Supersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (45 page)

The bombing had begun on the eighteenth, and Hanoi, once off-limits, was being pounded by waves of Navy and Air Force aircraft. At the first sound of the air-raid sirens, Tom took the ten-foot-long mahogany plank that had been thrust into the cell with him. They told him with hand gestures to prop it against the wall, in case a vagrant bomb hit the jail itself. It fitted at about a forty-five-degree angle between the two walls, and when the bombs came, he huddled under it.

He had heard American raids in the past, but they had been individual sorties, with the aircraft, usually a fighter, dropping its weapons and then departing. As he had been warned by tap code, tonight was different. It was evident that the entire Hanoi area was saturated with fighters—no doubt taking out the SAM sites and the anti-aircraft batteries. Then there came the long rumble of bombs that could only have come from B-52s.

In his mind’s eye Tom could see them flying in cells of three, dark, lethal looking, the crews inside intent on the mission, knowing that they would have to fly straight and level during the bomb drop, no matter if they saw the brightly burning rocket of a missile heading straight for them.

The key turned in the lock—Tom had not heard anyone coming, and his stomach flipped, it could only mean torture, they were going to punish him because of the Americans’ bombing. A tall Vietnamese officer, the same one who had questioned Tom for the newsreel, came in, followed by one of the nameless guards. They both scuttled under the mahogany plank, pressing against Tom. The officer said, “The Americans will never bomb Hao Lo. They know you are here.”

Somehow, they still considered him important. He looked with loathing at his tattered clothes, long nails, and dirty body and pulled himself up straight. He might be scruffy, but if they thought he was important, he was important.

SEVEN MILES ABOVE Vietnam, Steve O’Malley realized that he had not made the wisest of career moves eighteen months before. General Meyer, anxious to continue the “fighter-pilotization” of the Strategic Air Command, had persuaded him to shift from fighters to bombers, guaranteeing him an aircraft commander’s slot and the command of a squadron within a year. “Persuade” was a euphemism. Meyer had told him what he wanted O’Malley to do, and O’Malley had done it. Now he was flying in Maroon 1, a jet-black Boeing B-52D, part of Wave Three.

In his mind’s eye he visualized the flights of B-52s lumbering before and after him like multiple columns of Hannibal’s elephants. They were moving exactly on track, on this, the third night of Operation Linebacker II, President Nixon’s desperate effort to force the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating tables in Paris. So far, only two aircraft had been shot down out of more than three hundred sorties. If Linebacker II failed and the North Vietnamese continued their offensive into South Vietnam, as many as twenty-five thousand American servicemen would be taken prisoner. Worse, in the eyes of the State Department, the United States would have been dealt a naked military defeat, beaten by a tiny nation. And if they won, everyone knew there would be no release of prisoners of war; the North Vietnamese negotiations in Paris had made that quite clear.

O’Malley would have preferred to be flying his Phantom in another Operation Toro, mixing it up with North Vietnamese MiGs, but he knew how important this mission was. For a moment his mind drifted to Vance Shannon and his request for a relentless bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. Well, Vance was getting his wish now, on a scale even he had not envisaged. O’Malley said a quick Hail Mary, praying that Tom Shannon, imprisoned somewhere below, would not be injured.

Shifting in his seat, he cinched his parachute harness and gestured to his copilot, Chet Schmidt, to do the same. O’Malley was acutely aware of how flawed the U.S. planning was. The bombers were replicating the courses they had flown on the two previous nights, and he knew from long experience that the savvy North Vietnamese gunners and missile men would have the B-52s’ predicted track marked on their radar screens in crayon. All they would need would be the B-52s’ altitude, and the MiGs flying formation with the B-52s could provide that.
It’s a setup,
O’Malley thought—
and our own staff is the one setting us up.

Linebacker II was a massive effort, one that Americans could be proud of in the midst of an unpopular war. Fifty B-52s stationed at U Tapao RTAFB, Thailand, and another 150 stationed at Andersen Air Base on Guam were to carry the air war to the enemy without the foolish rules of engagement for the first time. President Nixon had recognized the emergency and finally lifted the barriers to the exercise of airpower in the Vietnam War.

