hour. The Marines wasted no time on the beach, using their speed and
maneuverability to push past or over the coastal defenses and to get
into the enemy’s rear.
Resistance was sporadic, though in isolated spots it was fierce. Most
of the defenders were KGB Border Guards and Internal Ministry MVD
troops, indifferently trained and disoriented by the savagery of the
aerial attacks.
Fifteen minutes after the Marines began hitting their beaches and LZs,
those units were beginning to surrender in droves.
Some beach positions, however, were held by Naval Infantry, members of
the 63rd Guards Kirkenneskaya Naval Infantry Regiment, with its main
base in Pechenga. These troops, the Russian equivalent of U.S. Marines,
put up a stiff fight, refusing to surrender and clinging to their
positions with an almost fanatic tenacity.
As the fight for the beaches continued, however, additional Marines were
being ferried far behind the coastline, angling in from the northwest
toward naval and air bases scattered along the west banks of the Kola
Inlet. Local radar sites were either in ruins or in hiding, and Marine
Harriers off the Saipan and Nassau flew close-support missions that
cleared corridors from the sea to the inland LZs. By late morning,
Marines were fighting a hundred separate battles, from Port Vladimir to
Sayda Guba.
Meanwhile, the attack aircraft of the carrier battle force, protected by
Navy Tomcats, were picking up the tempo in their relentless hammering of
the Kola bases.
1135 hours
Tomcat 201, Shotgun 1/1
Over the Kola Peninsula
Coyote glanced from one side of his canopy to the other, noting that the
other aircraft in his flight were in position. The sky was clear, empty
save for a few scattered wisps of cirrus at high altitudes. Ahead and
below, skimming the barren land at three hundred feet, were three A-6
Intruders and an EA-6 Prowler, a strike force with the call sign White
Lightning One.
Coyote and Cat were following at one thousand feet, in tight formation
with three other Viper Squadron Tomcats flying close Tactical Combat Air
Patrol, or TACCAP, on White Lightning. Their call sign that morning was
Shotgun One.
Three miles to the west, Shotgun Two was covering White Lightning Two.
“Shotgun, Shotgun” sounded over Coyote’s helmet phones. “This is Echo
Whiskey Two-one. We’re reading aircraft coming off the ground at Ura
Guba.
Could be an intercept.”
“Echo Whiskey, Shotgun One-one,” Cat replied in the back seat. “Copy
that. I’ve got them.”
Echo Whiskey was the Hawkeye providing battle management for the White
Lightning/Shotgun strike force. Ura Guba was a small town at the head
of the narrow gulf south of Port Vladimir, about twenty miles to the
east of their current position. There was a military base there, one
that had been hit repeatedly during the past eighteen hours.
“Talk to me, Cat,” Coyote said over the ICS. “Whatcha got?”
“Two contacts, Coyote, just coming up out of the ground clutter. Range
eighteen miles, bearing zero-eight-five.”
Coyote opened his mike to the flight’s tactical frequency. “Okay,
Shotgun One. You all hear that? Sound off.”
“Shotgun One-two,” Coyote’s wingman, Mustang Davis, called. “We copy.”
“Shotgun One-three,” Slider Arrenberger called. “Copy.”
“One-four.” That was Slider’s wingman for this mission, Lobo, Lieutenant
Chris Hanson. “We copy.” Coyote was well aware of the friction between
Arrenberger and some of the women. He and Tombstone had discussed the
matter at length several times over the past few days. Normally,
Arrenberger flew wing with Nightmare Marinaro, but Marinaro’s Tomcat,
downgrudged the previous afternoon, was still down.
Both Coyote and Tombstone had been doubtful about assigning Lobo Hanson
as Slider’s wingman in Nightmare’s place. Aviators flying wing with one
another had to work closely, with an effortless and professional
communication born of practice and mutual understanding, and
Arrenberger, it was well known, had managed to irritate or outrage just
about every woman in CVW-20.
But Tombstone had been running into problems with squadron assignments
already. True, Coyote could have taken Hanson as his wing and let
Mustang fly with Slider, but he and Tombstone had agreed that shuffling
the rosters like that would cause more problems in the long run. Once
people started getting the idea that either they or someone else was