by Peter Bryant
Priority two targets were shown in blue. They were the targets which would be hit in the second phase, between twelve hours and four days after the initial attacks. They comprised communications systems, industrial complexes, cities with a population of a half million or more, defensive airfields and missile sites. There were around five hundred of them in the free world, four hundred in the Russian bloc.
The difference between red and blue, between priority one and priority two targets, had been defined by an Air Force general back in 1951. "These targets are all vital targets. They are all necessary in order to wage war. But first priority must surely be given to those targets which enable a nation to wage immediate offensive war. Those are priority one. In the long run the other targets may enable a nation to hurt its enemy equally badly if they are spared. But not immediately, in the first few hours. They will not be spared of course, but though they must be destroyed the need to destroy them has not the same urgency as is the case with targets in the first priority. To those targets the maximum initial effort of the attacking forces must be applied. The true test is to assume that all such targets were blotted out in a sudden attack. Could the attacked nation then mount any sort of immediate counter attack? If the answer is yes, that nation contains targets which have not been given a high enough priority. Again, assume that from among the priority one targets, each single target in turn alone comes through a sudden attack undamaged. Could an immediate counter attack be launched from that target? If the answer is no, then that target has been overgraded and belongs among the priority twos, not the priority ones."
Behind the wall, which was made of a transparent material, teams of plotters were at work, drawing in with coloured wax pencils the X points and target routes of the 843rd Wing. Every one of the targets was shown in red. And between the thirty-two bombers, every red target was covered, either as a primary or secondary. Quinten had been well aware of that when he made his decision.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff conferred for a few moments, talking in low tones. Then General Franklin was asked to explain what had happened, and give his estimate of the situation over the next two hours.
Franklin stepped up on the platform which ran the width of the wall, and stood under the central map. He was a short, thickly built man, with a round, impassive face. He was unshaven, but his plentiful black hair was neatly brushed. He gave an impression of solid strength, and that impression was fully in accordance with his character. Without it, he could never have become SAC’s commander in his fortieth year.
He said, "Gentlemen, thirty minutes ago, without any orders or authorisation, one of my base commanders sent out attack orders to a wing under his command. The wing concerned was on a simulated mission which took them to the point where, in time of war, they could have begun the first part of their attack procedure. In Strategic Air Command we call this point the X point.
"You will see plotted on the map above me the thirty-two X points of the 843rd Wing. From those points the black lines indicate the route of each individual bomber to its target. You will see that every red, that is priority one target, is included in those assigned to the wing. As of this moment, ten thirty-one Greenwich Mean Time, every bomber is between ninety and one hundred minutes flying time from its target.
"There is a particular reason why all the priority one targets have been assigned to the 843rd. It is the one SAC wing which is equipped with the new B-52K types. That means it is the one wing we feel very confident is able to fight its way through and take out all the assigned targets without exception. Until the supersonic B-58 comes into operational use later this year, the 52.Ks are the best we’ve got. They are crammed with electronic devices capable of throwing off track all known Soviet guided missiles, and they carry their own air to air missiles for defense against fighters. Some of you here will already know that tests against live targets over the Gulf lead us to expect a ninety-eight per cent kill rate against attacking fighters.
"As regards offensive strength, each bomber is carrying two weapons of fifteen megaton yield. This power ensures all targets will be taken out if the bombing error does not exceed three miles, and the majority if it does not exceed five. We do not believe it will in fact exceed one mile.
"To sum up, I consider the 843rd will reach and hit its targets. All of them. That means in something under two hours from now Soviet offensive capability will be effectively destroyed. I’ll answer any questions I can."
There was a low buzz of conversation in the room, mostly from the small groups of aides and staff officers. Franklin stood impassive on the platform. His face was quite expressionless. No-one could possibly have known the thoughts that were chasing through his mind. He felt deep down that, maybe Quinten was right, that this could be the only possible solution for the free world. But he gave no outward indication of his feeling.
Navy got in the first question. Admiral Maclellan was not the typical sea dog one visualised as Chief of Naval Operations. He was slight, almost delicate in build, with a sharp featured, intelligent face. "I take it there’s some technical reason you can’t just recall the wing?" be asked.
Franklin said bluntly, "There is. The base commander concerned picked one of the emergency plans which envisaged a commander having to act on his own because the higher echelons had been knocked out by sudden attack. He selected a plan which requires recall orders, or any orders at all, to be preceded by a three-letter group, once the initial attack instructions have been given. Without that group, the planes cannot receive the message. To guard against possible sabotage, the letters are given to the crews by the commander personally at the briefing. He and his deputy keep the letters involved a secret between them. In this case the deputy is along with the wing. And the commander refuses to recall the planes. Does that answer you, Admiral?"
"Certainly," Maclellan said. "Who is the base commander, by the way?"
Franklin hesitated. He looked towards the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Steele. Steele nodded. Franklin said slowly, "It was the base commander of Sonora, Brigadier General Quinten."
