The Colonels, page 46
part #4 of Brotherhood of War Series
He turned to his copilot, a tall, brown young man, dressed like Lt. Commander Eaglebury in a gray flight suit and a brown horsehide, fur-collared jacket. A patch, bearing gold-stamped naval aviator’s wings and the legend “HORNE, ALEXANDER W. LT., USN,” had been sewn to the jacket.
“Here we go, Franklin,” Eaglebury said, “into the mouth of death. Will you please advise our passengers?”
Bill Franklin spoke into another microphone, addressing the passenger compartment via the public address system.
“We just contacted the tower,” he said.
“Aircraft calling Davis-Monthan, say again,” Davis-Monthan’s tower replied.
It was not surprising that the Davis-Monthan tower was a little slow getting on the horn. It was after all a quarter after four on Christmas Eve. Little traffic was expected by the tower operators, who were to a man questioning the wisdom of a military career which saw them sitting in a glass box eighty feet above the ground on Christmas Eve—while regular people were gathered around Christmas trees, listening to Perry Como sing Christmas carols on the television.
“Davis-Monthan,” Lt. Commander Edward B. Eaglebury repeated, “Navy Eight Twenty, an R4D aircraft, ten miles south of your station for landing.”
As Commander Eaglebury spoke, CWO(2) Franklin jiggled the connection of his radio transmitter microphone in quick twisting motions. This served to introduce spurious electronic impulses into the circuit.
“Aircraft calling Davis-Monthan,” the tower operator said. “Your transmission is garbled. Say again. I say again, you are garbled.”
There were four passengers in the passenger compartment of the R4D. One of them—a very large, Slavic-appearing individual—was asleep and snoring loudly on a leather couch with which Navy Eight Twenty had been equipped for service as a VIP transport aircraft. He wore no insignia of rank on his flight suit, which had been dyed black; but he was a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant, and his name was Stefan Wojinski.
The other three passengers were field-grade officers. They were Lt. Col. Rudolph G. MacMillan, Deputy Commandant for Special Projects of the U.S. Army Special Warfare School, Fort Bragg, N.C.; Lt. Colonel Augustus Charles, Commanding Officer of the U.S. Army Signal Aviation Test and Support Activity, Fort Rucker, Ala.; and Major C. W. Lowell, Chief, Rocket Armed Helicopter Branch, Aircraft Test Division, U.S. Army Aviation Board, Fort Rucker, Ala.
Major Lowell and Colonel Charles were seated in leather chairs, so configured that when pressure was applied to the back of the seat, a foot rest unfolded from the base. Colonel MacMillan was sitting on a couch immediately across the cabin from the one on which M/Sgt Wojinski snored.
They were looking out the windows when the air base appeared in view.
Lt. Col. MacMillan, who had reconnoitered the objective three days before from a Beaver, was displeased with what he saw. He picked up a telephone which was actually an intercom device connected to a loudspeaker in the cabin.
“Do a 180,” he ordered, “and then come in from the south.”
“I am coming in from the south,” Lt. Commander Eaglebury objected.
“You’re not south enough,” MacMillan replied. “Try southwest.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir,” Lt. Commander Eaglebury replied.
The old, but well maintained ex-VIP transport began a slow turn toward the south.
M/Sgt Wojinski grumbled in his sleep, snorted, and then resumed his snoring.
Lt. Col. MacMillan picked up the telephone again.
“How steep can you bank one of these things?”
Lt. Commander Eaglebury demonstrated, standing the Gooney-bird on its right wing tip.
The remnants of the passengers’ and crew’s dinner (provided by Executive Aircraft Catering, Inc., of Love Field, Dallas, Texas—their Number Seven, “Deluxe Assortment of cold cuts, turkey, ham, roast beef, salami, cheeses, fresh fruits, and Beluga caviar, $15.95 per person”—which had been Major Lowell’s little Christmas gift to the expedition) slid off the table onto the floor.
In the rear of the cabin, two forty-pound, 24-volt nickel-cadmium aircraft batteries, equipped with a web harness for easy handling, slid from one side of the cabin to the other. And a moment later, at the low point of the incline, a Winchester Model 1897 12-gauge trench and riot gun, w/bayonet attachment, slid after the batteries.
