Time. How much? And how much could the men take?
Jack sat in the briefing room watching Fairly study the plan he had laid out for the squadron commander.
“It’s ambitious, Jack, considering the way we performed at Stamford. How do you propose we train for it?” Fairly asked.
Jack was ready with his answer. He outlined a series of training missions in which flights of four Phantoms would practice low-level runs over the water onto targets in Scotland. The same flights would also practice lay-down and twenty-degree dive-bombing out of a pop maneuver on nearby gunnery ranges.
“How will you put it all together so we know they’re ready and won’t self-destruct?”
“We put a low-level mission together with a range mission,” Jack said. “The first attack is hot and that’s the only pass they get. They’ve got to be over the target plus or minus fifteen seconds.”
Fairly stood and folded the maps. “Let’s get over to wing and sell Bull. If we’re going to run the first raid, we’re going to have to beat the 377th.” The two men hurried out of the building and nearly skidded to a halt in Bull Morgan’s new office in wing headquarters. One of Muddy Waters’ first changes had been to pull Morgan out of the 379th and make him the wing’s weapons-and-tactics officer. Steve Farrell, the squadron commander of the 377th and three of his pilots and wizzos had beaten them to Morgan.
Morgan told them to come back in an hour. “You snooze, you lose,” he said.
That afternoon they were back, Jack explaining the 379th’s plan. When he was finished Morgan said, “Not bad for a virgin. Start taking notes.”
For the next thirty seconds Morgan shot a series of questions at the pilot. After taking two pages of notes. Jack looked up, hoping the major was finished. “When you’ve got the answers to those questions, come back. If you want to be the first to attack Woensdrecht, get your tail in gear. The 377th had got its act together.” Jack asked about the 377th’s plan. Morgan said, “There’s no freebies on this one, kiddo.”
Activity on the flight line and in the squadrons kept building for the next two weeks as the two squadrons pushed their crews through a series of missions. Maintenance had to keep up with the 377th’s and 379th’s demand that all of their Phantoms be ready every day. The 378th, the tortoise of the piece, slowly built momentum.
The 379th came alive, and lights in the squadron came on early in the morning for the first Go’s briefing. During the brief winter day the 379th tried to launch forty sorties. Maintenance protested, claiming they could not keep that many of each squadron’s twenty-four Phantoms operational. At sundown the last go would recover and peace would again settle over the quiet countryside. But activity on the flight line was already revving up as Maintenance readied the birds for the next day’s flying. The crews would return to the small briefing rooms in the squadron and rehash what had gone wrong on that day’s missions and what to do to fix it. Wives had no trouble finding their husbands when they didn’t come home. They just called the squadron.
Finally Jack and Fairly went back to Morgan’s office to convince the big man their squadron was ready. But again the 377th had beaten them to Morgan and they had to come back later. When they did get to Morgan, Jack was determined to sell the 377th. “Major, this is really a simple attack. It looks bad because we have two gaggles of F-4s approaching from opposite directions. Looks like a setup for the Keystone Kops. We don’t see it that way. It’s a highly efficient way to quickly get in and off a target. It is a matter of timing, and time over target is the critical element. In real life the frag patterns from the bombs would be a big concern. Woensdrecht is a big base so we’re using three thousand feet or twenty seconds for frag clearance between deliveries.”
“Convince me your crews can do it,” Morgan told him.
“We’ve run low levels to the ranges in the Wash. Every one of our crews hit their TOT within ten seconds.”
Morgan drummed the table with his fingers. “Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
“No offers, Major. This is our show all the way or someone else does it.”
Morgan grinned, allowed a grin, nodded. “You’ve got the mission. But I’ve got to fly as tail-end Charlie to evaluate the mission.” Morgan meant that as the last aircraft across the target he would be following the other aircraft and could tell if they had met their TOTs and not gotten lost on the low-level route. In combat it would be a very dangerous slot.
“You’re gonna have one pissed crew,” Jack said. “But you’ve got it.”
On the morning of the raid all of the 379th’s Phantoms stood ready on the ramp. Waters and Gomez had driven down the long line in the DO’s pickup.
“Impressive,” Gomez said. “Good for Maintenance. Fairly tells me this is all comm out. Let’s see if they can do it without talking on the radios.” Gomez turned the truck’s two UHF radios on.
A pickup sped down the line waving a yellow flag that signaled the crews to start engines. In rapid-fire sequence the Phantoms cranked while the crew chiefs hurried to disconnect power, button up panels and pull wheel chocks. A crew chief ran to the front of his bird and gave a thumbs-up. When each flight of four aircraft was ready, four rear canopies came down in unison, followed by the four front canopies. Each flight of four taxied to the takeoff end of the runway where quick-check crews from Maintenance ran around each plane giving it a final inspection, checking it for hydraulic leaks, tire cuts and panels that might have jiggled loose.
Fairly had selected a young crew, Broz and Ambler, to lead the mission. Jack objected, but Fairly overruled him. “I know you can do it, Jack. But you can’t lead every mission we fly. We’ve got to give some others a chance. And none of us is forever… ”
The first four Phantoms now taxied onto the runway, a green light from the tower flashed and Broz led the first two birds in a formation takeoff. Ten seconds later the second two took off while the next four taxied into position, awaiting a green light. Twenty seconds later two more rolled down the runway, repeating the sequence. In less than three minutes twenty-four Phantoms had taken the active and launched in total radio silence.
The two colonels sat in the pickup. The launch was okay. Now they had to wait.
The first cell of twelve aircraft were broken up into three flights of four as Ambler guided them on a low-level route over the North Sea at a leisurely 420 knots using two stopwatches and his compass for dead reckoning to back up his inertial navigation set. The four aircraft flew in pairs, two thousand feet apart, while the second flight of four followed Broz two miles in trail.
Jack was in the third flight two miles behind the second. Like Bull, he was flying as tail end Charlie. It fell to Broz and Ambler to make each checkpoint on time or the entire cell would have to abort their part of the attack. At each checkpoint Jack would lift his plane to three hundred feet and make a comm out-turn with his wingman onto a new heading for the next leg, slam the bird back down on the deck. Sweat poured from both men as they labored toward their target.