' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (53 page)

The fleet cruised north, entering the Tañon Strait at its narrowest point with Admiral Jackson stood with his hands behind his back and both fingers crossed. Seven thousand, eight hundred yards, plus
change, which was the distance from Negros to Cebu at the southern entrance to the straits.

He had received intelligence on the Caltrop Mine from the Cebu resistance fighters via Major Garfield Brooks’ small Green Beret detachment. A naval officer involved in the minelaying operation had been waylaid whilst visiting a brothel and persuaded to tell all he knew. The mines batteries of four high speed torpedoes that produced an ultra-sonic wave before them, loosening water molecules to permit their quite scary acceleration, nought to ninety knots in three seconds. The range was only five hundred metres and the warhead was small, but all the same, it was an area denial weapon to be reckoned with. As to the mechanics and technical side, the captive either did not know or he expired rather than reveal those details. No-one one on the allied side knew how it detected approaching vessels, how it differentiated between friend and foe or how to detect the mines. Garfield had lost one of his men, a diver, in trying to learn more. Currently the biggest minesweeper on the planet was leading the formation. The USS
Iowa
with her thick armoured hull, laid down in 1940, was performing the role of the idiot mine detector, fingers in ears, eyes closed and stamping on the ground almost. Her armour should save her as she cleared a channel that at least was the theory.

With some relief he watched the small Lilo-An ferry terminal draw level, the where the channel bends sharply through forty five degrees to the northeast and begins to widen. The fleet, in single file, a sixty year old battleship at its head and aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates and
amphibious assault ships could pick up the pace in order to recover the aircraft engaged on the Mactan strike. It was now just 76 miles along the strait to Toledo.

Zheng
was still on the surface but with fully charged batteries, and still following
Sentinel Sea
on a bearing of 255° along the Tañon Strait with Toledo on her port quarter. They would at least not have to call in at the big construction site that Mactan had become but the detour to avoid the minefields along the eastern passages of the island of Cebu was time consuming.

Captain Li had been sleeping for a few hours before returning to the conning tower. They did of course have lookouts as even though they were in relatively friendly waters the possibility of collision at any time was very real, in peace or war. There was more space to move in the Kilo’s conning tower than there had been in the old Juliett, not much, but enough to seem roomy to him.

Radio silence was a matter of course, and as they had signalling lamps they could still communicate with the
Sentinel Sea
. The captured tankers commercial band navigation and weather radars were being used instead of the Kilo’s powerful search radar. 

Li was peering up at the sky and enjoying the blue and cloudless expanse when he was returned to the business in hand.

“Captain, the
Sentinel Sea
is signalling.”

The flashing signal lamp on the tankers starboard bridge wing was easy for Li to read but he let the crewmen do their jobs. Morse had been abandoned for a while for most people but it was an effective means of transmission of short messages.

“Message reads ‘Radar contact…’”

The sound akin to a freight train gave the rating pause and then the
USS
Iowa’s
16” shells landing astern of the
Zheng
, and those straddling the
Sentinel Sea
made the remainder of the messages translation unnecessary.

“…LARGE SHIP!” the lookout shouted, completing
it anyway, as sea water drenched them.

“Starboard 30…give me revolutions for twenty knots!”

The tanker had been momentarily blocked from their view by the water spouts but she emerged from the spray with her hull and superstructure glistering wetly in the early morning sun and unscathed. She apparently had her helm hard over now but with only 7000 yards of sea room either side it was a manoeuvre that Li would have tried only slowly and with care, but the bow wave seemed to be increasing.

“Not a good idea.” Li said aloud, and as thick black smoke belched from the ships single funnel he shook his head critically.

“As if that is going to help against radar assisted gunnery.”

“Captain?” the lookout asked, as if he had trouble with the captain’s last statement.

“Well they aren’t using Ouija board fire directors, now are they?” he laughed. “Sound the diving alarm; clear the bridge, lookouts below!”

