Target Manhattan

O’Brien (Cont’d)

I’ll use my notes here, if you don’t mind. All right, it was about twenty after four. Here’s the time-out on everything. The Starfighters were already airborne-had been, for hours. The banana chopper from PA was at the heliport. Another helicopter had delivered the eighty gallons of white paint to Newark Airport, where they’d poured it into the spray tanks of the MCC crop duster. The pilot was a guy named Williston. According to my notes, he took off from Newark in the crop duster at four seventeen. It only took him a few minutes to fly across the Hudson-he just flew straight over, there was no other air traffic in the area.

Except for Craycroft.

Except for Craycroft. All right, Harris and I were going aboard the banana helicopter with the three transmitters and the electromagnet apparatus. It took six men to load the gear on the chopper, and our pilot was worried we might not be able to take off with that much weight on board. Then we got a call from Captain Grofeld.

What time?

Four twenty-five. He said he’d been authorized to issue the go order. We were to establish direct air-to-air radio contact with Williston in the crop duster and with the Air National Guard pilots in the Starfighters. General Hawley and Captain Grofeld would be on the same frequency. Of course we were taking a hell of a risk using open radio channels, but there wasn’t any other way to do it.

What risk?

Well, if Craycroft happened to be monitoring that particular frequency, he’d know every thing we were planning. We’d done our best to fool him, but we had no way of knowing whether it was working.

How did you try to fool him?

Ordinary contact was maintained between the air elements and the ground on the standard Air National Guard frequency. We figured if Craycroft was monitoring anything, he’d be on that band. We kept up intermittent chatter on that band. In the meantime the real orders were being delivered on a different frequency, one we’d designated by coded instructions that Craycroft couldn’t follow. Or at least we assumed he couldn’t. It was the Air National Guard code book, and he wouldn’t have had access to that, since the codes are changed frequently.

So you maintained a deception on the regular frequency, and executed the real plan on another frequency.

That’s right.

Very well. Now, at four twenty-six, approximately, you took off?

Our pilot revved up the two rotors. For a minute there it didn’t look like we were going to get off the ground at all, but finally we got off the pad. There wasn’t much breeze; otherwise I think we might have drifted against some goddamn building before we had enough altitude to clear them. It seemed to take forever to get above the buildings with that weight aboard. Anyway we established our radio contacts on both frequencies With the elements in the air and on the ground?

Right. The Starfighters, the crop duster, General Hawley, at Floyd Bennett Field, and Captain Grofeld at the bank. Williston’s crop duster was circling over Astoria, Queens, by the time we took station above midtown Manhattan. The Starfighters were circling at about five thousand feet-just below the bellies of the clouds. Now, we had established with General Hawley that Harris and I would call the shots from the helicopter, since we were in visible contact with what was going on. He’d agreed to that, with Captain Grofeld.

Go on, please.

We flew north at about forty miles an hour, moving uptown. We were holding to an altitude of seventeen hundred feet in the helicopter. That put us a couple of hundred feet higher than Craycroft’s bomber and some distance inside the oval of his flight path. He was traveling at about three times our speed, and he passed outboard of us on the way north.

The timing of your scheme was precarious, wasn’t it?

Very touchy. Very. The crop duster and the Starfighters had to coordinate their moves. The jets had to hit him immediately after the crop duster, If they were even a few seconds too late, it wouldn’t work because Craycroft would have time to react.

Describe the events, please.

We all had visual contact with one another, of course, and that made it easier. The technical problem was to get the crop duster out of the way of the jets.

Yes, I understand that.

You know it’s damned hard to describe the action when five things were going on simultaneously.

You’re doing very well so far, Sergeant.

I’ll try, anyway. The Starfighters were to come in from the west-from above the Palisades, on the Jersey shore. They had to fly straight at Craycroft. Collision course. At the same time, the crop duster had to come in from the east-behind Craycroft, because he had to be moving parallel to Craycroft. Now, the way we’d set it up, the crop duster would make its pass and then break right, turning north and dropping down a few feet. Then two of the Starfighters would make their passes and turn left-also north, but climbing away so they wouldn’t knock the crop duster around in their afterwash.

Right. Go on.

At the same time our helicopter had to be south of Craycroft’s plane. Our exact position didn’t matter, but we had to be within about a half mile of him when the planes made their passes at him. Our transmitters were pretty weak-that was on purpose-and we had to be in close range to make sure we were jamming his radio reception at that point.

I’m still with you, Sergeant.

(Laughter) Okay, I’ll try to keep it simple. We flew across town at about the level of Ninety-sixth Street, and we hovered at sixteen hundred feet directly above the Central Park Reservoir.

At what time did you reach that point?

Four forty. Craycroft was doing his little ballet over Brooklyn at that point. We could see him quite clearly-the air wasn’t very hazy. Of course, that meant he could see us, too.

Go on. What happened next?

We’d timed his circuits, of course, we knew it took him about three minutes from the time he crossed the East River into Manhattan to the time he made his turn at the top of Central Park. I started the stopwatch when he was crossing over above the Williamsburg Bridge.

That gave you a three-minute countdown to attack him?

Right. The jets were throttled down to three hundred miles art hour. They started in from a point fifteen miles due west of that point.

“That point” being his turn over Central Park?

Yes. In other words, starting from where they were, the jets would intercept Craycroft at a point roughly above Ninety-sixth Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Their run was timed to coincide with his.

