Into the fire, p.14
Into the Fire, page 14
“This is the captain speaking. In a few minutes, we are going to beach the ship on a small, uninhabited South Korean island. I’ll put us ashore as gently as I can, but prepare for the impact of the grounding. We’ll stay with the ship as long as we can, but we may be forced to abandon ship at any time and go ashore. You’ve all performed splendidly, and I’m proud of you. For right now, remain at your stations, do your duty, and this will all be over soon. God bless each of you and God bless Milwaukee. That is all.”
The fire was all but out; however, Milwaukee was noticeably down by the stern when Kate Bigelow nudged the LCS ashore on the southern tip of Kujido Island. While she did her best to touch her ship down with bare steerageway, the sound of metal grinding on rock was deafening and unnerving. As the ship scrapped the bottom of the seafloor, it sounded to her as if the hounds of Hades were being released. Only one of her two diesels still functioned. The ship ground to a halt at a forty-five-degree angle to the rocky beach, port side to, and took on a permanent fifteen-degree list to starboard. The stern, still in deeper water than the bow, continued to settle into the seabed. With her ship hard aground, Bigelow left her OOD in charge of the bridge and, in the company of Master Chief Wilbur Crabtree, began an inspection of her ship. Her first stop was the wardroom-surgery suite, where Chief Carol Picard and the corpsmen tended to the wounded.
* * *
Aboard the Seventh Fleet flagship, USS Blue Ridge, pierside in Yokosuka, Japan, Vice Admiral Ed Bennett stared at the cryptic message on his computer screen. It read:
HARD AGROUND ON THE SOUTHERN TIP OF KUJIDO ISLAND. SHIPBOARD FIRES EXTINGUISHED AND MAINTAINING AUXILIARY POWER. SURFACE SEARCH RADAR AND MAIN BATTERY FUNCTIONAL; ALL OTHER SYSTEMS NOT OPERATIONAL. EIGHT DEAD, SEVENTEEN WOUNDED, THREE MISSING. WILL REMAIN WITH SHIP BUT MAKING ALL PREPARATIONS TO ABANDON SHIP AS SITUATION DICTATES. BIGELOW COMMANDING.
Bennett then flicked to another message from Seventh Air Force that detailed the downing of two A-10 ground-attack aircraft over the Yellow Sea by Chinese-made North Korean air-launched PL-8 missiles. The PL-8 was not a terribly sophisticated missile, but then the Mach 3.5 missile didn’t have to be to take down a relatively defenseless A-10. And it served to remind the fleet commander of the dilemma facing him with the stranded Milwaukee. Any aircraft sent to relieve the crew of Milwaukee would be flying into one of the most deadly air-defense envelopes in the world. If there was to be a rescue, it would be seaborne rescue—a fleet action. And when ships moved into an area contested by land-based air, the fleet often ended up on the short end of the exchange. It was true for Pueblo in 1968 and it was true for Milwaukee now.
He pressed the button on his intercom. “Yes, Admiral?”
“Tell the chief of staff I want a meeting of all department heads in the conference room in five minutes.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And have ops contact Ronald Reagan strike group ops officer. Get them headed for the Yellow Sea at flank speed. I’ll have more for the strike-group commander. Have him contact me on the battle net.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Chase Williams had not left the Op-Center command center since his watch team alerted him that a U.S. Navy combatant was in a running gun battle with North Korean ships. Reports were coming in too quickly for him to pause and reflect on the wisdom of sending Brian Dawson and Hector Rodriguez, as well as Major Mike Volner and his JSOC team, downrange the day before, during the early stages of the unfolding crisis. As he monitored the situation, he reflected on his former uniformed career and, specifically, his three years as the Pacific Command commander. He knew the geography and the order of battle of the forces involved. But he did not yet know how Milwaukee was faring in the duel with the North Korean ships, nor did he know the intentions of the North Koreans. So he had no way of yet knowing how Op-Center might be able to help or if it could help at all.
Some of that uncertainty was clarified as Roger McCord and Aaron Bleich appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. “Boss, we have something for you,” McCord began.
