Authors: Patrick Robinson
“That is precisely what it means.”
“No warnings? No instructions to leave Chinese waters immediately? Not even a shot across her bow?”
“No, Guan. None of that. My orders are to open fire, straight at her, with whatever means necessary to sink her.”
“My God,” said the XO. “We better not miss, sir. Or she will surely obliterate us.”
“Guan, she may do that even if we don’t miss.”
Lt. Commander Anwei Bao, the combat systems officer, returned to the bridge and caught just the end of the conversation.
“I have done as you instructed, sir. We are ready to open fire with all systems immediately…but there is just one thing, sir, I’d like to ask…”
“Please do.”
“Does anyone know any background to this? Why we apparently are prepared to risk an out-and-out conflict with the United States?”
“Well, there is the matter of the submarine that blew up in Canton last night. I suppose that may be implicated. But the Americans did not blow it up. I thought we did, our own scientists.”
“Well, that’s the official line, but you never know.”
“And what are we doing heading for the shallow waters around the two islands up ahead?”
“Now that’s a real mystery. I have no idea.”
“And why do they think we’re going to find another American submarine due south of Xiachuan? There’s no one on that island.”
“I have not been told that, either. Just that we are likely to find one, and then to destroy it.”
0629. Monday, July 17
.
South China Sea. 112.34E 21.31N
.
“Green-two-zero, sir. Submarine on the surface.” Buster Townsend, leaning forward, peering through the binoculars, had USS
Greenville
in his sights. She stood about a mile farther to the south than they thought, with two American frigates from the
Ronald Reagan
CVBG about four miles beyond.
Despite the heavy protection, everyone was growing nervous about the evacuation in Chinese national waters in broad daylight. On board the Los Angeles—class attack submarine, they literally could not wait to get under the surface.
The SEAL drivers headed straight toward it, bringing the Zodiacs expertly alongside, forward of the sail, where the crew had lowered climbing nets. Everyone in the inflatables was a highly trained SEAL who knew everything about boarding submarines in the worst possible conditions, right down to banging on the hull with their fighting knives underwater in order to be let in. The only non-SEAL in the Zodiacs was Captain Judd Crocker, and he was a submarine commanding officer. He’d manage.
Greenville
’s crew grabbed the first boat and as soon as it was empty hauled it up, deflated it, and sent it below. Heavy loose gear was just ditched, even the engines. The five boats were dealt with in 90 seconds flat. And the submarine accelerated rapidly away to the south, still on the surface.
The navigation officer, up on the bridge with the CO, heard the report: “Conn-ESM. Racket. X-Band. Military. Bearing two-six-zero. Approaching danger level.”
Commander Tom Wheaton picked up his binoculars and looked out to the darker western horizon, but could see nothing. But from the ESM report, he knew this radar was most likely to be a Chinese warship, and it was about to come over the radar horizon. At which moment he would be caught
in flagrante
, an American submarine on the surface in Chinese national waters, his worst nightmare. He could expect no mercy. He could expect hot lead within the next 20 minutes.
Now, Commander Wheaton was not empowered to get into combat. However, he did not have sufficient water to dive the submarine, so he would have to concentrate on making his getaway on the surface. The nearest water deep enough to dive was still four miles ahead. He could be underwater in about 18 minutes, with the two frigates blocking for him.
On board the destroyer
Xiangtan
.
“Bridge-Radar. New surface contact. Track two-three-zero-one. Bearing zero-eight-zero. Range thirty-five thousand meters…two more surface contacts, close together. Tracks two-three-zero-two and two-three-zero-two. Bearing zero-nine-one. Same range. Indicating to weapons control.”
“Radar-Captain. Good. Gimme course and speeds as soon as you can.…Navigator, plot their positions. I want to know if the Americans are outside the twelve-mile limit. ACTION STATIONS…SURFACE.”
“Wheel-Captain. Steer zero-eight-three.”
Seventeen tense minutes dragged by. Then, silhouetted against the morning sun, the clear shapes of the American ships were sighted, the small black square of
Greenville
’s sail to the left, and the bulkier hulls of the two frigates to the right.
