Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (58 page)

 
          
Roma
knew the senior controller and smiled at the “Oscar-Mike” challenge code—
OM
, or Old Man, was usually reserved as a
radio tribute to him. “Zero-One authenticates Charlie.”

 
          
“Loud
and clear, Zero-One.” They repeated the procedure with the other UHF radio,
with the secure UHF, and finally with the satellite teletype terminal.

 
          
The
next step: checking the weapons. With the weapons monitoring system off, Roma
checked each weapon station to be sure each weapon and each weapon release
circuit was indeed off. He then turned the system on and flipped through each
weapon station again, watching for green safe lights indicating each weapon was
safed and had passed its continuity and connectivity self-tests with the B-lBs
weapon computers. Checklist complete, he shut down the weapons-monitoring
system.

 
          
Next
he checked the PAL, or Permissive Action Link, the computer that would allow
him to prearm the weapons. He entered a test code and received a good safe and
ready indication. Once programmed with the correct prearming code transmitted
to the crew by the National Command Authority—the President of the United
States, along with the Secretary of Defense—the PAL would allow the crew to
prearm the nuclear weapons. The PAL would allow only five incorrect prearming
attempts, then automatically safe the weapons permanently. The PAL was mounted
on the forward instrument panel between the OSO and DSO, and Roma got his DSO’s
attention so he could visually double-check that the PAL was good. “Paul, PAL
check.”

 
          
The
DSO, Paul Wiegand, leaned over and checked the light indications on the PAL.
“safe and ready checks.”

 
          
“Push
to test,” Roma said, hitting the TEST button. All of the lights on the panel
illuminated, with the safe light flashing.

 
          
“Checks.”

 
          
“PAL
off,” Roma said, shutting off the system. “Arming switch lock lever safety
wire.”

 
          
Wiegand
looked over and saw that the safety wire to the mode switch lock lever was installed
and secure. “Secure,” he responded. Because the PAL was a nuclear weapon
component, protected just like a nuclear weapon itself, access to the PAL was
strictly two-person control—no fewer than two persons had to be present
whenever handling the PAL or any nuclear weapon or component. Additional safety
was added by providing a single, physical, positive action to any attempt to
prearm any nuclear weapon, such as breaking the thin steel safety wire off the
lock lever before moving the lock lever over so the arming switch could be
moved from safe to arm.

 
          
By
this time, the navigation gyros had fully aligned, and he set the mode switch
to nav. “Chris, I’m in nav, ready for engine start.”

 
          
“Defense
is ready for engine start.”

 
          
“Rog,”
the copilot replied. A few minutes later, the pilots started all four engines,
then began their electrical, hydraulic, fuel, environmental, flight control,
terrain-following computer, and autopilot checks, swept the wings back and
forward, and cycled the bomb doors and rotary launcher. One of the
flight-control computers flunked a mode check, so the crew chiefs were
scrambling to find a spare computer to swap. It took an hour and a half before
a spare was found, and another half hour to finish the checks and shut down the
engines. The crew then performed the “cocking” checklist, which configured all
switches and systems so the aircraft could be ready for taxi and takeoff just
minutes after hitting one button.

 
          
“Control,
Sortie Zero-One, code one, cocked on alert,” the copilot reported after the
crew finished their checklists.

 
          
“Zero-One,
control copies, cocked on alert. Assume normal alert, time
two-one-zero-eight-zero-seven, authentication Oscar. Control out.”

 
          
Roma
looked up the date-time group and checked the authentication code; it was
correct. “Authentication checks, crew,” Roma announced. The only response was
the interior lights switching off as the pilots turned off the battery switch,
and they were left in the dark. As the crew climbed out of the big bomber, motored
the entry hatch closed, and walked toward the squadron headquarters building,
Joe Roma thought that he was being left in the dark in more ways than one.

 
          
It
was after one-thirty in the morning, but Romas day was just beginning. The
Wings goal was to generate four of its twenty B-1B Lancer bombers and six of
its eighteen KC-135R Stratotanker aerial refueling tankers for nuclear alert
within the first twelve hours, ten bombers within thirty-six hours, and sixteen
planes within forty-eight hours. Crews that had just finished placing one plane
on alert were immediately cycled back to begin preflighting another plane while
its crews were being briefed. Roma was assigned the task of giving refresher
briefings to oncoming crews on nuclear weapon preflight and handling
procedures, and he also filled in giving route and target study and
inventorying the CMF, or Classified Mission Folder, boxes for the crews placing
aircraft on alert.

 
          
At
the twelve-hour point,
nine a.m.
local time, Roma was in the Wing Battle Staff
Room, attending the hourly battle staff meeting and the first major progress
briefing of the alert force generation. The news was not good: Sortie Zero-Four
was still at least thirty minutes to an hour from being ready, and it might
even require an engine swap or a completely new airplane. It was no secret that
the morale of the B-1B community was at an all-time low after flying hours were
cut and after learning that all of the B-ls would be going to the Air National
Guard or Air Force Reserves starting in October—crew members, officers, and
enlisted troops alike were spending more time looking for new assignments or
applying for Guard or Reserve slots.

