by James Philip
Everybody was clapping.
People began to get to their feet.
Margaret Thatcher stood up and turned to her Foreign Secretary.
“Is this good or bad news, Tom?” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth, trying to keep on smiling.
“Frankly,” her friend sighed, “I haven’t a clue, Margaret.”
Chapter 57
Tuesday 14th February 1967
HMS Campbeltown, Bay of Lions, Western Mediterranean
Dermot O’Reilly had led his three Fletchers, the Dundee and the Perth pursuing the Campbeltown north through the Straits of Messina, up the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy past Sardinia and Corsica, and across the southern quarter of the Ligurian Sea to re-join Task Force V1, at breakneck speed. Clearing the Grand Harbour breakwaters at dawn the previous day, and rushing north at near flank speed for several hours before the heavier seas had forced him to reduce speed to twenty-five knots, it had been a real rollercoaster ride. Any destroyer man lived for those days when his captain ordered the engine room to ‘open up all the taps’ and his ship careened through the waves with a giant bone in her teeth, her stern dug deep into the insanely foaming waters under her transom. To be in company with two other sister ships likewise charging headlong was to be in destroyer-man heaven…
“Signal to Flagship,” Dermot O’Reilly said, chuckling contentedly as he turned to the Officer of the Watch, Lieutenant Keith Moss, a young man whom he knew to still be walking on water after his experience aboard the Jean Bart, “Campbeltown, Dundee and Perth have re-joined the fleet.”
“Campbeltown, Dundee and Perth have re-joined the fleet, aye, sir,” the younger man acknowledged with a broad smile.
Both O’Reilly and Keith Moss had been on the bridge from the moment the ship had cleared the Grand Harbour, neither yet touched by the weariness which would, inevitably catch up with them later when the exhilaration of the ‘run north’ slowly leeched out of their systems.
In a moment the yeoman manning the port Aldis lamp was clattering the signal to HMS Victorious, still over a mile-and-a-half distant as the Campeltown and her two sisters heeled into racing turns to take up position off the carrier’s starboard quarter.
The destroyer’s Engineer stomped onto the compass platform shortly afterwards to report on bunker levels. Notwithstanding the Fletchers’ boilers were monstrously thirsty when ‘all the taps were open’, Campbeltown would have no need to seek an oiler for several days. The class had been built to rove the massive expanses of the Pacific, designed to operate for days on end at full, or damned nearly full, speed ahead. Moreover, despite their war service twenty years ago, O’Reilly’s Fletchers were relatively ‘young’ ships, or, as he had once explained it to a politician, twenty-year-old sports cars that were flogged to death for a couple of years and have been resting, fully restored ever since. So, Campbeltown suffered little from ‘old-boiler-syndrome’, had few clogged or furred pipes, nothing rusted or seized in her fire rooms and her turbines, meant to work hard for a decade or two, were still lightly used, efficient, working as per specification or as near as damn it. Yes, at high speed she drank prodigious quantities of heavy bunker oil; but her machinery remained in ‘good enough nick’, in the Engineer’s words, to get ‘real value for money out of every drop of the black stuff!’
“How are things down there, Chief?” O’Reilly inquired as he signed off the bunker level report and handed the clipboard back to the Engineering Officer.
“We’ll need to let Boiler Number Two go cold the next time we’re in port, sir. Nothing to worry about.” The other man grinned. “Just don’t ask me to make smoke before then or the whole fire room compartment will be like a chimney sweeps’ reunion when my boys crawl around inside the works!”
Making smoke involved deliberately injecting water, tinkering with the air blowers and not making optimum adjustments to the amount or the pressure under which oil was pumped into the boilers. In fact, a smoky ship was either a ship with boiler troubles, or an incompetent operator at the injector controls down in the bowels of the vessel.
“I’ll bear that in mind if we come under attack, Chief,” O’Reilly promised. “In the meantime, make sure your chaps know what a nailed-on good job they’re doing down there!”
The Engineering Officer departed, smiling broadly.
