A Line in the Sand: The Gulf War of 1964 - Part 1 (Timeline 10/27/62)

by James Philip

  Walter Brenckmann interpreted this somewhat tautological clause as giving CINCMED a license to shoot first and ask questions later; which seemed to completely fly in the face of everything the President had said in his broadcast about ‘no more foreign adventures and AMERICA FIRST, SECOND, THIRD AND FOR ALWAYS!”

  “The United States of America is not, repeat not at war with the Soviet Union. No officer in the US Armed Forces is authorised to initiate or to seek engagement with Soviet forces unless, or until it is, or is likely said US forces will be the target of direct Soviet aggression. While the customary rules of the sea and the right of all captains to defend their commands at need is unaffected by this constraint, the US Navy is not authorised to assume an aggressive posture against Soviet forces.”

  By now the Assistant Anti-Submarine Warfare officer of the flagship of Carrier Division Seven was glancing around to find out if he was the only man in the compartment who was starting to get a little confused. From the looks he got back he concluded that he was far from alone.

  “Carrier Division Seven,” Rear Admiral Bringle said jarringly. There was an edge in his voice because he was far from unaware of the changing, cooling mood in the compartment. “Carrier Division Seven is directed to operate for a period of not less than thirty and not more than ninety days in the Indian Ocean. During that period Kitty Hawk and other ships will pay good will calls on Madras, Colombo in Ceylon, and Bombay. Depending on events in the Persian Gulf we may be required to protect US shipping and property, and to stand ready to provide humanitarian assistance in that region, and in an emergency to evacuate US citizens in theatre.”

  The pitch of Rear Admiral Bringle’s authoritative baritone fell as he finished reading from his prepared script.

  “Carrier Division Seven is not operating under the rules of engagement that apply in the Mediterranean. The ships under my command will treat any United Kingdom forces encountered with strict neutrality.”

  A man behind Walter Brenckmann cursed under his breath.

  “I don’t fucking believe this crap!”

  Others picked up and echoed the same sentiments.

  The fleet commander’s uncompromising bark instantly quashed the chorus of discontent before it could spread around the compartment.

  “Gentlemen! The Commander-in-Chief has spoken. It is not for anybody onboard any ship of Carrier Division Seven to question the President’s orders. We have been given our mission and woe betide any man under my command who does not discharge his duty. Officers under my command are responsible for carrying out my orders. Every man in this compartment swore to honour the flag and to obey the orders of the Commander-in-Chief. It is not for us to ask the reason why; we live to serve.”

  Normally, there would have been a mutter of agreement.

  Today there was just the barely perceptible motion of the great ship under one’s feet, the soft swishing of the air conditioning fans, the distant rumbling of the huge Westinghouse turbines deep in the bowels of the Kitty Hawk and the muted scream of jet engines spooling up on the flight deck.

  And a quietness of the soul that Walter Brenckmann had last experienced on the day after the night of the October War; when as the Torpedo Officer and Assistant Missile Officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600) he had been alone in the claustrophobic cabin he shared with the quartermaster officer in the hours after he had participated in the flushing of the boat’s birds.

  To this day he did not know where those birds had landed.

  Nor did he ever want to know.

  However, right now he was feeling a little bit sick in his stomach in much the same way he had been on that awful morning eighteen months ago in the hours after the USS Theodore Roosevelt had flushed her last bird.

  Chapter 20

  Tuesday 21st April 1964

  Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, England

  Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, and Defender of the Faith had greeted the hero of the Battle of Malta and his wife with a rueful apology once the normal bowing and scraping had been got out of the way.

  The Queen was seated in a high-backed chair supported by strategically placed cushions with her newly pinned and plastered left arm was in a neatly fashioned blue linen sling, and her equally ‘plastered’ left ankle concealed beneath the long grey dress that covered her small frame from her neck to her feet.

