The Bridges at Toko-ri Read Free

weighed well over seven tons and their speed exceeded 135 miles an hour, yet within 120 feet they were completely stopped and this miracle was accomplished in several ways. First, Tarrant kept his carriers headed into the wind, which on this day stormed in at nearly 40 miles an hour, which cut the plane’s relative speed to about 95 miles. Then, too, the carrier was running away from the plane at 11 miles an hour, which further cut the plane’s speed to 84, and it was this actual speed that the wires had to arrest. They did so with brutal strength, but should they miss, two slim nylon barriers waited to drag the plane onto the deck and chop its impetus, halting it so that it could not proceed forward to damage other planes. And finally, should a runaway jet miss both the wires and the barriers, it would plunge into a stout nylon barricade which would entwine itself about the wings and wheels and tear the jet apart as if it were a helpless insect.
    But it was Beer Barrel’s job to see that barriers and the barricade were not needed and he would shout curses at his pilots and cry, “Don’t fly the deck, Junior. Don’t fly the sea. Fly me.” An air force colonel watching Beer Barrel land jets exclaimed, “Why, it isn’t a landing at all! It’s a controlled crash.” And the big Texan replied in his beery voice, “Difference is that when I crash ’em they’re safe in the arms of God.”
    Now he brought in three more, swiftly and surely, and Admiral Tarrant, watching the looming mountains of Korea as they moved in upon his ships, muttered, “Well, we’ll make it again.”
    But as he said these words his squawk box sounded, and from deep within the Savo the combat intelligence director reported coolly, “1591 has been hit. Serious damage. May have to ditch.”
    “What’s his position?”
    “Thirty-five miles away.”
    “Who’s with him?”
    “His wingman, 1592.”
    “Direct him to come on in and attempt landing”
    The squawk box clicked off and Admiral Tarrant looked straight ahead at the looming coast. Long ago he had learned never to panic, but he had trained himself to look at situations in their gloomiest aspects so as to be prepared for ill turns of luck. “If this jet limps in we may have to hold this course for ten or fifteen more minutes. Well, we probably can do it.”
    He studied the radar screen to estimate his probable position in fifteen minutes. “Too close,” he muttered. Then into the squawk box which led to the air officer of the Savo he said, “Recovery operations must end in ten minutes. Get all planes aboard.”
    “The admiral knows there’s one in trouble?”
    “Yes. I’ve ordered him to try to land.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The bull horn sounded. “All hands. We must stop operations within ten minutes. Get those barriers cleared faster. Bring the planes in faster.”
    The telephone talker at the landing platform told Beer Barrel, “We got to get ’em all aboard in ten minutes.”
    “What’s a matter?” Beer Barrel growled. “Admiral running hisself out of ocean?”
    “Looks like it,” the talker said.
    “You tell him to get the planes up here and I’ll get ’em aboard.”
    So the nineteen dark ships of the task force sped on toward the coastline and suddenly the squawk box rasped, “Admiral, 1591 says he will have to ditch.”
    “Can he ditch near the destroyers?”
    “Negative.”
    “Is his wingman still with him?”
    “Affirmative.”
    “How much fuel?”
    “Six hundred pounds.”
    “Have you a fix on their positions?”
    “Affirmative.”
    “Dispatch helicopter and tell wingman to land immediately.”
    There was a long silence and the voice said, “Wingman 1592 requests permission stay with downed plane till copter arrives.”
    The admiral was now faced with a decision no man should have to make. If the wingman stayed on, he would surely run out of fuel and lose his own plane and probably his life as well. But to command him to leave a downed companion was