Now that the enemy knew the task force was operating off its coast radio silence had been abandoned. Strictly speaking, O’Reilly’s Aldis lamp signal was superfluous, both Campbeltown and the flagship having been exchanging signals for several days and the approach of the three returning destroyers having been monitored by one or other of the Victorious’s Fairey Gannet AEW3 airborne early warning aircraft for the last three or four hours.
Nevertheless, there was something right and proper about the traditional ‘re-joining the fleet’ signals.
Victorious was replying in kind.
“GOOD TO HAVE YOU BACK DERMOT!”
Not entirely as per the rule book but everybody on the destroyer’s bridge was grinning from ear to ear.
A few minutes later the Dundee and the Perth relieved the Leander class general purpose frigate Ajax and their sister ship, the Berwick, and the Campbeltown stood towards the north, with the Ajax and the Berwick, working up to twenty-one knots to rendezvous with the Kent Bombardment Group, led by the heavy cruiser Kent, the former USS Des Moines (CA-134), currently in company with only a single escort, the newly arrived Leith, of O’Reilly’s 21st Destroyer Squadron. Approximately thirty miles to the east, the old cruiser Belfast was in company with two more of Dermot O’Reilly’s Fletchers, the Dunbar and the Stirling.
Task Force V1 was now split into three dispersed groups: the Kent and Belfast bombardment squadrons loitering within about twenty-five miles of the coast, the former in the Bay of Lions, the latter off the old French Riviera cruising south of Nice, Villefranche and Monaco; and the Victorious with the Assault ship Fearless, several destroyers and frigates, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary oiler and two general supply ships, generally about fifty miles out to sea. The big County class destroyer Hampshire – she was the size of a Second War light cruiser – was never far from the flagship, effectively acting as the Victorious’s guard ship or ‘goalkeeper’, ready if the worst came to the worst to physically impose herself between real and present danger and the carrier.
At most times there was a Fairey Gannet AEW3, and a pair of De Havilland Sea Vixen FAW2s in the air. Notwithstanding the Victorious presently had only five of her seven ‘Vixens’ available for operations, 899 Naval Air Squadron had embarked eleven pilots and twelve navigator EWO – Electronic Warfare Officers – to ensure continual turn and turn again operations.
Last night, both the Kent and the Belfast had steamed within five or six miles of the coast and bombarded targets in and around Toulon and Marseilles, Montpellier and suspected ‘regime objectives’ up to fifteen miles inland all along the Bay of Lions.
While Campbeltown had been away, Westland Whirlwind helicopters flying off the Fearless had flown half-a-dozen missions to insert two and three-man Royal Marine SBS – Special Boat Squadron – teams, in some cases many miles inland to reconnoitre the ground, identify targets for naval bombardment and air attack, and to gather general intelligence.
Within a couple of hours, Dermot O’Reilly was chatting amiably with the man commanding the Kent Bombardment Group, forty-two-year-old Captain John Treacher, over the scrambled TBS network as the Campbeltown ranged up alongside the huge former US Navy heavy cruiser HMS Kent.
The two captains had first met in April 1964 when O’Reilly had been on that dreadful post-Battle of Malta public speaking tour. He had discovered that he and John Treacher were both ‘foreigners’, and ‘half Canucks’, Treacher having been born in Chile to an Anglo-Argentine father and a Canadian mother. They had hit it off from the outset and kept in touch, sporadically, ever since. Strictly speaking Treacher – in this situation his commanding officer – was actually Dermot O’Reilly’s ju
nior by a few months, seniority-wise, his commission having been awarded a few months after Dermot’s RNVR, ‘wavy-Navy’ sub-lieutenant’s ring back in the Second War years.
The two men joked over this.
Laughed together, oblivious to the fact their respective bridge crews were greedily overhearing every word.