“The submarine can’t dive,” replied Colonel Lee. “Not here. There’s only just about one hundred feet under the keel…my orders are specific. Follow her. And then sink her. But I am opening up the line again to Fleet Headquarters, probably for the last time.”
Commander Tom Wheaton, in a long naval career stretching right back to Annapolis, had never encountered anything quite like the situation in which he now found himself. A lifelong submariner, he’d crept around some highly dubious waters in the service of his country, some hot, some cold. But he had never been faced with an onrushing foreign destroyer coming straight at him, in water insufficiently deep for him to dive, much less to make a sharp, judicious getaway,
and
in foreign national waters where he was not supposed to be.
Greenville
’s mission was, after all, merely to arrange safe passage for American prisoners who had in some instances suffered Chinese torture.
Commander Wheaton considered that this had all the makings of a small war, and he opened up his encrypted line to the captain of
Kaufman
, the 4,000-ton Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate from the
Ronald Reagan
CVBG.
He too was seriously concerned at the sight of an onrushing Chinese destroyer, and understood
Green
ville
’s quandary about diving in this shallow water, about 110 feet. But the immediate aim was that the submarine should get the hell out of the way.
In the conn below, Commander Wheaton’s only wish was to “get underwater, and leave the frigates to cover my ass.” He was unsure of the reliability of the charts, and he normally took a relatively cautious view of driving 7,000 tons of American steel straight into an unmarked sandbank. He had no need to remind himself of one simple equation: “Mass multiplied by velocity squared equals a whole lot of inertia. When it’s seven thousand tons times even ten knots, it’d knock us to pieces.” But this was no time for caution.
Commander Wheaton decided to vanish, even at a low speed. Every time he looked to the west, the Chinese destroyer grew ever closer.
And the CO of the USS
Greenville
was not the only anxious man. On the bridge of
Xiangtan
, Colonel Lee was in direct communication with Admiral Zu Jicai, and the Southern Commander was sufficiently concerned to order “caution, for the moment.”
He went to see Admiral Zhang again, and at the risk of irritating the all-powerful C-in-C even further, he said, simply, “
Xiangtan
is nine miles west of a surfaced American nuclear submarine. There are two American frigates close by. Do you continue to want Colonel Lee to open fire on her?”
“Immediately,” replied Zhang, not even glancing up from the papers he was reading.
Admiral Zu glanced around helplessly, and just said, “Sir, you are not only my immediate superior, you have been a friend for almost all of our lives. I implore you to think very carefully before you make me order this.”
“I’ve thought. Say no more, Jicai. Tell Colonel Lee to sink the American submarine, right here in Chinese national waters where she has no right to be.
RIGHT NOW
!”
And so the Southern Fleet Commander walked slowly back to his office and picked up the telephone again.
“Colonel Lee. My orders from the C-in-C are to sink the American submarine immediately.”
And the commanding officer of
Xiangtan
replied, in deep Cantonese dialect, “Aye, sir. But I should warn you, there is an entire United States Carrier Battle Group in very close proximity. We are looking at two of her guided missile frigates at this very moment. We shall be committing suicide.”
“Then you are ordered perhaps to die for your country.…Make no mistake, Colonel Lee…you are to take whatever extreme measures are necessary to put that American submarine on the floor of the South China Sea. Maximum honor to you and your crew.”
And so Colonel Lee walked back to his high chair in the ops room and ordered
Xiangtan
’s 157-millimeter Russian-built guns into action on Track 2301.
“Fire at will,” he said. “And God help us all.” And the first of a salvo of 10 shells screamed in toward the
Greenville
.
It was 0641 when the biggest gun on the Chinese destroyer opened fire. The first shell went right by.
“Over. Down four hundred. SHOOT!”
“Bracket. Up two hundred. SHOOT!”
Greenville
was in the process of diving. The upper lid of the conning tower was half-shut when the third shell exploded with deafening impact right inside the sail.
Greenville
shuddered, and above the casing seven more shells came whistling past, with that unmistakable
WHOOOOSH—WHOOOSH—WHOOOSH
of naval ordnance. The Americans were lucky to take only one hit, because there were three very near-misses.
Commander Wheaton knew nothing about them, but he did know that something extremely large and explosive had just gone off right above him. “
Christ
!” he thought. “
That’s a goddamned shell. That bastard’s
shooting at us. I just hope to God the pressure hull’s not breached
.”