The next salvo directed at the
Zheng
landed where they would have been if they had maintained their previous course and heading.

“Good shooting.” Li observed. “Submerge the
boat…forty feet.”

Water spouts again straddled the slower moving tanker and a large angry orange and red fireball arose as a shell scored a direct hit.

Li pulled the hatch closed above him and secured it before sliding the rest of the way down the ladder gripping the outside.

Either someone knew all about them or someone didn’t care and was shooting at anything that moved.

“Sonar…what is happening with
Sentinel Sea
, is she stopped?”

“Yes Captain, I can hear breaking up sounds, she’s still on the surface but going down.” he was told. “It won’t be long.”

“Take us over there and keep this depth for the time being.” Li studied the chart for a moment.

“Okay, there will be ASW helicopters overhead shortly and we have nowhere to run to so I want us as close to her as you can get once she goes down. Something like this worked for me before.”

Li of course knew nothing of
Church
but its existence had become a distinct possibility owing to events 600 miles away.
Zheng
and the
Sentinel Sea
, their position and their mission were known to NATO until a few moments after the submarine submerged and the politburo killed the downlink from their satellites, denying
Church
access.

All the Chinese assets vanished from the screen at Project Church, so the fleet would have to find her the old fashioned way.

An hour after engaging the two surface contacts in the straits the battleship USS
Iowa
forged past a dipping ASW helicopter at 30 knots, throwing up a huge bow wave in the narrow confines of the straits to the delight of the naked and cheering Filipino kids splashing in the shallows. The ships 16” turrets were swung out to starboard, the muzzles of her main armament now blacked as she bombarded known enemy positions. The Chinese invaders were getting a kicking and the kids cheered each shot as much as they welcomed the man-made rollers the warships wash created. Water spouts appeared to the stern of the vessel, 155mm rounds fired from two batteries in the mountains. The Iowa was saved by her speed and the incoming rounds were back-tracked on radar. Had the protagonists been two miles closer the Chinese PLZ-05 guns would have scored with every round, but ‘The Big Stick’, as
Iowa
was nicknamed, wa
s
just beyond range of the laser guided rounds the guns had available. USS
Iowa
increased speed, straining her old engines and managing 32 knots, almost her best. Her three main turrets tracked around, the muzzles of all nine guns elevated and she fired a broadside.

The arrival of the sixteen inch shells had a devastating effect on the gun batteries and a second salvo arrived for good measure.

Aboard the
USS John C Stennis
, a vessel also making quite a splash on the shores either side, the first strikes were launching against positions around Toledo but there was of course the loss of the US 82
nd
’s 2
nd
Brigade to cope with. Major General ‘Snowy’ Hills was on the secure line from Mactan where an ad hoc attempt to force both bridges had met defeat. There were pillboxes, four of them on each bridge and all were protected from missile attack by rocket and mortar netting. Artillery would be counterproductive but a counter-attack by the Chinese was just a matter of time. They could not wait for nightfall but he had another plan. The reserves would take the bridges and hold until the US Marines crossed from Toledo and relieved the airborne force. It robbed the airborne of any flexibility but they had no option. 3 Para would attack the newer, most easterly ‘Marcelo Fernan’ Bridge, and the Foreign Legionnaires of 2 REP would take the western ‘Osmena Bridge’.

Elsewhere, the Filipinos were doing their best to delay Chinese forces that were heading to the city. 86
th
Mech was scattered about the island on garrison duties but if it reformed they would be hard pressed to contain it. 3
rd
Marines helicopter fleet was going to be busy elsewhere for a while but they had airpower on their side and USS
Iowa
for gunfire support to clear away opposition in the mountains.

The deck lurched violently beneath Admiral Jackson’s feet and the lights went out in the USS
John C Stennis
’ CIC, to be replaced by emergency lighting.

On shore the kids stopped dancing and waving.

