by John Hackett
Space control were reassuring; after a five-minute pause they announced that Enterprise 103, which was now safely back at Vandenberg with her recovered satellite, would be readied with all possible haste and sent up to recover them. Jensen and his crew knew very well that it normally took several days to get one of the orbiters ready for flight again, and they wondered quietly to themselves whether their own batteries would be able to maintain their life support functions until the relief mission could arrive.
But the war was now on, and damage and interference to US surveillance required the two waiting Big Birds to be placed in orbit without delay. Grimly, the Joint Chiefs decided that when Enterprise 103 was ready she must be held for priority satellite replacement. Colonel Wentworth and his crew had left the earth before hostilities started. They spent the duration of the Third World War orbiting in space, and their bodies were recovered on a solemn mission at the end of August 1985. They were the first casualties of the war in space and are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
CHAPTER 19: Air Defence of the United Kingdom and Eastern Atlantic
For some years after the Second World War the UK maintained a high level of air defence. The Berlin crisis and the airlift in 1948, and then the Korean War in 1950, did much to offset the idealists’ beliefs that all arms could be laid aside at once, and while the threat was possibly not very great in those days wartime memories of 1940 were still vivid. As a result Fighter Command’s resources up to the first half of the 1950s remained considerable. Indeed, in 1957 it boasted some 600 jet fighters and a sufficiency of airfields and radars to support them.
But in 1957 there was a major shift in policy that was to leave the country denuded of adequate air defence for nearly twenty years. Evaluation of the nuclear missile threat from the USSR in the early fifties, at a time of overwhelming strategic nuclear power in the USA, had led to the contemporary strategy of trip-wire and retaliation. In 1957 it was decided, with impeccable logic, that all that was needed was a fighter shield to protect our nuclear-armed V-bomber bases to ensure that they could get into the air on their retaliatory missions just as soon as the ballistic missile warning system indicated that they must go. (For a discussion of this phase of British defence policy see Chapter 4.)
Whether or not the policy of trip-wire and massive retaliation was appropriate to the circumstances of the time, it was later to demonstrate a fatal flaw. As Soviet missile strength grew and the retaliatory strategy had to give way to the flexible response, with its emphasis on the ability to fight with conventional as well as nuclear weapons, so the basic assumption on which this minimal air defence was predicated disappeared. But by then the demands on government spending from many quarters left no room for the costly rebuilding of a comprehensive air defence system to counter the growing Soviet capability to attack the UK in a phase of conventional war.
By the time intelligence assessments had finally (and rather belatedly) recognized the conventional air threat it was not just a matter of numbers of aircraft - though heaven knows they were short enough; it was also a matter of numbers of men in the air and on the ground. Both were difficult to come by with the competing attractions of industry and commerce in an affluent society. Radar communications and control centres were also insufficient in capacity or availability for the changed situation. The shortage of airfields gave particular concern. By the end of the 1939-45 war there had been an airfield every fifteen to twenty-five kilometres throughout most of the country; now there were only a handful - all the others had gone back to the plough or had been handed over to municipalities or other users for a variety of purposes. The shortage of airfields was critical.
In the seventies it was necessary to think of air defence on an immeasurably larger canvas than that on which the Battle of Britain was portrayed. Not only did the stand-off weapons of an attacking force require the defences to be pushed out hundreds of kilometres if the launching aircraft were to be destroyed in time, but the areas to be defended now reached across the Eastern Atlantic, where it was necessary to protect shipping which would no longer have air cover from large fleet carriers in the Royal Navy. In addition to the central task of the defence of the United Kingdom and its base facilities, SACLANT and SACEUR assigned air defence responsibilities to the British in an area that extended from the Channel to the North Norwegian Sea in the north and out very nearly to the coast of Iceland in the west. It was a tall order. If the worst NATO fears were ever to be realized then the air resources available in the mid-seventies would be decidedly inadequate, for in those circumstances the United Kingdom - as a rearward base for SACEUR and a forward base for SACLANT, roles decided by the strategic geography of the British Isles rather than by defence planners - could not hope to escape the close attention of the Soviet Air Forces.
To SACLANT, apart from affording air defence and antisubmarine air patrols for shipping in the Eastern Atlantic and Channel, the UK was a critically important base from which to mount flank support for his Strike Fleet as and when it had to fight its way against Soviet sea and air opposition into the North Norwegian Sea. And in war this was, assuredly what the Strike Fleet would have to do. For SACEUR, the UK would be the mounting base for much of the deeper air effort behind the forward edge of the enemy’s battle area on the Continent. It would also be to the UK that any aircraft and crews held in reserve would be likely to be withdrawn. And then there was the air bridge: the endless belt of heavy-lift jumbo-sized aircraft that would carry most of the human reinforcements and much of their equipment from the USA to Europe as soon as full mobilization’ plans were put into effect. Given a rudimentary air-to-air missile system, even early generation long-range aircraft could wreak havoc with this flow if they got into that great aerial procession. They must not do so - and it was the task of the British Air Defence Commander to see that they did not. If that officer appeared, with the resources available to him in the mid-seventies, a preoccupied man, no one could say he had no cause.