 
          
“Aircrew
response has been marginal to good overall,” Roma said when asked about how the
aircrews were reacting to the recall and late- night generation. “About thirty
percent response in the first hour, seventy percent in three hours—not bad when
you consider the average commute time is forty minutes for the crew members
that live off-base, which is about two-thirds of the force.”

 
          
“Its
unacceptable,” the group commander interjected angrily. “The crews were dogging
it. ”

 
          
“I
don’t think anyone was dogging it, sir,” Roma said. “It’s Friday night. We just
finished a wing deployment exercise and an Air Battle Force exercise. People
were out of town for the weekend, going to graduation parties, getting ready
for summer vacation—this was a bolt-from- the-blue nuclear generation.”

 
          
“All
right, all right,” the wing commander interrupted. “The bottom line is we have
more crews than planes right now. What’s the problem?”

 
          
“The
training on the SlOP-required gear and availability of spare parts for the
number of planes required for alert, sir,” the chief of logistics interjected,
referring to the specialized equipment needed to generate a plane for war under
the Single Integrated Operations Plan. “We’re having to break into
prepositioned deployment packs for spare parts and equipment. Going from zero
planes available for nuclear generation to fifteen ready in just thirty-six
more hours is eating up our supplies and overloading the avionics shops.”

 
          
“Besides,
it’s been almost a year since we’ve moved nukes for real, sir,” the munitions
maintenance chief added. “We’ve got a whole generation of troops that only have
basic education and virtually no experience in special weapons.”

 
          
The
strain was showing on the wing commander’s face. “No excuses, dammit,” he said,
rubbing a hand over his weary face. “Our job around here is to generate planes
and get ready for combat operations, and I’ll shit-can anyone who doesn’t
understand that. How well we do on our generation schedule depends on the
leadership abilities of the men and women in this room. I want us back on
schedule before the next battle staff meeting—I hold the senior staff officers
and group commanders responsible. Cancel the intelligence briefing—we’ve got a
job to do out on the ramp. Dismissed.”

 
          
Things
had been somewhat disorganized during the first several hours of a the full
nighttime nuclear alert generation—that was situation- normal in any unit Roma
had ever been in—but by midmorning things appeared to be humming along pretty
well. By the time Roma returned to his office in the squadron building, his
entire staff—including everyone recalled from leave—was busy. Everyone had been
assigned an alert sortie. Most were not scheduled to start generating their
alert line for several hours, so they were busy running simulator sessions,
running mobility line duties, running errands for the Wing staff, or helping
the maintenance crews to bring a plane up to preload status.

 
          
Roma’s
E-mail mailbox had more than two dozen new messages in it in just the last
thirty minutes, so he turned on the TV in his office to get the latest news and
sat down to start reading and returning messages. The news seemed to be a
jumble of confusion, very much like the situation at Ellsworth Air Force Base
as five thousand men and women were trying to get twenty planes ready to fly
off and unleash nuclear devastation on the People’s Republic of
China
.

 
          
Little
else was known about the nuclear disaster in Japan except what had been
reported hours ago: the American aircraft carrier USS
Independence,
all eighty thousand tons of it, including
approximately 5,200 officers and enlisted men and women, had disappeared when
what eyewitnesses called a small nuclear explosion erupted in the late-morning
hours in the Gulf of Sagami, about sixty miles south of Tokyo.

 
          
Roma
couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

 
          
The
disastrous news didn’t stop there. Two escort frigates and a 50,000-ton
replenishment ship carrying 150,000 barrels of fuel oil cruising near the
carrier had capsized in the explosion, and all hands were feared lost—460 more
men and women presumed dead. Two guided- missile cruiser escorts had been
substantially damaged in the explosion, with hundreds more dead or injured.
Several other vessels, civilian and commercial, in the vicinity of the
explosion had also been lost. The force of the blast was estimated to be
equivalent to 10,000 tons of TNT.

 
          
The
Japanese prime minister, Kazumi Nagai, immediately blamed the accident on the
United States, saying that the
Independence
had been carrying nuclear weapons and that one of the warheads had gone off
when a C-2 Greyhound cargo aircraft made a crash landing. U.S. President Kevin
Martindale went on national radio and TV immediately, reporting the accident
and denying that the
Independence
or any
U.S.
warships near
Japan
were carrying nuclear weapons, but his
denials seemed to be falling on deaf ears throughout the world.

 
          
The
Japanese Diet, under heavy pressure by Nagai, immediately ordered all American
military bases in
Japan
sealed and all
U.S.
vessels, military or civilian military
contract, to remain in port until they could be inspected by Japanese nuclear
officials and Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers. Again,
Japan
was the site of a nuclear explosion, and
accusing eyes were on
America
.
South Korea
,
Singapore
,
Malaysia
,
Indonesia
,
Australia
, and
New Zealand
immediately followed
Japan
’s precautionary move—no
U.S.
warships or civilian ships contracted by
the
U.S.
military could enter their territorial waters, and they could not
leave, until they were inspected and certified that they carried no nuclear
weapons.