Fleeing Iraqis a ‘Jackpot’ for Navy’s Pilots

Again and again on Tuesday, loudspeakers on the carrier Ranger blared Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”--the rousing theme song for the carrier pilots aboard, as well as for the Lone Ranger.

Each time--instead of a “Hi-yo, Silver, awaaay!”--another strike force of A-6 Intruder jets spurted flame into the cold night and roared off the flight deck to bomb what one pilot called “The Jackpot”--the roads north of Kuwait city, clogged with retreating Iraqi trucks and armored vehicles.

“This morning it was bumper-to-bumper,” said Lt. Brian Kasperbauer, 30, a pilot based in Guam. “It was the road to Daytona Beach at spring break. Just bumper-to-bumper. Spring break’s over.”

Lt. Armando Segarra, 26, a bombardier of Floral Park, N.Y., agreed, saying: “We hit the jackpot!”

The giant carrier’s skipper, Capt. Ernest Christensen Jr., said he had received orders to extend the sorties from 10 a.m., the scheduled stopping point, into the afternoon to better destroy the fleeing army.

“It looks like the Iraqis are moving out, and we’re hitting them hard,” Christensen told his crew. “It’s not going to take too many more days until there’s nothing left of them.”

The U.S. Navy has been launching more than 300 sorties a day using A-6s and F/A-18 Hornets from four carriers in the Persian Gulf: the Ranger, Midway, Roosevelt and America.

The Ranger’s two A-6 attack squadrons focused on two roads leading north from Kuwait city to Basra, believed to be a stronghold for elite Republican Guard units. Waves of land-based B-52 bombers also pounded the roads with devastating 1,000-pound bombs.

The carrier jets swooped in below the cloud cover to drop antitank and antipersonnel Rockeye cluster bombs, which explode into a deadly rain of armor-piercing bomblets. They dodged occasional antiaircraft fire; at least one surface-to-air missile spiraled up from the ground. No one was hit.

Pointing to a map of Kuwait, an A-6 pilot nicknamed Ghost said: “Right about here, we toasted him, pulled off . . . this way to the west to give him (the bombardier) time to set up for the next one. We were just, like, serpenting down the road with our three bombing runs. We hit here and hit here and circled around and hit here.”

Ranger pilots expressed no concern about attacking retreating troops. They said the Iraqis may be trying to regroup for another attack, trying to join up with other units or stealing the riches of Kuwait.

“I feel pity for these guys, only because of their leader, only because of the distaste I have for what he has done to their people and the needless sacrifice he has made his people pay,” said Cmdr. Frank Sweigart, a squadron leader.

Allied troops advanced so fast that pilots who attended a pre-strike briefing were given new targets--their “kill-box”--as they walked to their plane.

“By the time night had fallen, and we really started doing our flying, we were operating some considerable distance farther north than we expected,” said Capt. Jay Campbell, the Ranger’s air wing commander.

Other U.S. pilots, flying from the largest air base in Saudi Arabia, expressed growing frustration over their inability to wipe out Iraq’s Scud missiles.

Flaming debris from a Scud, apparently fired from the Basra area, hit a U.S. military barracks in Dhahran on Monday night, killing 28 soldiers and injuring about 100. Another air raid warning was sounded in the city Tuesday night.

Pilots who fly F-15E fighter bombers said cloudy weather had hampered their search, particularly along the Syrian and Jordanian borders in western Iraq, an area pilots call Scudville.

“The weather precludes us from seeing where they actually launch the Scuds, which is really frustrating for the guys who go on station out there,” said Col. Dave Baker, 44, the base deputy commander, of Phoenix.

Lt. Col. Steve Turner, 41, of Portsmouth, Va., commander of the 236th Tactical Fighter Squadron, observed: “Most of the launches have been when the weather was so lousy that we couldn’t get underneath it; they (the Iraqis) knew that and they shot” their missiles.

The pilots’ problems in attacking the Scuds have been compounded, they said, because the missiles are launched from mobile, modified tractor-trailer trucks that are easier to hide than masses of tanks or armored columns.

“We’re talking about a large space, and you’re looking for a truck,” said Capt. Rich Horan, 32, of Walnut Creek, Calif., just before he took off on a Scud-hunting mission early Tuesday. “It’s just not easy.”

Though Horan said there “hasn’t been a night” when the jets have not hunted Scuds, the F-15s stepped up their sorties Tuesday after the Dhahran attack.

“We are going to keep our people out there longer and keep our presence right there,” Baker vowed. “We’re the Scudbusters. And that’s the way it’s going to remain.”

This report was compiled from pool reports reviewed by military censors.