“I’ll take anything you fellas have.”
“Aaron?” McCord prompted.
The Geek Tank leader stepped next to Williams and held up his secure iPad, showing him the message that had appeared on the Seventh Fleet commander’s screen minutes ago. “We just got this off the Seventh Fleet JWICS net. Looks like Milwaukee is hard aground on Kujido Island in the Yellow Sea…”
“Hard aground? Make me a little smarter on where Kujido Island is, Aaron.”
Bleich scrolled his iPad as he pulled up the geographic display. “Here it is, boss. It’s part of the Yeonpyeong Island group.” Bleich continued, “It’s about fifty miles west of Inchon…”
“How close is it to North Korea?” Williams interrupted.
“Less than eight miles, sir.”
“I wonder what the hell the skipper was doing there.” Williams mused to no one in particular.
“We’ve been following the live radio feeds,” McCord interjected. “When the North Korean ships appeared on scene and made for the ships in the mine-hunting exercise, Milwaukee’s skipper took on the two North Korean frigates so the South Korean ships and one of ours, the MCM ship Defender, could make good their escape. The Milwaukee’s only option was to run to the north. Tactically, it seems she did the right thing.”
“She?”
“Yes, sir,” McCord continued. “Milwaukee is commanded by a Commander Kate Bigelow.”
Williams paused to consider what his intel team had just told him. Then he was all action. “Okay, Roger, Aaron, good report. Aaron, let’s turn up the gain on what I asked you to do a little while ago. I want you both to get upstream of the immediate action reports and deep dive into why North Korea attacked these ships and what else they may be up to. Brian is the senior man downrange, so I’d like to have him give us his assessment. I don’t know if we’ll get the call on this one yet, but let’s alert our JSOC team at Fort Bragg and let them know we may need additional assets to support Major Volner and the team he has in place.”
As his team moved to carry out his instructions, Chase Williams left the watch floor and headed for his office. He had calls to make.
* * *
Roger McCord followed Aaron Bleich back to the Geek Tank, and now the two men sat in companionable silence, considering the task ahead. Then McCord spoke, “The boss has given us a big assignment. Given what we know now, we have to get out in front of this and find out why the North Koreans did this.”
“He started me working on this a little while ago,” Bleich replied, “and it’s not just the ‘why,’ but the ‘why now?’ And why did they seem to want to attack Milwaukee? Why not the Korean minesweepers or Defender?”
“That’s what we need to know. Could be that they just wanted an American ship. Could be that given the poor weather conditions, Defender just got taken for another Korean minesweeper. But until we find that out, we’re operating with one hand tied behind our backs.”
“It would seem to me,” Bleich continued, “the North Koreans are trying to precipitate a crisis to put our forces in the region in check. Taking an American crew hostage would do that. But why? What do they want from us? Or the South Koreans?” Bleich knew it was his job to find the answers to these questions, not McCord’s. He also knew he had to amp up his game. And for the first time he could remember in the longest time, he worried about failure.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KUJIDO ISLAND IN THE YEONPYEONG ISLAND GROUP
November 13, 1615 Korea Standard Time
Kate Bigelow stood on the bridge of Milwaukee in relative silence. With the main engines shut down and the big forced-draft blowers quiet, there were only the faint vibrations from the generators. And there was the creaking of the hull. As the stern of the ship continued to settle into the seabed, the hull and the superstructure were being stressed in such a way that they issued a continuing series of squeaks and groans. It was at once eerie and unsettling. Her chief engineer had said they would continue to settle and that there was little chance that the ship would roll onto its side like the Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia, but there were no guarantees. No LCS had ever been beached in this fashion and at this angle. Already, there was a slick of diesel and gas-turbine fuel surrounding the stern of the Milwaukee. My ship is broken, Bigelow admitted to herself. But it had done its job—fought off two frigates and brought us to the relative safety of this islet.
“Captain, engineer.” Bigelow was no longer on her headphones, and now communicated with other spaces in the ship over the IVOX system, which, miraculously, was still working.
