Soldier Up (25 page)

              Colonel March went on the hunt for Lieutenant Harris to get some of his men to help.  He found him sacked out getting some shut eye he had been up for almost two days.  Colonel March almost felt sorry for the man.  “Get up Lieutenant!” said the Colonel.

              The Lieutenant’s eyes blinked open looking at the Colonel, “Yes Sir?”

              “Lieutenant I’m sorry to wake you I know you need some rest but I need a couple squads to tear down the fences and move some cars.” The Colonel could see how tired he was and that he was thinking.

              The Lieutenant sat up and looked around the tent and saw several of the men chatting with each other at the far end, “Sergeant Wagner come here a moment please.”

              Sergeant Wagner looked over to the Lieutenant and Colonel he thought to himself what now?  He got up and moved to the Lieutenant, “Yes Sir?”

              “Sergeant you and Sergeant Holton take your squads and go with the Colonel here.” Lieutenant Harris said in the middle of a yawn.

              With that Colonel March thanked the Lieutenant and went with Sergeant Wagner to round up the rest of him men and Sergeant Wagner and his men.  It wasn’t hard, some were napping others were cleaning weapons or eating an MRE.  The Colonel explained to the men what he wanted he told them the sooner they were done the sooner they would be released back to the Lieutenant. 

              They went to work and it didn’t take any more than two hours to get the fence down and at the time they were moving the cars out-of-the-way, all said and done in three hours.  Once they were done the Colonel told them he didn’t really need them anymore.  They wanted to stay and see the plane take off, they were interested now.  Colonel March wasn’t going to stop them from hanging around and watching, and for all he knew he might have been a bit premature in releasing them.  Two of the Hiller men climbed back into the RAF NJ203 boat plane and into the cockpit.  They started the engines back up and a couple of people grabbed the blocks which would stop it from moving forward.  It was a sight to see the plane actually moving forward, slowly but moving forward nevertheless.  They moved it out to the road that ran straight to the water and lined it up.  One of the men moved down from the cockpit and opened the flight door, he waved Colonel March over, “You wanna go Colonel, it could be a one way trip. We have no idea what’s going to happen if we can get her in the air.”

              Colonel March had broad grin, “Yeah I want to come, I understand the consequences, let’s get going!” With that Colonel March climbed aboard. 

              The Colonel sat in the navigators seat in the cockpit what he saw down the road was not reassuring there looked to be all sorts of tree branches in the way, but the two pilots believed they could take off.  They revved the engines to get it moving forward faster and faster, they needed to gain speed, it took both men to hold her in the center of the road, throttling more to get more power, they didn’t have a lot of road left.  They were hitting tree branches but nothing serious yet, they could see the road running out, c’mon c’mon they were saying, they were about a hundred yards, pulling back on the wheel, both men struggling to get her in the air, then just as they thought all was lost the front wheels and pontoons lifted off. 

              Giving more power to the engines and pulling back the bird was gonna make it into the air they were going to do it, it lifted off, they turned to the right slowly bringing the plane up higher and leveling off, they banked again and were on their way to Alameda.  It wouldn’t be a long flight ten maybe fifteen minutes at the most and boy were those squids going to be surprised.  It also occurred to Colonel March that he hoped they would give him a ride home.

              After twelve minutes of flight time they flew right over the Hornet everyone on the fight deck of the carrier looked up and followed the plane wondering where the heck it had come from.  Alarms went on all over the ship they had no idea what the plane was going to do.  The plane banked one more time and came in low towards the boat causing more concerns by the crew then it all but disappeared to the crew on the flight deck. 

              The plane had touched down in the water and was heading toward the peer where it docked.  The Marines who were pulling security hurried towards up with weapons up and ready to engage.  Commander Elliot and several others hurried out and down the gangway at a run.  They arrived at the plane a couple of minutes after the Marines did.

              Then the boats flight door opened, the Marines readied for anything, Commander Elliot was holding his side arm and was ready to use it.  Then out of the door Colonel March stepped out, “Hi ya boys! How’s it hanging!”

