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The starboard bow catapult fired, and the A-6A Intruder accelerated down the flight deck with roar that engulfed the aircraft carrier and reverberated over the night sea. The plane’s wings into the air, and the machine began to climb into the blackness. Fifteen seconds later, the bom was swallowed by the low-lying clouds.
In a few minutes, the climbing Intruder broke free of the clouds. The pilot, Lieutenant Jake Gratto ^ abandoned the instrument panel and contemplated the vaulted stars. A pale slice of moon illumina e the cloud layer below. “Look at the stars tonight, Morg.” . js
Lieutenant (junior grade) Morgan McPherson, the bombardier-navigator, sat on the pilot’s right, ^ face pressed against the black hood that shielded the radar screen from extraneous light. He straighten and glanced up at the sky. “Yeah,” he said, then readjusted the scope hood and resumed the nevea ending chore of optimizing the radar presentation. He examined the North Vietnamese coasting hundred miles away. “I’ve got an update. I’m cycling to the coast-in point.” He pushed a button on ^ computer, and the steering bug on the pilot’s visual display indicator (VDI) slipped a quarter-in sideways, giving the pilot steering information to the point on the coast where the Intruder would cr into North Vietnam. t0
Grafton turned the aircraft a few degrees to follow the steering command. “Did you ever stop think maybe you’re getting too wrapped up in your work?” he said. “That you’re in a rut? .
Morgan McPherson pushed himself back from the radar hood and looked at the stars over e “They’re still there, and we’re down here. Let’s check the ECM again.” -c
“The problem is that you’re just too romantic,” Grafton told him and reached for the countermeasures panel. Together they ran the equipment through the built-in tests that verified tna ECM was working. Two pairs of eyes observed each indicator light, and two pairs of ears hear ^
beep. The ECM gear detected enemy radar emissions and identified them for the crew. When the g
picked up radar signals it had been programmed to recognize as threatening, it would broadcast ^ images to the enemy operator. Satisfied all was working properly, the airmen adjusted the volume ECM audio so that it could be heard in their earphones yet would not drown out the intercom sy (ICS), over which they talked to each other, or the radio. njSt
The two men flew on without speaking, each listening to the periodic bass tones of the conY11radar search radars sweeping the night. Each type of radar had its own sound: a low beep was a searc probing the sky; higher pitched tones were fire control radars seeking to acquire a target; and a n e mare falsetto was a locked-on missile-control radar guiding its weapon. ^oUr
Fifty miles from the North Vietnamese coast, Jake Grafton lowered the nose of the Intrude degrees, and the A-6 began its long descent. When he had the aircraft trimmed, Jake tugged all the a from the harness straps securing him to his ejection seat, then exhaled and, like a cowboy tigMe saddle girth, pulled the straps as snugly as he could. That done, he asked for the combat che Leaving nothing to chance or memory, McPherson read each item off his kneeboard card an men checked the appropriate switch or knob. When they reached the last detail on the checklis > g(j shut off the aircraft’s exterior lights and turned the IFF to standby. The IFF, or “parrot, 1 f^eadiiy electronic energy that enabled a U. S. radar operator to see the aircraft as a coded blip he corn ^ identify as friend or foe. Grafton had no desire to appear as a blip, coded or uncoded, on a ^
Vietnamese radar screen. In fact, he hoped to escape detection by flying so near the grotind _____
radar return reflected from his plane would merge with the radar energy reflecting off the ear
“ground return.” OhFiveiS
The pilot keyed his radio mike. The voice scrambler beeped, then Jake spoke: “Devil Five strangling parrot. Coast-in in three minutes.” “Devil” was the A-6 squadron’s radio call stg £-2 “Roger, Five Oh Five,” responded the airborne controller circling in the Gulf of Tonkin m Hawkeye, a twin-engine turboprop with a radar dish mounted on top of the fuselage. The Haw also launched from the carrier. . if from ^
The Intruder was going on the hunt. Camouflaged by darkness and hidden by the earth itse . ^as electronic eyes of the enemy, Jake Grafton would fly as low as his skill and nerves allowed, w very low indeed. [1]
Proceeding8
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he pilot cast a last quick look at the distant stars. Flying at 450 knots, the bird plunged into the uds. Jake felt the adrenaline begin to pump. He watched the pressure altimeter unwind and shot the '0US ^ances at *be radar altimeter, which derived its information from a small radar in the belly of e P|ane that looked straight down and measured the distance to the ground or sea. He briefly wished he could turn it off because he knew its emissions could be detected, but he needed this device. The jj Ssure altimeter told him his height above sea level, but tonight he would have to know just how high r 'J!as above the earth. As he passed 5,000 feet, the radar altimeter began to function and matched the f ln8s of the pressure altimeter perfectly, just as it should over the sea. The pilot breathed deeply and r^ed himself to relax.
