'The secondary strike, or divert some aircraft from the main one?' Lab Rat asked.
'The secondary strike ? hell, both. If we can put those aircraft out of commission, then we've accomplished our mission.'
Again, Lab Rat relayed my orders to the Tactical Action Officer. I heard the pilots acknowledge the change of mission over tactical, and sat back to watch the show.
The satellite picture was now almost totally obscured by smoke. The one small area we had been bombing was only about one twentieth of the large-screen display, and I was struck by how vast and vital the country was around it. This was such a small area, but if the mission went well, one with major tactical implications for the Vietnamese. It was, I hoped, truly a surgical strike.
The third J-TARPS camera was now over the scene, and the photo image showed billowing clouds of black smoke. Down at the bottom of the screen, one small ball of fire seemed to take on a mind of its own. It was moving, traveling slowly from left to right on the screen. I stared at it for a moment puzzled, not understanding what I was seeing.
Lab Rat choked off an exclamation. He turned away from the cameras for a moment, then looked up at his Photo Tech, his face pale. 'Screaming Alpha?' he asked.
The photo intel expert nodded. 'That would be my guess.'
I tried to ignore them, but my eyes were drawn back to that spot again and again. It had stopped moving now, settling down to look like any other fire spot on the ground.
A Class Alpha fire was one composed of combustible materials such as paper and wood. A Class B fire was fuel oil of some sort, Class C electrical, and Class D burning metal such as an aircraft on fire.
In the profane jargon of Damage Control, a Screaming Alpha was brutal shorthand for a human being on fire.
One of the advantages of fighting from the air instead of on the ground is distance from targets. Sure, you know that your bombs are hitting people, but you try not to think about it. It's like taking out an enemy aircraft ? the target is the aircraft, and the crew are merely incidental matters. You feel you've killed an it ? not a him or them. But this was something that ground troops faced all the time, both the Army and the Marines. They looked into the eyes of human death far more frequently than we did, shielded as we were by our aircraft and altitude. I thought, after seeing the picture, that perhaps it was a good idea that the J-TARPS pods had no display inside the cockpit. I wanted pilots focused on missions and threats, not on the hard facts of the destruction they were wreaking on the ground.
'Second flight leader acknowledges the new mission,' Lab Rat said. 'They should be on station in two minutes ? a little less now.'
Now that I knew what I was looking at, I could see other small spots of fire moving erratically around the burning airfield. The more I stared, the easier it became to pick them out. The people were the ones that moved in short spurts of speed, then fell burning on the melting tarmac. My imagination started suggesting that I could see the figures inside the flames, and I shoved the thought away. Not now, no more than I would think about the men and women I'd lost in my fighters. Not now.
Suddenly, everything seemed to be moving on the ground. I turned to Lab Rat for an explanation.
'That heat generates strong local wind currents,' he explained. 'You heat the air, it rises, and cold air rushes in. That's how you get the mushroom effect from any bombing, and that's what you're seeing on the ground now.'
The third camera showed the flight leader was almost over his target. Again the shudder as the bombs were dropped, making the aircraft suddenly lighter and more maneuverable. I knew that feeling, of dropping heavy weapons off your airframe. There's an immediate increase in your airworthiness, and your speed and maneuverability. You feel lighter, like you've just lost fifty pounds after sitting in a sauna.
The camera jiggled, and steadied back down. The bombs dropped, almost invisible, lofted toward the revetments on a parabolic arc.
Explosions, heat, and light ? the picture was a blur.
'Commander, there's something-' The Intelligence Specialist broke off and stepped over to stand directly in front of the monitor. As the aircraft veered away, the area where the enemy aircraft had been lined up on the airfield came into view. 'It's not hot enough,' he said. 'Not for a Class D fire. It should be burning brighter than anything else on the screen, absolutely unstoppable. It should be ? no, it can't be.'
'What?' Lab Rat and I demanded simultaneously. 'What is it?'
'I saw something similar once,' he said slowly. 'It was a test-range film. They were touting the accuracy of a new guidance system, and a couple of Tomcats were making precision bombing runs on a mock enemy airfield. That picture looked just like this one.'
'So what's wrong with that?' I asked, shifting my gaze back and forth between the burning area over the revetments and the technician. 'That's what we wanted, right?'
He shook his head, a deep look of concern on his face. 'No, I don't think so. Because in the training tape I saw, the Tomcats were dropping ordnance on wooden mock-ups of enemy aircraft. The point wasn't to test the destructiveness of the weapons, you see, but to demonstrate the effectiveness of the targeting. You don't need to burn up real aircraft for that.'
I stared at him aghast. 'You said it's not hot enough ? you think we're burning up wooden targets?'
'Shit.' The disgust in Lab Rat's voice convinced me that he was in agreement with his technician. 'Shit shit shit.'
I turned back to the display and stared at it again. 'The heat sources are the same intensity as the burning jungle and buildings.
'That's what I mean, Admiral.' The technician's voice was grim. 'If there're aircraft around that airfield, they weren't lined up along the side. We've been suckered.'
'Can you play this tape back?' I asked Lab Rat.
He nodded. 'Now, or after the mission?'
I considered it for a moment, then said, 'After the mission. I want to watch this one play out first. Then I want every set of eyes you've got on the tape from the flight leader. Get a good look at those aircraft, see if we've been suckered. Do an analysis of the revetments again as well. One way or the other, Lab Rat, I need to know where those aircraft are.'
'There's one thing that wasn't cardboard,' the technician said. 'Those people on the ground. That I'm sure of.'
I repressed a shudder. I didn't want to know during which part of his training he'd studied classified imagery of human beings running while they burned to death.
'The fire's spreading, Admiral,' Lab Rat said. He directed my attention back to the satellite overhead imagery. 'The wind's picking it up and carrying it along ? see, there are spot jungle fires cropping up all over.'
'Any nearby villages?' I asked.
'I don't know ? I don't think so. The people are so thinly scattered in some parts of the jungle, it's hard to tell. Maybe.'
I needed to know, to see whether or not the fires that were spreading would inflict significant collateral damage. I told myself it was in order to make a complete report to my superiors, but in reality it was more than that. Command can be a terrible thing sometimes, but it demands that one understand the consequences of every order and decision. I'd made the decision to conduct this raid, even without Air Force support. It was up to me to face the consequences.
'Vector the flight leader ? the first camera ? down toward those jungle areas,' I said.
'Might be a problem with SAMs,' Lab Rat warned.
'Then get the EA-6 back up there to cover him.'
Lab Rat nodded. He spoke to the TAO for the third time, directing the lead Tomcat to fly a low, high- magnification sweep of the direction in which the fire was burning. I switched my attention back to the first camera and waited.
Sure enough, the picture changed almost immediately. 'Back to photo,' I said. Lab Rat nodded and complied.
We were back in the jungle again, skimming over treetops so close it seemed I could touch them. Lab Rat had set the J-TARPS pod to maximum magnification, and I knew the pilot was well clear of the treetops.
