On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

They sat in the car for a while, each with his own thoughts.

"Who are those women?" Coburn wondered aloud.

"They have relatives in the jail," Poche explained.

Coburn could hear a peculiar noise. "Listen," he said. "What is that?"

"The women," said Poche. "Wailing."

Colonel Simons had looked up at an impregnable fortress once before.

He had been Captain Simons then, and his friends had called him Art, not Bull.

It was October 1944. Art Simons, twenty-six years old, was commander of Company B, 6th Ranger Infantry Battalion. The Americans were winning the war in the Pacific, and were about to attack the Philippine Islands. Ahead of the invading U.S. forces, the 6th Rangers were already there, committing sabotage and mayhem behind enemy lines.

Company B landed on Homonhon Island in the Leyte Gulf and found there were no Japanese on the island. Simons raised the Stars and Stripes on a coconut palm in front of two hundred docile natives.

That day a report came in that the Japanese garrison on nearby Suluan Island was massacring civilians. Simons requested permission to take Suluan. Permission was refused. A few days later he asked again. He was told that no ships could be spared to transport Company B across the water. Simons asked permission to use native transportation. This time he got the okay.

Simons commandeered three native sailboats and eleven canoes and appointed himself Admiral of the Fleet. He sailed at two A.M with eighty men. A storm blew up, seven of the canoes capsized, and Simons's fleet returned to shore with most of the navy swimming.

They set off again the next day. This time they sailed by daylight, and--since Japanese planes still controlled the air--the men stripped off and concealed their uniforms and equipment in the bottoms of the boats, so that they would look like native fishermen. The ruse worked, and Company B made landfall on Suluan Island. Simons immediately reconnoitered the Japanese garrison.

That was when he looked up at an impregnable fortress.

The Japanese were garrisoned at the south end of the island, in a lighthouse at the top of a three-hundred-foot coral cliff.

On the west side a trail led halfway up the cliff to a steep flight of steps cut into the coral. The entire stairway and most of the trail were in full view of the sixty-foot lighthouse tower and three west-facing buildings on the lighthouse platform. It was a perfect defensive position: two men could have held off five hundred on that flight of coral steps.

But there was always a way.

Simons decided to attack from the east, by scaling the cliff.

The assault began at one A.M. on November 2. Simons and fourteen men crouched at the foot of the cliff, directly below the garrison. Their faces and hands were blacked: there was a bright moon and the terrain was as open as an Iowa prairie. For silence, they communicated by hand signals and wore their socks over their boots.

Simons gave the signal and they began to climb.

The sharp edges of the coral sliced into the flesh of their fingers and the palms of their hands. In places, there were no footholds, and they had to go up climbing vines handover-hand. They were completely vulnerable: if one curious sentry should look over the platform, down the east side of the cliff, he would see them instantly, and could pick them off one by one--easy shooting.

They were halfway up when the silence was rent by a deafening clang. Someone's rifle stock had banged against a coral cone. They all stopped and lay still against the face of the cliff. Simons held his breath and waited for the rifle shot from above that would begin the massacre. It never came.

After ten minutes they went on.

The climb took a full hour.

Simons was first over the top. He crouched on the platform, feeling naked in the bright moonlight. No Japanese were visible, but he could hear voices from one of the low buildings. He trained his rifle on the lighthouse.

The rest of the men began to reach the platform. The attack was to start as soon as they got the machine gun set up.

Just as the gun came over the edge of the cliff, a sleepy Japanese soldier wandered into view, heading for the latrine. Simons signaled to his point guard, who shot the Japanese; and the firefight began.

Simons turned immediately to the machine gun. He held one leg and the ammunition box while the gunner held down the other leg and fired. The astonished Japanese ran out of the buildings straight into the deadly hail of bullets.

Twenty minutes later it was all over. Some fifteen of the enemy had been killed. Simons's squad suffered two casualties, neither fatal. And the "impregnable" fortress had been taken.

There was always a way.

Seven

1___

The American Embassy's Volkswagen minibus threaded its way through the streets of Tehran, heading for Gasr Square. Ross Perot sat inside. It was January 19, the day after Paul and Bill were moved, and Perot was going to visit them in the new jail.

It was a little crazy.