MONDAY, JULY 20, 1998 at 9:00:00 AM
It was tense in Fairford.
Over the last week, elements of the U.S. Air Force had been arriving to support the Allied efforts in aiding Poland. EurCon's brutal attack on the city of Gdansk in its efforts to cut off all resources from entering the country, had everyone wondering whether things would erupt into a real world war.
The U.S. had already released a squadron of F-15 and 16 Charlies to Swidwin, Poland under the premise of a joint US-Polish training exercise, but EurCon knew it for what it really was - reinforcements. Blood had been spilled over the German-Polish border already, and NATO - at least what was left of it - hoped that Germany and EurCon would pull back on their aggressive posture if U.S. forces were now present in the region. Certainly no one wanted this thing to grow beyond a mere regional conflict, right?
Information was being kept very confidential, but it was believed that the Brits and the U.S. Navy were forming up in the North Sea in hopes of escorting supplies to the beleaguered Poles. Once in place, the goal was to bring EurCon to the negotiation table to release the embargoes on Poland and Hungary and to put an end to the blood-letting. Unfortunately, clearer heads were being unheeded and things were about to blow up big.
The flight of eight British Tornados took off from their two bases - Lakenheath and Fairford, England. It was a Monday morning, in July of 1998. Skies were clear and visibility was good. Word was that the French had fast-tracked two of their new experimental jets and they were now in service. The British pilot hoped he would get a chance to see the Rafale in flight to take a measure of its performance to his own bird.
The Flight Lead of the 'Kings' received his vectoring from the E-3 Sentry that flew a lazy racetrack formation over the center of England. It seemed that bogeys were inbound over the English Channel and were entering his prosecution zone, just south of the Cliffs of Dover. He was ordered to investigate.
With a "Roger," his patrol went to military speed to investigate what was coming off of the French mainland. The flight would never get the chance. As they crossed over the cliffs, above the channel, multiple cries of VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! were heard over the flight's frequency. The Tornados fired their own missiles in retaliation, but the elusive bogeys could not be tracked. The radar cross-sections of the French aircraft was not substantial enough for the Sky Flash missiles to maintain any kind of lock. The missiles would run blind for so long only to self-destruct, so as not to harm a non-combatant.
The French Rafales started their attack at 9:56:42AM - by 10:00:47AM it was over. All of the British Tornados had been splashed.
This wasn't going to be easy.
