Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (54 page)

S
OMEWHERE AMONG THE CLOUDS ABOVE
;

T
HOSE THAT I FIGHT I DO NOT HATE
,

T
HOSE THAT I GUARD I DO NOT LOVE

—
W. B. YEATS

CHAPTER 12

M
I
GS AND MACHINE GUNS

“
CHEVY ONE
. . . come left heading three-zero-zero . . . bandits at your eleven o’clock, fifty miles . . . Angels Two Zero.”

“Bromide, Chevy copies . . . left to three-zero-zero. Say numbers.”

Thirty miles north of Kimpo Air Base, the eight F-86s were rejoined into two tight flights of four, Chevy and Buick, staggered slightly in altitude. Passing 25,000 feet, they were northbound for MiG Alley along the Korean-Chinese border. The leader turned left, heading northwest at 300 degrees, and the others followed.

“Chevy One . . . heavy group of bandits . . . estimate twenty contacts bearing three-two-zero, forty-five miles.”

“Switches,” someone said. Eight pairs of eyes swiveled around their cockpits taking in engine gauges, fuel, and armament switches. Seat straps were tightened, some men took off their gloves, and others loosened up their necks or fingers.

Major George Davis pulled his sunglasses off and dropped them in the leg pocket of his G suit. He also loosened his chin strap and wriggled the helmet a bit, his hand nearly covering the cartoony image of a boxing bird that was the emblem of the 334th “Fighting Eagles.” Nicknamed “Curly” due to his straight hair, he was a thoughtful, quiet professional—until the fighting started, that is. Although he’d been in the Korean Theater of Operations for less than two months, he’d done this many times in the last war. As a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot with the 342nd Fighter Squadron, Davis had shot down seven Japanese planes over the Philippines and New Guinea. It was now November 30, 1951, and he’d opened his score in this war three days ago by flaming a pair of MiGs.

More than twenty-five of the little Russian fighters had been airborne the day before, but a backlog of squadron commander paperwork had kept him off the flight schedule, and he’d missed it. It had certainly been a prelude to something, and sure enough, this morning the Chinese invaded Taehwa-do Island in Yalu Bay off the North Korean coast.

Reaching 30,000 feet, his eight ship—eight jets flying in formation—was loafing along at 0.85 Mach, about 570 mph, when a distant flash of sunlight on metal caught his eye just above the horizon line. Leaning forward, Davis stared for a good minute till the black dots appeared.

There!

Big enough to be seen at 15 miles . . . bombers. Had to be. From long habit Curly checked above and behind them until the smaller dots showed up. He nodded. Escorts, at least a dozen. There were probably a few more mixed in with the bombers, but he couldn’t see them. The Russians and their Chinese students were predictable if nothing else.

“Bromide . . . Chevy One is tally-ho, my nose . . . ten miles. Two groups . . . bombers low and fighters high.”

They were coming right down the Yalu, heading toward the sea. Probably going to hit one of the islands again.

“Bromide copies . . . Chevy and Buick engaged at 1605 local. Green southwest.”

Not me,
Davis thought. “Green” was supposed to be the shortest direction back to friendly territory, and from a map in a controller’s hut that’s probably how it looked. But off to the west he could see the flat grayness of the Yellow Sea, and that was where he’d go. The Navy was out there somewhere with Task Force 77 and two carriers,
Essex
and
Antietam
. Davis knew a fighter pilot had a much better chance of living till his next birthday if he could ditch at sea, so “feet wet” over water was much better than “feet dry” anywhere north of the MLR—the Main Line of Resistance, current political-speak for the front lines.

“Buick One . . . fifteen right, ten miles . . . cleared off and cleared to climb.”

“Buick wilco . . . in the climb.”

Davis looked up over his right shoulder as the other four ship of Sabres arced up into the deeper blue sky. Within moments four white fingers streamed out behind them as the fighters passed through the contrail layer. Eyeballing the Chinese bombers, he angled a bit to the left and pushed up the throttle to hold 0.90 Mach, just below the speed of sound. If there were any MiG-15s up today, they’d be high, and he’d need all the airspeed, the “smash,” he could get.

