The pilot imagined, if he had to eject, the gunners pointing at his parachute and the raging mob below waiting to beat him senseless — or worse. This is the Cradle of Civilization. The pilot couldn’t help but think of the irony as he neared this web of death at nearly 10 miles a minute.
“Brooms, Excalibur, picture bullseye, single group cold, low.”
“Broom Four One, declare.”
He looked right with a start. His NVG field of view was filled with a Hornet centerline fuel tank and underside coming right at him. Seconds from midair collision, he instinctively pushed nose down. After he managed to recover, he looked up to his left and saw the aircraft stop its leftward slide and come back above him to take station. Did I miss a call? Or did he?
“Brooms, Excalibur, single group bullseye three-five-zero for ten, hot, climbing. Hostile, repeat, hostile.”
Fighters! The Iraqis are coming up! Forgetting his near midair but keeping a wary eye on his wingman, the pilot ran his radar elevation down. A blip immediately appeared, and, with a flick of his thumb, he locked it.
The suppression element miles behind him fired their high-speed, anti-radiation missiles. As the missiles flew above the Buckshot formation, they resembled supersonic sparklers rocketing along unseen tracks, blazing forward to home in on enemy radar emitters and destroy them. That gave the pilots an opportunity to maneuver into a position to fire on the enemy “bandits.” The bandits were coming right at him right now. Yes! Yes, they’re coming! We’re gonna splash these guys!
As he approached the target area, the radio came alive with calls of AAA and radar spikes, check turns and threat locations. For a few seconds, he noticed the contrast between the radio activity and the silent light show in front of them, especially as the impacts of the Tomahawks occurred with a greater frequency and the AAA arcs rose to their altitude. He could make out specks of radiance far to the south — formations of carrier strike aircraft coming up from the Persian Gulf. Right on time, the pilot thought. The slowly rotating tentacles of light grew closer.
He squeezed the trigger. With a lurch, a missile fell from the aircraft and ignited into a giant sun that sprinted ahead with a deep rumbling.
WHOOOMMmmm!
Even as the flash momentarily blinded him, he could see through his goggles that the missile seemed to run like a cheetah after its target. He saw another missile come off his wingman’s aircraft and watched it rise into the star-filled sky toward its target.
