The Art of War

PROLOGUE

The waist catapults fired, one after another, and two F/A-18C Hornets launched into the clear early afternoon sky. They came together in a loose formation as they climbed and were soon checking in with an E-2 that had launched on the previous cycle. Its call sign was Moon Glow.

The leader of the two-ship section was Lieutenant Jerry “Cracker” Graham. His wingman was Lieutenant (junior grade) Dyson Wade, a quiet youngster with a diffident, respectful manner, so his squadron mates called him “Mad Dog.”

“War Ace Three Oh Seven, Moon Glow. The situation is fluid. The Chinese destroyer is apparently trying to swamp Filipino fishing boats around the shoal, and a Philippine patrol boat is at least an hour away.”

“Roger,” Cracker Graham said, and eyed his computer. The distance to Scarborough Shoal was 138 nautical miles. He led Mad Dog up to twenty thousand feet and pulled the power back almost to idle and let the nose drift down a few degrees. Got to save some fuel somewhere, he thought, and wiggled in his seat to get comfortable.

As the air intelligence officer had stressed at the brief, conflict around Scarborough Shoal, a coral atoll about 120 nautical miles west of Luzon, was centered on fish.

Filipino demand for fish was estimated to be a bit over three million tons a year. China was expected to produce sixty millions tons of fish this year and import another four million tons to feed its people. “All in all, nearly a half billion people reside within a hundred miles of the South China Sea,” the briefer had said this morning before they launched, “and of necessity, fish is their main source of protein. Unfortunately fish are a finite resource, and the South China Sea is already severely overfished.”

Geologists suspected there might be oil under the floor of the South China Sea. That possibility had stimulated China into building a runway on an artificial island they constructed on Fiery Reef in the Spratly Islands, the ownership of which was claimed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. At 9,500-feet long, the runway would constitute an immovable aircraft carrier in the middle of a disputed ocean. The Chinese already had an airfield in the Paracel Islands, about 150 miles southeast of Hainan Island, and now they wanted one in the Spratlys.

Be that as it may, the United States was trying to keep peace in the region between its allies and the ever-hungry Chinese dragon. So Cracker and Mad Dog were flying down to Scarborough Shoal to take pictures with handheld digital cameras of any ships or boats they found there. The photos would, of course, be passed on up the chain of command to be given to the diplomats, who would try to keep hungry people from shooting at their ancient enemies and upsetting the apple cart of world trade.

On the flight schedule, the mission was called “surface surveillance.” Due to budget constraints in today’s peacetime navy, this crumb was all that was available. Cracker didn’t complain. This flight was a good excuse to get off the ship for an hour and a half in a hot jet fighter and log another catapult shot and arrested landing. Zip through a blue sky towing Mad Dog around. Another great navy day. Ho hum.

He picked up the Chinese destroyer, if that was what it was, on his radar scope, a mere blip, at sixty miles as he descended, power back, letting gravity do some of the work. He saw it at forty miles, a speck far away on the glistening ocean.

He glanced left. His wingman was about a hundred feet below him, several hundred feet aft, about five hundred feet away in a loose cruise formation. “How you doing over there, Mad Dog?”

“Terrific.”

“Contain your excitement, you animal.”

“Contain, aye.”

As he closed, Graham could see that the destroyer was trailing a broad wake. A bow wave showed white. Now it was turning toward a small ship, the mother ship, surrounded by what looked like open boats.

Cracker put his fighter into a left circle around the ship at three thousand feet. Mad Dog was high and out to right, probably at five thousand feet. Cracker engaged the autopilot and fiddled with the camera that rode on a strap around his neck. Got it on, pointed it, focused and pressed the shutter. Held it down. It would snap several photos a second.

As he watched through the viewfinder, he saw the destroyer swamp one of the fishing boats with its spreading bow wave and turn a smidgen toward the larger mother ship, which seemed to be trailing a net. It was, perhaps, doing four knots. The destroyer didn’t slacken speed. It headed straight for the mother ship, doing at least thirty knots.

The angle was changing as Graham circled, but with a nudge or two of the stick, he brought the plane around enough so that he could keep the viewfinder on the destroyer and its intended victim. The destroyer closed the distance at a charge. Then, at the very last second, it swerved and sideswiped the mother ship. The destroyer heeled from the impact; the mother ship ground down the side and came to a stop in the destroyer’s wake.