he below 2,000 feet, he eased the stick back and slowed the rate of descent. With his left hand
ovanced the throttles to a high-cruise power setting. The airspeed stabilized at 420 knots, Grafton’s w . ^ed speed for treetop flying. The A-6 handled very well at this speed, even with the drag and if th 3 ^oac* bombs. The machine would fly over enemy gunners too fast for them to track it even should be so lucky as to make out the dark spot fleeting across the night sky. b | e Grafton’s pulse pounded as he brought the plane down to 400 feet above the water. They were bet W c'ou<^s now> flying *n absolute darkness, not a glimmer of light visible in the emptiness Vj Ween sea and sky. Only the dimmed lights of the gauges, which were red so as not to impair the night trv'°n °^e crew, confirmed that there was a world beyond the cockpit. Jake peered into the blackness, nj , ^ to find the telltale ribbon of white sand that marked the Vietnamese coast on even the darkest SoS- Not yet, he told himself. He could feel the rivulets of sweat trickle down his face and neck, red 6 runn*ng into his eyes. He shook his head violently, not daring to take his stinging eyes from the ^aif aU^CS °n black panel in front of him for more than a second. The sea was just below, invisible, *n§ to swallow the pilot who failed for a few seconds to notice a sink rate.
The Cre’t0 t*le ^ • • • the beach. The pale sand caught his eye. Relax. . . . Relax, and concentrate. Triteness flashed beneath them, oast-in,” Jake told the bombardier.
mi. Person used his left hand to activate the stop-clock on the instrument panel and keyed his radio e with his left foot. ‘‘Devil Five Oh Five is feet dry. Devil Five Oh Five, feet dry.” sileriendly U. S. voice answered, ‘‘Five Oh Five, Black Eagle. Roger feet dry. Good hunting.” Then QraftCe‘ L^er, when Devil 505 returned to the coast, they would broadcast their “feet wet” call. se_ °n and McPherson knew that now they were on their own, because the Hawkeye’s radar could not j^rate the A-6’s image from the earth’s return without the aid of the IFF.
WeatLe Saw moonlight reflecting faintly off rice paddies, indicating a break in the overcast ahead. The flas. Cr forecasters were right for a change, he thought. Out of the comer of his eye the pilot saw , es- intermittent flashes in the darkness below.
. arms fire, Morg.”
the Jakey baby.” The bombardier never looked up from his radar scope. His left hand slewed
gre ^^Puter cross hairs across the scope while his right tuned the radar. “This computer is working j ’ but it’s a little . . .’’he muttered over the ICS. aPpafC l° *§nore fbe muzzle flashes. Every kid and rice farmer in North Vietnam had a rifle and SaW sPent the nights shooting randomly into the sky at the first rumble of jet engines. They never boor tar§ets but hoped somewhere in the sky a bullet and a U. S. warplane would meet. Big morale 1HU Jake thought. Lets every citizen feel he’s personally fighting back. Jake saw the stuttering dc0 1 e flashes of a submachine gun. But none of these small arms fired tracer bullets so the little p ets of death were everywhere, and nowhere.
