Ian Slater - World in Flames

As the Boeing 747, still 170 miles away, below the radar screen, approached the South Korean east coast, F-16s were leaving Taegu in the south to look for it, while in Seoul, the aides of Freeman’s hastily assembled advance staff waited anxiously for word of whether or not the 747 had made it — and if so, whether the general was still alive.

Shirer maintained total radio silence as he continued over the sea, beginning his climb off Yongdok to cross over the six-thousand-foot-high hump of the Taebaek range, then descending, still on three engines, over the western lowlands, out over Inchon, using up gasoline, fuel gauges showing a leak in the left wing tanks, the gas vaporizing, streaming along on the port-side fuselage.

Shirer wanted only enough kerosene left to land and was too careful a pilot to consider himself as good as home as he let the Boeing’s nose dip, then lift, as he approached Kimpo Field, the “foamed” airstrip rushing at him in the night like a long streak of shaving cream, neither ground control, Shirer, nor his copilot able to tell from visual flyover whether the landing wheels were fully extended, the warning lights blinking but erratic.

His handling was as perfect as a pilot could make it under the conditions, but not until after he heard the banshee scream of the engines as he applied the brakes — enough to control the skid in the fire-retardant foam — then shut the engines down, was he satisfied.

Freeman was the first man in the cockpit, wearing a broad grin. Shirer was slightly disappointed — the least the general could have done was to have been as scared as most everybody else on the plane.

“You said you missed combat flying, Major,” Freeman said. “Hell, I bet that’s the best damn sortie you’ve flown!”

Shirer smiled politely and felt the general’s firm congratulatory handshake for a job well done. “By God,” said the general, “I’m going to recommend you and your copilot for a decoration.”

Shirer knew immediately it was one of those moments that might never come again. “General… sir. May I make a request?”

“Shoot!”

“Well, sir, I know I’ve been seconded to fly Air Force One VIPs, but—”

“Permission denied, Major,” said Freeman, but without rancor, and as dispassionately as his gratitude for Shirer’s outstanding flying would allow. “You ordered those Tomcats to fire missiles when the enemy was barely in range. Why was that?”

There was a spurt of air traffic control talk from Kimpo tower and Shirer hit the squelch button, shrugging with professional nonchalance. “Thing to do, General. Figured they must be carrying drop tanks, given the return distance to Vladivostok, and before they’d go into action, they’d drop ‘em. Those tanks weigh you down a ton, General — reduce speed down to — well, like I say, I figured if we got away a few Sparrows at ‘em, they’d have to start maneuvering pretty damn quick, otherwise they’d be blown out of—”

“So you forced ‘em to drop the tanks?” cut in Freeman. “Dump a whole bunch of fuel — reduce their attack time to hell and gone.”

“Yes,” said Shirer matter-of-factly. “That was the idea. Why do you ask, sir?”

Freeman shook his head, but it was a gesture not of incredulity but of admiration. “Shirer, you realize how many 747 jockeys would have thought of that? And as fast as you did? Only a combat pilot — look, I’ll give it to you plain and simple. I know you’re not as happy on board this airborne bunker as everyone here thinks you are, right?”

Shirer’s answer was tight with passion. “Sir, I wasn’t trained to run away from MiGs. My job — my whole reason for — sir, my job’s to splash ‘em. That’s what I’m paid for — not to—”

“You’re paid to do what you’re told. Request for retransfer to fighter command denied. If everything suddenly goes to hell in a handbasket and the president has to go up in his Taj Mahal, I can’t think of a better man to be driving it.”

Shirer’s jaw clenched. “Yes, sir.” Shirer saluted Freeman, who returned the salute and moved out of the cockpit, Colonel Norton standing outside by the first console with a goofy grin, in stunned wonder at his deliverance. He hadn’t stopped shaking but was looking about the plane as if seeing it for the first time, as if God had descended. Aides from Seoul HQ were now pouring into the aircraft. Suddenly Freeman turned back to look at Shirer, still strapped into the pilot’s seat, his shirt soaked with sweat. “Major?”

“Sir?” Shirer’s tone was militarily correct but bordering on “carrier sulk,” the kind of pretantrum dog-in-the-manger mope that carrier pilots went into when the deck boss, for whatever reason, grounded them.

“How long do you think it’ll take them to fix this bird up?”

“No idea, General,” said Shirer, indicating the copilot, who was in dreamland over the possibility of a decoration from the legendary Freeman. “Ah—” began the copilot, “ah, three to four days, sir — if we’re lucky. Maybe more. There’s the engine, leaking gas, wing patch—”

“All right,” said Freeman impatiently, holding up his hand to thwart the copilot’s apparently endless list, and looking back now at Shirer. “If we can get you a fighter, you can keep your hand in until this bird is ready.” Shirer’s face was transformed — a schoolboy flush.

“Now, just hold your horses,” Freeman warned him. “First I need to know—” He stopped. “Goddamn it, I’m the Supreme Commander Korea—” With that, he shouted above the bevy of aides. “Air Force liaison?”

“Me, sir. Richards.”

“Richards! Doug Richards! By God, I thought you were dead. Someone told me you got an assful of shrapnel up around Nampo.”

“Just half an assful, General.” Loud laughter filled the plane.

“Well, Richards, can we get a Tomcat, F-16—anything fast enough for this gentleman? And I don’t mean those ladies around Itaewon Barracks.”

“Think I can dig one up, sir — a plane, I mean.”

“Good. Because this man wants to shoot Communists. Doesn’t like the idea of being fired on without being able to fire back. Reasonable enough, seems to me. And by God, we can help him partway at least. Flew cover for us at Pyongyang!”

“In that case, I’ll guarantee it, sir,” said Richards. He called through the narrow passageway to Shirer. “See me after debriefing, Major.”

“Yes, sir!” said Shirer, even though Richards, a captain, was a full rank below him. Making their way out of the plane toward the gangway, Colonel Norton thought it prudent to remind the general that his impetuous ad hoc order to let Shirer get his hand back into fighters might not go down well with the Pentagon brass who’d had him transferred for Taj Mahal duty.

“Hell, Jim,” Freeman responded, “don’t be such an old woman. I know it’s a risk. Could lose him. But if we don’t let a man like that fight — he won’t get the shame of turning tail out of his system. I know exactly how he feels. It’s everything to a warrior. That was his job. His raison d’être. He gets a crack or two at those Commies over the Yalu the next few days— he’ll be back to his old self. Come back and drive this monster without resentment. Method in my madness, Jim.”

“The president,” said Norton, “has specifically ordered us not to antagonize the Chinese. I mean, that goes for our pilots as well as our men on the ground. We’re only supposed to push them back to the Manchurian border and that’s it. Not to go over the Yalu.”

“And let ‘em shoot at us with impunity from the other side?” said Freeman, shaking his head with incredulity. “No, Jim. Last time we tried pussyfooting around with those sons of bitches, we had our boys freezing to death all along the Yalu— facing Chinese regulars — thousands of the bastards — sitting across the river, and we couldn’t fire — by presidential decree. And our boys died — by the bushel. No, Jim—” He caught his breath in the icy blast that funneled its way up from the tarmac as they started down the steps. Freeman buttoned up his coat and saluted the assembled dignitaries below. “Don’t worry, Jim. It’ll be all right. We are going to launch air reconnaissance patrols in force across the Yalu. Purely reconnaissance, you understand. Course, if any Son of Heaven shows his ass, we’re gonna shoot it off. Jim, we’ve got to maintain the Yalu as a moat — if they get close to us…”He stopped as he saw the provisional president of South Korea, Rah, moving forward to greet him.