Coming Home

By Howard Kirkpatrick

Lt. Kevin Nicholas is flying a spy mission for the US Navy along the east coast of Russia when he encounters a large storm and must eject over Russia.
Since his grandfather taught him the Russian language, he assumes the identity of a translator and works his way along the Trans-Siberian Railroad toward Novosibirsk in order to make his escape through European countries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481749763

Howard Kirkpatrick

Howard Kirkpatrick used to listen to his brother’s stories of flying missions along the coast of the Soviet Union. His brother was a Commander in the U.S. Navy flying the RA5C Vigilante. Kirkpatrick made several trips to the Soviet Union and Russia. Kirkpatrick is a graduate of California State University at Chico and is the owner of an independent insurance agency located in Redding, Ca. He is married and has four daughters, nine grandchildren and one great grandson.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sea of Japan, February 21, 1976

Pilots, man your planes.

Lieutenant Kevin Nicholas, pilot, and his reconnaissance attack navigator, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sam Davidson, picked up their helmets and flight bags and headed down the passageway to the escalator that would take them to the aircraft carrier flight deck. Their aircraft was a sleek twinjet RA5C Vigilante, a photo and electronic reconnaissance aircraft capable of supersonic speeds at both low and high altitudes. There were six of these aircraft assigned to Lieutenant Nicholas’s squadron, RVAH-16, deployed to the Western Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, CVA 59.

Lieutenant Nicholas’s assignment was a special tasking mission to fly just off the coast of Russia and electronically collect emissions samples with the plane’s automatic collection equipment, part of the sophisticated photographic and electronic intelligence package onboard the Vigilante. Simultaneously, the Vigilante would be photographing the same area with its eighteen-inch focal-length panoramic camera.

The collected data would be quickly processed aboard the aircraft carrier’s integrated operational intelligence center, the IOIC, immediately after the mission was completed. Using the photos taken by the eighteen-inch camera, the IOIC was capable of automatically integrating the geographic position of each electronic emission.

During the Vietnam War, the Forrestal operated in the Gulf of Tonkin in support of US forces fighting in Vietnam. There the RA5C’s primary mission was to locate and photograph North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites, and to furnish before damage assessment (BDA) and after damage assessment (ADA) photographs of US Navy combat air strikes against North Vietnamese forces and fortifications. For these photographs, the cameras used automatically compensated for the aircraft’s speed, producing a very clear, high-definition photograph.

The Forrestal and its supporting ships had recently been redeployed to the Sea of Japan. Increased friction between North and South Korean military forces had caused an increase in security alerts and a heightening of the overall defense posture. The carrier force was positioned some seventy-five to one hundred miles off the northern South Korean coast.

The mission was to approach to a point twenty miles off the Russian coast, then fly parallel to the coast. The assumption was that the Soviet Air Defense System would have its electronic equipment up to detect and track the intruding aircraft. Frequently the Russians would use the intruding aircraft for air defense intercept practice, much as the United States did when Russian aircraft got close to American carriers or approached the coast of Alaska.

The US Navy aircraft would intercept and record all electronic emissions, as well as accompanying voice transmissions. The intelligence community would process and analyze these collected data, looking for clues to new equipment, changes in equipment locations, appraisals of detection, tracking and intercept tactics, and dozens of other items.

The mission would launch from the carrier approximately seventy-five miles east of the South Korean coast and proceed northeasterly, tanking en route from an A6B aerial tanker. The first turn point was the island of Okushiri, a few miles west of the city of Hakodate on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The aircraft would turn port and fly west-by-northwest to twenty miles off the Russian coast, then turn southwesterly and parallel the coast to a position abeam of the city of Vladivostok. There, another turn to a southwesterly heading would return the aircraft to the carrier for an arrested landing. The leg of the flight paralleling the Russian coast was made at supersonic flight.

