Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“What about the others?” Carter asked. “The south group got hit real bad, ” Kellerman summarized. “One of the B-2s and a B-52 from Castle got shot down…” “Our B-2? Cobb and McLanahan?”

“Cobb and McLanahan made it through OK. It was a Whiteman bird. One other 509th Black Knight from the north group aborted when they lost an engine; all the other planes from the north group made it. “The other five B-52s from the south group look like they took out that destroyer to their east and a few patrol boats, so they might make it through. There’s another destroyer battle group coming in from the west-that might be a problem when the strike package egresses to the south. No other reports: everyone else appears to be heading in on schedule. Kane on the EB-52 escorting the east number-two strike group got two Chinese fighters.”

“Search radar at eleven o’clock, ” Atkins reported. “Golfband search . . . Sea Eagle 3-D air-search radar, Luda-class destroyer. GCI signals, possibly more fighters coming in from the northwest.”

“That destroyer’s at forty miles, and he’s got five escorts with him, ” Kellerman added, checking her updated ISAR radar display. “We’ll be going in about sixty seconds ahead of the south B-52s. We’re within TACIT RAINBOW range, EW. Line em up and let’s get those suckers.” BANGOY STRAIT, NEAR DAVAO, MINDANAO, THE PHILIPPINES SAME TIME It was the largest assembly of Chinese warships since the Korean Conflict, all concentrated within ten miles of the city of Davao-and they were ready to begin their assault. The assault group was split into two groups, each led by a People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer. North of Samar International Airport in Bangoy Bay was the destroyer Dalian, with six patrol boats as escorts, in overall command of five ex-United States LST- I -class tank-landing ships, each with two hundred and fifty People’s Liberation Army Marines, ten light tanks, and twenty armored personnel carriers; and four Yukan- class landing ships, each with over four hundred Marines and one thousand tons of cargo and equipment. Each amphibious assault ship had several smaller landing craft that would each drop thirty Marine engineers ashore to clear wires or traps and soften up beach defenses; then the landing ships themselves would drive to shore, beach themselves, and disgorge their fighting men in massive waves. Helicopters from the Yukan-class ships would then begin to drop Marines and artillery pieces nearby, and the whole company would fan out across the countryside, secure the coastal inlands north of the airport, then drive south. The main attack force was four miles south of Davao, in Davao Gulf itself. Led by the destroyer Yinchuan, its amphibious assault force had ten LST-I-class tank-landing ships and eight Yukan-class landing ships, plus numerous smaller landing craft, minesweepers, and support ships. This group had the responsibility of securing the highlands west of Davao, encircling the city itself, and then linking up with the northern group to help secure the airport. By 0135 hours, two hours ahead of schedule, the two Ludaclass destroyers had moved to within eight miles of the landing area and opened up with their I 30-millimeter cannons, peppering the beach and treelines near the intended landing zones with one round every second per vessel. The rounds were of all different types-most were standard shells weighing fifty pounds and carrying eight pounds of high-explosives, but some were shells that carried infrared sensors that horned in on heat sources such as vehicles or machine gun nests, incendiary warheads that spattered napalm to set buildings or heavy brush afire, or bomblets that spread out over a wide area to increase the destruction of each shell. Helicopters with infrared spotting scopes were used to spot targets for some of the guns, but mostly the Chinese were content to bombard the area without regard to specific targets. The destroyer Yinchuan turned a few of its rounds on the area surrounding Samar International Airport, hoping to scatter some of the defenders that were certainly waiting for the Chinese to come ashore. After twenty minutes of continuous bombardment, the Chinese assault ships began launching wave after wave of small landing craft with Marine engineers and security guards to clear a way for the assault ships to beach themselves. The gunfire from the destroyers became much more selective, targeting and hitting a few large-caliber shore-gun emplacements to provide covering fire for the landing craft. While raking the shore with 37- and 25-millimeter gunfire, the landing craft dropped some frogmen overboard to search for water traps or mines, while the others went ashore to begin hunting for minefields and to suppress heavy gun emplacements on shore. Except for a few widely scattered mines, they encountered almost no resistance. It took the first waves of landing craft less than ten minutes to reach the beach. After twenty-five minutes of bombardment, each 1 30-millimeter gun on the destroyers had expended one-third of the rated life for its barrels, so the heavy shelling ceased and the search began for attacks against the landing craft. They found a few snipers and encountered light resistance from hit-and run grenade attacks, but the Chinese Marines sustained only a few casualties. “Sir, report from Rear Admiral Yanlai, ” Captain Sun Ji Guoming, the chief of staff for Admiral Yin Po L’un’s flag staff, said. “The amphibious assault has gone better than he expected. The first landing craft are ashore with few casualties; the second wave will land in a few minutes. No heavy resistance is being encountered from Samar’s forces.” A tremendous weight seemed to be lifted from Admiral Yin’s shoulders. Ever since Captain Sun and a few of his other advisers had recommended against Marine landing until the American Air Battle Force was dealt with, he had been worried that his decision to proceed with the assault was a bad one-now it seemed to be remarkably prescient. “Does Admiral Yanlai have any suggestions?”