              The Marines recognizing the Colonel lowered their weapons and chuckled turning away and heading back to their posts.  Commander Elliot was at a loss of words, “What the hell Colonel? You scared the shit out of everyone!”

              “What? I brought you a present, any chance you can give us a ride back to Oakland?” Colonel March was one happy Soldier and thought the entire thing pretty funny, Commander Elliot not so much.  Commander Elliot holstered his side arm while shaking his head, “Yeah I’ll give you a ride some place alright.” he responded.

              Colonel March climbed up onto the peer and shook the Commanders hand, “How are you Steve?” 

              “Pretty good Colonel what have you got there for me?”

              “Well it’s a Solent Flying Boat, since it flies and it’s a boat I thought it should belong to the Navy.” said Colonel March.

              “Thank you for thinking of us Colonel but you could have told me about it and I would have sent our own pilots to take a look at it and bring it over.”

              “What and miss the look on your face, it was priceless!”

              Commander Elliot was again at a loss for words and then shook his head.  Colonel March said, “So can you give us a lift back to Oakland or not? Should we start walking…”

              Commander Elliot looked at the Colonel and broke out laughing, “Yeah I’m sure we can hook you up for a ride back, do you need to leave now are can you stay for a bite?”

              Colonel March said that would be great he was starving and he’d love to see how everything was progressing on the carrier.  Colonel March, the two Hiller men and Commander Elliot head back aboard the Hornet; they had a hell of a story to tell.

For the time being they would have to use a part of the Oakland Airport for the airplanes they were taking from the museums.  They had secured a section of the airport that had workshops and hangers, they had the pumps working to get the avgas out of the underground storage containers. 

              All of the planes that could be used were moved or flown out of Hiller and the same held true with the Oakland Aviation museum too, granted not a far flight for them.  There were an assortment of planes but beggars couldn’t be choosers.  There were a lot more civilian type planes available to them then there were fighters.  They had close to sixty planes total and two thirds of them were old fighters they had gotten from various museums around the area not just the Hiller and Oakland.

              The Hiller men were busy working on the planes installing the guns then they had to be tested on a range which was part of the airport.  They were also conducting training classes for aircraft repair and machinists to make the parts they would need, it was a long road they were heading down.  They had no shortage of people wanting to help but they first had to have the aptitude to do it, a lot of them didn’t and were moved on to other things, perhaps a pilot.

              At this time only Air Force pilots were allowed to fly but there weren’t many of them.  At Camp Parks the Air Force had their Basic Training and it was for Officer and Enlisted, if they finished Basic the Officers then headed off to the small airport that the Seabees had built for Officer Candidate School, the ones selected for pilot training would then be trained on the Cessna’s and Pipers before being allowed to train on one of the fighters in Oakland, so far they had about an 80% dropout rate for the pilots in training, some people just weren’t meant to fly.

              There were some enlisted men and woman who already knew how to fly and they applied to the school.  Most of them were accepted into the program and preceded directly to AF OCS which wasn’t too hard for them since they knew how to fly already, the retention rate of these men and woman in the program so far was 100%.

              There had been a hundred-fifty Air Force Enlisted and Officers report to Camp Parks over the past year for the same reason the other services had.  They were sent out the Camp Parks airfield/airport that the Seabees had built months earlier from there they were assigned to the Basic Training or AIT units, if they had a specialty that could be used such as a mechanic or pilot they were kept around.  The AF Administration MOS’s were used in the very small AF HQ single story hut the Seabees have built for them, their Commanding Officer was one very Junior Sheila Baroon, she was responsible for the entire AF contingent.

              By the time they General Watkins ordered the securing by the Army and Marines of the Oakland airport Major Baroon had almost four-hundred and fifty people under her command.  Once they had secured she learned that the AF would be taking over the Oakland airport with all the planes civilian and fighters as well as the small airport on Camp Parks.  She saw and explosion in her command in a week’s time from one small airport, Basic Training, AIT to and now to include an airport with more planes with fighter aircraft.

              She was very apprehensive about taking this all on, she even confided in Colonel Clayton about whether or not he had the right person for the job.  He assured her that he had and the General had confidence in her ability to lead the AF.  She took it as the compliment it was meant to be and moved out with her new marching orders, she had no clue what to do.

