Free North Korean Blowup by Chet Cunningham

we get from here to there?”
    “Twelve of them,” Tran said. “That’s going to take at least three of these little bitsy cars they have or a bus. Maybe one of us can stow away in each car.”
    “The cars won’t all come from here,” Chang said.
    “If we know in advance, Sung can take us out the night before and stash us in some hiding spot along the road, then pick us up when they drive by,” Hunter suggested.
    “Might work,” Tran said. “Will the household help go along on the reunion?”
    They looked at each other.
    “Let’s get a notebook from our packs and write some of this down,” Hunter said. We’re just starting to do the planning.”
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
    K-16 ROK Air Base, Songham, Korea
    Quinn had been busy. He and Lieutenant (j.g.) Bancroft had the rest of the SEALs fitted out with their two sets of North Korean civilian clothes. They had taken two more lectures by the professor on the culture and mores of the North Korean people. They had been on a training march and taken target practice on the base rifle range.
    That first afternoon, Commanders Vuylsteke and Wells met with Quinn and Bancroft for some pre-op planning.
    “Their off shore radar is going to pick us up as soon as we get anywhere near the twelve mile limit,” Vuylsteke said.
    “It has to be timing,” Wells said. “We launch our bird well at sea and keep in radio contact. When they get their people on board, we turn toward shore and meet them at the twelve mile limit.”
    “Can we get any air cover?” Quinn asked.
    “No Navy air assets in the area,” Vuylsteke said. “Nearest carrier is down around Taiwan and China.”
    “We have the Seventh Air Force here,” Wells said. “I know they have at least two fighter squadrons with the F-16 Falcons. One group is based at Osan Air Base. They could fly COP for us and meet any fighters the Koreans scramble. Would the North Korean fighters have time to get to us? They probably won’t catch the choppers on their way in. They would come out to see us at the twelve.”
    “By then it should almost be over,” Vuylsteke said. “We land our two birds and haul ass out to sea.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Quinn said.
    Quinn made some notes in his perpetual notebook. “I’ll get in contact with the Air Force and get one of their men in on our planning.”
    “How many people are we transporting?” Vuylsteke asked.
    “Three SEALs and twelve civilians. That’s fifteen if the SEALs decide they need to come out. Can you do it in one trip?”
    “We have to,” Vuylsteke said. “If we tried to go back in a second time they would be waiting for us with their fighter aircraft and a battalion on the ground. We strip out the torpedoes and everything that will move except the door guns from the SH-60s and we should be okay weight wise. These Koreans are small people, and there should be half of them children. We should be fine.”
    “Before Hunter went in, we talked about getting the civilians out to the coast somehow. If he can do that it will cut down on your travel time and time in the danger zone.”
    “A nice wide sandy beach would be ideal,” Wells said.
    “We’ll have Hunter work on that. Dr. Sung won’t be back home until tonight sometime. I expect to hear from Hunter after that with an okay on the extraction. It will be up to him to set the time and place. Could be a day or two before they can do it. You’ll need a six hour notice to sail, or more than that?”
    “We’re in port now, so we need six hours to get ready to sail.” Vuylsteke said. “Then at least eight hours to get up there and situated about twenty miles off shore.”
    “Should be no problem.”
    “You’ll have a doctor on board?”
    “Three of them.”
    “Might need to squeeze a sawbones in the chopper going in if Hunter reports any wounded. I hope they can get away clean, but the odds are that they’ll have to shoot their way out.”
    “We can have a surgeon and a nurse along without an overload if