But as he did so, the smaller specks of Communist fighters peeled away and headed in his general direction. Still eight miles away, they’d immediately seen the cons from his other four ship and turned to intercept, just as he’d planned. Now the bombers were unprotected and even more vulnerable.

The Sabre was shuddering slightly, so Davis cracked the throttle back a hair. Peering around the combining glass, he could clearly see the bombers now; twin-tailed, twin-engine Soviet Tu-2s left over from the last war. The Bat, as the Tupolev was called, could manage about 300 mph at 25,000 feet, and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) had imported a few hundred of them.

Nudging the stick, he angled even farther away and glanced at his wingmen. Chevy Two was about 100 yards down his left wing line and a little low. The other element of Sabres hung in space a mile off his right wing, with number four a good 500 feet higher than anyone else. It was a bit ironic, he knew, that the newly formed United States Air Force (USAF) exclusively used variations of the old Luftwaffe fighting tactics.

Glancing up to the right, he couldn’t see Buick, so they were out of the cons and well above the escorting Chinese fighters. He could see
them
plain enough, though, about 10 miles away on a roughly opposite course and trying to climb. More Russian junk, La-11s. Piston powered, they could climb at 2,400 feet per minute and manage about 420 mph. Davis grinned under his mask; the Sabre climbed at 9,000 feet per minute and cruised along at 600 miles per hour.
No worries.

At five miles he banked up smoothly and began a gentle pull to put the bombers on his nose. He’d chosen to attack head-on from above because the only forward-firing weapons the Tupolev carried were in the wings. His wingmen fanned out in the turn, and Davis keyed the mike.

“Chevy Three . . . you and Four take the Bats on the southern edge. Two . . . you take the far northern bomber and I’ve got the leader. We’ll only get one pass ’cause of fuel . . . rejoin over Sahol at twenty K plus call sign.”

Now they had a point at which they could rejoin if they got separated, with Two at 22,000 feet, Three at 23,000, and Four at 24,000. The sky was actually a small place when you’d lost sight of everyone.

The flight acknowledged, so he reached up and rolled the adjustment dial under the combining glass to 60 feet—the wingspan of the Tupolev—then keyed the mike again.

“Check wingspan set . . . check wingspan set . . .”

If the APG-30 radar worked, which it often did not, then the gunsight pipper would correct for maneuvering and show the bullet impact point. If he had to shoot manually, which he actually preferred, the range reticle gave an accurate prediction that he could use for aiming. Just like the old K-14 sight in the Thunderbolt. Smiling at the thought, Davis was unconsciously reacting to everything around him. His eyes and experience constantly adjusted the intercept geometry, which made his hands finesse the stick and throttle. Radio chatter was filtered, and he only processed the stuff that applied to his flight. His wingmen were in the right positions, and the Sabre was purring.

Sunlight gleamed through the bubble canopy, heating up the cockpit. He opened the air vent wider and stared out into clear space. It was like riding on the tip of a rocket. The adrenaline sharpened everything. His fingertips itched, and he felt like he could see everything: his jets, the enemy jets, his gauges . . . it all filtered in.

Davis wriggled in the seat and stretched his neck. Life was good.

“Buick’s engaged . . . twelve bandits, south Sahol at two five thousand . . .”

“Bromide copies.” Davis heard the GCI controller reply and added his own.

Three miles.

The nasty green paint job on the bombers was plain to see now, and so were the ugly little red stars. Leaning forward, he pulled the throttle back a knob’s width to slow down a bit while keeping the enemy plane just below the combining glass and a little right. One last look around . . . Chevy Two had floated wider to the left, and the other element had split off altogether toward the south end of the bomber formation.

Then he saw them: close escorts directly behind the bombers.

“Head’s up! Bandits close aboard, a mile past the bombers, slightly high.”

