narrowing waters of Long Island Sound. Billions of dollars’ worth of manicured property and people, all hoping against hope that central Long Island itself, around 15 miles wide, would bear the brunt of the tsunami.
But it was the northern seaport of New London that was causing the most concern in the state of Connecticut. This is one of the United States Navy’s great submarine bases, and home of the Electric Boat Company, which builds them. It is a traditional Navy town, and there had been ferocious activity since before the weekend, all along the jetties, preparing the big nuclear boats to make all speed south to the west coast of Florida. Unfinished ships were being towed 10 miles upriver — anywhere that might be beyond the reach of the tsunami after it hit the helpless north shore of Long Island Sound.
South of New York, the flat sweep of the Jersey shore, with its miles and miles of vacation homes, was defenseless. So was the entire eastern shore of Maryland, which was nothing but a flat coastal plain on both sides of the Chesapeake Estuary, with no elevation higher than 100 feet and nothing to stop the thunderous tidal wave but the flimsiest of outer islands, not much higher than sand bars beyond the long waters of Chincoteague Bay.
By Monday afternoon, the entire area was almost deserted, hundreds of cars still heading north, joined by another huge convoy from neighboring Delaware, which shared the same long shoreline and was equally defenseless.
South of Virginia, the coastal plain of North Carolina was, if anything, even more vulnerable than Maryland. The Tidewater area was flat, poorly drained, and marshy, meandering out to a chain of low barrier islands — the Outer Banks — separated from the mainland by lagoons and salt marshes. Out on the peninsula of Beaufort, Pamlico, and Cateret Counties, which lie between the two wide rivers the Neuse and the Pamlico, the issue was not whether the giant tsunami would hit and flood, but whether the little seaports would ever stick their heads above the Atlantic again.
Myrtle Beach Air Force Station, right on the coast of South Carolina, was playing a huge role in the evacuation of the coastal region, with a fleet of helicopters in the skies assisting the police with traffic. Hundreds of Air Force personnel were helping evacuate the beautiful city of Charleston, one of the most historic ports in the United States and home of Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began.
Right on the border lies the oldest city in Georgia, the port of Savannah. There were 10,000 troops assisting in the evacuation there, and no one even dared think about the wreckage of this perfect colonial city, so carefully preserved over the centuries, yet so unprotected from the ravages of the ocean.
Florida was, of course, another story, with its 400-mile-long east coast open to the Atlantic, largely devoid of hills and of mountains, all the way south to Miami, Fernandina Beach in the north, then Jacksonville Beach, Daytona and Cocoa Beach, Indian Harbor, Vero Beach, Hobe Sound, Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami.
Stretching out to the south were the low-lying resorts of the Florida Keys, all the way across the Everglades, right down to the yachtsmen’s paradise of Key West. Although every one of the Keys had borne the wrath of Atlantic hurricanes before, they hadn’t seen a tsunami since long before the Pharaohs ruled Egypt.
The East Coast of the U.S. was absolutely powerless in the face of such a threat. General Rashood had thought out and prepared his attack with immense skill, giving the U.S. population no option but to pack up and run, taking only what little they could carry.
Unless Adm. George Gillmore and his men could find that submarine.
12
Operation High Tide was one of the most complex and large cross-decking operations in recent memory. The
On paper, the preparations looked simple: to transfer fifty Sikorsky Seahawk helicopters from the deck of the
The new F-14D Tomcat fighter bombers were controlled by the fabled fliers of the VF-2 Bounty Hunters. Three large groups of F/A 18C Hornets were flown by the VMFA 323 Death Rattlers, the VFA-151 Vigilantes, and the VFA-137 Kestrels. In addition, there were the Prowlers and the Vikings, but these were parked carefully away from the main runways.
And then there were the mighty E-2C Group II Hawkeyes, the biggest and most expensive aircraft on any carrier. The early-warning radar and control aircraft, the quarterback of the squadron, first to get in the air, and always parked right below the island, wings folded, ready to head for the stern catapult. No U.S. carrier would leave port without at least three onboard.
Aside from the Prowlers, Vikings, and Hawkeyes, the rest were ready for takeoff from the rainswept deck of their longtime home — the 100,000-ton Nimitz-class carrier, the
Over on the just-arrived
Admiral Gillmore had left it to the carrier COs to carry out the aircraft exchange, and both Captains had decided on six at a time as the safest method, especially in this weather.
The helicopter maintenance crews were ferried across separately in a Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion assault and support helicopter, transported from Norfolk especially for this phase of the operation. The Sea Stallion was designed to carry thirty-eight Marines, but today, it was to move back and forth between the carriers, laden with spare parts for the Seahawks plus the Navy experts who knew how to fit them. They would also be ferrying the fixed-wing maintenance crews that were returning to the U.S. with the Tomcats and Hornets.
And now the Seahawks were ready. The
With six airborne, there was now an open deck for the first of the
The first Tomcat was in position at the head of the runway, the visual checks completed. Two minutes later, the light flicked to amber, and a crewman moved forwards to the catapult and attached it to the launch bar. The light turned green, Lt. Jack Snyder, the “shooter,” raised his right hand and pointed it directly at the pilot. Then he raised his left hand and pointed two fingers…
Then he extended his palm straight out…
Lieutenant Snyder, still staring directly at the cockpit, saluted, then bent his knees, extended two fingers on his left hand, then touched the deck. He gestured:
Engines howling, flat-out, it left a blast of hot air in its wake. And, as always, every heart on that deck, every heart in the island control centers, stopped dead. For just a couple of seconds, no one was breathing, as the Tomcat hurtled towards the bow, up the ramp, and out over the water, climbing away, dead ahead, ready to start its 25-mile circle to the flight deck of the
Five more times, the flight-deck crew of the