  “Do forgive me for not getting up to welcome you, Sir Peter and Lady Marija,” she smiled. Prince Charles and Princess Anne had greeted the visitors to Blenheim Palace in lieu of their parents, Charles horribly shyly, Anne with eager curiosity. Their father, Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh had been waiting with their mother in the Library of the great house. The Queen’s consort was haggard and prematurely aged and seated in a wheelchair beside the monarch; his eyes gleaming with bright interest and twinkling with fun now that he had finally been reunited with his family.

  Peter Christopher had eventually found his voice.

  “We are much relieved to find you so well after your ordeal, Ma’am,” he forced out.

  Both the Queen and her husband were viewing Marija with no little interest.

  “Your husband’s father,” Prince Philip explained to her, “was my Uncle Louis’s protégé and later, his very good friend. I’m sure the old boy and Sir Julian – wherever they are now, bless them – are looking down on you and Peter here, patting each other on the back in pleasure to see you both together!”

  The Queen had offered Peter her small hand and he had fearfully, terrified lest in his nervousness he should inadvertently crush it, taken it in his hand. Now he shook the Duke of Edinburgh’s hand also. Marija, hopelessly tongue-tied and unaccountably, probably for the first time in her life a little awestruck, timidly offered her own hand to be shaken.

  “I, we,” she stuttered, “are honoured to be...”

  “No, no, no,” the Queen said lowly. “We’ve been so looking forward to meeting you both! The Prime Minister has told me all about Sir Peter’s exploits,” she explained, focusing on the nutmeg-haired, almond-eyed slim young Maltese woman who was patently overwhelmed by the occasion, desperately trying to put her at her ease. “And the exploits of you remarkable brave brother, of course, Lady Marija. I am right in thinking that you witnessed Sir Peter’s ship leaving the Grand Harbour, while you were making your way to the Royal Naval Hospital at Bighi to offer your services?”

  Marija was slowly getting used to the idea that Queen Elizabeth II was actually a human being rather than an unapproachable deity, and moreover, a mere woman like herself.

  “My sister,” she started to say, checked, corrected herself, “my sister-in-law Rosa and I, we knew we had to help.”

  Chairs had been drawn up for the royal teenagers and Peter and Marija disconcertingly close to the royal couple; soon fine china clinked musically and tea was being poured. Gradually, Marija’s feet began to feel more securely grounded and her senses slowly settled to a new, anxious equilibrium.

  The forthcoming ‘Battle of Malta Parade’ through Oxford to King’s College ahead of the formal investiture initially rescheduled for that afternoon had been put back a further day to tomorrow. The Prime Minister’s party had only returned from Philadelphia yesterday afternoon, and the Queen’s physicians having demanded ‘another day’s grace’ for the monarch at the weekend, Wednesday had been finally set in stone as the date for the ‘party’, as Alan Hannay now called the event.

  The RAF C-130 Hercules transport which had brought Rosa and the woman Marija had formerly known as Clara Pullman back from Malta, had also brought home the greater part of the expensively fashionable trousseau of the late wife of a former Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Vice Admiral Sir Hugh Staveley-Pope. Lady Pamela Staveley-Pope who had been vacationing with friends in Nice at the time of the October War had been two decades her husband’s junior, and possessed of a figure not dissimilar to Marija�
�s. Somebody had mentioned the existence of the trousseau, hung and boxed in the Verdala Palace, the official residence of the Governor of Malta, to Lady Patricia Harding-Grayson, Marija’s self-appointed ‘Oxford chaperone’ and miraculously, the RAF had delivered the fantastic wardrobe to the college rooms of the flabbergasted young wife of the ‘Hero of the Battle of Malta’.

  Today Marija was wearing – at Pat Harding-Grayson’s suggestion because she had had no idea what to wear to an ‘audience’ with the Queen – a silky calf-length beige frock that had probably cost more to buy than a nurse in either England or Malta earned in a year before the war!

  “Joe Calleja was the real hero of the battle,” her husband blurted.

  “My brother has been in hospital in Cheltenham,” Marija added hesitantly. “He was more badly wounded than we knew at the time but he is due to travel to Oxford this afternoon. I hope he is well enough for me to hug. Without thinking I hugged him the day after the battle and I think I nearly killed him...”

