precautions, when a dispatc came in announcing that a flight of E. U. bombei might
be expected before the day was out. Mannini wanted to see them arrive; we waited
around for for hours. When it was finally reported that our escort fighters had
picked them up at the Canadian borde Manning appeared to have grown fidgety and
state that he would watch them from the air. We took of gained altitude and waited.
Page 57
There were nine of them in the flight, cruising in co umn of echelons and looking so
huge that our littl fighters were hardly noticeable. They circled the fiel and I was
admiring the stately dignity of them whe Manning’s pilot, Lieutenant Rafferty,
exclaimed “What the devil! They are preparing to land dowi wind!”
I still did not tumble, but Manning shouted to ti copilot, “Get the field!”
He fiddled with his instruments and announced “Got ’em, sir!”
“General alarm! Armor!”
We could not hear the sirens, naturally, but I cou] see the white plumes
rise from the big steam whist on the roof of the Administration Building-three br
blasts, then three short ones. It seemed almost at tI same time that the first cloud
broke from the E. I planes.
Instead of landing, they passed low over the receiving station, jampacked
now with ships from all over the world. Each echelon picked one of three groups
centered around the three landing fields and streamers of heavy brown smoke poured
from the bellies of the E. U. ships. I saw a tiny black figure jump from a tractor
and run toward the nearest building. Then the smoke screen obscured the field.
“Do you still have the field?” demanded Manning. “Yes, sir.”
“Cross connect to the chief safety technician. Hurry!”
The copilot cut in the amplifier so that Manning could talk directly.
“Saunders? This is Manning. How about it?”
“Radioactive, chief. Intensity seven point four.” They had paralleled the
Karst-Obre research.
Manning cut him off and demanded that the communication office at the field
raise the Chief of Staff. There was nerve-stretching delay, for it had to be routed
over land wire to Kansas City, and some chief operator had to be convinced that she
should commandeer a trunk line that was in commercial use. But we got through at
last and Manning made his report. “It stands to reason,” I heard him say, “that
other flights are approaching the border by this time. New York, of course, and
Washington. Probably Detroit and Chicago as well. No way of knowing.”
The Chief of Staff cut off abruptly, without comment. I knew that the U.S.
air fleets, in a state of alert for weeks past, would have their orders in a few
seconds, and would be on their way to hunt out and down the attackers, if possible
before they could reach the cities.
I glanced back at the field. The formations were broken up. One of the E. U.
bombers was down, crashed, half a mile beyond the station. While I watched, one of
our midget dive bombers screamed down on a behemoth E. U. ship and unloaded his
eggs. It was a center hit, but the American pilot had cut it too fine, could not
pull out, and crashed before his vi tim.
There is no point in rehashing the newspaper storh of the Four-Days War. The
point is that we should ha’s lost it, and we would have, had it not been for an ui
likely combination of luck, foresight, and good mai agement. Apparently, the nuclear
physicists of tF Eurasian Union were almost as far along as Ridpath crew when the
destruction of Berlin gave them the ti they needed. But we had rushed them, forced
them 1 move before they were ready, because of the dea( line for disarmament set
forth in our Peace Proclam~ tion.
If the President had waited to fight it out with Co gress before issuing the
proclamation, there would n be any United States.
Manning never got credit for it, but it is evident me that he anticipated
the possibility of somethii like the Four-Days War and prepared for it in a doz
different devious ways. I don’t mean military prep ration; the Army and the Navy saw