              She was ordered to move the majority of her troops, except for a small detachment at the airport on Camp Roberts, out to Oakland airport.  The first piece of business she had was her and her XO Captain David Lind drove out to see exactly what they were taking on.  They found out to their relief that they were only responsible for about a quarter to two thirds of the airport but the General had really left it up to them.  While they were getting set up and ready to take over the new base she was told that the Army would continue to provide security, once she was up and running they would pull back and security would be up to the AF, this was something new.  Up to this point either the Army or Marines had provided security for them, but as the Colonel said it was time for the AF to put on its big boys pants and run with the dogs, whatever that meant.

              When they arrived the entire place was a mess, according to the Army a large gang had occupied the airport and when asked to leave nicely they said no, which the Army took as unfriendly and evicted them with all of the force they could.  In essence the Army killed them all except for the women and children.  The Army captured most of them and they were sent to a camp to see if they could be helped, if they didn’t want it they would be released with a warning, next time the Army won’t be so forgiving.

              She would get whatever help she needed to get the new AF Base set up, probably from the Seabees and the new Army Combat Engineer Battalion that had been created.   They looked around the entire day and actually came up with a plan, of sorts.  Within weeks she had it all worked out and the planes from the museums and Camp Parks began arriving.  She used parts of the airports terminals for housing the troops it was ideal because it also had stores, that had been for the most part looted, but they could use them for various offices and storage.  There was lots of light because of all of the windows, and at night they could run some generators or use lanterns.

              They would make do for now, as for airport security she asked Colonel Clayton to train about a hundred AF personnel to take over security, he was happy to help.  Those AF personnel became the new AF Security Teams which essentially were AF MOS’s which they had none of.  Colonel Clayton and the General were right she could do it she just needed to believe in herself a bit more.

              The new AF Base had been in operation now for about a month, there were certainly growing pains.  There were issues in the terminal with the plumbing obviously there was no way to flush the toilets and there was no running water, ok she hadn’t though it all the way through.  She had mechanics though who got the airports pumps going again all thanks to Radio Shack parts that hadn’t fried when the event happened. Of course that caused other problems about flow and where all that wasted was going too.  Colonel Clayton and his staff had already solved parts of those problems months ago back in Durbin.

              They were able to get some of the local sewage treatment plants up and running, not to full operations but enough to keep the sewage flowing and treated in certain areas.  The biggest challenge was the electricity once again.  They ended up using military generators which had EMP shielding but they could only be run for so many hours a day without overheating.  They found parts of all places at Radio Shack and other areas to place fried electronics and not all of the sewage generators as it turned out were fried.                The airport had working toilets in the mornings and evenings that was it, outside of that they had to use the outhouses.

              There were also breaches in security around the base perimeter, there’s always going to be a criminal element no matter where you go.  Even though the Army and Marines had viciously eliminated the gangs and militias in the area, there were still armed criminals looking for ways to take what you have.  One night a couple breached the perimeter fence they didn’t get far with an AF Security Sergeant stopped them.  Both of the men who breached the fence were armed and when the AF Security Sergeant tried to stop them they fired on him.  The Sergeant hit the ground quickly and was too afraid to fire back, they killed him.  They didn’t get to far away when an AF Security Tech Sergeant caught up with them; he had no problem in killing both men.

              The lesson learned by AF Security and Major Baroon is that not all people, to include military ones, have what it takes to kill someone or are able to control their fear and act regardless.  She ordered a major review of AF Security they had to make sure they could do the job everybody’s lives on base depended on them.  They created an amnesty program where any AF Security personnel could leave the MOS and not be penalized they would be found another job.  But if they turned it down now there would be consequences the next time they couldn’t take down an intruder.  It wasn’t just their job on the line, it was hers too, if General Watkins felt for any reason she couldn’t keep the base secure he would fire her.