Treacher had been on the old battleship HMS Nelson as she bombarded the defences of the landing beaches off Sicily in 1943, and served on the destroyer Keppel on the Murmansk Run. After 1945 he had trained as a naval aviator, flying Seafire Mk 47s off the aircraft carrier Triumph with 800 Naval Air Squadron. In the first Korean War he had flown raids over the North, later, he had been Executive Officer of HMS Protector, the Navy’s Antarctic guard ship, and commanded the crew transferring the light carrier Hercules to the Indian Navy, served in Washington DC, and at the time of the October War been Naval Assistant to the Controller of the Navy.
Sadly, his wife, son and daughter had not survived the war.
“You, lucky blighter! Giving your ship her head all the way north from Malta!” John Treacher exclaimed. “I hope somebody took some photographs? I suppose you want to come alongside and top off your bloody bunkers now?”
Dermot O’Reilly chortled.
“No, we’re good for a few days, John.”
Soon they got down to business.
John Treacher had been anticipating his reinforcements and thinking about how best to use them the next time he took the Kent inshore.
“Guns tells me we your Fletchers ought to be able to slave your main batteries to Kent’s secondary fire director control. Can your ships cope with that? I’m not convinced? What do you think, Dermot?”
O’Reilly thought about it.
“Perhaps, we ought to test his theory,” he returned. “I’ll get my CIC working on it. How about if I fall in astern at say, two thousand yards,” he was working out the approximate gunnery trigonometry in his head, “that ought to give us sufficient separation for Kent’s fire control radar to work out the relative deflections.”
The business end of the big cruiser’s radars – its aerials - were at least three times higher off the water and therefore, farther seeing, and less prone to degradation due to sea conditions than those just above Dermot O’Reilly’s head on board the Campbeltown. Therefore, if the destroyer’s main battery fire control could be successfully slaved to the Kent’s, her gunnery ought to be more accurate, especially at longer ranges shooting over her own visible horizon, or targets at night.
The two men chatted a while longer then handed the problem over to their respective gunnery officers, who quickly asked for their EWOs to be brought into the discussion.
Treacher signed off with the confirmation that: “We’re still awaiting tasking orders for this evening.”
O’Reilly had just got sat down on his cot in his claustrophobic sea cabin when the collision bell started ringing.
Stepping back onto the bridge he was informed: “Perth reports a possible submarine contact bearing one-seven-five true, range eight thousand yards, sir!”
O’Reilly did not hesitate.
“Helmsman, full right wheel.”
He nodded to the Officer of the Watch.
“Make revolutions for twenty-seven knots!” Dermot O’Reilly set his jaw, and added: “The ship will come to actions stations, if you please!”
Chapter 58
Tuesday 14th February 1967
Château Frédignac, Blaye
Sergey Akhromeyev had been introduced to Paddy Ashdown’s band of eight hardened cutthroats – proud brigands all - only that afternoon. The Royal Marines had formed a presentation line, their cap badges aligned on their green berets as they stood to, at ease, before the stranger.
‘This is Major General Akhromeyev, formerly of the Red Army, now the Officer Commanding the Vindrey Commando, currently forming in Herefordshire. Henceforth, he had requested that we all address him as ‘Sergey’ until the conclusion of Operation Blondie,’ Ashdown had declared. ‘He is not a Royal Marine, not everybody is that fortunate. Get used to it. However, Sergey is an experienced soldier accustomed to the ways of special operations, who has a lot of experience fighting Krasnaya Zarya. He will be coming with us to Bordeaux tonight.’
The Russian had thought it was all a little bizarre.
Ashdown was at once familiar with and yet wholly in command of his men.
‘I have explained to Sergey how the Royal Marines won their badge and what is expected of him as an honorary member of our tribe.’
Akhromeyev had blanched at the lecture.
‘The Lion and Crown at the top of the badge denotes that the Corps is a Royal Regiment. We were granted that honour in 1802. Included on the badge is a single battle honour, Gibraltar, which we, with a little help from the Dutch, captured from the Spanish in 1704. There is a globe device at the heart of the insignia, awarded to us by His Majesty King George IV in 1827 in recognition of the Corps’ world-wide exploits. About it is a laurel wreath motif, granted to the Corps in 1761 after the Battle of Belle Island. The fouled anchor was added to the original badge in 1747, acknowledging the Corps’ intimate relationship with the Royal Navy. Finally, you can make out our motto in Latin: Per Mare, Per Terram. Which translates as By Sea, By Land!’
