The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath (7 page)

We have found the bad guys, Sir!

“General Patterson, Sir! We have communication from the second spotter plane,” stated a radio operator entering the briefing room an hour later, and all eyes turned to the woman. “The pilot has spotted a large number of people heading eastwards along Interstate 10 towards Houston. They are around 40 miles from the outskirts of the city.”

A second operator arrived seconds later as the general was about to bark out orders. This time the operator was a male.

“Excuse me, Sir, the same pilot has just reported a second and third group of men; he estimates there are about two hundred thousand in total, and traveling at approximately 15 miles an hour, all in the direction of Houston. The vanguard group is about twenty miles west of the outer rim of Houston, and the second group is about five miles behind the tail-end of the first group, and about fifteen miles behind the lead vehicles of the vanguard group. It seems the three groups have a five-mile space between them, and the third is the largest group by far.”

“Thank you, please get coordinates from the pilot and tell him to refuel at his closest base and to stay overhead as long as he can; we will have attack aircraft incoming within an hour,” replied General Patterson thinking fast. Maybe we can halt their progress into Houston. “F-4 and F-5 crews scramble and get out of here towards Houston at high cruise. It’s a long flight for your fuel reserves so fly steady at medium to high cruise until I give you further orders. I will brief you while you are in the air.”

Several crews in the briefing room already in flight suits collected their notes and readied to run to their aircraft waiting on the apron. All the eight F-4s had been refueled with two extra wing fuel tanks fitted per aircraft and armed for ground attack with six veteran 1970s Maverick air-ground missiles and one 250 pound older 1960s-era Walleye bomb under the belly. The other two wing connectors had the fuel drop tanks for further range. The F-5s, being only single-seat fighters, were much smaller and a faster high-cruise aircraft. They carried six Mavericks, three under each wing, and their two under-wing fuel tanks.

General Patterson immediately realized that he was too far away from where the enemy was situated, and he needed to get closer.

“Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, west of Dallas will be the next base of operations, ladies and gentlemen; pilots head back to Dyess on your return flights. Now get airborne.” He had ordered the preparation of the jets for as long a range as possible, thinking that any enemy would head straight for Austin and then Dallas. He had been wrong.

All the jets had under-wing fuel tanks, which gave them at least a 900 mile range at high cruise with a light weapons load, but it also increased the time the aircraft would take them to reach Houston, a little over 500 air miles south. Also none of them had fuel reserves to make it back to McConnell after their attack; hence the immediate change to Dyess, 150 air miles closer.

“All six AC-130 Gunships and Tankers,” began the general rapidly giving orders, “I want you out of here within thirty minutes. Carlos and Buck, you guys fly your AC-47. It will take you just under two hours to get there, so hurry and I want you out of here in five minutes; go now and I’ll get some men to collect your personnel belongings. You are returning to base at Dyess tonight as well. Go! You six Super Tweets, I want you ready for takeoff in 45 minutes. I will lead you in Carlos’s aircraft,
Hector
. Get your stuff packed and outside your doors; Air Force personnel will load it aboard a C-130 bound for Dyess. Get going flight crews!” and the room emptied of pilots.

The general now turned to the men on the ground. “Lieutenant Colonel Clarke, I want you to start hounding the rear of this enemy army. We are not going to be able to stop their entering the suburbs or even the inner city of Houston with only 3,000 men, it would be a suicide mission, but we can certainly try and wag the tail of the dog. I want as many parachutists as you can muster with two days of food, armed to the max, and in by midnight. I will get mortars and a couple of jeeps packed up for a second drop by dawn tomorrow morning.” The last person left the room.

The room was now empty apart from the two radio operators and General Patterson asked them if they had radio contact with Dyess. They didn’t.

“Colonel Marks, Patterson here,” stated the general talking to the commander of Dyess after looking through his satellite-phone book for the phone numbers for the two nearest bases to the enemy—Dyess in Texas and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. “Commander, I’m setting up my base of operations later today at Dyess, what are your fuel and food reserves?”

Between the two soldiers they agreed that there was enough fuel and food at Dyess for two weeks. Colonel Marks was told to get his base in readiness for operations immediately.