“Captain, aye. Go ahead, Steve.”
“Skipper, I’m down here in the plant surveying the damage. I can give us power for no more than a half hour. The water’s creeping up on the auxiliary generator, and it’ll soon be offline. We’re working to cross-connect with the two portable gensets, but they will not be able to carry the load of the guns and the radars. About all we’ll be able to give you are lights and power to the bridge, MCC, and radio central. Sorry, Skipper.”
“Okay, Steve, but I want you to give priority to the wardroom and the forward officer staterooms, where we’re caring for the wounded. And let me know when you’re ready to shift the load to the portables.”
“Yes, ma’am. Engineering, out.”
Bigelow took in a quick inventory of her situation. As when the ship was in a running gun battle with the frigates, there was not a lot for her to do at the moment. The department heads, the junior officers, and the senior petty officers were seeing to the care of the ship, the care of the wounded, and the many details that would accompany the welfare of the crew, should they remain aboard or have to abandon ship. She had been to Korea several times, and the weather was always like it was today—bad. The temperature was forty-two degrees and would get close to freezing before morning. The blowing sea mist and the low ceiling were projected to continue for the next several days. She was most concerned about the next twelve hours. They had been sending situation reports out to Seventh Fleet every half hour. That made three since she had run Milwaukee aground. Her attention was captured by a bulky figure entering through the rear hatchway to the pilothouse. He was swathed in foul-weather gear, and there was an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth. A knitted watch cap was pulled low across his forehead.
“Master Chief, how was your shore leave?” Right after the grounding, Bigelow had sent her navigator and command master chief, Master Chief Wilbur Crabtree, ashore with two sailors from the combat systems department to scout the island. She had no intention of abandoning ship for this piece of rock, but then she had to inventory all her options and plan for alternative courses of action. That, too, was part of her job description.
“Well, Skipper,” Crabtree began, removing the stogie from his mouth. As an afterthought, he pulled off the watch cap to reveal a bald stubble. “I can see why no one’s living on this piece of turf. Its gravel and volcanic rock with scrub brush, lichen, and a lot of seagull shit. Just over the berm, there’s a concrete structure that looks like it was an old fish cannery. It’s cold, wet, and deserted, but the structure is rock solid. Looks like some kind of World War Two coastal-bunker complex. It smells gawd-awful. I’d hate to spend the night there. It’s damp as hell and cold as a well digger’s ass, excusing the language, ma’am.”
Bigelow considered this. She knew the master chief was from West Virginia and a small mining town near Martinsville. He would know the temperature of a well digger’s ass. “Let’s hope none of us have to spend the night there, Master Chief. But if we were to have to, I want you to begin assembling everything we might need to do just that. And if it comes to it, we’ll have to take our wounded with us, so let Chief Picard know that as well.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am. Oh, and from what I could see from the top of the small rise on this end of the island, it looks like the big island off to the northeast is under shore-battery fire from the mainland. Lots of smoke. And it seems they’re shooting back as I could hear artillery fire. Near as I could tell, it was outgoing.”
“Thanks again, Master Chief. Carry on.”
After he left the pilothouse, she dialed up the IVOX. “Radio, bridge.”
“Radio central, aye, ma’am.”
She recognized the voice of her chief information technology specialist, who was the senior rating in the ship’s communications center. “Petty Officer Matheson, how’re you making out there in radio?”
“As well as can be expected, Skipper. We came offline after the missile strike for about fifteen minutes, but we’re now transmitting and receiving on all normal frequencies and guarding those same freqs as we were before the hit.”
“Good to hear. Now I want you to prepare for what might happen if for some chance we lose the load or can’t get power to you.”
“Roger that, ma’am.”
“And, Matheson, I want you to start thinking about what you might want to take along if we’re forced to abandon ship. If that happens, I will still need to communicate, and I’ll want to talk on an encrypted basis. Got that?”
“Skipper, are we going to abandon ship?”
“Not yet, but if we have to, it will be critical that we have secure comms with Seventh Fleet, the Reagan strike group, and commander, U.S. Forces, Korea. Think you can manage that?”