Captain Li’s wish to do what submariners were supposed to do had finally come true as
Zheng’s
3M-54E ‘Sizzler’ anti-ship missiles scored on both carriers and her 533mm torpedoes struck the
Iowa’s
stern.

Day 1: Operation
Vespers
(Airborne element)

0713hrs.

Much of the town of Lapu Lapu, named after the warrior who had slain Ferdinand Magellan, had been demolished to
make way for barracks and more warehouses. Not all the buildings had been earmarked for destruction though and the 82
nd
Airborne’s 1
st
Brigade had just finished clearing an office building near the shore, between the two bridges. Major General Hills, Brigadier Francis Burton of the US 1
st
Brigade and Brigadier Ripley Hartiss of the Anglo/French airborne brigade entered the building’s rooftop machine room. The bare concrete walls were pitted with shrapnel scars and its panoramic windows blown out. Their boots sent spent cartridge cases rolling noisily across the cement floor as they found themselves a position to discretely view both bridges without attracting attention to themselves. A dead Chinese sniper lying against one wall was ignored, but the residue from hand grenades lingering, the stink of burnt almonds causing Snowy to sneeze.

Behind them on the airfield the Royal Engineers were clearing the runway surfaces of anything that could be sucked into an engine intake or burst a tyre in readiness to receive aircraft twenty four hours earlier than scheduled. Even from their vantage a dirty haze could be seen from beyond the mountains. USS
Constellation
was on fire, dead in the water in the Tañon Strait where the crew were now abandoning her. USS
John C Stennis
was damaged but capable of air operations and USS
Iowa
was under tow and working to patch a rent in her hull and pump out the flooded engine room. Without electrical power her 16” guns would remain silent.

Major General ‘Snowy’ Hills and his brigade commanders had their own battles to fight and if the navy sorted out their problems and were able to lend a hand as originally planned then fine and dandy, but the airborne were used to adapting and making do, of pulling the fat from the fire despite the odds.
They were too far from either bridge to see the bodies of the American dead from the first attempt to take them. Smoke marred the paintwork of the bridges, the result of strikes by javelin missiles on the protective mesh of presteel bars and chicken wire in front of the block houses. The bars were welded together to defend against RPGs and anti-tank missiles, and the airborne force lacked the large stock of the missiles that would be required to reduce that barrier. The block houses only mounted light machine guns apparently, but they had proved sufficient. The US paratroopers had tried to use smoke for cover, fired from 81mm mortars, but the effectiveness was negligible as the few rounds that landed on the bridge, and not in the water, had produced a short lasting screen, rapidly dispersed by the breeze blowing along the waterway.
GPMGs in the sustained fire role were going to provide cover, albeit of mainly psychological nuisance value for this next attempt, a simultaneous attack on both bridges with the Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles of the Blues & Royals squadron. 
Snowy Hills glanced at his watch.
“About now I think.”
Right on cue there appeared three of the light armoured vehicles on the approach ramps of each of the bridges, coming out of side turnings and accelerating hard to 50mph, their Rarden cannons firing mixed high explosive and armour piercing rounds in bursts of three. Sparks appeared where a round struck a steel rod but the rocket fences were ineffective against the 30mm cannon fire. Tracer arced over from the GPMGs but only a fluke ricochet had any hope of entering a gun port and doing any damage
Chinese snipers and riflemen on the bridges added their fire to that of the blockhouses but it was having no effect on the buttoned up armoured reconnaissance vehicles. An RPG round left a trail of dirty exhaust in its wake as it narrowly missed one of the speeding Scimitars and the GPMG’s fire shifted, seeking to suppress any more of the anti-tank fire. 
The remaining troops of Scimitars followed at a far more sedate speed, that of a rapid walk, providing physical protection from small arms fire to the men behind.
With typical national rivalry the French Foreign Legionnaires of 1er CIE, 2e Régiment étranger de parachutists, and A Company, 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment were looking over their shoulders at each other across the intervening 1,400