the approaching patrol boat himself through his binoculars. “Acknowledged,” he radioed back. “Report to briefed location.” He made sure the watch stander and machine gunner left their station, then went back into the bridge and said so all could hear, “Officer of the Deck, this is the watch, approaching Yemeni patrol vessel on the starboard stern, four hundred meters, closing at approximately twenty kilometers per hour.”
“I acknowledge, Watch,” the officer of the deck responded. He picked up the VHF radio assigned to the Yemeni navy’s harbor patrol frequency. “Port Patrol, Port Patrol, Port Patrol, this is the Wuxi on channel one-nine,” he said in English, “requesting information on approaching patrol vessel, say your intentions, over.”
There was a rather uncomfortable delay in the response; then: “ Wuxi, Wuxi, Wuxi, this is the Yemeni Navy Port Patrol on channel one-nine, say again, over.”
“I say again, Port Patrol, you have a patrol vessel approaching the Wuxi. Say intentions, over.” The officer of the deck then said, “Watch, where is that patrol boat now?”
The watch officer went back outside and spotted the Yemeni patrol boat again. “Still closing, perhaps two hundred meters away, one-five-zero-degree bearing.”
“Acknowledged,” the officer of the deck responded. He turned to the boatswain’s mate a few paces from him on the bridge. “Boats, verify that the aft decks are ready.”
“Yes, sir.” The boatswain’s mate made two telephone calls, then reported, “Stern decks are ready as briefed, sir.”
“Very well.”
At that moment he heard, “ Wuxi, this is Port Patrol Boat Three, I am inbound with the pilot for your departure. Many apologies for not contacting you sooner, sir. May we approach? Over.”
“Patrol Boat Three, this is the Wuxi,” the officer of the deck radioed, finally reciting his well-rehearsed speech, “please do not approach, I will request verification. Stand by, please.” The captain was observing the refueling and resupply and was not on the bridge, so he picked up another radio: “Captain, this is the officer of the deck.”
“Go ahead,” came the captain’s reply from his portable radio.
“The patrol boat is inbound to the ship.”
“Acknowledged,” the captain said. “Is everything else in place?”
“Affirmative.”
“Very well,” the captain said. “Continue. Let’s hope the old sow stays afloat long enough to get the rest of the crew off.”
“Acknowledged,” the officer of the deck responded. He switched his radio to a second channel and keyed the microphone several times.
“Bridge, Watch!” the watch officer suddenly shouted. “Inbound patrol vessel has increased speed, heading straight for us!”
“Captain, patrol boat has picked up speed and is heading for us!” the officer of the deck shouted into his radio.
“Repel, sound battle stations, sound collision!” the captain ordered. He and the ship’s chief boatswain’s mate, who was with the captain supervising the refueling and resupply, began to wave crewmembers away from the stern and off the helicopter landing platform.
“Sound battle stations, sound collision!” the officer of the deck shouted to the boatswain’s mate on the bridge. “Watch, repel all attackers, repeat, repel all attackers!”
The boatswain’s mate reached up on the overhead communications panel and hit two large red buttons, and the earsplitting sound of horns and bells seemed to rattle every surface of the warship. He then pulled the shipwide intercom microphone up and shouted, “All hands, battle stations, all hands, battle stations, all hands, collision, collision, collision, brace for impact, starboard side!”
The officer of the deck grabbed his life vest and helmet and rushed out to the starboard overhanging deck as damage control teams and backup duty personnel started rushing into the bridge. He followed the watch officer’s binoculars and spotted the incoming patrol boat just as the number four machine gunner opened fire. There was a helicopter with a load of supplies slung underneath still hovering over the landing pad. “Boats, wave off that chopper!” he shouted inside the bridge.
But it was too late. At that instant the Yemeni patrol boat slammed into the side of the Wuxi. At first it appeared to just bounce away, heeling sharply over to starboard and scraping along the side of the warship…
…but then the three thousand pounds of explosives packed inside the patrol boat detonated, and a massive fireball obscured the destroyer’s entire stern. The Wuxi seemed to jump ten feet straight out of the water before being shoved violently to port. As the vessel came down, the entire stern dove beneath the churning waves, then bobbed back up…until the flaming wreckage of the stricken resupply helicopter, instantly engulfed in flames from the fireball, slammed down into the landing platform. The Wuxi was pushed into the refueling dolphin, severing fuel lines that ignited and fed even more flaming devastation on the Chinese warship.
In seconds, the entire aft half of the vessel was afire. It began to take on water from the huge hole in its aft port side and sink by the stern. An area of almost a half square mile of burning oil surrounded the Wuxi, dooming any sailors who decided to abandon ship or who had been thrown into the harbor by the force of the explosions. Ammunition began cooking off, followed moments later by exploding antiship missiles and their warheads, which leveled entire sections of superstructure.
CHINESE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ZHENYUAN, 10 MILES OFF THE COAST OF YEMEN
THAT SAME TIME
“Sir, the frigate Wuxi has been hit,” the communications officer reported in a remarkably calm, almost nonchalant tone. “She is on fire and is sinking by the stern. We are not in contact with the captain.”
“Acknowledged,” the admiral in command of the Zhenyuan battle group replied. He turned to the carrier’s captain. “Sound battle stations, Captain.” As the horns and Klaxons blared, he then ordered, “Commence launch, Captain.”
On the Zhenyuan’s flight deck, two Jian Hong-37N fighter-bombers, already in place on the forward and waist catapults, lit their afterburners and blasted off into the late afternoon sky. Lined up behind them were six more JH- 37s, their wings bristling with bombs and missiles. Every ninety seconds, two more JH-37s were catapulted skyward. They did not climb high, but stayed less than five hundred feet above the Gulf of Aden, speeding northward.
The first two JH-37s were each loaded with four Ying Ji-91 antiradiation missiles, which were versions of the Russian Kh-31 air-to-surface missile. Capable of speeds well over three times the speed of sound, the missiles had been programmed to destroy particular radars protecting the area around the city of Aden. Missiles targeted the air-surveillance and height-finding radars at Aden International Airport, air-surveillance and marine radars at the naval base, the air defense radars also at the airport, and coastal surveillance radars east and west of the peninsula.
The second wave of fighter-bombers each carried four Kh-29T TV-guided missiles. They climbed a bit higher than the first wave, both because the air defense radars had already been neutralized and because they needed to get a better look at their targets before attacking. The JH-37 pilots flew precise attack courses and used time and preplanned acquisition waypoints that would guarantee they could spot their targets-air and coastal defense gun and missile sites. Once the sites were spotted, the pilots quickly locked each Kh-29 electro-optical sensor on target and released the missiles, which flew at almost the speed of sound and destroyed them in seconds.
Each of the JH-37Ns in the third and fourth waves carried just two weapons instead of four, but they were even more devastating than their brothers: KAB-1500KR guided two-thousand-pound armor-piercing bombs. They used low-light TV sensors in the nose to home in on the central telecommunications facility in the city, the TV and radio broadcasting center, and the Yemeni army and navy headquarters, allocating two of the massive bombs on each target to assure complete obliteration. Their armored structure allowed them to penetrate even hardened roofs with ease, and their fuses had been set to allow the weapons to penetrate a specific number of floors in each assigned target and then explode in precisely the floor they wanted, mostly in the power-distribution and data- storage rooms, control rooms, or subfloor command posts.
In minutes, the Yemeni civilian and military infrastructure in the city of Aden was rendered deaf, dumb, and blind, followed shortly thereafter by totally decimation.
