“No way the Dutch are going to let us carry live ordnance over Woensdrecht,” Thunder said. “Besides, it’d shoot our fuel-flow right through the roof.”
“That’s why they have tankers, me lad. And that’s why we’re going to hit one after we come off target. Like for real.”
As they coasted in-between the Dutch islands of Voorne and Goeree south of Rotterdam Thunder switched on his radar, whose effective range for navigation was limited because of their low altitude. At forty miles the first traces of the Dutch coast started to paint on the scope.
“Damn,” Thunder said, “Ambler’s got us on course, on time.” He switched the radar back to standby.
Jack lifted his aircraft to one thousand feet as they flew up the Haring Vleit, one of Holland’s inland estuaries. “I wish the Dutch would let us get down in the weeds on this one. No real low-level into the IP, no ordnance, just overfly the target.”
Thunder grunted and turned the radar back on. He broke their Initial Point, the Dutch village of Akker, out of the ground clutter on his scope.
“IP two minutes, on time,” he said.
Jack concentrated on turning the IP exactly on time as he accelerated to 480 knots.
Each pair of Phantoms in the twelve aircraft cell overflew the IP at precise twenty-second intervals. Jack varied his heading slightly to separate from his wingman for a pop onto the target they had selected — the control tower — carrying his pop high to give Thunder a chance to check visually how the raid was developing. Thunder could see the smoke trails of the second cell splitting into two arms as it converged on the base from the south. “If they’re early, we’re dead.” This was turning out to be no milk run.
On the ground a Dutch officer noted the exact time each bird overflew its target. The first cell took exactly one minute and forty seconds to attack the base. Jack rejoined his wingman on the southern edge of the base as the second wave started their attack. By splitting into a pincer movement the inbound F-4s left an escape route up the middle for Jack’s cell.
Jack and Thunder twisted around, back and forth, as they tracked the inbound attackers flashing by them on both sides. “Hot damn,” Jack shouted. “We did it. Right on time.” Easing the throttles back, he decelerated to 420 knots and flew out the Wester Schelde, the waterway that led to Antwerp, then joined up with his flight and headed for a rendezvous with a tanker. He could hear Thunder humming. One hour twenty minutes after takeoff they recovered at Stonewood.
“What do you think?” Tom asked Waters as they watched the Phantoms taxi back in.
“Depends on what the crews think,” Waters said.
The crews crowded into the squadron’s main briefing room, exhilarated by how they had beat up the Dutch base. Then the phone call they were waiting for came — the Dutch officer reported that all twenty-four aircraft had made their times over target within five seconds. Jack was standing in the back of the briefing room, when Bull pounded him on the shoulder, congratulating him.
“Bull, as long as we made our TOTs it was pretty much a piece of cake. Why did the Old Man make such a big deal out of it?”
“Confidence builder, maybe. For you and Maintenance. Waters doesn’t want to waste any of you budding aerial assassins.” His shark grin was back in place. “But wait till the next one, buddy. You’re in for a surprise.”
The next day the 377th launched on their raid, determined to repeat the success of the 379th. After watching them launch, Waters and Gomez joined Bull by the 379th duty desk. The command post soon called with news that six Phantoms were ten minutes out, and a voice from down the hall sang out, “They can’t hack it.” The building echoed with jeers and catcalls.
“That’s probably C.J.,” Bull grinned. The major picked up the mike to the squadron’s PA system, “You mud movers, come on out of this den of iniquity and meet the latest addition to the wing.” The two colonels, Morgan and a puzzled 379th wandered out onto the concrete apron to await the latest arrivals.
“Who the hell is C.J.?” Jack asked Morgan as they stood waiting.
“Charles Justin Conlan,” Bull told him, “an absolute madman. And if you think he’s crazy, wait until you meet his bear.”
“This guy has a pet bear?”
“C.J. is bringing in six G-models for us from the States.”
“Oh… great.” Jack had forgotten for the moment that a wizzo in an F-4G was called a bear. “How did the old man get Wild Weasels? I thought they were all dedicated to NATO and that the big-boy F-16 wings wanted every one the Air Force owns to support them.”
“You’ll get your answers tomorrow,” Morgan told him as he started to pace back and forth.
In the distance Jack could see the telltale black exhaust trails of five Phantoms approach the base at twelve hundred feet. “I thought the regs called for radar approaches after a ferry mission,” he said. “That looks like an overhead recovery. What the hell sort of formation is that? There’s only five birds, where’s the sixth?”
Morgan shook his head, laughing at Jack’s questions. Overhead recoveries are flown out of an echelon formation and these five new birds were coming down final in a perfect vee-formation.
As they crossed the approach end of the runway, the tail-end Phantom on the left arm of the vee peeled off first, bleeding off airspeed and circling to land. At precise five-second intervals the F-4s broke formation in order, working up and around the vee.
It was when the last plane was on downwind that the sixth bird shot down the runway at twelve hundred feet and 600 knots. At mid-field the new pilot reefed the fighter into a climb, heading for the cloud deck above them. As he disappeared into the clouds a few of the sharper-eyed observers could have sworn the pilot aileron rolled the F-4G.
“I don’t believe that,” Jack muttered.
Morgan smiled. “C.J.’s calling the tower right now with the exact altitude of the cloud bases. Good information for them to know when the 377th recovers.”
Now the five Wild Weasels taxied in and lined up in front of the crowd. They did not shut down engines but waited until the sixth bird had landed and taxied into the lineup. On an unspoken signal they cut engines in unison, the front six canopies opened together, followed by the six rear canopies. The solo pilot almost leaped out of his bird, scrambling down the recessed footholds on the left side of the fuselage. Once on the ground he twisted off his helmet, revealing a bald head with a brown fringe of hair above his ears. Jack thought immediately of a Trappist monk as he studied the skinny, freckle-faced major. “That’s a fighter pilot?”
“C.J. is all of that,” Morgan said. “If that bothers you check out his bear.” Jack switched his attention to the man climbing out of the rear cockpit. “That’s Stan-the-Man Benton.” They watched as a young, pudgy version of Winston Churchill reached the ground and unzipped the breast pocket of his flight suit, actually pulling out a stogie to complete the image. “They say he’s close to being an alcoholic,” Morgan said. “Probably goes with the territory if you fly in C.J.’s pit.”
Waters had stood on the ramp during the recovery of the G models. As C.J. walked up to him the wing commander wondered how much he could let Conlan get away with before he’d have to jerk him back into line. Conlan was, after all, infamous for his high-spirited approach to air-defense suppression with the Wild Weasels. If it wasn’t for his airmanship and tactical abilities, he would have been court-martialed long ago.
C.J. saluted Waters, and with a fly-boy insouciance better suited to an old “Steve Cannon” comic strip, said, “I’m here, Colonel. You can start the war now.”
An eerie quiet descended on the base as fog muffled noise and gave a ghostlike quality to images flitting through the mist. Maintenance needed the break in flying to Anally bring the wing’s fleet of F-4s into top-hole condition.