I’ve got that. Proceed, please.

In the meantime the crop duster had a maximum airspeed of about a hundred and sixty miles an hour. It was a converted Piper Apache, by the way. Anyhow, it started from a point above Queens, some eight miles due west of that same interception point. The crop duster had to intercept him just ahead of the jets.

Of course.

Harris and I had our hands on the radio transmitters, ready to broadcast our jammer signals. Of course, we could see what was happening, and we’d push the buttons at the exact second when the crop duster went into action.

Now, let’s establish the exact purpose of this complicated maneuver, shall we?

The purpose was simple. To blind him and confuse him as to his location and bearings. The execution wasn’t so simple, of course.

And the jets were to deflect him from his course, is that right?

Two of them were. The third one was waiting to pounce on him.

All right. Go on with your narrative, Sergeant.

It all happened simultaneously, as I said. That’s what makes it hard to describe clearly. But I’ll do my best. Craycroft came up the East Side. He started his leftward turn, cutting across the Germantown area, slicing off a northeast corner of the park, reaching the apex of the turn right over the northern tip of the park at Lenox Avenue. At that point the crop duster had also crossed the East River and was about fifty feet above the bomber. The crop duster was flying parallel to him, a bit to his left. The crop duster passed him and was perhaps thirty feet ahead of him when the bomber, making its leftward turn, passed under the tail of the crop duster.

Meanwhile the jets were where?

Just crossing the Hudson River, a bit south of the bomber and a mile to the west.

The bomber flew under the tail of the crop duster. Then?

The crop duster dumped its load. Eighty gallons of thick white paint in a high-pressure spray.

The spray hit the nose of Craycroft’s bomber?

It covered it completely. Painted the nose of the plane white and dappled the fuselage halfway back its length. The paint completely covered Craycroft’s windshield and side windows Windows which were sealed, so that he couldn’t open them to look out.

That’s right. Our intention was to blind him. We succeeded. Now, as soon as we saw the paint spray issue from the tanks of the crop duster, Harris and I hit every button in sight. This activated the three transmitters and the electromagnet. The transmitters jammed his radiocompass and his LORAN navigation system. The electromagnet deflected his magnetic compass.

So the effect on Craycroft was He abruptly found himself blinded. His instruments were going haywire-needles spinning all over the place. He no longer knew where he was or what direction he was heading.

Then the jets The two Starfighters hit him in tandem. They swept directly over the bomber, about twenty feet above his tail, and as they crossed above him they made steep banking turns to the left.

What was the effect of that maneuver?

The jet exhausts from both planes struck Cray-croft’s bomber at point-blank range. The bomber was pushed-literally pushed-nearly half a mile off its course.

Straight out over the Hudson River.

Yes, sir. That was where the third Starfighter hit him. Slammed him full of twenty-millimeter cannon fire. Knocked him straight down into the river. The B-17 came apart in several pieces before it hit the river.

And the bombs?

Well, that was the crux, wasn’t it? He’d reacted the way you’d expect. He pushed the bomb-release lever.

When?

A lot faster than we’d expected. Incredibly fast reaction. I mean he had to absorb what was happening to him, and then he had to understand he was being attacked, and then he had to decide what to do about it, and then he had to hit the bomb-release lever. He got all that done in not more than three seconds flat. It was fantastic. There was no way to have predicted he’d have reacted so fast.

Give us your eyewitness recollection, please.

The bombs seemed to fall from the plane just a split second after he’d been hit by the jet exhausts from the fighters. Long before he was over the river. Of course the bombs arched outward. He’d been in a steep turnfl when we hit him, and his forward momentum had been accelerated by the crashing blow of the jet exhausts. But just the same, he was still over Manhattan when he released the bombs. That was what we hadn’t anticipated. It was my fault. Mine and Harris’. We just hadn’t counted on him being so goddamned fast.

Go on.

We could see the bombs weren’t going to hit anywhere near the middle of Harlem. But at first-as the bombs fell away, for several seconds that were real agony-we couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t hit those high-rise buildings west of Broadway. The angle of our viewpoint was flat and we couldn’t really make out the trajectory. It looked like half of the Upper West Side was going to blow up, though.

And in the end…

They’re building a new sewage-treatment plant on the river side of the Henry Hudson Parkway. There are dozens of very tall cranes there. Construction machinery. The parkway itself has been closed for repairs, so there was no traffic on it. The bombs dropped in sticks on the highway overpass and about four of them crashed into that high tangle of construction cranes and booms. It was earsplitting. The shock wave knocked us around-in the air like a kite. A good deal of shrapnel went up, but because of the slant of the bomb fall, it all went out toward the river. It was a hell of an explosion-series of explosions. Incredible wreckage up there, as you know. The highway’s been buckled for nearly a quarter of a mile, and that sewage plant’s a complete ruin. But there were no casualties. That was the miracle. A watchman was stunned on the construction site, but he was inside the shack and it saved him. He’s recovered. There wasn’t anybody else there-they’re union workers, they’d quit work at four thirty.

Then none of the bombs actually went into the river as you’d intended?

Only two of them. They went in just offshore. The two explosions were still making incredible geysers of water when Craycroft’s plane was shot down.

How did you feel at that moment? Can you recall?

Scared shitless, Mr. Skinner. If those jets had been two seconds later, every last one of those bombs would have blown up an apartment house.