Operation Manna (Timeline 10/27/62 - Australia)
Page 23
15. Therefore, until such time as the Government declares otherwise its position remains that contrary to the US stance that the Exchequer owes debts to American Federal and private institutions our policy should be based on the premise that it is the United States which is actually in our debt.
16. The Prime Minister regards the ongoing transfer of ships from the US Navy Reserve Fleet to the Royal Navy and the repatriation of vessels ‘restrained’ in US and US client ports to British merchant service, and the limited aid packages previously promised but only now starting to be regularly delivered as the beginning, not the end of the repayment of the debt of honour owed to the United Kingdom by the United States for its conduct of the Cuban Missiles War, and its hostile actions against British and Commonwealth forces and interests in the period between that war and July 1964.
Appendix 3|Casualties, Population and Demographics
Extracts from the Third Interim Report of the Cabinet Committee into the Cuban Missiles War and the mid- and long-term implications for policy of that conflict presented to Her Majesty’s Government on Friday 25th February 1966, and reproduced herein by the kind permission of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.[134]
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Casualties, Population and Demographics
It is now clear that initial casualty estimates underestimated the death toll from the Soviet attack and its aftermath. At this time there is no reliable evidence to substantiate a belief that the population of England (as opposed to that of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) has, or is likely to stabilize[135] in the foreseeable future since demographic impacts will take many years to self-correct.
Background Information and Context
In attempting to describe the magnitude of the casualty rate and subsequent de-population effects it was deemed useful to make comparisons with historic population statistics. Since Scotland and Northern Ireland suffered no confirmed direct civilian or military casualties (other than a handful of persons who may have been killed or injured at sea in coastal waters or by distant, offshore strikes) the figures in this section refer only to England and Wales.
1. The earliest ‘reliable’ record of the population of England and Wales dates to 1086, when the collection of information for The Domesday Book suggests a figure of 1.7 millions. By 1348 this figure had risen to the Medieval peak of perhaps, some 4.8 millions. The population was then struck by the Black Death and had declined to 2.6 million by 1351, and significantly, did not again attain a sustainable level above the 1348 maximum until some three hundred years later in the middle of the seventeenth century.
2. By 1801 (the date of the first modern Census) the population stood at 7.7 millions, rising to 15.2 in 1851 and 30.1 in 1901. Population growth slowed towards the end of the nineteenth century but despite the death toll of the First World War and that attributable to the ‘Spanish Influenza’ of 1919-1920, the population grew by 7.9 million between 1901 and 1941.
3. The medium term effect of the Second World War on population growth was less significant in terms of adult deaths than the 1914-18 conflict but resulted in a much lower birth rate than previously during the actual period of hostilities. Unlike in the First World War this did not result in a 1915 or 1918 diminution in that year’s life expectancy prediction (respectively by 2.8 and 6.8 years – figures which were subsequently quickly corrected to long-term trend expectations by underlying demographic factors).
4. In general even the short-term (less than 5 years) effects of both the First and Second World Wars were minimal in the context of the gradual rise in the population of England and Wales in the first half of the twentieth century.
5. Moreover, although there is a small statistical correlation between the increased death rates during the years of fighting in the two World Wars of the first half of the twentieth century, the median age at time of death in the population as a whole rose from 53.8 years to 71.5 years between 1901 and 1961 (actually rising during the course of both World Wars).
6. Comparative fatal casualties sustained by the armed forces of the United Kingdom (and its then Colonies) in the First and Second World wars were respectively 0.75 and 0.39 millions. Civilian deaths caused by enemy action in the United Kingdom in World War I were in the hundreds, and in World War Two as many as 70,000.
7. One final background statistical subset is considered relevant to an understanding of the disaster represented by the casualties suffered by the United Kingdom as a result of the Cuban Missiles War.
8. In the decade 1951 to 1961 the average annual death rate for the whole United Kingdom was 593,000 set against an average annual birth rate of 839,000, inferring that irrespective of immigration or emigration factors in any given year during this period that the underlying population grew by an average of some 246,000 people per year.
Updated Casualty Information
This Committee is advised that in the fullness of time that there will be merit in attempting to draw up comprehensive council, district and parish death lists in areas on the margins of the most heavily bombed regions but at this time this is not practical, and in any event, the task is potentially of such a magnitude as to divert staff and resources away from the other urgent business before it.
1. The Committee submits the following casualty summary in the following format.
2. By location (areas directly targeted by nuclear weapons).
3. Resulting ‘immediate’ deaths (defined as those persons killed instantly or who died of their injuries within 48 hours of the attack).
4. Resulting ‘later’ deaths (defined as being those deaths directly attributable to injuries or radiation exposure during the attack) and including those defined as having died who would otherwise still be have been alive today but for the attack: persons in this category will have died from a variety of causes including disease, poor hygiene or insanitary living conditions, hunger, the non-availability of common medications, the dislocation of medical service and due to the lack of adequate shelter on or before 31st January 1963).
5. No attempt has been made by this Committee to report on the observable wide-spread decline in health of the general population, or its possible long-term implications.
