Hammerhead Ranch Motel

7

On July 27, 1943, in a small tavern in Bryan, Texas, a group of English and American pilots sat around the tables knocking back drafts in tall, cold mugs and talking about the approaching hurricane. Someone suggested evacuating the AT-6 Texan trainers because the planes were so delicate. A few of the pilots had flown heavier planes in combat-Spitfires, Corsairs, Helldivers-and the discussion turned into a trashing of the little Texan.

Many of them had a good laugh, but not Major Joe Duckworth. The Texan was his plane, and he said the AT-6 was good enough to fly right through the middle of the hurricane.

He had just walked into the ambush of the barroom dare.

As the storm approached, the only navigator on the airbase was Ralph O’Hair, and he soon found himself sitting behind Duckworth in the tiny single-propeller plane as they took off from southeast Texas and into the Gulf of Mexico. They rose to five thousand feet. Just off the coast the sky darkened, and the lashing rain drummed the metal fuselage like they were in a kettle. The plane rocked and vibrated, and there was less and less light outside the cockpit until it was completely black. The men became quiet. The worst was the unknown-they were in uncharted territory. Nobody knew what happened to an aircraft as it neared the churning core of a hurricane. The plane’s body oscillated like both wings were about to snap. Then, an explosion of bright light all around. They were in a large, clear circle of sky, and the wall of the storm ran all the way around. They were in the eye. Duckworth and O’Hair had just made aviation history. The Hurricane Hunters were born.

F ifty-four years later, Major Larry “Montana” Fletcher of the 403rd Air Wing piloted his plane across the twenty-fifth parallel, heading over the Atlantic toward the Cape Verde Islands. The aircraft was the pride of the Hurricane Hunters’ fleet, a magnificent silver Lockheed-Martin WC-130 Hercules, and Montana was their best pilot.

They were three hours out of Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the sky was bright and cloudless.

The crew of seven from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron was a tight-knit but sundry lot. Major Fletcher was from the beaches of Southern California -the steady, all-American leader type with blond hair, a close shave and a square, dependable jaw. The copilot was ex-Lieutenant Colonel Lee “Southpaw” Barnes, a crusty and foul-mouthed veteran with hangover stubble and a footlocker of vintage Playboys who had been demoted for moral turpitude so unsettling that the Air Force conveniently lost all records. His job was to repeatedly tell Montana he “couldn’t fly for shit.” The flight engineer was Milton “Bananas” Foster, the highly excitable yet gifted mechanical wizard. Marilyn Sebastian was the plucky aerial reconnaissance officer, as tough as any man, but every bit a woman. The navigator was Pepe Miguelito, the forlorn youth with a pencil mustache and unending girl troubles. The weather officer was “Tiny” Baxter, the massive country boy from Oklahoma with simple but strong values. The instrument operator was William “The Truth” Honeycutt, a former all-services bantamweight champion.

The WC-130 Hercules made a loud, continuous hum as it flew southeast above the Atlantic. According to coordinates from the National Hurricane Center in Miami, the storm that had just ripped through Cape Verde would break the horizon in less than a half hour.

Baxter silently double- and triple-checked his weather charts with drafting tools. Pepe Miguelito’s lip quivered as he read another Dear John letter.

“I got a baaaaaaad feeling about this mission,” said Milton “Bananas” Foster. Then he began crying. “We’re all gonna die!”

Marilyn Sebastian shook Foster by the collar. “Be a man!” She slapped him, then kissed him hard.

Back in the cargo hold, Honeycutt skipped rope in his boxing trunks.

At zero seven hundred hours, the edge of Hurricane Rolando-berto began to rise out of the sea, larger and larger.

“Oh my God!” yelled Foster.

“Easy now,” said Montana. He adjusted the rudder to bring the course around east.

Ex-Lieutenant Colonel Barnes glanced up from his latest copy of Skank. “You can’t fly for shit!”

As the plane reached the outer bands of the storm system, the wings began to shake. Montana ’s heart rate remained level as he deftly banked the plane left to minimize crosswinds. They entered clouds and the cockpit went blind. All instruments from here on. The drone from the engines and vibrations from the storm became deafening.

“Baxter?” Montana said into the microphone of his intercom headset.

“Go!” Baxter said into his own headset.

“Sebastian?”

“Go!”

“Barnes?”

“Fuck yourself.”

“Honeycutt?”

“Go!”

“Miguelito?”

“Go!”

“Foster?”

Whimpering.

Barnes turned around and smacked Foster with his rolled-up stroke magazine.

“Go!” said Foster.

Montana wrapped a scarf around his neck and adjusted his goggles. “Okay. This is it. Hold on.”

The plane banked back right and shook savagely. A forgotten coffee cup slid off a shelf and broke. The blind view out the cockpit darkened. The glass cover on the altimeter cracked. There was a spark, then flames from the weather console, but Baxter hit it quickly with a Class C fire extinguisher.

Montana raised his chin and spoke solemnly into the headset. “It has been a privilege flying with all of you.”

Then nobody spoke. The violent shaking of the fuselage seemed to go on forever.

When they had almost given up hope, there was a bright flash and the Hercules punched through the interior wall of the hurricane and into the calm, clear eye of Rolando-berto. A cheer went up in the cockpit. Baxter hugged a tearful Miguelito; Barnes hugged Foster. Sebastian unexpectedly found herself in Honeycutt’s arms. They looked deep into each other’s eyes, remembering that weekend in Baton Rouge. Marilyn’s eyebrows raised up in poignancy and she opened her mouth, but Honeycutt shook his head. “No, don’t say anything.” They let go and went back to their stations.

Montana radioed Miami with news of their success.