CHAPTER 1 – BLOCKADE
North East of the Bahamas, Tuesday October 23rd, 1962
‘Landing a fighter at slow speed on a carrier deck on a stormy night feels like throwing a brick at a moving postage stamp ten feet ahead of you.’ That’s how the instructor put it to Jim during his Field Landing Carrier Practice, back at Barinin his training days. ‘The A-4 Skyhawk, the US Navy’s light attack workhorse, is unstable, so you can throw it around the sky; but it’s really just a pig with wings when you slow it down,’ the instructor had said.
Jim Cobb glanced down through a break in the billowing cloud, brought on by hurricane Ella, and caught a glimpse of the Essex just below, lit up by shafts of shifting moonlight somewhere off the coast of Cuba. The hole closed again and he continued on through the white and greytufts in search of the Enterprise, desperately needing to land his plane.
The instrument panel threw a faint glow across the dark cramped cabin. ‘One hundred and sixty knots and around fifteen miles on the glide path. Low cloud,’ he muttered, tapping a gloved finger on the fuel gauge, though it no longer gave a reading.
‘Erh, Big-E this is Eagle Three. I’m outta fuel here, and it’s, well … it’s getting rather hot inside the cabin right now.’ Jim paused to think about his words then took off his gloves to stay cool.
He pressed his mic again and pronounced his words more deliberately. ‘The cabin heat is jammed on and it’s blasting hot air inside. I’m going to have to land this thing before I’m toasted alive up here …’ He listened again for a reply, then looked out to check if he could see the vast North Atlantic Ocean through the thick cloud cover, adding, with a sinking tone, ‘… or broiled in the seat down there in the water.’
‘Roger Eagle Three, we see you on the glide path now,’ came the reply. It was the familiar deep Texan voice of Captain Powell from the behemoth, Enterprise, a floating nuclear-powered island of giant steel plates. She’d just returned from the Mediterranean after a world tour and gone straight out of Norfolk again, on her first real job: to keep Soviet nukes away from Cuba. Powell spoke again. ‘It looks like you’re still caught in that storm tail, Eagle Three. Don’t screw up when you get here. I’ve got something important to tell you.’
Jim felt hot engine air bleeding into the Skyhawk’s cabin through its vents. He twisted the knobs to turn it off and glanced around his little cocoon for a malfunction, something, anything, he could switch that would make a difference.
The problem had to be down to the two single rifle shots fired from the Soviet container ship which he’d just run, low and starboard, virtually on the water, though closer than he really needed to be. But, it yielded a perfect glimpse at the payload—giant tubes, perhaps missiles, laid out under cover across the long deck. He’d gotten so close that he’d seen the patriotic crewmen under their little hats, not soldiers, one of whom had swung a rifle and pulled the trigger at him like he was a giant clay pigeon. Were they careful or careless shots? He couldn’t tell. It was nothing immediately fatal and he was still in the air, though he wouldn’t be doing that again in a hurry. He’d encroached their space and they’d beaten their little commie chests at him. But the bullets themselves had pierced the tail somewhere he couldn’t see and must have hit an air duct, a valve, or a gyro—something on the environmental control system. The plane flew on into the gusts of storm Ella over the Atlantic. Two minutes later, the cabin had begun to get unusually warm.
Now, the heat just kept coming and was more than just tepid—the blasting air was already scalding hot. He wondered if he should just bail out into the sea; Big-E could always come fish him out of the soup, though the Commies would be rolling around their deck in laughter, or terrified they’d started mankind’s final war. Still thinking, he nudged the stick gently to keep the nose on point. The plane bobbed in the air against raging gusts and lashing rain.
‘Left a bit … straight … left again, then … up,’ he muttered quietly to gee himself up. ‘Now … straight,’ he added, his left hand on the stick. He took a quick glance down at his horizon and airspeed, then yelped, ‘Ouch. Dammit!’ whipping his hand back from the hot stick like a rattlesnake’s head after a bite. He should have known not to take his glove off. He placed it gently back over the stick’s head and continued to jab at it to steer the plane with his fingertips. He took a deep breath and loosened his zipper, then opened a small cold air vent in the glass canopy. The cabin began to roar with wind noise.
‘You should be there, somewhere,’ he muttered, now high up again, and with a piercing gaze through the cloud. A clearing suddenly opened and cool blue moonlight flooded the cramped cockpit, giving him an immediate sense of space and calm.
At once, ships from the terrifying floating firepower of the US Atlantic Fleet became visible below him, stretching some five hundred kilometers in a long arc across the ocean in front of the Caribbean islands, guarding against Soviets ships reaching Cuba. Essex, which he’d just seen, was parked in a long line with Lake Champlain, Wasp, Intrepid, Randolph, Shangri-La, Boxer, Okinawa, ThetisBay, Canberra and Independence. Anti-submarine warfare groups, which he had seen earlier, were stationed at the southern and northern tips of the line.
It was just two weeks ago on October 14th when an American U2 spy plane had detected Soviet medium-range nuclear ballistic missile launchers in Cuba, right on America’s doorstep and pointed straight at it. Only just posted to the Enterprise, which was leading the blockade, Jim was sent on a long reconnaissance sortie over the ocean to find several Soviet Foxtrot submarines, though they had remained submerged and out of sight, presumably with combat systems ready for an almighty nuclear war.
But now he’d blown his fuel reserve, having taken a very long route back to the ship around a storm head. He glanced down at the instruments again to see if any pointers had moved, thinking that he’d better not fall out of the sky and into the sea, only to embarrass himself and the might of the US Navy in front of Soviet eyes.
The de-icing vent continued to blast super-hot air against the canopy’s metal frame and Jim got a nose-full of burnt glove when he touched it.