The aircraft straightened up. The degree of bank and the rapidity with which the aircraft had reached it was impressive, but it was not precisely what Lt. Col. MacMillan had had in mind.
“Now do it the other way,” he ordered.
“The United States Navy strives to please,” Lt. Commander Eaglebury replied, and this time stood the Gooney-bird on its left wing tip.
In obedience to the immutable laws of physics M/Sgt Wojinski began to move the instant the effect of gravity overcame the friction which held his 230-pound body to the smooth leather of the couch.
A moment later, he landed on the floor and woke with a somewhat profane expression of surprise and annoyance.
The aircraft straightened up.
“Wojinski,” Lt. Col. MacMillan said, innocently. “We’re getting ready to land. Would you mind getting off the floor?”
Biting their lips, Colonel Charles and Major Lowell looked out the windows.
They were approaching the base again. There were literally thousands of aircraft parked on the desert: Davis-Monthan was the military service’s aviation graveyard. The year-round temperature and atmosphere of the base was such that virtually no deterioration to aircraft or their on-board equipment occurred. All the military services sent aircraft to Davis-Monthan for disposal: they were flown in and taxied for miles to a parking space; the engines were shut down, the batteries disconnected, and the fuel was drained; and then the aircraft were just left where they had stopped.
Some aircraft were kept more or less in a state of readiness, and “cannibalizing” then was forbidden. Other aircraft were stripped as needed of whatever parts were functional. Only when it became absolutely certain that no military service or other governmental agency would ever have use for them (the State Department, for example, often gave them to friendly foreign powers) were they scrapped.
The R4D flew over row after row of B-29 “Super Fortress” bombers, perhaps three hundred of them, parked in a group next to perhaps twice that number of twin-engined B-26s; then a hundred or more B-25s. Next came more modern bombers, then a vast array of piston-engined fighter planes, then obsolete jets, air force and navy. There were trainers, observation aircraft, everything in the post-War II military aircraft inventory that had either completed its useful life or was considered obsolete or surplus to needs.
And transports, which is what Lt. Col. MacMillan was looking for.
“I see them, Mac,” Eaglebury reported, his voice serious now. Mac reached for the intercom telephone.
“Put us right in the middle of the C-54s,” MacMillan ordered.
“I’ll do my best,” Eaglebury reported. And then he picked up the transmitter microphone.
“Davis-Monthan, Navy Eight Twenty.”
“Go ahead, Navy Eight Twenty.”
“Davis-Monthan, Navy Eight Twenty is apparently above your station, on a course of just about due north. I’m over a bunch of airplanes. Request landing instructions, please.”
“Navy Eight Twenty, we have you on radar,” the tower operator reported, somewhat tartly. “You are approximately three miles from the active.”
“Roger. Request winds and landing.”
“Navy Eight Twenty, what is the nature of your business at this station?”
“Require fuel and someone to look at my radios.”
“You are not on a ferry flight?”
“Negative, this is not, I say again, not, a ferry flight.”
“Navy Eight Twenty, this station is not open to transient aircraft without prior approval.”
“Davis, I can’t help that. I need gas and someone to look at my radios.”
“Navy Eight Twenty, are you declaring an emergency?”
“Davis, negative. I will wait until I run out of gas, and then I will declare an emergency. For Christ’s sake, it’s Christmas Eve.”
“Navy Eight Twenty, stand by.”
“Navy Eight Twenty advises I have thirty minutes’ fuel on board.”
“Stand by, Navy Eight Twenty.”
Eaglebury put his flaps and his wheels down, slowed the Gooney-bird as much as he could, and moved in a serpentine pattern over the field. MacMillan came to the cockpit and stood between the seats, while they decided what they would do when he got it on the ground.
“Navy Eight Twenty,” the radio called.
“Eight Twenty.”
“Navy Eight Twenty is cleared as number one to land on runway eight four. The winds are negligible. The altimeter is three zero zero zero.”