the moonbght revealed breaks in the clouds ahead. The pilot descended to 300 feet and used
rather°0n^§bt to keep from flying into the ground. He was much more comfortable flying visually t° ^an on instruments. With an outside reference he could fly instinctively; on instruments he had
Qf/t a* ^
Hiotj l° r’§bt antiaircraft artillery opened fire. The tracers burned through the blackness in slow ^ n- The warble of a Firecan gun-control radar sounded for a second in his ears, then fell silent. picker^w °f artillery fire erupted ahead of them. “Christ, Morg,” he whispered to the bombardier. He a tear in the curtain of tracers, dipped a wing, and angled the jet through. McPherson didn’t look
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up from the scope. “You got the river bend yet?” Jake asked as the flak storm faded behind them- “Yep. Just got it. Three more minutes on this heading.” McPherson reached with his left hand an turned on the master armament switch. He checked the position of every switch on the armament patie one more time. The dozen 500-pound bombs were now ready to be released. “Your pickle is hot, told the pilot, referring to the red button on the stick grip which the pilot could press to release t
weapons. ... The
Again and again fiery streams of antiaircraft shells spewed forth like projectiles from a volcano. 1 stuff that came in the general direction of Devil 505 seemed to change course and turn behind them- a optical illusion created by the plane’s 700 feet-per-second speed. The pilot ignored the guns nre behind or abreast and concentrated on negotiating his way through the strings of tracers that erupte ahead. He no longer even noticed the flashes from rifles and machine guns, the sparks of this infe1710' A voice on the radio: “Devil Five Oh Eight is feet dry, feet dry.” ,g
There’s Cowboy, Jake thought. Cowboy was Lieutenant Commander Earl Parker, the pilot ox other A-6 bomber launched moments after them. Like Jake and McPherson, Cowboy and his bom a■ dier were now racing across the earth with a load of bombs destined for a target not worth any mat> life, or so Jake told himself as he weaved through the tracers, deeper and deeper into North Vietna “Two miles to the tumpoint,” the bombardier reminded him. j
An insane warble racked their ears. A red light labeled “MISSILE” flashed on the instrument paia^ two feet from the pilot’s face. This time McPherson did look up. The two men scanned the sky. 3 best chance to avoid the surface-to-air missile was to acquire it visually, then outmaneuver it- “There’s the SAM! Two o’clock!” Jake fought back the urge to urinate. Both men watched the w rocket exhaust while Grafton squeezed the chaff-release button on the right throttle with his forefmg Each push released a small plastic container into the slipstream where it disbursed a cloud of me 3 fibers—the chaff—that would echo radar energy and form a false target on the enemy operator s ra^e screen. The pilot carefully nudged the stick forward and dropped to 200 feet above the ground- jabbed the chaff button four more times in quick succession.
The missile light stopped flashing and the earphones fell silent as death itself. . „
“I think it’s stopped guiding,” McPherson said with relief evident in his voice. “Boy, we’re fun now,” he added dryly. Grafton said nothing. They were almost scraping the paddies. The boxn^ dier watched the missile streak by several thousand feet overhead at three times the speed of sound, he turned his attention to the radar. “Come hard left,” he told the pilot.
Jake dipped the left wing and eased back slightly on the stick. He let the plane climb to 300 fcet- moonlight bounced off the river below. “See the target yet?” 0p
“Just a second, man.” Silence. “Steady up.” Jake leveled the wings. “I’ve got the target. 1 ^
it. Stepping into attack.” The bombardier flipped a switch, and the computer calculated an a ^ solution. The word “ATTACK” lit up in red on the lower edge of the VDI, and the computer-m1^ display became more complex. Symbols appeared showing the time remaining until weapons re the relative position of the target, the drift angle, and the steering to the release point. se
Jake jammed the throttles forward to the stops and climbed to 500 feet. The Mark 82 general-Puh^eS bombs had to fall at least 500 feet for the fuses to arm properly; they were equipped with metal v ^ that would open when the weapons were released and retard them just long enough to allow the p 3 escape the bomb fragments. , . aIjd-
Tlie needle on the airspeed indicator quivered at 480 knots. The stick was alive in the pilot s.
