1 April 1979
Team Spirit
It was a mild winter in Korea, or at least as mild as they come up there. We were able to fly every day, as did our good friends the Russians. We bored all kinds of holes in the sky and cut endless miles of blue water off Cheju-Do Island. We were re-enacting the Korean War, and we had only 16 days to do it. It took a supreme effort to ignore the fall of the Shah and the Chinese Invasion of Vietnam, but by God, we are nothing if not strong-minded.
The exercise, Team Spirit by name, was planned by the Air Force and the Army and coordinated with 150,000 of my close personal Korean friends. We all got together for an amphibious landing over on the east coast of South Korea. Really fun. We brought Onion Dip and the Koreans brought marines. Some of them got capsized in the rough surf and several drowned. Nothing was spared in the search for realism. But we got ashore, and commenced striking phantom regiments and blowing up imaginary bridges in earnest. It took over two weeks of constant alerts, intense planning, and hundreds of gallons of strong Navy coffee, but we won. We pushed the phantom regiments back to the Status Quo, declared Victory, and make preparations to go on home to Japan.
With, I hasten to add, a considerable sigh of relief from all hands. We had been at sea almost continually since October. Two weeks at Christmas for the family people, and a five day in-port. Otherwise we were down in Mission Planing, briefing like crazy, (they call me Crazy ENS Socotra, now) planning contingencies, and momentarily expecting to depart for the sunny climes of the Indian Ocean. The fact that the axe hasn’t fallen yet in no way detracts from the delicious sensation of hearing the latest rumor and realizing you only have a hundred coffee filters in stock for a possible two-month cruise. The consequences are mind boggling. The sharks are particularly vicious in those waters, and it is a long swim to Bandar Abbas.
Our adrenaline was raised periodically by visits from the boys from Vladivostock. They would jump into the family Tu-95 BEAR strategic bomber and go for a spin; in the Cheju-Do modified location the blocks tend to be fairly long. They would motor on down and see what we would do. In turn, we would launch the alert Phantom hot-rods and intercept them at an appropriate distance from the big grey houseboat. Our flashy paint jobs must drive the conservative Russian nuts; a couple F-4s materialize on the wingtips covered with tiger-tail paint schemes and ominous visored figures. Once, the Legendary Snidley Whiplash ducked his head down and exchanged his helmet for a gorilla mask. Ah, Comrade, what are we to do against such enemies?
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When we mosied up into the Sea of Japan for a quick look-see (those are rather constricted waters for large building 41 to operate in, inside the range of the BADGER medium-range bomber. And yes, Virginia, there is a Dawn Launch in the Sea of Japan, just like the recruiting ads. They don’t say in the commercial that you have to get up at 0230 to get ready for it. Presently, we start getting the double-team action. The long-range Tu-95s would motor on by in stately fashion, much akin to the dignified cruise of a Fleetwood, while the Tu-16s would race down in pairs to come be at low levels.
Hard to track the rascals. We performed our tasks in an exemplary fashion, until one early morning alert….We had intercepted a few dozen of the diabolical communists up to this point, and we could have doubled our score on this particular encounter of the unsettling kind. We launched a couple birds, and the Russians seemed to go away. To avoid re-spotting the deck (a substantial effort) the commend elected to send our boys on in to the Beach. In the meantime, the distance between the Midway and our picket ship had grown to the point where our ability to provide cover for them was marginal at best. Suddenly, an entire air regiment appeared and ran a full-blown attack simulation on our hapless cruiser. I am precluded from delving into the matter in further detail, but suffice it to say it was complete up to the pushing of a few sequence controls. Tres Funk.
As we were playing the Korean War over again, we deigned not to notice what Ivan was up to. There were several soiled under-trousers on the cruiser from reliable report. Ah well, we won the imaginary war, ignored the real Cold one, and here we are Home Again, jiggidy-jig.
In-port. Time to kick back and relax, you say? But no! Not for the most forward by-God deployed Air Wing in the Navy! We pulled in on Saturday, took Sunday off, and were back at 0730 on Monday. The Japanese workers had dis-assembled most of the life support systems, the jack-hammers rang with vibrant life, the noxious fumes of non-skid filled the air. It was, in the opinion of the Players, time for a boondoggle and get away from the ship.
For a while, anyway. A little less than a year to the next one…
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