“Understand eight four,” Franklin said to his microphone as Eaglebury turned the aircraft.
“Navy Eight Twenty, suggest you land long,” the tower went on. “There is no Follow-Me available at this time. Take taxiway zero two right, which is at the extreme west end of the active.”
Franklin, Eaglebury, and MacMillan looked at each other and beamed. If there was no Follow-Me, it would be considerably easier for them to get lost. If there had been one, Contingency Plan B—which was both a royal pain in the ass and much riskier—would have had to have been put into play.
“Roger,” Eaglebury said to the microphone. He looked at Bill Franklin and made a twisting gesture with his fingers. Franklin nodded.
When Navy Eight Twenty reported turning on final, his transmission was garbled.
Navy Eight Twenty landed short, very short; and then, damned near standing the Gooney-bird on its nose, Eaglebury braked hard and turned onto taxiway two eight left. Taxiway two eight left was at the opposite end of the runway, which had been built to accommodate B-52 aircraft and was 3.2 miles long. It led in the opposite direction from taxiway zero two right.
Navy Eight Twenty proceeded down taxiway two eight left at a very high rate of speed, far in excess of good taxiing procedure.
It passed long lines of dead aircraft, Navy biplane trainers first, a flock of them giving way to some old air force Ryans, and then at least one hundred Beechcraft C-45 twin-engine navigation trainers.
“Navy Eight Twenty, we do not have you in sight. Are you on the ground?”
Lt. Commander Eaglebury made the twisting motion with his fingers, and then spoke to his microphone.
“Eight Twenty,” the tower responded, in disgust. “You’re garbled.”
Eaglebury made a cutting motion with his hand. Franklin stopped twisting the microphone connector.
“Davis-Monthan,” Lt. Commander Eaglebury said, “say again your last transmission, you are garbled.”
They were in the graveyard for transports now. There were at least a hundred Gooney-birds, either R4Ds or the air force version of the Douglas DC-3, the C-47.
Eaglebury taxied past them, then past a fleet of Lockheed Constellations, some of them long-range reconnaissance aircraft equipped with grotesque radar domes sprouting out of the top of the fuselage.
And then they were among the C-54s—known as the R6D in the navy and as the DC-4 by its manufacturer, Douglas, and by the airlines that had flown them immediately after World War II. The C-54 was essentially a bigger version of the DC-3/C-47/R4D. It had four engines instead of two. The fuselage was larger, longer, and wider. It sat on a tricycle gear, rather than main gear and a tail wheel. But there was no mistaking it for what it was, the Gooney-bird’s big brother.
“OK?” Eaglebury asked.
“Good enough,” MacMillan said, and turned and went back into the cabin.
Eaglebury let the Gooney-bird slow, and then braked it to a stop and killed the right engine.
Master Sergeant Wojinski lowered the stair-door. Then he easily picked up the two forty-pound aircraft batteries, one in each hand, and went down the steps. He began to trot, holding the heavy batteries away from his body so that, swinging, they would not hit him.
He trotted three rows deep into the parked C-54s and put the batteries behind the landing gear of one of them. Lt. Colonels Charles and MacMillan ran after him. Charles had a large avionic technician’s tool kit, a metal box two feet long and a foot high, cradled in his arms. Colonel MacMillan had a large cardboard carton holding several thermos bottles and jugs. Major Lowell was nearly hidden under the four down-filled sleeping bags he was carrying.
When Wojinski had dropped off the batteries, he ran back to the Gooney-bird. CWO(2) Franklin was sitting in the door.
“Remember where you left us, Franklin,” Wojinski said. “A guy could starve to death out here before anybody found him.”
Franklin handed him another cardboard box. Wojinski ran off between the parked aircraft and disappeared from sight.
Franklin leaned out the door, looking toward where Lt. Commander Eaglebury was staring out of the sliding window. He made a tugging gesture, like a train conductor ordering a commuter train into motion.