Chapter 2

USS Forrestal, February 21, 1976

The mission briefing was to be held in the ship’s IOIC at 1100 hours. Kevin had risen early, as was his custom, and he was feeling fit and in good spirits. He was looking forward to this new mission he was scheduled to fly today. On the evening prior, after he and Lt. JG Sam Donaldson had worked out the mission route, he had watched a movie in the squadron ready room. The movie was My Fair Lady, with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. Hepburn was one of his favorite actresses, and he had relaxed and enjoyed the music. The plot was weak, as in most musicals, but Audrey and Rex had played their roles well. Afterward he turned in for a good night’s sleep.

Kevin and Sam met in the officers flight wardroom for a breakfast of pancakes with sausage and juice and coffee. Neither of the officers was able to take shipboard eggs, a choice of powdered or cold storage. This wardroom was open twenty-four hours a day to serve flight crews and others involved in day and night operations such as the carrier and its embarked air wing were now conducting.

This wardroom was informal and flight crews were welcome in their flight suits, as were other officers in their varied flight-deck colored jerseys, or in working khakis. The specialty of this wardroom was simple menus and a cafeteria-style serving line that moved along rapidly, allowing a large number of officers to eat in a relatively short time. This was in contrast to the traditional formal wardrooms, where flight suits were prohibited. Frequently a tie, if not full dress uniform, was required for the evening meal. Kevin remembered a story his squadron commander told of having to wear the full-dress blue uniform during meals, while flying combat missions in Korea in the 1950s. Of course, the carriers were smaller then, and they had only one officers wardroom.

Kevin had a second cup of black coffee, no sugar and no cream. Many navy men had learned to drink their coffee that way after watching evaporated milk, called canned cow, in navy slang, curdle after being poured into a hot cup of coffee that had been cooking for several hours in an all-night coffee urn. Once they became accustomed to drinking coffee without the canned cow, they dispensed with the sugar. Drink navy coffee black! they would say. It’s much simpler! Sam did not particularly care for coffee, but when he did drink it, he usually used cream and sugar.

Following breakfast, Kevin and Sam made their way to the IOIC. Sam wanted to review the flight route navigation data he had laid out last evening before turning in. He wanted to check his compass headings and ground speeds with the morning’s current forecast of winds aloft. While waiting for the flight briefing to begin, Kevin engaged the intelligence officer, Lt. Doug Russell, in a conversation about the hostilities between the North and South Koreans that had been occurring over the last several days. Kevin had majored in political science in college, and with his specialty in foreign relations he maintained a very close attention to world affairs, like the present situation, which was a part of the reason he was here this very morning.

Lieutenant Russell believed the presence of the Forrestal in the Sea of Japan, with its embarked air wing of modern combat aircraft, would cause the North Koreans to cool down over the next few days. Barring any unforeseen incident that may give the North Koreans or the Soviet Union an excuse to rattle their sabers, he added.

Kevin replied, At least we’re seeing another part of the world, and this will be a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the Philippine Sea.

Kevin and Sam jointly reviewed the Soviet battle plan, which included several maps and charts that showed the locations of fighter/interceptor airfields, SAM control radars and missile sites, and anti-aircraft batteries. Some of the sites were shown on accompanying photographs. That part of the Russian coast was heavily defended, and there were several airfields surrounding Vladivostok. Most were capable of handling the newest and fastest Soviet fighter aircraft.

While looking over the chart covering the immediate Vladivostok area, Kevin noted the tracks of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Vladivostok was the eastern terminus of the legendary Russian transportation system.

Kevin thought about his grandfather and great-grandfather, who had helped to build this railroad in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Kevin’s great-grandfather was a Russian Army officer who did much of the original surveying in Siberia for the Trans-Siberian Railroad. His grandfather Alexander Nickolai was born in 1885 and was educated mostly at home, a practice not unusual for the time. Since the family moved often, and they were seldom close to areas where schools were available, Alexander’s mother concentrated on the academics, and his father provided the practical education by teaching him surveying.

The completion of the railroad bridge over the Ob River in 1893 signaled the completion of the rail line through Novosibirsk. Just a very small village when the bridge was completed, Novosibirsk had the makings of a great city. It was a few years later that Alexander’s parents decided to make