‘Eagle three, we have a visual,’ said Big-E’s controller, to Jim’s immediate relief. He pictured binoculars on the bridge, trained on him like an insect in the sky with his landing gear down.
With greater relief, he saw the ship’s pulsating landing lights in the distance. ‘Big-E, you’re like a beacon in the dark. I see you now. You couldn’t have come too soon.’
He flicked the gear lock into place, set the flaps and pushed the throttle just a touch, as a third vent, right behind his legs, began to cane his calves with hot air. He splayed them as wide as he could while his feet were still on the rudder pedals and began to worry that his suit might actually melt or catch fire now.
With only a mile to go, a giant hook dropped under his tail like the hind legs of a mosquito about to drop in for a bite. He pictured the trip wire and giant tennis net twanging into place on the ship’s deck, then gently nudged the throttle again and re-set the flaps. The plane slowed and bounced in the air, picked up extra wind noise and dropped again as a headwind relented for a split-second.
‘Don’t want to hit the front of that ship there, do we?’ he muttered, holding the glove up against the stick, just as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and stung his right eye. He leaned forward and winced, feeling that his suit was already glued to his back.
Without warning, the glass on the altitude display shattered. He ducked as though his seat had been pulled out from under him then looked up and around frantically. Small shards of glass remained around the edges of the dial and some of it had fallen around his feet, while one especially long piece had lodged itself between his splayed legs. He put out a hand to the display but recoiled it again, feeling super-hot air venting straight at it.
‘Great! Guess the descent rate now, Jim … just when guessing’sthe least useful thing to do,’ he muttered. His mind raced around the prospect of aborting the flight again, but now with only several hundred feet remaining to the deck, there was only one choice.
Damn Soviets. He sighed and said to himself, ‘Too late for that.’ His eyes searched for a fixed reference in the dark, though the sea itself looked like a vast grey plain with the moonlit silhouette of Big-E bobbing around like a corkscrew on the waves. ‘Land this thing, or hit the carrier, or the drink. Take your pick, buddy.’
With just a hundred feet to go, a headwind buoyed the plane left from the glide-path. Jim corrected it quickly, pushing the nose down hard and aiming at the landing lights. The plane crabbed right into the headwind as the left wheel dropped. He pulled the nose up again and maxed the flaps which buoyed the plane in the air again.
The final countdown began inside his head. Three … two … one. He saw the Landing Signal Officer’s cut engines sign. The plane flared as the left wheel touched first, smoking and spinning violently as it skidded on the deck. The right wing snapped down hard and jolted the whole plane as though it had been dropped from a great height. It bounced again with the headwind and began to float along the deck.
‘Come on, catch the wire! Catch the wire!’ Jim suddenly panicked and thought he’d come in too high and missed the line, but the plane dropped again and skidded across the deck like a crab.
‘Net? Come on! Where are you?’
Jim put a hand back onto the throttle for an emergency lift off. ‘Big-E, I’m going round!’ He slammed the lever forward but nothing happened. ‘Come on!’ he urged. He released the throttle and pushed it again, then began to pump it, but the engine simply spluttered.
Just as it looked like he would surely careen over the edge of the ship, Jim was suddenly thrown forward into his harness. The giant net and arrestorwire had brought the plane from the speed of a bullet to a standstill in an instant.
Jim quickly unharnessed and glanced outside into the darkness, but it was like staring at a charcoal painting with inky black objects on the foreground. Nothing moved for a moment and he couldn’t even tell if he was somehow falling or sinking. He glanced around the cabin for seeping water but there was none. ‘God damn net—thank you!’
Barely able to breathe, he became aware of the cabin temperature again, pushed off his harness and released the canopy, then pushed it back like the soft top on a fancy car. To his relief, there was definitely no water. He tore off his mask and stopped still again for a lungful of cold air, then sighed and thanked the final gust of wind for lifting the plane on approach. His thoughts were immediately interrupted by a ramp man who waved a glowing orange wand in a throat slit on the darkened deck. Jim reached down to flick the engine kill switch, but it had already stopped and the fuel gauge was sitting on empty.
‘They’re dead. Dead!’ he hollered to the wand man. He stood up in the cabin and saw new landing lights approaching in the sky on final through the corner of his eye, then clambered out quickly and hobbled away towards the ship’s tower under the moonlight, glancing back to see if he could see any bullet holes. A tug emerged from a dark corner and clamped onto his plane, as he stumbled through an arch at the base of the tower and over a low step into a cold grey stairwell. When he turned back, his battered plane was already being hauled back into the shadows by a set of multi-colored wands and newly lit spotlights on the deck.
A gentle tap on his shoulder caught his attention. ‘Lieutenant Commander Cobb? Welcome,’ said an officer.
Still startled, Jim swiveled round and exclaimed, ‘Oh, that was close. You don’t know how …’ He paused to look down at his suit and saw the back of his knees looking browned. His sleeves looked charred. ‘Well … I was about to say, just how close that was.’
Both he and the officer ducked as the Skyhawk’s cockpit suddenly exploded in a fireball on the dark deck. Gusts fanned the flames but the ground crew scrambled, blowing their extinguishers at it, just as Red Three dropped in quickly and as quietly as a black panther in the night, coming to a halt on the landing strip. It was parked in a row with other tails in under thirty seconds and disappeared below deck on a giant lift in under sixty.
Jim turned back to the officer feeling utterly speechless. The man simply grunted with a calm wry smile, and still inspecting Jim’s tattered suit, said, ‘You’d better change quickly. The CO’s expecting you in his quarters. You might want to think up a story.’ He glanced back towards the burning plane. ‘You picked a bad day. He’s not a happy man. Said he was about to lose one of his much needed new crew. But that could be a whole lot easier now.’
Jim’s eyes searched for an explanation. ‘I’ve blown it, haven’t I?’
