Beyond the obvious — the facts that this battle, like Midway, would probably be fought with the two fleets never coming within sight of one another, and that air power would be the dominant arm in the clash — there were few similarities. The Indians would be relying primarily on their airfields ashore to smash the American force. At Midway, American land-based aircraft had been largely ineffectual.
There was one important comparison, however, Vaughn realized. The lieutenant had said it: confusion. The Naval Academy’s teachings on Midway emphasized the fact that both sides had made plenty of mistakes, usually because of poor intelligence.
Victory had gone to the side that made the fewer mistakes.
“Admiral?” Captain Bersticer said, approaching. He handed a message-transmittal sheet to Vaughn. “This just in from the Jefferson.
They want to know if they should stand down from the preflighting for Mongoose.”
Vaughn scowled, reading the message. Jefferson’s crew had been working straight through the night readying the carrier’s Hornets and Intruders for the air strike against the Indian supply lines. With the carrier’s flight operations sharply curtailed by the damage to her forward catapults, space and equipment would be at a premium. To continue with the strike might cripple their ability to get all of the Tomcats aloft and keep them up.
Yes, it might be best to abort Mongoose completely. No one would blame him, least of all his peers in Washington. The defense of the carrier and her consorts came first … and by breaking down the bomb-laden F/A-18 Hornets and loading them with Sidewinders and Sparrows, he could increase the battle group’s air defense strength by two more squadrons.
The idea was tempting … Something made him hold back. “Negative,” he said, handing the message back to Bersticer. “They can concentrate on getting the Tomcats up, but let’s keep moving with Mongoose. I don’t want to give up on that yet.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He continued toying with the idea. What was familiar about rearming the F/A-18s? Why shouldn’t he …?
Then he remembered. Only moments earlier, he’d been thinking about Midway, and the part confusion had played in the battle that reversed the trend of Japanese victory in the Pacific.
Confusion. Orders to unload the bombs and ground-strike missiles from the Hornets and replace them with air-to-air missiles would create incredible confusion among flight crews already exhausted by working some twenty-four hours straight. By giving those orders, he would be begging for a catastrophic accident, like the one that crippled the Forrestal off the coast of Vietnam in 1977.
But there was more.
At the Battle of Midway, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese carrier force, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, had opened the battle by launching a bombing raid against the American naval base and airstrip on Midway Island. A second strike force of ninety-three aircraft was ready on the decks of his carriers, armed with torpedoes in case the American fleet appeared.
But the returning planes of the first strike force reported that damage to the island’s facilities was not as extensive as had been hoped.
Nagumo, unaware that the Americans were in the area, had ordered the second strike force to unload its torpedoes and rearm with incendiary and fragmentation bombs for another attack on the island.
Within the next thirty minutes, reports had come in locating the American fleet. Nagumo then issued new orders: rearm the strike force yet again with torpedoes to sink the American ships.
The flurry of orders and counterorders, reasonable at the time, had proved to be an appalling blunder. The Japanese strike was delayed long enough to be delayed again by the recovery and refueling of the first attack wave.
The American dive bombers that struck just after 1000 hours that morning could not have asked for better targets: four Japanese carriers loaded with refueling planes, with strike aircraft waiting to launch, with bombs and torpedoes carelessly stacked on the decks by ordnance crews too hurried to observe proper safety procedures. Nagumo lost three aircraft carriers within the next few hours, and a fourth the following day. It was a disaster from which the Imperial Japanese Navy never recovered and could easily be identified as the defeat that doomed Japan’s war in the Pacific.
There were lessons to be learned from history, Vaughn reflected. Not that history ever repeated itself exactly, but to try now, in the middle of an air assault, to rearm the Hornets with air-to-air weapons was inviting a disaster as great as that suffered by Nagumo at Midway.
Perhaps later there would be time to reassess the plan. Later, if the carrier battle group survived … For now, though, they would follow through with what they’d begun.
Tombstone watched as the mule driver herded his flat yellow vehicle clear of the catapult. Green-shirted hook-and-cat men completed attaching the catapult shuttle to the aircraft’s nose-gear as Tombstone and Hitman ran down the checklist.
“I’ve got a fault warning on the electrical system,” Tombstone said. The red light on his right side advisory display was an ominous warning that this particular aircraft had not flown in many months.
“Wait a sec,” Hitman said over the ICS. Tombstone could feel the slight shifting of the aircraft as Hitman moved around in the backseat. The fuzes for the plane’s electrical system were located on a board behind the RIO’s seat. Part of his preflight routine was to reach behind him and check each fuze by hand.
“Got it,” Hitman said.
Tombstone watched the advisory panel light go out, then worked the electrical main switch several times. If popping the fuze back did not correct the problem, they would have to signal to the deck crew to break down the aircraft.
The light remained off.
On the deck outside, the hook runner, satisfied with the setup, pumped his fist up and down, signaling to the Cat Officer to bring the aircraft under tension. Tombstone heard a metallic creak as the Tomcat took the strain. A green shirt held up the chalkboard with number 200’s launch weight: 62,000. That checked with the figure on Tombstone’s thigh board and he acknowledged with a thumbs-up signal. Somewhere below decks the catapult crew would be adjusting their controls to deliver the proper amount of steam pressure to Cat Four in order to launch thirty-one tons of aircraft.
An ordie walked up alongside the cockpit, holding aloft a bundle of wires, each with a red tag. Tombstone counted eight tags and nodded.
The F-14 was loaded with four Sparrow and four Sidewinder missiles.
Everything was ready. The light on the island had gone from red to amber. The jet-blast deflector came up astern, and Tombstone eased the throttle forward, feeling his high-tech steed tremble beneath him, aching to touch the sky. He took another look at the bridge. He could see men at the Pri-Fly windows, watching … and other figures, less distinct, forward at the carrier’s bridge.
“All set back there?” he called to Hitman.
“Set, Tombstone. All green.”
And the light on the island was green as well.
Tombstone saluted the Cat Officer, the signal that they were ready for launch. The Cat Officer took another look up and down the deck, checking his men, checking with the white-shirted Safety Officers who were in turn signaling readiness. The intimate dance of the carrier’s team of professionals continued. The Cat Officer dropped to his knee and touched the deck.
The 5-G acceleration slammed Tombstone into his seat as it always did, his Tomcat speeding down the deck, hitting 150 knots in less than three seconds. The island flashed past on his right, then the expanse of deck where damage control teams were working on the warped deck and broken cats.
“Two double-oh airborne,” the Air Boss said. There was a pause. “Luck, Stoney.” And Tombstone clawed for blue sky.
CHAPTER 22