The bombers were a mixture of the Big-Belly B-52Ds, capable of carrying up to 108 five-hundred-pound bombs, and the B-52Gs, which carried only 27 of the larger 750- or 1,000-pound bombs. To get the bombers to the target—a six-thousand-mile round-trip for the Andersen B-52s—required a massive effort involving multiple refuelings, a host of command and control aircraft, and the entire air-sea rescue force of the theater.

Planning Linebacker II had begun in August and was based on the firm belief that cells of B-52s, operating together, had enough electronic warfare equipment to jam the enemy air defenses, which were the strongest in the world, stronger than those surrounding Moscow. During the past seven years, Hanoi and Haiphong had built up a powerful integrated air defense system that combined surface-to-air missiles, tremendous anti-aircraft artillery, and numerous MiG fighters.

The MiGs were up tonight. O’Malley had done a double take when he looked out his window and saw a MiG flying formation on his left wing, no doubt reporting his course, airspeed, and altitude. The MiG peeled off but did not attack.

He had taken off from Andersen more than six hours before, call sign Maroon 2. Now he was turning over the initial point, ready to drive in on the target, the Gia Lam railroad yard, a huge facility that should have been destroyed long ago.

Even as he eased the B-52 precisely on course, he resented the fact that he was doing this in 1972, against heavy defenses, when it could have been done so easily in 1965. The same effort then would have spared the country seven years of war and more than fifty thousand deaths. Then things got busy.

Schmidt, his copilot, called, “Target is overcast.”

His transmission was broken by a call they all heard. “SAM Threat, SAM Threat, vicinity Hanoi.”

Gabe Rogers, the navigator, always acerbic, came on. “That’s hardly news; what the fuck does he expect?”

O’Malley looked ahead. “There’s some flak at our altitude, about ten miles away or so estimate, but it’s hell breaking loose below. Looks like lots of 57mm.”

The electronic warfare officer, Sam Greenberg, piped up, “They are really throwing the SAMs up. Looks intense.”

O’Malley mashed his intercom button. “Let’s cut the chatter; we’re on the bomb run now.”

John Rosene, the radar operator, said, “OK, pilot, I’ve got the target.”

O’Malley saw a huge explosion on the right. Had to be a SAM hitting a B-52 square in the bomb bay. Schmidt started to speak, but O’Malley waved his arm. No sense in getting the crew shook up on the bomb run.

Greenberg, his voice rising a notch, said, “I’ve got an uplink.”

He meant that his signals showed that a SAM had been fired, probably at them. O’Malley thought,
Pretty goddamn calm. Good man.

Schmidt said, “Got a SAM, visual,” then transmitted, “Maroon 1, got a visual SAM.”

Greenberg followed with, “Another one, four o’clock, coming at us.”

Rosene said, “Steady, skipper, one minute to go. Keep her steady.”

Every fiber in O’Malley’s body ached to pull the B-52 into a diving turn to outfox the SAM, but orders were orders—anyone who broke formation to avoid a SAM was going to be court-martialed, and this came straight from SAC headquarters.

Rosene called, “Bombs Away.”

O’Malley wheeled the B-52 in a steep turning, shrinking into his seat as he did so, knowing that the turn moved all their jamming antennae away from the radar sites below. They were most vulnerable in the turn, and the North Vietnamese proved it to them by exploding a SAM into the right wing, just between engines six and seven. The force of the explosion knocked the control wheel out of O’Malley’s hands for a moment.

“Schmidt, what does it look like out there?”

“Can’t see anything but flames, boss; we’d better get out of here.”

“Crew, stand by. I’m going to try to get a little closer to Laos before we bail out, but get ready to go when I call it.”

There was a dead silence as each crew member strapped his parachute tighter and hunched down in his seat, hands hovering near the ejection seat handles.

O’Malley saw another B-52 burning to the left, spiraling down. He flew the plane carefully, watching the instruments, being posted on the fire. Suddenly the controls let go, and he knew it was time to go.

“Eject, eject, eject.”

He fought the airplane, heard Greenberg’s seat go, then saw Schmidt leave in a burst of flame, followed by a gout of debris—maps, lunches, thermos bottles—spewing out the open hatch. O’Malley called “Gunner? Nav? Radar?”