There was a pause. Then, “Not sure, Skipper, but I’ll do my best. And that best may just be an encrypted Iridium satellite phone.”
“That’s fine; I’ll take your best. Just make sure I can talk, talk secure, and there’s someone on the other end who can hear me. And make sure we have plenty of battery backup.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
“Oh, and how are we for the destruction of crypto equipment and classified documents?”
“The combat systems officer and I began assembling the docs and the gear right after the North Koreans opened fire. The incendiaries are in place and await your orders. Might burn the ship up along with it, but all classified materials will be disposed of completely.”
“Thanks, Matheson. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Fifteen minutes after she rang off with radio, the first North Korean artillery shells began to land on the north side of Kujido Island.
* * *
At the Pentagon, it was morning, and hundreds of staffers on the Joint Staff had been working at a frenetic pace since the first shots were fired in the Yellow Sea. There were many differing opinions as to how to rescue the LCS crew. The Joint Staff had heard from the subordinate regional commanders, and none of them had a ready plan for quick action. Those that might work put forces at risk from North Korea’s deadly inventory of antiship and anti-air missiles and risk the lives of Milwaukee’s crew. The Joint Staff debated the pros and cons of an expeditious rescue versus one that might have a higher probability of success. When the chairman of the joint chiefs asked the Pacific theater commander for a rescue plan to extract the LCS crew, he was told there simply wasn’t one; the crew would have to hang on indefinitely. The chairman considered this, then pulled in a small cadre of his closest advisors to consider how to tell the president and the secretary of defense their senior military advisor had no options for them.
But beyond giving his political masters the grim assessment, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff had an equally difficult task. The president, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of state had all spoken with their South Korean counterparts and felt they had been successful in urging restraint and convincing their close ally to let the United States rescue its own crew. He was much less successful in his discussions with General Kwon Oh-Sung, chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kwon reminded him that the North Korean ships had attacked a flotilla of ships under South Korean command. Kwon had even called him “hesitant” and had all but given him an ultimatum to rescue the crew or he would have his South Korean forces do it. Most troubling, the last two times he had tried to call his South Korean counterpart, Kwon refused to take the call because he was “too busy with operational matters.”
* * *
Eight hundred miles due south of where Milwaukee sat stranded on Kujido Island, Brian Dawson pushed himself away from the table in his makeshift office in hangar 17 at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, with a sour expression on his face. “Think I need to stretch my legs a bit,” he announced to no one in particular.
“Me too,” Hector Rodriguez, who was seated across the table, said, adding, “and I’ll be available if you need another lesson.”
“Yeah, right.” Dawson snorted. Rodriguez had just taken three games of cribbage from him, and one of those was a skunk. They played for a nickel a point, and it was starting to add up. Worse, he knew Chase Williams would find out about this and remind him he had cautioned him against taking on Rodriguez.
The JSOC team and their gear were strewn about the hangar in an orderly fashion, and the team members were well into their isolation protocol. They would not communicate with the outside world, nor would the outside world, namely friends and family, communicate with them until they were tasked with a mission or recalled. The operators and the support cadre were variously reading, sleeping, or working out in the makeshift gym they had created in the corner of the hangar. For food, there were multiple cases of MRE rations, but these were veteran special operators, and most of them had brought along their own stores of food and drink. And they were ready. On a moment’s notice they could be kitted up and out the door. And since the nature of a potential mission was still undefined, they could be out that door and undertaking any number of operational configurations.
“Hey, Mr. Dawson, I mean Brian. Mr. Williams would like to speak with you and Hector. I have him standing by on a secure VTC link.”
Dawson and Rodriguez followed Jesse Carpenter to the small cubicle he had set up, which functioned as the Op-Center detachment communications center. It was Williams’s policy to have a video teleconferencing ability whenever possible, even at a forward operating base. There, they found Chase Williams waiting for them on a twenty-eight-inch, flat, high-resolution LCD screen. He was sitting at his desk at Op-Center headquarters looking at his screen and into the small camera eye set into the top of the casing just above the screen.