“I’m going down for some close-ups, Dog. Stay high.”

“Roger.”

With the camera in his left hand, Cracker Graham punched off the autopilot and pointed the nose down. He went by the swamped open boat at 250 knots, saw men in the water as he held the shutter down and the camera pointed, then soared over the mother ship at a few hundred feet. Her side was damaged and she was listing, dead in the water.

The collisions were deliberate, Graham knew, and the sight of men in the water, perhaps drowning, infuriated him. From Oklahoma, by way of Texas, Graham well knew the story of the poor fishermen. They had lost their boat, their livelihoods, and perhaps their lives, all on the altar of great-power politics.

He made one low orbit, made sure he had photos of the sinking boat, men in the water and damaged mother ship, then added power and nudged his Hornet into a climb. The destroyer was already a couple of miles away, streaming a broad wake.

Graham abandoned the camera and turned hard out to the west. Added full power on both engines. Kept the nose up and turned south. He accelerated away, climbing. “You got me in sight, Dog?”

“Roger. I’m at your seven o’clock, five grand.”

Graham leveled at ten thousand feet, accelerating. Then he dipped the left wing in a wide, sweeping turn and headed back for the destroyer, maneuvering to place himself astern of it, and lowered his nose. As he dived he plugged in both burners, pushed the throttles all the way forward.

He descended toward the surface of the sea, checked his radar altimeter, kept diving and accelerating. The electronic countermeasures gear picked up a fire control radar aimed at him and gave him an audible warning as he slipped through Mach 1 and kept accelerating. He was carrying two drop tanks, which would limit his maximum speed. Still, he was delighted to see Mach 1.3 on the meter as the radar altimeter deedled, signaling he had gone below two hundred feet. He was out of the dive, almost level now, the destroyer rushing toward him. That was an optical illusion, of course; it was he who was hurling toward the Chinese warship at well over the speed of sound. He pointed his nose ever so slightly to the right of the warship and let the Hornet descend to just below the masthead.

The captain of the Chinese destroyer, on the wing of the bridge, got a glimpse of the fighter behind the ship and turned his head to look. He heard nothing. The Hornet was well ahead of the roar of its engines, which were in full afterburner.

The captain focused on the oncoming fighter. The thought occurred to him that the plane was going to hit the ship — then it shot past, level with him, thirty feet from his head. At a little over a thousand knots, it passed him in less than an eyeblink. The concussion of the trailing sonic boom hit him like a fist, breaking both his eardrums and rupturing blood vessels in his nose and eyes. The pain was intense. He fell to the deck of the bridge, blood pouring from his nose. He didn’t hear the glass on the bridge windows shattering or see the bridge team clapping hands to their ears … too late. Had the captain been able to look, he would have seen the fighter’s nose rise to forty degrees above the horizon, and with both burners secured, soar up into the clear blue sky.

Cracker Graham got on his radio. “Moon Glow, War Ace Three Oh Seven. I need Texaco ASAP.” Texaco was a tanker. Graham had used a prodigious quantity of fuel with his afterburner antics.

Meanwhile Mad Dog had spotted another ship only six or so miles away, dead in the water. Curious, he cut his throttles and made a slow pass by the ship at five hundred feet with his camera clicking. Then he climbed away, chasing his leader.

Back aboard the carrier, both pilots turned in their cameras so the photos could be downloaded. In the debrief to the air wing intelligence officer, Graham mentioned that he made a low pass by the destroyer and told how the destroyer had locked him up with a missile guidance radar. He didn’t tell the debriefer just how low he had gone.

The pictures of the damaged Filipino ship, sinking boat and men in the water made an immediate splash. Op-immediate messages shot back and forth between the battle group commander and Washington. The following day the Pentagon released three of these photos to the press; they were on the evening news two hours later. Another international incident.

Mad Dog’s photos were classified and not released. Photo interpretation experts concluded the stationary ship he had photographed was a Chinese seismic survey ship.

As the days turned into weeks, the oil and gas exploration ship was photographed repeatedly by carrier aircraft and several P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft operating from a base in the Philippines as it went about its business in the South China Sea near Scarborough Shoal.