Nevertheless, by 1977 things were beginning to improve, even if, in the view of the Royal Air Force, nothing like quickly enough. Some measurable progress had been made with the addition of two extra air defence squadrons provided by extending the life of some of the Lightning interceptors; the F-4 Phantoms were now the backbone of an interceptor force and had greatly raised its capability at all levels, as well as its resistance to electronic jamming; Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles (SAM) had been re-introduced to give low-level area defence in the south-east of England, while mobile squadrons of the British Rapier SAM provided point defence to vital airfields in the north. More improvements were in the pipeline: the Tornado air defence variant was due to replace the Phantom in the eighties; Nimrod airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft were on order; and a major rationalization and modernization plan was in train to streamline the heterogeneous and unwieldy radar communications and control systems that had grown up piecemeal through the years as the RAF struggled to improve its air defence under the parsimony of British defence policy. Looking further ahead, airfields were to have hardened protection for their aircraft, while a particularly flexible and jamming-resistant new data communications system, the United Kingdom Air Defence Ground Environment (UKADGE), would link the fighters, control centres, airborne early warning systems and airfields by the early 1980s.
Once the national consciousness began to become uneasy about the danger to the UK of unchecked Soviet military expansion, the path of the air planners became easier, and it was possible to gain some political support from all sides in the House of Commons for measures now clearly seen to be needed for the defence of the homeland. Policy agreement was one thing, putting it into effect was another. The task was formidable. It is no simple matter to increase, or speed up, the production of complex aircraft and weapons, or to create their support facilities. It is more difficult still to conjure up the skilled and experienced men and women needed to operate an expanded and complex military system without mounting a deliberate programme of exp
ansion in sufficient time to develop it in an ordered way over a number of years.
By 1985 the Tornado interceptors were in service in considerable numbers, thanks to increased production and round-the-clock working by all the contractors in that part of the European industry. The AEW Nimrod had replaced the Shackleton, and the numbers of SAM systems had been increased by restricting overseas sales and by purchase from the United States. Among some very promising air-to-air and ground-to-air weapons was the new EUROSAM, a collaborative project with France, of which the RAF now had two squadrons at home. A tanker conversion of the splendid old VC-10 transport was coming into service, and this, together with some Boeings bought from the United States, had greatly increased the air-to-air refuelling resources so critically important for long-range interception over the sea to the north and west.
Just as the early scientific gropings with radar at Bawdsey Manor in the mid-1930s had helped to turn the tide in 1940, so perhaps the most significant progress was in the completion of the new control and communications system (UKADGE). Without going into the technical details, it is sufficient to say here that it worked through mutually-supporting hardened control centres and accepted digitized data from the whole range of sensors contributing to the air defence system: ground and airborne radars, early warning aircraft, and NATO ground and sea-based sensor systems, including those of the French. This gave the Air Defence Commander, and all those concerned in the control chain, an immediate picture at any moment of the air threat and the resources available to counter it. It was to be the essential management platform from which the expected battle would be conducted.
Despite these improvements in equipment, and the highest quality of aircraft and weapons, the Royal Air Force still remained dangerously short of one vital asset: trained and skilled manpower. Political recognition in the late seventies that discontent with service pay and conditions was making a career in any armed service unattractive to young men came belatedly. The air force chiefs had long been anxious because the young men and women of the calibre they needed commanded particularly good opportunities in civil life. When substantial increases of pay were agreed in 1978 the situation quickly improved, but skilled servicemen became an even more expensive item in the defence bill than ever. The levels were raised to meet the increased front-line requirement, but not to the extent that the RAF, or indeed SACEUR in his operating criteria, considered necessary for sustained operations. If the RAF was to be engaged in hostilities in the near future, its commanders knew that through good leadership the human reserve would need to be stretched right to its limits and probably far beyond.
The account that follows is taken from a personal interview with Air Chief Marshal Sir John Hazel, AOC-in-C Strike Command and CINCUKAIR (C-in-C United Kingdom Air Forces) in the NATO command chain.
“At 0700 hours on the morning of 30 July the Air Chief Marshal waited in the hardened war room of his regional air operations centre at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, for the next briefing to begin. Since mobilization seven days ago he had virtually lived in the small subterranean office with his bunk set in an alcove to one side. Now his eyes were on the closed circuit television screen as the master clock ticked off the seconds to the start time for the briefing. Exactly on cue, the briefing officer appeared on screen and the routine began: weather conditions, actual and forecast, throughout his wide command; totes of aircraft and aircrew availability, and readiness at the operational airfields and the newly activated satellite fields and forward operating bases. All of this was called up direct from the resource catalogue of the Command automatic data processing (ADP) bank.
