CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

Within the next thirty minutes, reports had come in locating the American fleet. Nagumo men issued new orders: rearm die strike force yet again with torpedoes to sink the American ships.

The flurry of orders and counterorders, reasonable at the time, had proved to be an appalling blunder. The Japanese strike was delayed long enough to be delayed again by the recovery and refueling of the first attack wave.

The American dive bombers that struck just after 1000 hours that morning could not have asked for better targets: four Japanese carriers loaded with refueling planes, with strike aircraft waiting to launch, with bombs and torpedoes carelessly staked on the decks by ordnance crews too hurried to observe proper safety^ procedures. Nagumo lost three aircraft carriers

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within the next few hours, and a fourth the following day. It was a disaster from which the Imperial Japanese Navy never recovered and could easily be identified as the defeat that doomed Japan’s war in the Pacific.

There were lessons to be learned from history, Vaughn reflected. Not that history ever repeated itself exactly, but to try now, in the middle of an air assault, to rearm the Hornets with air-to-air weapons was inviting a disaster as great at that suffered by Nagumo at Midway.

Perhaps later there would be time to reassess the plan. Later, if the carrier battle group survived . . .

For now, though, they would follow though with what they’d begun.

0824 hours, 26 March

Tomcat 200, Cat Four, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

Tombstone watched as the mule driver herded his flat yellow vehicle clear of the catapult. Green-shirted hook-and-cat men completed attaching the catapult shuttle to the aircraft’s nose-gear as Tombstone and Hitman ran down the checklist.

“I’ve got a fault warning on the electrical system,” Tombstone said. The red light on his right side advisory display was an ominous warning that this particular aircraft had not flown in many months.

“Wait a sec,” Hitman said over the ICS. Tombstone could feel the slight shifting of the aircraft as Hitman moved around in the backseat. The fuzes for the plane’s electrical system were located on a board behind the RIO’s seat. Part of his preflight routine was to reach behind him and check each fuze by hand.

“Got it,” Hitman said.

Tombstone watched the advisory panel light go out, then worked the electrical main switch several times. If popping the fuze back did not correct the problem, they would have to signal to the deck crew to break down the aircraft.

The light remained off.

On the deck outside, the hook runner, satisfied with the setup, pumped his fist up and down, signaling to the Cat Officer to bring the aircraft under tension. Tombstone heard a metallic creak as the Tomcat took the strain. A green shirt held

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up the chalkboard with number 200’s launch weight: 62,000. That checked with the figure on Tombstone’s thigh board and he acknowledged with a thumbs-up signal. Somewhere below decks the catapult crew would be adjusting their controls to deliver the proper amount of steam pressure to Cat Four in order to launch thirty-one tons of aircraft.

An ordie walked up alongside the cockpit, holding aloft a bundle of wires, each with a red tag. Tombstone counted eight tags and nodded. The F-14 was loaded with four Sparrow and four Sidewinder missiles.

Everything was ready. The light on the island had gone from red to amber. The jet-blast deflector came up astern, and Tombstone eased the throttle forward, feeling his high-tech steed tremble beneath him, aching to touch the sky. He took another look at the bridge. He could see men at the Pri-Fly windows, watching . . . and other figures, less distinct, forward at the carrier’s bridge.

“All set back there?” he called to Hitman.

“Set, Tombstone. All green.”

And the light on the island was green as well.

Tombstone saluted the Cat Officer, the signal that they were ready for launch. The Cat Officer took another look up and down the deck, checking his men, checking with the white-shirted Safety Officers who were in turn signaling readiness. The intimate dance of the carrier’s team of professionals continued. The Cat Officer dropped to his knee and touched the deck.

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