The Russian had listened respectfully.
‘That,” the younger officer had informed him, ‘is what we are. My father was very nearly court martialled for refusing to leave men behind. Like father, like son. Whatever happens on the coming operation, we leave nobody behind, General Akhromeyev.’
The Russian had learned a lot in the few short hours he had been in the company of Ashdown’s band of brothers. There had been twenty-three of them when they came to France. Three of the ‘originals’ were presently filling staff or liaison roles at the 4th Tank’s headquarters, one was on board HMS Eagle, assigned to the carrier’s Special Operations Staff, five men had been killed, another was missing presumed drowned on active duty, and another four invalided home, three with combat wounds, the other man having broken both his legs on a training exercise.
Akhromeyev had asked why the men lost had not been replaced. Ashdown had smiled wanly.
‘There aren’t that many of us left. Here, or in England, or elsewhere. The SAS lot,’ most Royal Marines regarded their Army, Special Air Service counterparts as scruffy, lower forms of life, ‘are, for once, in the same boat as we are. The priority is Operation Watch on the Rhine. That’s where all the replacements go.’
The Russian had been impressed, as he was constantly being impressed, by the way in which it was accepted British practice to ensure that even junior officers like Ashdown, had a basic, sound understanding of the bigger strategic-tactical situation. Need to know tended to be restricted to current or ongoing operations that men really ‘did not need to know’ about to perform their roles locally. Everybody seemed to have a real sense of where they, personally, fitted in and exactly why they had been asked to do what they were doing. If he wanted to be, the lowliest private soldier could be a grand strategist, in his own head, at least. It made for an ease of inter-unit and service co-operation and a level of inter-arms integration that was unthinkable in the Red Army, and clearly, this way of war intrinsically strengthened unit cohesion and promoted high morale.
Paddy Ashdown’s little army had a formidable stash of weaponry.
Several of his men hefted AK-47s.
‘The locals didn’t know what to do with them so we relieved them of the problem,’ one broken-nosed man explained gruffly, handing a ‘spare’ to Akhromeyev. ‘That’s a good one. Made in Bulgaria before the war, not one of those cheap knock-offs from the factories in the Ukraine!’
The Marines knew a lot about the Avtomat Kalashnikova gas-operated, 7.62-millimetre assault rifle designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov back in the late 1940s. Only the ‘traditionalists’ still used the British Army issue Sterling sub-machinegun.
‘Give me an AK any day,’ one man chuckled.
‘Some of the chaps swear by them,’ he confided, ‘most reliable piece of kit I’ve ever used,’ he added, grudgingly.
But then Sergey Akhromeyev already knew all about the capabilities of the AK-47. Rain, snow, hail, mud, sand, dust, grime, it could cope with them all. Drop it, sit on it, shake it all about and it would still keep putting rounds down the barrel. It was a real ‘working gun’; moreover, with a standard magazine of thirty 7.62-millimetre rounds, a muzzle velocity of 700 metres a second – faster than a supersonic jet - and a rate of fire of around 600 rounds per minute, what more could a trained killer possibly ask for?
Operation Blondie had turned into one of those insane adventures it hardly bore thinking about, well before the approaching thrumming of the rotors of the first of the two Westland Wessex’s tasked to transport the strike force to Bordeaux, began to rattle the windows of the old chateau that Paddy Ashdown’s battle-hardened veterans called home.
There was still over ninety minutes to go before four De Havilland Sea Vixen FAW2s and four Blackburn Buccaneer S2s flying off HMS Eagle, forty miles out to sea strafed and bombed targets in and around the inland port of Bordeaux, and hopefully, dropped flares and ground markers to guide the Royal Marines’ helicopters ‘right onto the money’.