starboard side of the airplane was incredible.
Hunter opened up the Six Pack once again, chopping off the big plane’s tail as well as its radar tube. The airplane immediately hit the water, bounced up once, then twice. Hunter stayed on its tail, lowering his flaps to slow the F-16 down. He pressed his cannon trigger again, catching the airplane coming up off its third bounce and ripping away one of its port engines. The Beriev bounced once more, then plunged nose first into the sea, sending up a fiery stream of water and steam.
Still, the attackers pressed the battle. While they were no match for his interceptor, their sheet numbers proved devastating to the Freedom Navy boats. There were at least twenty of the big flying boats passing in and out of the Liberte Marina flotilla, with just as many of the smaller jets. The Freedom Navy had already lost at least eight boats and several more were burning uncontrollably.
Hunter was glad to see two Harriers arrive on the scene. He briefly discussed the situation with the jump-jet pilots, then the three fighters went to work.
The Harriers proved especially nimble in fighting the big flying boats. They would hover at 150 feet above the water, waiting for one of the lumbering seaplanes to commit to making a pass. Then the Harrier would pounce, ripping apart the slow, large craft with withering bursts of cannon fire. The big Berievs thus occupied, Hunter chased down the smaller, swifter sea-jets.
The battle raged for several more minutes before the attackers finally broke off and retreated toward the north. Hunter had half a mind to chase them, but a more important job would be to get back to the carrier and report the attack. The Harriers remained on the scene of the battle, directing rescue efforts for those Freedom Navy men still alive and in the water. Before leaving the scene, Hunter counted four large seaplanes downed, as well as eight smaller jets. Still, as many as a dozen of the Commodore’s boats were either sunk or sinking. Hunter estimated as many as 100 Liberte Marina crewmen were killed.