Any small twitch made the machine leap. Jake’s attention was divided among the mechanics of1^ ment flying, the computer-driven steering symbol on the VDI, and the occasional streams of ye^ °eV,ery red tracers. He felt extraordinarily alive, in absolute control. He could see everything at once. rSofl needle, every gauge, every fireball in the night. With his peripheral vision, he even saw Me” turn on the track radar. pilot
“Ground lock.” The bombardier noted the indication on the track radar and reported it to th with an affectation of amazement. The damn track radar often failed. McPherson was glued to t e screen, his entire world the flickering green light. “Hot damn, we’re gonna get ’em.” t ng the He feels it too, Jake thought. With the track radar locked on the target the computer was get1 most accurate information possible on azimuth and elevation angle.
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Proceedings
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On this October night in 1972, Devil 505 closed on the target, a “suspected truck park,” jargon for Penciled triangle on a map where the unknown persons who picked the targets thought the North
'etnamese might have some trucks parked under the trees, away from the prying eyes of aerial 3 tiography. Trucks or no trucks, the target was only a place in the forest.
be bomb run was all that existed now for Jake Grafton. His life seemed compressed into this m°nient, without past or future. Everything depended on how well he flew Devil 505 to that precise P°jnt in space where the computer would release the bombs to fall upon the target.
1 he release marker on the VDI marched relentlessly toward the bottom of the display as the plane Ced in at 490 knots. At the instant the marker disappeared the 500-pound bombs were jettisoned from e bomb racks. Both men felt a series of jolts, a physical reminder that they had pulled a trigger. The ‘jck light was extinguished when the last weapon was released, and only then did Grafton bank left as 1^ ance outside. Tracers and muzzle flashes etched the night. “Look back,” he told the bombardier S, e ^w the aircraft through the turn.
Morgan McPherson looked over the pilot’s left shoulder in the direction of the target, obscured by a*xness. He saw the explosions of the bombs—white death flashes—twelve in two-thirds of a second. atce saw the detonations in his rear-view mirror and rolled out of the turn on an easterly heading. t, lth°ut the drag of the 500-pounders, the two engines pushed the fleeing warplane even faster through e, tight, now 500 knots, almost 600 miles per hour.
Arm up the Rockeyes, Morg.”
, be bombardier reset the armament switches that enabled the pilot to manually drop the four Rockeye uster bombs still hanging under the wings. “Your pickle is hot,” he told Grafton. He put his face back inst the scope hood and examined the terrain ahead.
Co Z3^011 kept the engines at full throttle as he scanned the darkness for an antiaircraft artillery piece he u*d destroy with the waiting Rockeyes. It would have to be fairly close to his track and firing off to ro*?, S'Ae so that he could approach it safely. He referred to this portion of the mission as “killing
att'esnakes ”
fj ufttewhere below a North Vietnamese peasant heard the swelling whine of jet engines approaching, aS. fa>ntly, then rapidly increasing in intensity. As the whine quickly rose to a crescendo, he lifted an , Clent bolt-action rifle to his shoulder, pointed it at a 45-degree angle into the night above, and pulled 6 tngger.
So
the kuAet punched a tiny hole in the lower forward comer of the canopy plexiglas on the right side of la P*ane. It penetrated Morgan McPherson’s oxygen mask, deflected off his jawbone, pierced the eip nX’ nicked a carotid artery, then exited his neck and spent itself against the side of the pilot’s jectl°n seat.
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