“Chevy Three’s tally-ho . . . we’re still on the Bats.”

Davis nodded. “Roger that . . . stick to the bombers and blow through.”

He didn’t like leaving enemy fighters alive, but there wasn’t fuel for a fight and the bombers could kill Americans on the ground.
Besides,
he thought as he bunted forward and the bomber floated onto the combining glass,
a kill’s a kill.
Reaching up, Curly spun the sight range dial all the way back. If he had to shoot manually, the ten-dot reticle would equal a fighter’s 35-foot wingspan at minimum range to fire. He’d fudge it for the bombers, but aiming at them wasn’t hard.

Two miles.

The slick F-86E didn’t really slow down much, so he left the throttle alone and fanned the speed brakes out just a crack. The bombers still hadn’t seen the Sabres swooping down, and so they flew on, docile and not maneuvering.

With about 9,000 feet and seven seconds to go, Davis pulled the bomber to the center of the glass, pushed down on the target reject switch on his stick, and held it. At a mile he released and stared at the Tupolev, waiting for the radar to lock. A half second later the light under the gunsight glowed red, indicating a radar solution.

But his smile disappeared when the pipper jumped. And jumped again. Closing at 800 feet per second, he had no time for analysis, so he immediately caged the gyro and nudged the stick to keep his pipper on the bomber.

Just then the Bat rolled up to the left and began nosing over. He’d been seen! Fanning the brakes wider, Davis yanked the throttle back and kept the pipper on the Tupolev’s bulbous nose. The Sabre shuddered as it slowed, and for an instant time stood still, like a single frame during a movie.

Now!

Aiming squarely at the cockpit, he squeezed the trigger, and the fighter kicked as all six Browning machine guns opened up.

Two . . . three
. . .

Releasing the trigger, he shoved forward on the stick, retracted the speed brakes, and shoved the throttle full forward to mil power. The pipper had disappeared when he fired, but it didn’t matter. Flashing past underneath, Davis was barely 300 feet from the bomber and could see it was finished. His 350 bullets had pumped 50 pounds of lead into the nose and it had just vanished, leaving a mangled cave where the cockpit had been. The plane simply fluttered over and dove for the earth.

He wasn’t nicknamed “One-Burst Davis” for nothing.

Processing this in the three seconds it took to close the distance, he avoided the wreckage and zipped under the other bombers. From down here their turret guns were ineffective, and the wing guns could only be brought to bear if they dove at him—which no bomber pilot was going to do. Grabbing the canopy rail with his left hand, Curly twisted sideways, looking up and right at the other blue-bellied bombers. At least one other Bat was on fire and the rest were scattering.

Snapping the Sabre up on its left wing, he pulled back and shot up into the rear group. They were breaking in all directions, but Davis picked one trying to head north. No time for fancy solutions, so in a split second he figured the geometry, pulled the nose into lead, bunted slightly, and opened fire.

Tracers shot forward in a converging stream, and he saw the bomber physically stagger under the impact of his burst. Rolling away hard right, Davis ignored the stricken Bat and charged straight into the escort fighters. Déjà vu hit him for a split second: the Lavochin was basically a Russian copy of the P-47 he’d flown in the Pacific six years ago.
Weird.

Two of the fighters broke away, but the other was actually trying to bring his nose to bear and fire. Davis simply pulled back hard, and the Sabre zoomed up through the formation, hopelessly out of reach. As the G suit tightened around his legs, he corkscrewed around and with a single glance took in the scene around him. There were several dark trails leading down off to the northeast, and he hoped they weren’t any of the Buicks. Three of the Bats were gone, one fluttering down like a bird with a broken wing and the others just black smears against the sky. Below him the surviving bombers were frantically trying to escape while their furious escorts thrashed around to face the Sabres. The La-11 could manage 375 mph at this altitude, and each carried three 23 mm cannons. Enough to kill a Sabre if you were careless enough to let one get close, which he had no intention of doing.