There was a low murmur round the room. Several of the Air Force officers present knew Quinten, and one or two of them knew him well. Their remarks were cut short as the Army Chief of Staff, General Keppler, growled, "You mean your system’s loose enough to let a thing like this happen? No safeguards against it?" His tone implied this was just the kind of thing he expected from Air Force. He was a big, burly man, a brilliant commander of armour who had come up the hard way by serving an apprenticeship as one of Patton’s column commanders, and then made a name when the Korean fighting was at its most bitter. He admired the Air Force for its close support of infantry and armour in the field, and detested the whole conception of SAC. Now he flowered steadily at Franklin.
The SAC general fought down the quick surge of anger he felt rising inside him. He considered Keppler a bigot and an archaic relic, who had failed utterly to grasp the new global strategy. But this was not the time for futile bickering and argument. He said quietly, "General, no system yet devised proof against any and all human failings. SAC plans were as accident proof as they could reasonably be made."
"Reasonably accident proof," Keppler said loudly. "That isn’t what you put out in the press releases back in the spring of ‘58. When that storm blew up over your planes hauling the actual weapons over the Pole and heading towards Russia. There was supposed to be a marvellous system to prevent this sort of thing. Failsafe or something like that. What’s happened to it? Did it ever exist? Or was it just something Air Force dreamed up for the benefit of the newspapers and Congress?"
"It exists." Franklin’s voice was still quiet. He was not going to let Keppler goad him into losing his temper. "What we released to the press was entirely true. But it wasn’t the entire truth. It couldn’t be."
"Why not?"
"Funnily enough, because we are dedicated to the principle of retaliation rather than original aggression. We accept that we will receive the first blow. Naturally, we
hope our defences will be tight enough so that blow doesn’t knock us right out of the ring. But to be completely realistic our plans had to take into account the possibility that first blow might be really devastating. You’ll concede there is that possibility, General?"
"I will," Keppler said shortly.
"All right then, let’s look at the position might arise. Washington and Omaha gone. Communications hopelessly snarled up. No central direction left. Yet the probability is that somewhere in the U.S.A. one or possibly more of our offensive bases would survive. A base commander might well find himself the only surviving officer with an effective force. There might be no command left to which he could look for orders. His communications might be completely disrupted, and his base entirely cut off from the rest of the world.
"Obviously, in a position like that, he would have to be empowered to act on his own initiative. Plan R provided for just that situation. Now the commander at Sonora has used it. We don’t know why, we only know the human element has failed us. The risk was always there but it had to be accepted, because only by its acceptance could we guarantee an aggressor would never escape retaliation so long as one of our bases, or even one of our wings, survived. We accepted a risk, and we lost out. That’s all."
Keppler grunted. In spite of his feelings about SAC he was a fair man. He appreciated a situation might arise where it would be necessary to plan for a base commander being able to act independently. That way, an error away from the enemy could be prevented. But in every case like that there was an inevitable risk of an error towards the enemy. It was slight, it was infinitesimal even, but it was there. Obviously in this ease a combination of circumstances had given the commander a chance to make that error. Later, he would make sure the reason that particular commander had been left in command was fully examined. The Air Force weren’t going to bury that one. But for the present, it didn’t matter. The error had been made, the action taken, a SAC wing committed to battle. In his opinion here was little to be decided. The action they should take now was quite clear cut.
His train of thought was interrupted by Steele’s quiet voice. Steele, in his capacity of chairman of the joint chiefs for that period, put into words the conclusions which Navy and Army were reaching independently. "Gentlemen, the President and the Secretaries of State and Defence will be joining us in a few minutes. I can see only two alternatives to suggest to them. The first is we recall the 843rd. I don’t know how we can, but that is one possibility. The other," he paused, and for a few moments the room was very still. "The other," he repeated, "is to carry this action to its logical end. General Franklin has told us it is his belief the bombers already committed to attack can effectively destroy the Russian priority one targets. What guarantee can you give us of that, Franklin?"
Franklin looked up at Steele. "No guarantee, sir," he said. "I can only say I myself am confident my crews will get there and bomb accurately. It’s early morning here, gentlemen, but in Russia it’s getting on for dark, especially in the more northerly parts where most of the targets lie. That’s an advantage we hadn’t planned on. Again, there’s no reason to suppose their defences are at top line. And this particular wing is considered able to hit their targets in daylight with the defences fully alert. I won’t give a guarantee because I feel in war nothing can be guaranteed. Let’s just say I feel confident they’ll make it. One hundred per cent."
"Seems to answer that one," Maclellan said. "So what’s the next step? We can’t recall, apparently. All right, if we’re committed let’s hit them good. What else have we got?"
Keppler said, "I agree. But isn’t there any chance at all of recalling them?"
Steele shook his head slowly. "We already have operators working steadily through the three-letter combinations. Trouble is, there are about seventeen and a half thousand possible combinations. All the planes are listening out on the same wavelength, so we can’t try twenty or thirty different combinations at once—it has to be one at a time. At thirty seconds for each transmission, we’d need about five days to cover them all. We’ve got less than an hour and a half."