  “Your parents must be very proud?” The Queen put to her.

  “Yes. I have not seen them since before the battle. Everything was very confused after the fighting was over and then we came to England. I have written to them, they may not have got my letter yet.”

  Peter Christopher cleared his throat.

  “We hope to travel back to Malta in the near future, Ma’am,” he said, resigned to the fact this might not be possible for some time. His father’s body was to be flown back to the United Kingdom later in the week; and a full State Funeral was being planned. “Marija lost a very dear friend, and members of Talavera’s crew are buried on Malta. We never got a chance to say our farewells...”

  That was when Marija had broken down and Peter had gone to her to wrap her in his arms. A footman and a lady in waiting had stepped forward; the Queen had waved them away.

  Marija had sobbed.

  Prince Charles and Princess Anne had stared at their feet; the Duke of Edinburgh had reached over and taken his wife’s one unencumbered hand in his own. The Queen had waited patiently, serenely.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Marija sniffled, recovering a little of her poise. “Ma’am, I mean...”

  “There is absolutely nothing to forgive, my dear,” the Queen looked up and motioned for her children to make their exits. Soon the adults were alone.

  Prince Philip had fixed Peter Christopher in his sights as the younger man resumed his seat.

  “How was your first visit to the lost colonies?” He inquired, archly tongue-in-cheek much as if the two men were swapping tall stories in the wardroom of a destroyer.

  “Short but not terribly sweet, sir.”

  In those brief spells when he had not been involved in the rancorous politicking of the – by any standards, disastrous Philadelphia Summit – the American media had been alternatively pushy, curious, and basically, in his thrall. While the political consequences of the comprehensively broken ‘North Atlantic Alliance’ had rumbled around him he had gone on the Ed Sullivan Show (broadcast for ‘one night only’ from downtown Philadelphia), later been frantically interviewed by at least half-a-dozen radio reporters, endured a torrid press conference at the British Embassy, and got spots in front of his eyes from being constantly photographed wherever he went.

  “Actually,” he explained, able now to view the experience with a slightly clearer perspective, “I think the people at the Ministry of Information made a mistake not letting Marija come with me. The American newspaper and TV people were constantly asking me when I’d be back with Marija.”

  The Queen sensed he was about to say more.

  She waited.

  “That was the oddest thing, Ma’am,” Peter went on, “the newspaper and the TV people were interested in the Battle of Malta, and Marija, but they seemed either unaware of or completely indifferent to the Soviets invading Iran. Nobody over there really felt as if what was going on in the Middle East was anything to do with them. There was all this ‘America First’ song and dance; yet they assumed, took it completely for granted in fact, that we were still their best friends. As I say, it would have all been rather bizarre if it wasn’t so worrying.”

  The Queen moved on, she was much better at small talk than either of her guests, and very aware that this audience was every bit as stressful for them as being under attack in Malta a little over two weeks ago.

  “I’m informed that at least a hundred of your brave Talaveras and men from HMS Yarmouth will be marching tomorrow, Sir Peter?”

  “Seventy-one Talaveras and forty-one Yarmouths, Ma’am. Because of the delay in holding the parade several of the walking wounded have sufficiently recovered to attend the investiture, and I believe that as many as fifty or so family members have been able to get to Oxford.”

  At this the Queen smiled.

  “I confess that I have been very wicked,” she confessed serenely.

  “Very, my dear,” Prince Philip agreed.

  Peter and Marija exchanged baffled looks.

  “I have been keeping secrets. Just before you arrived at Woodstock I was notified that an RAF Comet carrying several prominent Maltese citizens had landed safely at Brize Norton,” the Queen announced, effecting severity. “I am reliably informed that among their number there happens to be a certain Mr Peter Calleja and a certain Mrs Marija Calleja.”

  Marija rose unsteadily to her feet and was about to attempt to dance an ungainly jig when she recollected, belatedly where she was and who was watching.