The running engine revved, and the Gooney-bird turned around and taxied a half mile down the taxiway back toward the runway. There it stopped. Franklin went down the stairs carrying the Winchester riot gun. He walked in front of the left wing, faced rear, and put one shell into the magazine. Then he worked the action, chambering the shell. Taking careful aim, he blew a hole in the Gooney-bird’s tire.
Then Lt. Commander Eaglebury got on the radio (which seemed to be working now) and informed the Davis-Monthan tower that not only did he seem to be lost, but he had blown a tire, and would somebody come help him?
(Four)
Operation Fearless had been born two weeks before on the 15th tee of the Fort Rucker golf course. Major Lowell had been invited to go a round with Lt. Col. Charles. At first Lowell had turned down the invitation; but Charles had insisted, and Lowell had concluded that Charles had something on his mind besides hitting a small white ball with a variety of steel and wood implements.
The problem was the AN/ARC-55 radio. AN stood for Army-Navy. ARC stood for Aircraft Radio Communications. The number 55 identified the model. The ARC-55 was a high-frequency, long-range, radio transmitter-receiver. The Gooney-birds were going to need such radios to fly to Nicaragua from Florida.
There were none in army stocks, because the army had no requirement for radios with a long-distance capability; and the navy had long ago declared the model obsolescent and transferred its stock of them to the air force. The air force was “regrettably unable to comply” with Lt. Col. Augustus Charles’s request for the interservice transfer of any AN/ARC-55 radios.
Both Lt. Col. Charles and Major Lowell were extraordinarily good golfers, and they played quickly. They talked about the ARC-55 problem only as they walked together down the fairways, never on the tees or greens, where only Sunday golfers profaned the noble sport by idle conversation.
By the 15th tee, however, Lt. Col. Charles had gone through his problems with finding the ARC-55.
“The air force is screwing us,” he said. “I know goddamned well they have ARC-55s in warehouses. But they want us to set up a large howl about not having any, whereupon they can ask what we want them for. And that opens a large can of worms.”
“Felter can get them for us,” Lowell said.
“I look at Felter as a too easily expendable asset,” Charles said. “I’d rather keep his clout in reserve until we really need it. And God knows, I don’t want to see him lose his job and have it taken over by those lunatics in the CIA.”
“I’ve got just about a blank check,” Lowell said. “Can we buy them?”
“I looked into that, too. Unless we go to the trouble of getting a special exemption for a classified project, we would have to put acquisition up for bids. That would take too long, for one thing. And for another, even if we had the time—and we don’t—to put it up for bids, that would give the air force a chance to ask what we wanted long-range aviation radios for.”
“You tell me. What do we do?”
“You ever been to Leavenworth?” Lt. Col. Charles asked.
“Fort Leavenworth, or the prison?”
“The prison.”
“When I was at Command and General Staff,” Lowell said, “they took us on a tour of the prison.”
“What did you think of it?”
There was a reason for the question, Lowell sensed, so he answered it.
“The prisoners live better than GIs,” he said.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Charles said. “I mean, going there wouldn’t be all that bad, if you got right down to it. Not that I plan to get caught, of course. Just thinking about the worst possible scenario.”
“Get caught doing what?”
“Stealing ARC-55s from the air force graveyard at Davis-Monthan,” Charles said.
“Have they got them out there?”
“All C-54s were equipped with them,” Charles said. “I’ll bet I could come back with a couple of dozen of them.”
“You couldn’t do it by yourself,” Lowell said.
“No. I figure it would take at least three people.”
“You got anybody in mind?”
“You can’t ask people to take a risk like that,” Charles said.
“Aside from you and me, I mean?”
“Funny,” Charles said. “I thought you just might volunteer.”
“Not only will I volunteer, but I have an ace in the hole who owes me a favor.”
“A professional thief, I hope?”
“Better than that, a Medal of Honor winner. They never get court-martialed. Think of the bad publicity.”
“MacMillan?”
“Why not? He’s going to use the damned radios.”
“OK,” Charles said. “I will not offer the comment that while Medal winners can commit murder and get away with it, their partners in crime go to jail just like ordinary people.”
“Colonel,” Lowell said, “why don’t we finish this round quickly, then repair to my home, where we can get down to some serious planning?”