General Patterson then phoned Colonel Montgomery at Barksdale. After several minutes General Patterson realized that Barksdale had much more fuel and food than Dyess; he might need to set up mission headquarters there in a week. He ordered the base to be ready for anything, and then he ran out to get into flight overalls.

McConnell’s base commander, about to enter the briefing room, ran along beside him. “Colonel, we are moving out to Dyess, I will leave you three C-130s. I want all your usable missiles, rockets, bombs and 20mm ammo transferred to Dyess ASAP!” the base commander of McConnell stopped, acknowledged, and headed off in another direction.

Three quarters of an hour later the last of the attack aircraft, the seven Super Tweets took to the air with General Patterson in the lead aircraft. Even though it was a two-seat aircraft, he could fly it solo from its left seat and control what he needed in the way of aiming and firing its weapons.

He had ordered the seven Tweets to be equipped with 14 MK40 air-to-ground rockets, each in two launch pods of seven, fitted a few weeks earlier. These aircraft had used them successfully in Vietnam and the MK40 rockets were light, High Explosive missiles, good for use on enemy troops. He had been told about the missiles by the McConnell base commander who, upon checking for supplies, found the stash of a couple of hundred of these antiquated rockets in an old underground storage armory; it had taken the technicians only a couple of minutes to refit the aircraft for their use.

With the two fuel tanks beneath their wings they had extra range and like the rest of the aircraft had 20-mm cannons in the form of Miniguns for backup. Carlos’s aircraft,
Hector
was different than the other six. It hadn’t arrived in time and General Patterson had only four weapons of high explosive under his aircraft, namely four large 500-pound bombs. He would have preferred the missiles but whatever they could throw at the enemy was better than nothing.

Once the attack aircraft were away, a single C-130 took off with the crews’ belongings for Dyess and, thirty-two of the C-130s were being filled with 100 parachutists per aircraft under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Clarke. The three remaining C-130 aircraft, the only aircraft left on the apron, were busy being loaded with enough explosives to blow the enemy into tiny fragments.

The F-4s and F-5s were five minutes north of Interstate 10 when General Patterson rose through 5,000 feet and ordered the Super Tweets, with a larger range than the faster F-4s and 5s, to head south at maximum speed, 500 miles an hour.

Unfortunately the spotter aircraft, all short of fuel were already returning to Dyess.

“Foxtrot Fours, I want you to go in first from the west,” stated the general giving orders as soon as he got into radio contact. “The sun should be well down and you should be able to come right out of it from the west. You have enough fuel for one run only, so come in at no less than a thousand feet—and fast—and use all you have and then head back to Dyess. First, I want you to circle for 15 minutes away from the convoy; that will allow us to catch up and be 30 minutes behind your attack, and the C-130s 30 minutes behind ours. Foxtrot Fives, I want you to go in a minute behind the Fours at 500 feet. Mind the F-4 bomb explosions and complete one run, empty everything you have at them before you, too, head back to Dyess. Start your attacks from the west as well, thirty miles out, and keep ten seconds between you; they might have ground-to-air missiles. Good luck and keep your radios open.”

The six AC-130s at 300 miles an hour were still 45 minutes out and Carlos and Buck at maximum speed of 250 miles an hour were already about to be overtaken by the gunships and the seven Super Tweets high above at 15,000 feet.

“Foxtrot 4 leader going in; watch for ground-to-airs!”
everybody heard 15 minutes later as the next battle for U.S. survival began on May 16th.

* * *

The outskirts of Houston were just coming into view when Manuel heard Pedro shout over the radio that he thought he heard jet aircraft somewhere around them. He wasn’t sure but several of the men had said that they had heard something.

“How many of those missiles do you have?” Manuel asked his brother.

“Six with three shoulder launchers,”
Pedro replied.

“Get them ready Pedro, but don’t stop moving. We need to get all our men into the built-up areas before dark. Alberto, how many missiles do you have?”

“Six, and two of the missile launchers, Manuel. I gave two of mine to the trucks heading south,”
he replied.