  And then she started to cry again.

  Chapter 21

  Wednesday 22nd April 1964

  Headquarters of the 3rd Imperial Armoured Brigade, Khorramshahr, Iran

  Brigadier Mirza Hasan Mostofi al-Mamaleki’s family had been in the service of the Pahlavi dynasty since the early 1920s. A tall, handsome man in his early forties with a lovingly tended moustache in the old luxuriant style, wearing battlefield fatigues cut by his family’s long dead Savile Row tailor which drew the eye to his lean, muscular frame he presented a haughty, unbending presence as he straightened to his full height when his guest was ushered into the half-wrecked office building.

  The newcomer was like al-Mamaleki a tall man unencumbered by excess flesh, but unlike the Iranian he was of slighter build and of a thoughtful, scholarly mein and his uniform betrayed evidence that since the two men had last met he had travelled far and wide.

  The two officers saluted crisply.

  Major General Michael Carver’s stern physiognomy creased into a half-smile that spoke of many old soldiers’ woes; and al-Mamaleki’s expression briefly mirrored his friend’s. They had first encountered each together many years ago at Sandhurst. Carver had been delivering a series of lectures – as a XXX Corps veteran of the Western Desert - offering an incisive, well-reasoned critique of the shortcomings, strengths, weaknesses and eventual victories of the British, and in those days, Empire, Generals who had overseen the Desert War. Afterwards they had corresponded occasionally, bumped into each other – literally, once in Pall Mall, where al-Mamaleki was taking the airs while his wife supervised the suiting and booting of their twins sons ahead of their first term at St Paul’s School – at oddly frequent intervals.

  They shook hands.

  “Isn’t this a thing, Hasan?” The Englishman grimaced.

  “Cannae?” The Iranian inquired softly, pleased and not a little relieved to see with his own eyes that his friend had returned to the desert, for they had both realised that the message and the advice he had taken back to Oxford from Abadan was the sort of thing that might have easily have got him cashiered.

  “By the leave of the Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of State for Defence,” Michael Carver confided lowly even though the two men had dismissed their respective staffs, “I was invited to put our plan before the Prime Minister. To cut a long story short – notwithstanding that I was brutally frank about the chances of actually pulling it off - she has given Operation Lightfoot her full support. The RAF and t
he Royal Navy have been directed to send every available aircraft and ship to the Gulf. Middle East Command has absolute priority for reinforcements and materiel and a ‘diplomatic offensive’ is at this time being mounted to establish whether certain ‘third parties’ in the region might be prepared to participate in what as you and I appreciate only too well, is probably their only realistic hope of salvation.”

  The two men stepped back to study each other.

  “What of the American weapons stores in Saudi Arabia?”

  Al-Mamaleki’s English had been learned in Hampshire while he was a pupil at Winchester College, preparatory to his time at Sandhurst. He spoke with a languid drawl only slightly impaired by an adult life spent mostly in or around the bases, depots, headquarters and palaces surrounding Tehran. Before he assumed command of the 3rd Brigade he had been a court insider, one of a small clique of ‘personal’ military advisors to the Shah. Another man would have regarded a field command as a demotion; not al-Mamaleki, the man considered by outsiders – that is, men outside the moribund, complacent hierarchy of the Iranian Army – to be the nation’s finest ‘tanker’. A known favourite of the Shah, his superiors had banished Mirza Hasan Mostofi al-Mamaleki to the distant south where he could ‘play his tank games to his heart’s content without bothering anybody else’. He was one of those officers whose self-evident gifts and utter competency tended to perturb his elders and betters, whose very existence threatened the status quo and prompted questions about established strategic preconceptions and long protected tactical shibboleths. He was a maverick, and worse he was charismatic; his men loved him and nobody in the surviving Southern Command of the Iranian armed forces had thus far dared to question anything he was doing in the critical ‘Abadan Sector’. However, even al-Mamaleki was treading on thin ice operating so openly alongside the old ‘Imperial Oppressors’.