6. It is recognised by the Committee that the reconstituted Government Statistical Service (GSS) regards the figures herein as a likely significant under-estimate in several respects (excluding the figures for Greater London and its immediate surrounding environs which it views as being broadly representative)[136].
7. The Committee notes that the GSS reservations mainly focus on the ‘Later deaths’ classification which it believes may be understated by a factor of at least 2 (two). If the GSS is correct in this view then the total mortality attributable to the Cuban Missiles War in the period 27th October 1962 to 31st January 1963 is understated in the following table by at least 1.3 to 2.6 million, inferring that the total death toll exceeds 15 million persons for this period, and may be as high as 17 million.
8. Given that the population of England and Wales at the time of the 1961 Census was 41,159,213 persons the ‘Regional Mortality Table’ (below) tells us that between 33% and 41% of that population may have died as a direct result of the Cuban Missiles War.
9. Regional Mortality Table – 27th October 1962 to 31st December 1963 produced below[137] (all figures are in thousands):
Region/City/Town
Immediate Deaths
Later Deaths
Related Deaths
Greater London
7500
1000
8500
Chatham (Medway)
150
70
220
Canterbury
75
70
145
Thanet
100
40
140
Southend
125
60
185
Gravesend
75
45
120
&nb
sp; York
80
80
160
Leeds
90
80
170
East Anglia
135
115
250
Lincoln
125
65
190
Hull
185
75
260
Runcorn
25
25
50
Liverpool
500
210
710
Morecombe Bay
20
70
60
Sub-total (000s)
9185
2015
11200
Western England
0
175
175
East Midlands
0
490
490
West Midlands
0
445
445
Yorkshire (South Riding)
0
125
125
Southern England
0
350
350
Home Counties
0
245
245
North East
0
225
225
Wales
0
250
250
North West
0
115
115
South East
0
180
180
Sub-total (000s)
2600
2600
Totals (000s)
9185
4615
13800
Population Estimates and Projections
1. The current population of England and Wales is estimated to be 26.2 to 26.9 millions[138].
2. The revised estimated annual death rate as per figures available up to and including 31st December 1964 (for 1965) is 1.3 million in comparison to the 1951-61 mean of 0.593 million.
3. The death rate peaked at a monthly average of as many as three hundred thousand per month in January 1963 and has been slowly moving back towards normal peacetime long-term trends ever since. However, at present rates of ‘improvement’ it is unlikely to conform to pre-war ‘normal’ statistical trend expectations until 1968 or 1969 at the earliest.
4. One of the main factors in the reducing death rate is that mortality was so pronounced throughout 1963 in the young and the old. The general population has now been ‘winnowed’ of many of its most vulnerable members (see ‘Demographic Factors’ for more information about the long-term implications of this).
5. The estimated live birth rate (children surviving to age of three months) is presently in the range 0.38 to 0.41 million.[139]
6. The inferred population decline from the above figures is that the general population is declining by approximately one million per year. However, it is understood that this decline was partially mitigated by the arrival of as many as 250,000 refugees from continental Europe in the year ending 31st December 1964, and may be substantially mitigated in the 1965 figures (when they become available) by the very large influx of refugees from continental Europe known to have arrived in England from France during the course of that year.[140]
7.The GSS has projected continuing population decline at least until the end of this decade. At this time the Committee has no insight if, or when, the population of England and Wales may again approach its pre-war levels.
Demographic Factors
1. After the monstrous death toll of the war the nation will almost certainly be faced by a pernicious mid- to long-term demographic obstacle to recovery and reconstruction unless urgent action is taken at the earliest practical juncture.
2. Specifically, because mortality during and after the night of the attack seems to have predated most severely on the old and the young, from about 1967 or 1968 onwards the number of women of child bearing age will, as a proportion of the adult population fall to historically unprecedented low levels.
3. This ‘demographic fertility deficit’ as experts in the field term it, will halt and inhibit any recovery towards pre-war population levels over a period of at least one, or perhaps, two decades.[141]
4.The Committee therefore recommends that the Government should urgently introduce measures to persuade women of child-bearing age (and young men) to migrate to the United Kingdom, ideally, from the Commonwealth or it that fails, from other friendly areas of the World irrespective of race, creed or in extremis, colour.[142]
5.The same demographic ‘deficit’ also indicates that prudent planning policy should also embrace the recruitment overseas of skilled, and unskilled workers to fill the gaps which will quickly appear in British industry as soon as it begins to fully recover.
Author’s Endnote
Thank you again for reading Timeline 10/27/62 – Australia - Book 2: Operation Manna. I hope you enjoyed it - or if not, sorry - but either way, thank you for reading and helping to keep the printed word alive. Remember, civilisation depends on people like you.
Operation Manna seeks to fill in a gap in the chronology of Timeline 10/27/62 verse.
Please remember that nothing that happens after 27th October 1962 in this book did not happen (I made it up!). Lots of real people are named, referenced and their actions form the substantial part of Operation Manna; I have no way of knowing if they would have acted or spoken as they do in the pages of this book. Such is the conundrum of writing alternative history; I have written one answer to ‘what might have happened?’ Others – or you - might imagine different outcomes, and they, and you have every right to. This however, is the Timeline 10/27/62 version!
________
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