“No, sir, ” Sun replied. “He is proceeding with the planned operation.”

“The plan supposed Samar’s usual stiff guerrilla resistance to the landing forces, ” Yin said. “Samar has obviously fled. It is time to step up the attack-with the American force nearby, it is essential. Order Admiral Yanlai to land the LSTs and troop-landing ships after the second wave of Marines ashore.” The flag staff turned toward Yin in complete shock, and Captain Sun could not help but blink at his commanding officer in surprise. “But. . . sir, in only two landing-craft waves, we have less than three hundred troops ashore, and most of those are lightly armed engineers and Marines. They don’t have the equipment or strength to conduct a thorough search and destroy operation. In daylight hours they can hardly proceed faster than a half-mile inland-at night they may be on the beach for hours, easily until daylight. They have not even begun to probe the area for resistance. It would be madn- I beg your pardon, sir, in my opinion it would be unwise to send in the large landing ships until we can be sure the area is free of resistance.” Captain Sun sustained Yin’s furious glare with uneasy fear. He had come very close to total insubordination by calling Yin’s order “madness, ” and only Sun’s long-standing relation ship with Yin, as well as the fact that they were in the middle of a war, prevented hiln from being dismissed right then and there. “As you were, Captain, ” Yin growled. “Our plans and normal operating procedures are based on the level of resistance and the greatest threat facing our forces. The resistance so far is low, and the threat from American bombers is very high. Those ships are vulnerable. The more men we can get off those ships and safely on land, the better. Order the landing ships ashore immediately.” By using a Mode Two interrogator, which broadcast a short, coded signal to other American aircraft in the area commanding the other aircraft’s beacons to emit a short identification signal in reply, Patrick McLanahan could discover where other aircraft in the strike force were located and display it on the God’s-eye view on his Super Multi Function Display-in turn, this would be transmitted to the EB-52C escorts in the other strike packages so they could update their situational displays. The data would also be transmitted via NIRTSat communications satellites to the Joint Task Force commander on Guam and to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. The Mode Two told a horrifying story-they had already lost one B-52 and one B-2, and they were still hundreds of miles from the Chinese amphibious assault force. McLanahan found his throat dry and his forehead hot and moist, and he found he could not control the slight trembling in his fingers-the trembling of real fear. He felt alone up here, and he felt as if every enemy vessel on that SMFD could see him and was waiting to kill him. After spending weeks with these men at the Strategic Warfare Center-swapping stories, techniques, and complaints; mission planning and debriefing until late at night at the 0-Club or at the Black Hills Saloon until being tossed out; and learning how to fight as a unit instead of as lone penetrators-it was as if a bit of his own soul had disappeared with each missing icon on that screen. They were dead, quickly and suddenly-and the toughest part of the mission was still ahead. The faces of the crew dogs that manned the missing bombers floated unbidden before his eyes, and burning drips of sweat that rolled into his eyes couldn’t blur those horrible images. Patrick had seen combat, had seen men close to him die, but this was harder than he ever imagined. All those faces, all those names-this morning they were all together, and now they were never coming back. Just like that… “What do you got, Patrick?” McLanahan shook himself out of reverie and focused his eyes past the ghostly faces he saw in the SMFD and concentrated again on the situation. The faces did not haunt himthey seemed to help him, seemed to encourage him to continue… “Patrick.. Patrick looked over at Cobb and nodded. “I’m all right, Henry…” Cobb had glanced at his partner briefly, waiting to see if he would get back into the fight, before resuming his usual stone-still stance. The faces had moved away from the SMFD-they felt as if they were looking over his shoulder now, marveling at the technology McLanahan commanded and waiting for him to continue the fight-and that made him feel much better. “We are twenty miles from the coastline near Kiaponga, ” Patrick said. “The B-52s behind us are joining up with Carter’s EB-52. There’s a destroyer battle group in the mouth of the Davao Gulf, and I think Carter and his B-52s from the south group are going after it. The number-two east strike group will follow-they’re all intact with all six B-52s.”