Despite the urgent refurbishment programme of the last three years, new assets of runways, dispersals and hangars were still far from what he would have wished; overcrowding, and therefore vulnerability, was exacerbated by the inflow of USAF squadrons to their war bases in his command area. The reinforcement so far had been most impressive, but one of the consequences was that there were now some very juicy airfield targets on offer, and he made a mental note to have another talk about dispersal with the Commander of USAF Third Air Force after the briefing. The transition to a war footing had really gone very smoothly, and with all the air movement that had taken place he was particularly pleased with the way the complicated airspace management task (the identification and separation of aircraft) was being conducted. He reflected on how different things might have been if the improved UKADGE had not come on line much as intended. The greatly increased capacity to track and identify aircraft was going to be worth its weight in gold once the President authorized the reinforcement air bridge to start operating at full throttle, as he must surely do very soon now if SACEUR was to get his troop reinforcements in time.
A continuous stream of heavy transport aircraft at the rate of one every two to four minutes, day after night after day, was what was called for to pump in the manpower to the Central Region in order to steady the inevitable recoil of the forward defences when the massive armoured thrust of the Soviet forces hit them. Even though many transports would fly over his air defence region without landing, their identification, safe control, separation and integration with the UK-based movements, including the reinforcement shuttle traffic to and from the Continent, would tax his control resources to the utmost. On top of that, of course, there had to be scope for immediate reaction to hostile air activity, which had to be expected in his vast airspace once the war began and, perhaps, way out over the sea even before that.
The situation brief continued. Tornados of the Northern Interception Alert Force from Leuchars had been launched during the night in reaction to a high, fast-flying, radar plot. This was probably a reconnaissance MG-25 Foxbat, since it had turned away north-east and passed out of scan at an estimated 20,000 metres and two and a half times the speed of sound before the Tornados abandoned the chase and returned to base. Most of the ground-based radar sensors had experienced some sporadic ECM interference at the extremities of their cover but the AEW patrols had managed to maintain a clear low-level picture in their operating areas.
Overall his command looked in reasonable shape. All UK-based units had completed their formal alert measures and were now husbanding their aircraft except for essential air tests. Civil flying had virtually ceased now that the emergency repatriation flights for summer tourists were out of the way, and the national airline resources were being incorporated as a transport reserve. Liaison officers at the reception bases for the USAF augmentation forces were very busy briefing new arrivals. The C-in-C was confident that the joint operating procedures hammered out over recent years between the two air forces would stand up to wartime pressures. The influx of men and women from the support units and reserves to their war appointments was now virtually complete. After his call to Third Air Force Sir John handed over to his deputy commander and left to visit some of his nearer bases to get a feeling for the situation at first hand. After all, the intelligence staffs still thought the signs pointed to another ten days or so of this sort of waiting game.
As his helicopter approached Wattisham, he noted with satisfaction the effectiveness of the toning down and natural camouflage measures which had been pursued for some seven or eight years now.
You could not really hide the runway, of course, but it was not at all easy to distinguish the airfield from three or four kilometres away unless you knew the area very well. The dispersal and decoy system would also make it very much more difficult for an attacking pilot seeking to destroy aircraft on the ground.
“If only they were not tied to those damned runways,” he said to himself. Being a good airman the inflexibility and vulnerability that went with long runway airfields had always affronted his professional conscience.
Talking to the Tornado crews in their hardened operations room he was, as always, exhilarated by their professional competence and dedication. This squadron had less than a year’s experience with the Tornado but they were clearly delighted with it.
“The radar is absolutely superb, sir,” one enthusiastic crew member told him. “We can track them right down in the weeds if we have to.”
Talking to the Squadron Commander, Hazel was reassured by the thoroughness with which the training programme had been conducted; co-operation with tankers and with AEW was obviously first class, and full advantage had been taken of the Tornado’s electronic navigation and weapons system to develop methods for concerted, and if need be autonomous, interception techniques between groups of fighters.
Flying on to Bentwaters, he had a talk with the USAF Base Commander who was grappling with the problems of absorbing some fifty F-15s that had just landed from the States. Overcrowding was his problem; the pre-stocking of spares and munitions seemed all right, and he was deploying the aircraft to pre-planned dispersal airfields as rapidly as he could. One thing was certain: he was not going to get caught with his birds on the ground if the balloon went up.
“They’ll be up there,” he said, “fighting - and shooting the hell out of the Russians.”
Dropping in at Stanmore on the way back, Sir John talked at length with AOC No. 11 Group, his Air Defence Commander, and they reviewed the state of preparation together. They did not expect heavy losses in the air; after all, they had superb aircraft, and there was no reason why they should lose many in combat against intruding attackers. Losses on the ground were another matter. But the AOC’s real concern lay in the limits of his human resources.