“Helm-Captain,” he said, steadily. “KEEP HER GOING DOWN.”
“Upper lid shut and clipped, sir.…”
“There’s a lot of noise coming from inside the sail.”
“Was that one bang or two?”
“I think only one…try the periscope?”
“Go ahead.…”
“Damn. It’s not moving, sir.…”
“How about the radio mast…”
“That’s not moving either. Nothing.”
“Upper lid’s fine, sir…we’re not shipping water.”
“
Right. Shut the lower lid…and make your speed ten…steer one-eight-zero
…”
“
Sounder shows thirty feet below the keel
…”
Commander Wheaton turned to his XO. “This is not absolutely perfect. We’re just about blind. The bow sonar is all we got left and there’s so much noise coming from the inside of the sail I doubt that’s gonna be much good to us. Fact is we can’t see, we can’t use radio, and we can’t hear much.”
By now Judd Crocker had made his way up to the conn, and found himself in the slightly awkward position of outranking the commanding officer. This meant that if he spoke at all, he must do so with extreme care, and great courtesy. Because, IF, as the top submarine commander in the U.S. Navy, Judd issued an order, it would mean, in the myriad of complicated laws of the Silent Service, that he had assumed command, relieving Tom Wheaton of his duties.
But Judd knew the CO personally, which made it easier, and he just said, “Well, Tom, at least we’re still breathing.”
“Actually, sir, at most we’re still breathing.”
“That shell wreck all the masts?”
“Looks like it. We’re blind below the surface, and I got
no radio aerials—but thank God, we’re not leaking. The reactor’s fine and we have propulsion.”
“But if we want to have a look around, we have to go all the way to the surface?”
“Yessir. ’Fraid so.”
“Well, we better not do that, Tom, in case that fucking destroyer has another whack at us.”
“We sure hadn’t.”
“I guess if push came to shove, we could just go ahead and sink the bastard,” said Judd, whose proximity to the free-wheeling warriors of SPECWARCOM had plainly had a profound impact on his psyche.
Commander Wheaton smiled grimly and replied, “Well, sir, we have been fired upon, so it would be self-defense, if anyone questioned us.”
“Yes, it would. But there’s something damned odd about this. The frigates should have frightened the Chinks away. But they weren’t frightened, they blew our sail away without even thinking about it. Didn’t give a rat’s ass for the frigates.”
“Hmmmmm,” pondered Captain Crocker. “We stick our head out of the water, they’ll blow the bastard off.”
“Looks that way, sir. And we can’t fire at them. We’re still just in Chinese territorial waters, and they have a right to want us out. Anyway, you know how damned tricky it is to fire torpedoes in water this shallow. Goddamned things will probably go deep right out of the tube and then hit the bottom.
“Fact is, we gotta get back to the carrier. But the damned racket up in the sail is making our bow sonar next to useless. We need a guide dog. And the only one we got right now is
Kaufman
.”
Tom moved over to the underwater telephone and picked up the handset.
“
Kaufman
, this is
Greenville
. Execute Plan Kibbec Five. Read back. Over.”
Slightly to his surprise,
Kaufman
came straight back, faintly, but only slightly distorted: “
Greenville
, this is
Kaufman
. Roger. I read back. Execute Plan Kibbec Five. Out.”
Tom replaced the handset. “Beautiful. We’re in business.”
“Huh?” said Judd. “What’s up?”
“It’s a DEVGRU plan—not yet for general use, but by chance Carl Sharpe and I were working on it a few weeks back. It’s just a way of getting an SSN in from the deep field, in a big hurry, without radio comms.”
“Oh, right. I gottit…er…at least I think I have…er…how?”
“No sweat.
Kaufman
switches on her high-power active sonar in a certain pattern, so we know it IS
Kaufman
—Pattern Five—and we just home in on her, treat her like she’s some kinda underwater lighthouse. Get underneath and stay there. Then we got full comms, through her. Got ourselves a guide dog. Better still, he’s a guide dog who’ll run interference for us.”
