The north ramp to their far right was choked full of cargo aircraft — C-141 Starlifters, C-5 Galaxys, and C-130 Hercules planes, all surrounded by cargo-handling equipment offloading their precious pallets of spare parts, personnel, weapons, and other supplies. Like a line of ants along a crack in a sidewalk, there was a steady stream of forklift trucks, tractor-trailers, flatbed trucks, and “mules” carrying supplies from the aircraft to the inspection and distribution warehouses. Every few minutes, another cargo plane would arrive on one of the Andersen AFB’s twin parallel runways, taxi off to a waiting area, then be met by a “Follow-Me” truck which would direct it to another parking spot. Empty cargo planes that had crews with duty day hours remaining went to a refueling pit on the south side of the base and were immediately marshaled to the end of the runway for takeoff; planes that were not due to take off until later were directed to waiting areas along the northeast side of the base, at the edge of the steep cliffs of Pati Point.
West of the north ramp, near the north end of the east runway, were the parking spots for the aerial refueling tankers. These were perhaps the most important aircraft on Guam. The KC-135 Stratotanker, KC-10 Extender, and KC-130 Hercules tankers provided the only means for most of the Air Battle Force’s aircraft to conduct strike operations from Guam — indeed, most of the aircraft there could not have arrived without the tankers supplying them fuel. Tankers were airborne almost continually in support of flight operations, and several tankers were on “strip alert” status to respond to emergency requests of fuel. The tankers also acted as cargo aircraft themselves — one KC-10 tanker could deploy all of the support personnel, equipment, and spare parts for six F-16 fighters from Hawaii to Guam,
Directly ahead of the hangars were the parking spots for the air-defense fighters. Only half of the Air Battle Force’s twenty F-15s and fifteen F-16s were parked there, because the rest were either flying escort missions with the “ferret” bombers or were on air-defense alert on the south parking apron. Four F-15s and six F-16s were fueled, armed, and ready to respond should the Chinese attempt an air raid on Andersen
Each fighter carried relatively few weapons, only two radar-guided and two heat-seeking missiles total: the most prominent store on each fighter was the huge seven-hundred-gallon centerline fuel tank. When flying from Guam, where alternate landing bases were hundreds of miles apart, fuel was a very precious commodity. The incredible offensive power of these fighters was severely limited by fuel availability — if one aerial refueling tanker failed to launch or could not transfer fuel, it could take dozens of fighters out of the battle.
Cobb and McLanahan waited near a group of soldiers until a civilian contractor-hired “Guam Bomb” jeepney bus, its body rusting and its broken leaf springs squeaking with every movement, trundled by, then stepped on board — the bus was so full it looked as if the fat native Chamorro driver had to sit sideways to let riders on. The sea of men and machines on Guam was simply amazing — it seemed every patch of sandy lawn, every square foot of concrete or asphalt, every empty space was occupied by a vehicle or aircraft. Lines were everywhere — lines to the chow hall, lines to maintenance or radio trucks, lines in front of water trucks. Traffic crisscrossed the streets and access roads, ignoring security-police whistles and traffic guards — being a pedestrian on the flight line was a definite health risk. The cloying, stupefying smells of burning jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, sweat, mildew — and, yes, fear — were everywhere. The noise was deafening and inescapable — even with earplugs or ear protectors, the screams of jet engines, auxiliary power carts, honking horns, yelling men and women, and public address speakers could not be reduced. The bus had no windows, so those without ear protectors stuck fingers in their ears to blot out the din of the parking ramp.
