What did he mean by “conditional”?

Under no circumstances were his planes to use air-to-air missiles.

Because that could endanger the city?

Yes. They’re heat-seeking missiles…

We’ve had that explained to us. In other words, the Starfighters could employ cannon or machine guns but not missiles.

That’s right.

What about the risk of striking Craycroft’s armed bombs with cannon or machine-gun fire?

Well, in theory that was covered by Harris and O’Brien’s plan.

In theory.

We didn’t have any precedents, did we?

Now, at this point in time-you must have concluded your conversation with General Hawley at about four twenty Yes. I immediately went to the police-band radio and made contact with Harris and O’Brien. They were at the heliport, they’d just arrived there.

And you told them?

I told them I was issuing the go order. They were to execute the plan.

O’Brien (Cont’d)

I’ll use my notes here, if you don’t mind. All right, it was about twenty after four. Here’s the time-out on everything. The Starfighters were already airborne-had been, for hours. The banana chopper from PA was at the heliport. Another helicopter had delivered the eighty gallons of white paint to Newark Airport, where they’d poured it into the spray tanks of the MCC crop duster. The pilot was a guy named Williston. According to my notes, he took off from Newark in the crop duster at four seventeen. It only took him a few minutes to fly across the Hudson-he just flew straight over, there was no other air traffic in the area.

Except for Craycroft.

Except for Craycroft. All right, Harris and I were going aboard the banana helicopter with the three transmitters and the electromagnet apparatus. It took six men to load the gear on the chopper, and our pilot was worried we might not be able to take off with that much weight on board. Then we got a call from Captain Grofeld.

What time?

Four twenty-five. He said he’d been authorized to issue the go order. We were to establish direct air-to-air radio contact with Williston in the crop duster and with the Air National Guard pilots in the Starfighters. General Hawley and Captain Grofeld would be on the same frequency. Of course we were taking a hell of a risk using open radio channels, but there wasn’t any other way to do it.

What risk?

Well, if Craycroft happened to be monitoring that particular frequency, he’d know every thing we were planning. We’d done our best to fool him, but we had no way of knowing whether it was working.

How did you try to fool him?

Ordinary contact was maintained between the air elements and the ground on the standard Air National Guard frequency. We figured if Craycroft was monitoring anything, he’d be on that band. We kept up intermittent chatter on that band. In the meantime the real orders were being delivered on a different frequency, one we’d designated by coded instructions that Craycroft couldn’t follow. Or at least we assumed he couldn’t. It was the Air National Guard code book, and he wouldn’t have had access to that, since the codes are changed frequently.

So you maintained a deception on the regular frequency, and executed the real plan on another frequency.

That’s right.

Very well. Now, at four twenty-six, approximately, you took off?

Our pilot revved up the two rotors. For a minute there it didn’t look like we were going to get off the ground at all, but finally we got off the pad. There wasn’t much breeze; otherwise I think we might have drifted against some goddamn building before we had enough altitude to clear them. It seemed to take forever to get above the buildings with that weight aboard. Anyway we established our radio contacts on both frequencies With the elements in the air and on the ground?

Right. The Starfighters, the crop duster, General Hawley, at Floyd Bennett Field, and Captain Grofeld at the bank. Williston’s crop duster was circling over Astoria, Queens, by the time we took station above midtown Manhattan. The Starfighters were circling at about five thousand feet-just below the bellies of the clouds. Now, we had established with General Hawley that Harris and I would call the shots from the helicopter, since we were in visible contact with what was going on. He’d agreed to that, with Captain Grofeld.

Go on, please.

We flew north at about forty miles an hour, moving uptown. We were holding to an altitude of seventeen hundred feet in the helicopter. That put us a couple of hundred feet higher than Craycroft’s bomber and some distance inside the oval of his flight path. He was traveling at about three times our speed, and he passed outboard of us on the way north.

The timing of your scheme was precarious, wasn’t it?

Very touchy. Very. The crop duster and the Starfighters had to coordinate their moves. The jets had to hit him immediately after the crop duster, If they were even a few seconds too late, it wouldn’t work because Craycroft would have time to react.

Describe the events, please.

We all had visual contact with one another, of course, and that made it easier. The technical problem was to get the crop duster out of the way of the jets.

Yes, I understand that.

You know it’s damned hard to describe the action when five things were going on simultaneously.

You’re doing very well so far, Sergeant.

I’ll try, anyway. The Starfighters were to come in from the west-from above the Palisades, on the Jersey shore. They had to fly straight at Craycroft. Collision course. At the same time, the crop duster had to come in from the east-behind Craycroft, because he had to be moving parallel to Craycroft. Now, the way we’d set it up, the crop duster would make its pass and then break right, turning north and dropping down a few feet. Then two of the Starfighters would make their passes and turn left-also north, but climbing away so they wouldn’t knock the crop duster around in their afterwash.

Right. Go on.

At the same time our helicopter had to be south of Craycroft’s plane. Our exact position didn’t matter, but we had to be within about a half mile of him when the planes made their passes at him. Our transmitters were pretty weak-that was on purpose-and we had to be in close range to make sure we were jamming his radio reception at that point.

I’m still with you, Sergeant.

(Laughter) Okay, I’ll try to keep it simple. We flew across town at about the level of Ninety-sixth Street, and we hovered at sixteen hundred feet directly above the Central Park Reservoir.

At what time did you reach that point?

Four forty. Craycroft was doing his little ballet over Brooklyn at that point. We could see him quite clearly-the air wasn’t very hazy. Of course, that meant he could see us, too.

Go on. What happened next?

We’d timed his circuits, of course, we knew it took him about three minutes from the time he crossed the East River into Manhattan to the time he made his turn at the top of Central Park. I started the stopwatch when he was crossing over above the Williamsburg Bridge.

That gave you a three-minute countdown to attack him?

Right. The jets were throttled down to three hundred miles art hour. They started in from a point fifteen miles due west of that point.

“That point” being his turn over Central Park?

Yes. In other words, starting from where they were, the jets would intercept Craycroft at a point roughly above Ninety-sixth Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Their run was timed to coincide with his.

I’ve got that. Proceed, please.

In the meantime the crop duster had a maximum airspeed of about a hundred and sixty miles an hour. It was a converted Piper Apache, by the way. Anyhow, it started from a point above Queens, some eight miles due west of that same interception point. The crop duster had to intercept him just ahead of the jets.