"We’ve also," Keppler said flatly, "only five minutes or so before the President gets here. There’s just one idea I’ve got, but I need a little more information. Maybe General Franklin can supply it." He looked round at the other chiefs. "What say we retire for a short while, take General Franklin with us?"
"Suits me," Admiral Maclellan said.
"And the Air Force," Steele broke in quickly. He wondered just what Keppler had up his sleeve. It had better be good, he thought. Because yet another six wings, fully armed, were now heading for their X points. Franklin hadn’t wasted the time between the call from Omaha and the beginning of the meeting.
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* * *
Chapter 7
"Alabama Angel"
* * *
10.30 G.M.T.
Moscow: 1.30 p.m.
Washington: 5.30 a.m.
Clint Brown checked his flight instruments again. He had been checking them every thirty or forty seconds for the last ten minutes. At the moment he had very little to do, and so his mind prompted him to look for work, to do anything which would push the thought of Seattle and his fiancée into the background. It did not help that the rest of the crew were quiet and subdued. They too, he knew, would be finding it was not easy to put away unwelcome thoughts. A man can conquer his fear for himself more easily than his fear for those he loves. There was nothing to be done about it. He glanced at his wrist watch, checked the instruments again, looked out past the distant tip of the port wing into the icy blackness beyond. The hands on his watch moved round with agonising slowness to 10.31. He forced himself to wait until the exact second, then said, "O.K. Herman, you can arm up the hornets now."
"Roger," Goldsmith replied. He sounded eager, anxious to begin work.
Brown eased himself out of his seat and stood aside to let the engineer, Federov, climb into his place. It was normal practice for Federov to sit at the controls while the command pilot moved about the cabin.
Brown leaned over Stan Andersen’s chart table, watching the navigator’s busy fingers as he plotted information from the machines on to his chart, and fed back further information from the chart to the machines. Andersen looked up at Brown, smiled briefly. His face was set and drawn, but he at least was busy. "Still estimating 10.41, Start?" Brown asked.
"Still 10.41. This wind’s working out pretty good."
"Fine." Brown straightened up, went past Mellows, the radioman, who was sitting tense at his silent set. He gave Mellows a smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder as he went past. He was only a kid, Brown thought. But maybe that helped. Maybe he didn’t grasp the full implications of what was happening.
As a matter of fact, Brown was wrong. Mellows realised quite well that by now the States had been hit. He was an only child, and his parents lived in Washington D. C. In his mind he knew that they were gone. All right, that was it, they were gone. It would be nice to be able to give way to his grief, but that was out. Right now he had the chance to avenge them, simply by doing his job. He would. He fondled the tune control of his radio, watched Brown stop by Goldsmith’s fire control panel. He concenerated with all his determination on the set.
Goldsmith looked up at Brown. He nodded an acknowledgment of Brown’s presence, then went back to his work. He had already pulled down each of the ten big switches ranged in banks of five at the top of the panel. Five weapons for the port firing tube, five for the starboard. Beneath each of the switches a red light glowed. As Brown watched intently the red lights flickered out one by one, and below them green lights flashed on in their place. The weapons were armed.
Goldsmith’s hand now went to another row of switches, halfway down the panel. He selected the left hand switch of the port bank, and the left hand switch of the starboard. Again a red light glowed beneath each of the two switches.
In the rear of the fuselage two slim rockets, five feet long, slid
quietly from a storage rack into a polished metal chute. Mechanical clamps pushed them smoothly along the chute to a point six feet short of the tail. Here the chute became a tube. The rockets vanished into the tube, leaving only the twelve firing ports of their motors in sight. Two hinged arms linked to the top of each tube slowly straightened. The tubes moved downwards, through an aperture formed by the sideways sliding of sections of the flooring. The rockets in their tubes hung a foot below the fuselage of Alabama Angel, vibrating slightly in the furious air blast, lethal now that the two safety plugs had been pulled out of warhead and motor as they dropped into firing position. On Goldsmith’s panel the two red lights winked out and were replaced by green. The two missiles were primed and ready for firing.
Goldsmith looked up at Brown, said laconically, "Numbers one and six ready to go. Hope we don’t need ‘em." Then he burned to the radarscope that was linked in with the fire control system, adjusting the brilliance of the centre sweep.
Brown nodded. "Hope not," he agreed, and began to make his way back to his seat. On the way he passed Garcia and Minter, the ornance experts. Garcia looked worried, he noted, but Minter was his usual calm, unimaginative self.
He tapped Federov on the shoulder, took the engineer’s place at the controls. A swift check of the dials showed everything normal, everything functioning smoothly. Glancing at his watch he saw that in another four minutes they would be turning on to the attack leg. In four minutes they would be sixty thousand feet above the imaginary dot on the Barents Sea which was exactly seventy-five degrees north, forty-five degrees east. From that point the bomber’s track would be a straight line almost due south in heading, eight hundred and fifty nautical miles long, to the primary target. Brown wondered where along that line they would meet trouble—if they met it at all. And whether, if they met it, the defence systems built into the 52K’s would take them safely through.