There was no answer and no more time. He pulled his ejection seat handles, the hatch left, and he shot out into the blackness of the Laotian sky.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

February 10, 1973

Palos Verdes, California

J
ill was busy arranging the table, putting out not Korbel but Dom Perignon, for this was a real celebration that was the happiest in years. Word had come in two days before that Tom Shannon was in fact alive and well enough to be coming home in a few days. Steve O’Malley, back from his own adventures, was due there any moment, with a personal letter from General Meyer to Vance.

Everyone else—Nancy, Harry and Anna, Bob and Mae, the children, and inevitably nowadays, Warren Bowers—was already in the library, surrounding Vance and continuing to rejoice over the fact of Tom’s delivery from imprisonment. The news had an astounding effect upon Vance, seeming to take twenty years off his age. He was jubilant, a totally different man than he had been only a few weeks before when the news of the peace treaty ending American involvement in the Vietnam War had been announced on television by President Nixon on January 27. Bitter about Tom’s situation still being unknown, Vance had railed at the television set, denouncing Nixon for selling out the South Vietnamese but really hating him for selling out his son.

There followed almost two weeks of frustration and depression until Vance received word from Lieutenant Colonel Steve O’Malley that Tom was alive and, if not well, at least on the way to being well.

The doorbell rang and Harry sprinted to it, clasping O’Malley on the back and bringing him into the library to the cheers of the family. He walked right up to Vance, saluted, and said, “General Meyer wrote this out in his own hand. I don’t know what it says, but when he gave it to me, he told me to congratulate you on your son’s recovery, and that he felt that you deserved to know that the American air forces had performed brilliantly.”

Vance opened the letter with his ancient Swiss Army knife, apologized to the group, and read it silently, tears forming in his eyes. He put it down for a moment to collect himself, then read it aloud:

“It says: ‘Dear Mr. Shannon, my heartiest congratulations on the news that your son, Colonel Thomas Shannon, has been found in a North Vietnamese prison camp and will be repatriated as soon as possible. I understand that he has suffered much during his imprisonment, but is now in good spirits and looking forward, of course, to returning home to his family.

“‘I’m writing you today because I felt your many contributions to the strength of the air forces of the United States deserved special consideration, and because I well remember your visit to my office and your recommendation for the all-out use of airpower against the North Vietnamese.

“‘The Air Force, like all the services, is of course under direct civilian control, and as much as I was inclined to do so, I was unable to follow-up on your instructions. But as you know, the incursions of the North Vietnamese in the fall of 1972 forced the President to conduct Linebacker II, the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, and this effort forced the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table.

“‘I thought you would be interested to know that we executed Operation Linebacker II exactly as you would have wished—and exactly as my predecessor as a SAC commander, General Curtis E. LeMay, would have wished. The USAF made fifteen hundred and ten sorties from December 18 through December 29. Of these, seven hundred and twenty-nine were B-52 attacks on Hanoi and Haiphong. Another two hundred and seventy-seven sorties were flown by Naval and Marine aircraft. The enemy defenses were totally suppressed. By December 29 when the last raid was made, there was virtually no opposition. Although I could not say so officially, it is my belief that if we had persisted in the attack, we would have forced the North Vietnamese to surrender on our terms.

“‘Sadly, we lost fifteen B-52s and six other aircraft in the attacks. The loss rate, however, was very low, only slightly over one percent. We were prepared to accept a higher loss rate, if required, to achieve our objective, which was the total domination of the enemy airspace and breaking the enemy’s will to resist.

“‘I’m writing to you in gratitude for your son’s service, for his valiant resistance during his imprisonment, and also in gratitude for the manifold contributions you have made to airpower personally.

“‘With respect and admiration,

“‘John C. Meyer, General, USAF.’”

Vance’s voice shook slightly as he turned to O’Malley. “Steve, it was good of General Meyer to take time to write this, and good of you to bring it. I understand that you were shot down on the third day of the operation?”

“Yes, but we made it to Laos, and were picked up within a few hours. No one was badly injured—a couple of sprains, that’s all.”