Ten minutes later, Tom Wheaton had driven
Greenville
underneath
Kaufman
. And they both headed out at 12 knots. The two CO’s talked easily on the UWT. The new guidance plan was in place, but Commander Sharpe was still concerned about the proximity of the Chinese destroyer. “She closed to within a mile, and then stood off, just watching, appeared to show no interest in the frigates…as if she was waiting for you to reappear.”
“Well, we’ll give ’em a damned long wait, right, Carl?”
“That’s what we’re gonna do. This is going to work.”
And so they set off,
Reuben James
, two miles astern of
Kaufman
and a half mile astern of
Xiangtan
, heading home to the carrier group.
Kaufman
kept station above
Greenville
, and its boatload of SEALs, right underneath. The distance to the
Ronald Reagan
was some 200 miles, but Admiral Barry had the 100,000-tonner in retreat, heading farther east.
If
Xiangtan
was determined to continue firing on the Americans, the carrier must be removed from harm’s
way. Never, as they say in the trade, lose your “mission critical”—especially if it is currently home to a private air force of 84 fighter-attack bombers and a billion gallons of fuel. The carrier makes the difference. It represents the frontline muscle of American naval power. If it really should come down to a real shooting war, or even a full-scale battle, the
Ronald Reagan
wins it, hands down, with whatever means are necessary. The U.S. Navy would regard the early loss of the “mission critical” as negligent in the extreme. Admirals commanding the CVBG are apt to take no chances. Which was why the
Ronald Reagan
was essentially on the move.
And it was wise to do so. In the CIC of
Kaufman
, the CO could see the Chinese destroyer on radar, but 10 miles astern was another contact on precisely the same course, but catching them up. It was most probably Chinese, plainly a second warship backing up whatever the destroyer’s ultimate task was.
And inside the communications room of
Xiangtan
there were extraordinary exchanges taking place. Colonel Lee was far too old a commander to be certain he had sunk the
Greenville
. He had watched the shells go in, and so far as he could tell only one had hit, deep in the sail. He could not tell whether one had penetrated the pressure hull, but he thought not. If it had, he had not observed it. And he knew that
Greenville
had been in the process of diving at the very moment he had ordered his gun into action.
In his opinion, the American submarine was very much alive. They had twice picked up UWT transmissions—always a solid indicator of the presence of a submarine. But the “noisemaker”
Kaufman
was towing, designed to confuse the life out of all acoustics, was making such a buzz that passive sonar detection of
Greenville
was impossible. And active contact was at best tenuous through the swirling wake of the frigate.
Colonel Lee thought the submarine must be heading out into the open ocean, and feared that she might stay
underwater for days. All he could hope was that the damage might force her to the surface. He could not get close enough to depth-charge her because of the
Kaufman
. And they were already clear of Chinese waters, where the law was no longer on his side.
As such, he opened up the line to Southern Fleet Command, and once more reported his actions to Admiral Zu Jicai. He stressed that he could not recommend further pursuit, since he was powerless under the present circumstances to take any measures against
Greenville
—“Not until she returns to the surface.”
Admiral Zu asked him to remain on the line while he spoke again to the Commander-in-Chief. But when Colonel Lee next heard a voice on the line, it was not the calm, measured tones of his immediate superior. It was the raging voice of the C-in-C himself. And, as voices go, this one was (a) loud, (b) furious, and (c) owned by a man who had apparently lost it.
“HAVE YOU GONE MAD, LEE? ANSWER ME THAT!” screamed Admiral Zhang. “YOU MUST HAVE GONE MAD. THERE CAN BE NO OTHER EXCUSE FOR YOUR CONDUCT. MY ORDERS WERE CLEAR—SINK THE AMERICAN SUBMARINE. NOT GO AND PUT A DENT IN ITS HULL. SINK IT. SINK IT. THAT’S WHAT I SAID. AND YOU HAD THE MOST POWERFUL DESTROYER IN THE NAVY TO DO IT. I REPEAT, LEE—HAVE YOU GONE MAD?”
Colonel Lee kept his cool. “Sir, I do not believe I have lost my senses. But the submarine was in the process of diving when we first saw her. The only target we had was her sail, which we hit with a one-hundred-fifty-seven-millimeter shell. Also, she is guarded by two guided missile frigates.”