Aloft in the lead F-8 was Commander John L. Bennett, skipper of Fighter Squadron 24. With three previous combat tours and a MiG-17 to his credit, Bennett was one of the most experienced fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy. At age thirty-eight he recognized that he was near the acme of his professional life. If fortunate, he might obtain one more flying tour as an air wing commander. After that, he did not want to think about it.
Bennett glanced at his fuel gauge, noting he had ample JP5 remaining. Engine rpm, fuel flow, tailpipe temperature all normal. Bennett's practiced scan took in his aircraft's vital signs in seconds and returned where it belonged-outside the cockpit. But he mused upon the events of the past few days.
Only days before Hancock's task force had reached the strait separating Indonesia from Malaysia, Malaysia's strife-ridden government had declared the Strait of Malacca as its own. Foreign vessels transiting the waterway would have to pay a fee or be subject to attack. Reports of pirate activity only enhanced the tense mood, but Bennett smiled to himself. He was known in the fighter community as "Pirate," his tactical callsign.
The rear admiral leading the task force had passed through the strait at high speed without requesting permission or paying tribute. Instead, he kept at least one four-plane division of fighters airborne with armed Skyhawk attack planes ready to launch. The passage had been uneventful.
Now, orbiting 150 miles from the ship, Bennett considered the prospects of a clash with other regimes. From 20,000 feet he could see the Gulf of Aden adjoining.Somalia, Ethiopia, and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. Soviet-built MiGs would come out for a look at the "Yankee air pirates"-there was that word again-and VF-24 was ready for them. It had been five years since Bennett had killed a MiG, but constant practice had kept him ready. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time he had tangled with MiGs from a desert airbase.
Bennett rolled his shoulders and strained forward against his Koch fittings, easing the strain. He recalled the secret projects in the Nevada desert, "Have Drill" and "Have Doughnut." The Israelis had captured all manner of Egyptian equipment when they occupied Sinai during the 1967 war. Aircraft, tanks, missiles, artillery, and communications gear had been scooped up and sent to America for evaluation. Nine MiG fighters-a mixture of Type 17, 19, and 21-had been included, with a large supply of spare parts. U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots flew them almost daily for three years, evaluating every nuance of performance. Bennett had participated in that program, and what he did not know about the enemy aircraft was not worth knowing.
The test facility was spartan: a 15,000-foot runway with a prefab hangar and a couple of fuel trucks. All flying was timed to avoid exposure to Soviet satellites that passed over twice a day, and Bennett surmised the runway was bulldozed with sand when not in use. But the flying was terrific. Phantoms, Crusaders, Skyhawks, and other U. S. aircraft tangled in no-holds-barred hassles with the MiGs, pilots often switching cockpits to better appreciate each type's strengths and weaknesses.
Bennett knew that any pilot in VF-24 would give a year's flight pay to tangle with a MiG of any nationality or origin, for the Checkertails-like the rest of Air Wing 21 and the U.S. Navy-now were warriors without a war. Bennett felt that after Vietnam, protracted conflict was to no advantage. Short wars were the best. Just look at the Israelis.
Tel Aviv's airport had never been so busy. By 14 October almost constant traffic flew in and out, resupplying the Israeli armed forces, whose stocks of weapons, ammunition, and fuel had been sorely depleted. This morning, however, General Baharov, the IAF technical intelligence chief, anxiously awaited the unloading of several crates from the belly of a U.S. Air Force C-141. The crates contained neither missiles nor spare parts, though God knew how badly the Heyl Ha'Avir needed both.
The general's aide, Major Ephraim Bachman, was accustomed to the man's eccentricities. After all, geniuses traditionally are accorded some latitude in that direction. But the gardener with the Ph.D. in electrical engineering was not personally supposed to supervise forklift drivers.
"Quickly, quickly. That's it… straight back. Good! Now, take it over to the shed." The teenager driving the forklift glanced at the air force major. They exchanged knowing shrugs and smiled at one another as the intel chief continued badgering the line crew. "No, no, not like that! Where did you learn to drive, anyway? Here, let me show you."
At length Bachman diplomatically pried his superior away from the Starlifter's ramp and thereby restored a modicum of order to the harried logistics personnel. Opening one of the crates, the major removed some of the stuffing to expose the contents.
He stepped back, smiling widely. "There it is, Schmuel." Probably in no other nation on earth did a major address a general by his first name.
The gray-haired officer leaned down, compressing his ample stomach against the green fatigue shirt he wore. He touched the electronic object with almost fatherly affection. "There you are. Just what we need, Ephraim. The ALQ-100. With this on our tactical aircraft we'll finally even the odds against the electronic threat."
The aide agreed. "I just hope there are enough of them." Schmuel Baharov seemed not to hear him. Preoccupied with the self-protection jammer that could mean survival for Israeli pilots, he rattled off a litany of characteristics that his aide already knew by heart. "Not only does this device cover the X and S bands, but the L band as well. And it even has a built-in chaff dispenser."
With capability of detecting and jamming both missile and gunlaying radars, the ALQ-100 offered multipurpose protection for a fighter-bomber operating against sophisticated electronically guided weapons. The chaff dispenser was an added bonus, either replacing or augmenting dispensers already affixed to Israeli combat aircraft. The U.S. Military Airlift Command was providing as many as could be flown from the East Coast to Israel, but the routes and times were lengthy. Not many Mediterranean nations were willing to allow their airspace or bases to be used for the purpose of assisting the Jewish state.
Abruptly the general straightened up. "Yes, we'll get enough. And I'll tell you why. We lost eighty aircraft in the first seven days of this war. We may end up with more jammers than airplanes."
Hancock was ready for a fight, but it had little to do with the ten-day-old Arab-Israeli war. Ordered to enter the Red Sea and steam northward to the near end of the Suez Canal, the U. S. task force anticipated problems with Palestinian forces on Bab el Mandeb, the former British possession at the mouth of the Red Sea. The strait measured only a few miles across, and artillery on the small island could engage any ship transiting the strait.
The United States informed Yemen that Hancock's task force would exercise its right of passage through international waters. Consequently, when the lead destroyer entered the waterway between Yemen and Djibouti, twenty bomb-laden Skyhawks and eight hungry Crusaders were overhead. The message was not lost on local hotheads; the passage was uneventful.
The airborne planes were recovered before Hancock herself entered the Red Sea, for flight operations would be difficult in the confined waters of that body. Instead, an all-pilots meeting was called in the wardroom, where the task force commander's staff was to present a contingency plan drafted in response to orders from Washington. Some eighty aviators squeezed into the wardroom, fidgeting and jockeying for space. Clanlike, they sat by squadrons behind their respective skippers.