if the earth were flat.
I had established a left-turn, three-mile orbit at our rendezvous point. Scanning back over my shoulder toward the ship, I picked up our escort plane visually. The F-4 Phantom jet had been launched just after us and was now climbing toward the rendezvous point. All reconnaissance planes were escorted by an armed fighter in case it should be attacked from the air. (It was also operationally prudent to fly over enemy territory in flights of two or more so that one pilot could account for the fate of the other should trouble arise.)
Since the Phantom’s wings were level, I knew the pilot was still heading for the prearranged electronic point in the sky.
“Lion Eleven, Green River Two. We’re at your ten o’clock, slightly higher.”
“Roger, Greenie Two . . . I’ve got you.”
The instant the pilot of Lion Eleven made visual contact, he altered his course to turn inside my turn but adjusting his angle of bank to just a little less than my own standard thirty degrees of bank for rendezvous. This would make his turn radius slightly greater than mine, causing him to move closer and closer to me on the inside of the circle while adjusting his throttle in tiny increments to match his own airspeed to mine.
“Okay, Bob, he’s as good as aboard. Let’s check in on Strike Freq.”
“Rog!”
The VHF radio clicked through several bands of static, a fraction of another airborne conversation, and then stabilized on the check-in report of a flight of A-6 Intruders from the Hawk’s all-weather attack squadron. When they were finished, Bob checked us in.
“Master Strike, this is Green River Two with escort at rendezvous. Over!”
“Roger, Green River Two. Contact! You’re cleared on course. Strangle!”
“Roger. Out!”
I noted on my instrument panel the termination of the tiny blinking red light denoting the pulse of our IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) radar beacon as Bob “strangled our parrot,” a code phrase for securing the beacon. No use giving the Vietnamese search radar monitors a bigger and more defined blip on their scopes than necessary.
By now Lion Eleven had slid smoothly out of his own radius of turn, hesitated briefly just off my port wing, and crossed under to my starboard side. There he took up a comfortable cruise position on the outside of the turn and slightly aft.
As my compass pointer swung to a heading of two nine zero degrees, I eased my wings level. Lion Eleven matched me. Ahead, the tranquil coast stretched out on either side. At the Than Hoa River delta, the overall S-curve of the entire Vietnam coast ran close to true north and south. There, just a small course correction to my left and now at a slant range of about twenty-five miles lay our first reconnaissance target. I repositioned the folded map on my kneeboard to put west at the top, matching the scheme of the world ahead of me.
I noted the flight line drawn on the other map clipped below this one. There had been no time to brief my escort pilot on the additional requirement. Mission security and radio discipline precluded informing him now. I knew he would wonder what the hell was going on when I deviated from our prebriefed flight plan, but he’d stick with me. That was his mission. I’d explain later over a cup of coffee in the Ready Room. Hell, I had thought magnanimously, I’ll buy him a drink at the Peninsula’s bar our first afternoon in Hong Kong.
The mission went like clockwork. Since there had been hardly any cloud cover over the lower half of North Vietnam, I had bracketed the husky steel and concrete bridge the way I had taught so many others as a recce training instructor in Florida. The actual targets for the attack boys had been less distinct, but I had flown the line and was sure of the coverage from my panoramic horizon-to-horizon camera. Although I had seen no flak, I had jinked frequently during the entire time I was over land, changing directions slightly with high G-turns often enough to keep any gunners from tracking me. Then, heading back toward the coast, my F-4 Phantom fighter escort spewing black smoke as he tried to catch up, I felt it. WHUMP! Hit!
It happened so fast—no flak or tracers, no warning! After the hit somewhere back in the aft part of the plane, I had felt a light vibration followed by the illumination of my master warning light. Uh-oh! Red hydraulic #1 light ON. Red hydraulic #2 light ON. Red hydraulic utility light ON. I pushed the throttles forward now to afterburner to get maximum speed toward the relative safety of the Gulf. Thu-thump. The burners lit off and, with a light fuel load remaining, the effect of their thrust was multiplied, pushing me back against the contour of my ejection seat as the Vigilante shot forward and slightly upward.
“Hit! I think we just took a hit!” I knew damn well we’d taken a hit, but years of being Top Gun-cool had tempered the alarm in my voice. Bob had heard my radio transmission and would be giving me a heading back toward the ship. The vibration had become heavier and the control stick sluggish. Still accelerating, the plane suddenly rolled to the left. Control stick stiff—no effect. Jammed right rudder pedal. Left roll stopped but then immediate right roll. Left rudder—no effect.
Instinctively I reached for the yellow T-handle protruding from the side panel of the console near my right knee. I yanked it out sharply and felt the clunk of the two-in-one emergency generator and hydraulic pump extending into the wind stream from the starboard side of the fuselage. The wind-driven turbine pump should have regained the hydraulic pressure to my essential flight controls. Still no effect. Whatever had hit us must have severed both flight-control hydraulic lines, spilling all the precious fluid. Even with the emergency pump extended, with no fluid, there was no pressure. Still rolling, I tried to muscle the control stick into effectiveness.
Nothing! No control! Sky—land—sky—land—ocean. The nose had dropped now and we had picked up more speed. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” Rolling rapidly! Speed 680! Red lights flashing! No more sky ahead, only the shimmering blue gulf spinning in front like a propeller. Christ! “Eject, Bob! Eject! Eject! Eject!”
I noticed that the water all around me was green now, bright chartreuse green. My dye-marker had come loose from its pocket on my torso harness. That should certainly make my position more visible from the air? The air! I scanned the ocean horizon to my right and there, as if materialized by my thought of rescue from the air, was an old UF Albatross sea-rescue plane. He was heading north just a couple of miles out to sea. Hey, fella, I know you must be looking for me! Here I am! Here I am!
Instinctively, I pulled my day/night signal flare from its pocket. The ring on the “day” end of the flare had to be snapped down hard over the edge of the tubular flare itself. This would break the seal so the ring could be pulled smartly away, igniting the flare and causing thick, bright orange smoke to billow forth. It could be seen for miles. The lumbering Albatross, my rescuer, droned on.
I struggled with the ring on the flare. I couldn’t hold onto the flare and also snap the ring down with only one hand. My right arm and hand just refused to participate. The seaplane continued northward, expanding the distance between us. Frantically, I tried to smack the ring of the flare against the hard surface of my helmet but just couldn’t get the right angle. “Turn around!” I shouted. “Over here!” He was barely a speck above the horizon now. With a final desperate bash against my helmet, the flare flipped from my hand, plopped into the water, and sank.
The loss of the flare caught me off guard. I had ignited flares a dozen times in training exercises, and once for real after ejecting from a crippled jet on a training mission over southern Georgia. Yet, throw in one variable—my disabled arm—and it was a whole new ballgame. Fixing upon the spot in the sky where the Albatross had disappeared, I suppressed my rising panic. I inventoried my remaining options, touching the pocket of my torso