              The new Air Force had one C-47 Skytrain which could cover 1600 miles it had been flown several times with no issues.  Having the plane offered several operational scenarios all which included reaching out to other military instillations.  General Watkins and his staff had been talking about it for some time when they found out they had a working C-47.  The closest major installation was Travis Air Force Base was only forty-six or so miles away; the flight would take about twenty to twenty-five minutes if that.  General Watkins gave his go ahead to execute the plan within the next twenty-four hours, no time like the present. 

              The plan was simple, it would be similar to the one they executed at Fort Irwin but a larger contingent would be jumping, it would be a single A-Team and a platoon from the 184
th
.  It would be an early morning, very early morning jump onto the airfield.  They wouldn’t be able to cover the entire area it was too large, they would be able to secure the tower and operations center.  They had been planning this for some time so everyone was ready to go first thing in the morning.

              The A-Team loaded up onto the C-47 loaded up quickly, the 184
th
on the other hand had procedures to follow, check and double check their chutes and equipment.  Once they were satisfied they loaded onto the plane, the A-Team was amused.  It was still dark and they would fly north east attempting to follow I-80 all the way up, the sun would be up in about ten minutes or least starting to come over the horizon. 

              This would be the first official operation out of the new Oakland Air Force Base, the plane taxied down the runway and launched itself into the sky.  They would be flying no higher than 1000 feet off the deck, when they were over Travis they would drop to 500 feet and the Soldiers would jump, it would be a very hard landing and they would be on the ground within moments.  Then the plane would climb back up to 1000 feet until they received word it was all clear to land.

              When they got about five minutes out from Travis four P-52 Mustangs intercepted them flying right up next to them, signaling for them to follow.  The question is, are the P-52’s armed or not? But they weren’t going to take a chance they were committed now.

              The Captain told everybody what was happening and be prepared for anything.  The A-Team went ahead lock and loaded their weapons.  They asked the Captain if they could still jump, he said he didn’t know what the P-52’s would do if they did.  They said they were ok with that if they were, the Captain responded it was their funeral.  The 184
th
paratroopers platoon leader declined to accompany the A-Team one of their missions was to protect the aircraft, it was the only one they had. 

              The A-Team Commander asked the pilot to slow their air speed a bit and they would jump.  The plane slowed some with nothing being done by the P-52’s, they then opened the door, still no reaction by the P-52’s.  Then the A-Team spilled out of the plane before the P-52’s had time to react then the Soldiers were gone.  The C-47’s altitude was at 900 feet the Soldiers were already on the ground; they closed the door on the aircraft and continued on under escort.  Ten minutes later they were on the ground as well, taxing up to the Travis AFB Terminal.

              AF Security was waiting for them, only about a half dozen armed men, no one from inside the C-47 made a move to come out, they all sat there waiting to see what would happen next.  Then there was a knocking at the aircraft door, everyone inside looked at each other, a Staff Sergeant Aron Hernandez of the 184
th
Airborne says, “I’m sorry there’s no one home!”

              The knocking the next time was more forceful, Staff Sergeant Hernandez responds, “We don’t want any girl scout cookies we have enough thank you!” Now everyone in the plane was laughing.  They could hear men laughing outside of the plane.  AF Security was looking at each other not sure what to make of it all, the man who had been knocking was Air Force Colonel Corey Maitland, the Commander of the Base; he was not a happy man.

              He knocked again, “This is Colonel Maitland I’m the base Commander!” he was yelling.

              Inside the plane it grew quiet, the door slowly opened and Captain Prey, the pilot of the plane and ranking Officer, an Air Force Officer.  The Colonel took a step back; he wasn’t expecting an AF Officer to step out of the plane.  Captain Prey stepped out, came to attention and saluted, the Colonel returned the salute, “What is the meaning of this Captain and where the hell did you come from?”

              “Sir I apologize for STAFF SERGEANT HERNANDEZ he was just joking around.” said Captain Prey.

              “Staff Sergeant Hernandez get your ass out here!” yelled the Colonel.

              Hernandez looked over at the Lieutenant who shook his head no, “We don’t report to him besides we’re in the Army,”

              Colonel Maitland walked over to the door and leaned into the plane, there was an M-4 pointed right at his head, “Don’t move Colonel.”