“If they are American jets, they will be fast; you and Pedro order your men to fire as soon as you see anything up there. My men will do the same,” and he gave orders for his four men to also prepare. He had twelve missiles and his men were ready to fire the first salvo. He couldn’t hear anything until he heard Pedro order his men to fire towards the sun and then Manuel thought he could hear something towards the west.

Pedro’s men hadn’t seen or heard the first two jets sweep in from the sun, but when the F-4s swept over, traveling just under the speed of sound, the ground a few miles behind him literally began exploding in all directions. His army stretched out for ten miles and the air was still silent as he gave the order to fire missiles. Suddenly the ground around him erupted everywhere, and his jeep leapt into the air and threw him out as it turned over in the air and somersaulted forward; the truck a dozen feet behind him disappeared into a fireball.

Alberto had more time. He was ten miles in front of Pedro and saw the first shape coming towards his location; he shouted for his men to fire at will and a missile streaked up towards the lead aircraft. He watched in wonder as the missile missed the aircraft coming in from the rear by feet and kept going. Then his area of the road began jumping up and down as cannon fire opened up a path of destruction behind him. He jumped out and dived for cover. He looked back and saw one of his men in an open Toyota truck 50 yards behind his jeep about to fire a missile. As he released the missile, the man erupted into fragments and then his missile blew up and all of the ground bounced under Alberto’s body; the force of the blast blew him into a ditch.

“Incoming missiles hot,”
stated one of the F-4 pilots calmly as he missed one by several feet and he continued forward throwing everything he had at the road below him. It was like herding cattle there were so many men down there.

“More incoming missiles from the front of the convoy… go low!”
shouted the lead F-4 as he reached the end of his cannon rounds and sped over the front of the vanguard group two minutes after he had started. The most forward men were just about to enter the outskirts of Houston. He pulled up and on afterburner went vertical to get rid of any missiles following him.

The same happened to the second F-4 and he went vertical several seconds later, but the third one wasn’t so lucky; a missile hit him head-on right down the centerline of the road and his aircraft blew up over thousands of enemy shooting at him. His aircraft, now in millions of hot tiny fragments went straight into the mass below him. The fourth and fifth F-4s were lucky and also got out alive but the sixth F-4 was also hit and it too went in hard over Manuel’s scrambling men, clearing a swath of asphalt nearly a mile long.

The seventh and eight got a couple of their rockets off before they had to get out of harm’s way as several missiles locked onto them. As they turned hard towards the sun, they warned the rest of the incoming pack.

There was a break in the action as the last two F-4s fought to evade the missiles and a minute later they swooped down vertically towards the road, five of the seven missiles turning to follow them. The experienced pilots leveled out just over the flames and continuous explosions and began a second attack. The missiles, sensing the loss of the jet exhausts and the higher heat of the flames, followed the F-4s but didn’t level out and all five missiles went into Pedro’s troops in close proximity to each other. The tightly knit explosions disintegrated a large area of soldiers and trucks, and starting a chain of explosions that followed behind the F-4s as they released what they had left on the road and directly over Alberto lying in the ditch facing upwards, then broke off to the south and away from the explosions.

In all, only three minutes had elapsed since the beginning of the attack and the five remaining jets, low on fuel, headed towards Dyess.

“Foxtrot Fives, change tactics, go in from the east, I say go in from the east,” ordered General Patterson still a hundred miles away and twelve minutes from the action. “Go in close and fast. Do what you can to the vanguard area and then get out of there. All other aircraft go low, they have missiles; Super Tweets will go in next. Foxtrot Four Leader your aircraft report, please.”

“Two aircraft down, low on fuel and heading to our new base,”
he replied.

The general heard the Foxtrot Five commander give the order to go in. The F-5s were over the city as they swept down fast, above the empty buildings of the city of Houston.

* * *

Manuel got away scot–free on the first round. He and his men were watching the skies and the devastation behind him. He could hardly see anything as he shouted on the radio for Pedro or Alberto. The F-5s came in fast and silent and only one man saw them. The ground around Manuel erupted as he heard and saw someone shout and point to the front. Manuel immediately fell into the rear bed of the empty jeep and pieces of stone and metal began hitting the low sides of the jeep from every angle. It felt like he was in the middle of a tornado, the wind around him trying to suck him out of the jeep.