by James Philip
Chapter 16
Thursday 13th February 1964
Tudor Hall, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
“Sir Henry,” Margaret Thatcher invited, magisterially as was her wont on these occasions, “would reiterate the agenda for today’s Cabinet please?”
“It will be my pleasure, Prime Minister,” replied the wily grey old fox who oversaw the complex workings of the great machine of state that was the Home Civil Service. Sir Henry Tomlinson looked up from his notebook. “Item one; the combined war situation review compiled by the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Joint Intelligence Committee to be presented by Admiral Sir David Luce. Item two; the crisis in Northern Ireland. Item three; a Home Office report on the approach to establishing contact with survivors living in the Greater London area and how to plan for the re-opening and reconstruction of key economic and industrial assets within that area. Mr Jenkins will speak to this. Item four; any other business.”
“Thank you, Sir Henry.” The Prime Minister looked to Admiral Sir David Luce, the First Sea Lord. “Sir David, you have the floor.”
Fifty-eight year old Admiral John ‘David’ Luce was the man who had, in the last months of the pre-October War World, overtaken his old friend Julian Christopher – to whom he had been junior his entire career - in the race to be pencilled in as the next professional head of the Royal Navy. When the incumbent First Sea Lord had disappeared in the cataclysm, he had stepped directly into his current role approximately six months early. At the same time, Julian Christopher had become the hero of the nation bringing home the Operation Manna convoys; when, but for the war, he would have already been quietly retired from the service.
The First Sea Lord shrugged off his weariness and nodded acknowledgement to his political mistress, the woman whom, without the implicit support of the Chiefs of Staff, could not and indeed, would not have risen to or accepted the burden of the Premiership. Not that there had ever been any real question of Sir David Luce, or the other Chiefs of Staff at the time – Air Marshal Sir Charles Elworthy, or General Sir Richard Hull – interfering in the succession following the assassination of Edward Heath. Her Majesty the Queen had spoken and the Chiefs of Staff of were honourable men to whom the very thought of acting counter to the wishes of their sovereign monarch was anathema.
Sir David Luce took a final glance at his notes.
“The situation of our forces in Malta remains stable,” he began, trying not to sigh with relief. He was a former submariner who had taken part in the abortive bloody fiasco of the Dieppe Raid in 1942, and later worked on the staff that planned and executed the Normandy Landings in June 1944. He had commanded the cruisers HMS Liverpool and HMS Birmingham in the early 1950s, the latter during the Korean conflict. Afterwards, he was Director of the Royal Naval Staff College and Naval Aide de Camp to the Queen. A once lean, now thin, forthright but immensely charming man, his intuitive understanding of the nuances of the political niceties had smoothed his path to high command. Before leaving London to raise his flag in the Pacific, Julian Christopher had wished him well, prophetically forecasting that if the worst comes to the worst ‘you are the best man to handle a crisis at home; I always wanted to go down in history as a fighting admiral’. It had been meant as a private joke and taken as such at the time, lately, the First Sea Lord thought about that conversation most days. David Luce was confident that if he put his mind to it he could charm the back legs off a donkey; but had never doubted that Julian Christopher was the only man for the job in Malta.
“The consensus of opinion is that the suicide ship which caused the loss of HMS Amphion with all hands was probably a Red Dawn vessel which had failed to receive a signal to desist its offensive mission in the confusion following the nuclear strikes on targets in the region the previous week.”
He turned a page.
“We now have a more comprehensive after action report on the nuclear strikes and our own casualties in the theatre since hostilities commenced some weeks ago.”
The tiredness washed over him at moments like this when the true scale of the madness was writ so large.
“Greece,” he prefaced. “The city and port of Thessalonika was destroyed by a large, relatively low altitude airburst on the landward side of the main conurbation. At least three hundred thousand people probably died. Given that the city was under bombardment from land and sea at this time, our presumption is that a large number of the assaulting troops must also have been killed in the strike. We think this is a reasonable assumption because Red Dawn operations in this area ceased after the strike. Elsewhere in Greece it seems as if Athens and the port of Piraeus have fallen to Red Dawn forces. A pall of smoke still hangs over the area. As of this time yesterday, sporadic outbreaks of fighting are ongoing within a twenty mile radius of the city. Our hypothesis is that most of the Greek islands in the Aegean are in Red Dawn hands but that other than Athens and perhaps, a few isolated mainland ports, Red Dawn has no other significant bridgeheads on shore. Notwithstanding, the situation in Greece, as elsewhere in the region is chaotic.”
Another page.
“Adriatic and Balkans,” Sir David Luce said, looking up and making eye contacts around the table. “Aviano Air Base appears to have been targeted by a Hiroshima-sized air burst. In the range of fifteen to twenty kilotons, that is. The attack came some hours after the last American military personnel had departed the area. There had been concerns in Malta that usable, or shall we say, recoverable US military assets might have been left behind at Aviano due to the haste with which the US Air Force evacuated the base. However, since it seems the air bust was only several hundred feet above the western end of the main runway our worries on this score are no longer pertinent.” He paused briefly, book-ending another paragraph of his briefing. “We have very little intelligence on the nuclear strikes in the Belgrade area. It is likely that a weapon in the megaton range went off above the south-eastern suburbs of the city and that several; as many as three, Hiroshima-size airbursts were aimed at airfields and military concentrations in the vicinity of the city. It was first believed that Sarajevo had also been targeted but aerial reconnaissance confirms that the city is undamaged at this time. Our general analysis is that the Red Dawn mechanised columns which entered Yugoslavian territory from both Romanian and Bulgarian territory are still engaging defending forces as many as fifty miles inside Yugoslavian territory. One thing we did not actually believe when we first detected it was,” he shook his head, “the almost total cessation of air operations in support of the – supposedly – Red Dawn ground forces operating in Greece and Yugoslavia. The same thing happened over Cyprus, but I will come to that in a moment.”
The First Sea Lord spoke with a quietly clear voice that carried to all corners of the room; he was a man who had never needed to say a thing twice. People tended to listen to what David Luce said the first time.
“Crete, the Aegean and the general naval situation north of the line Crete – Cyprus, and Cyprus,” he went on. “We believe Crete is in the hands of Red Dawn and has been for several weeks. Aerial reconnaissance indicates very few centres of population have avoided major degradation. Our best guess is that some form of scorched earth policy may have been applied to the island and the greater part, perhaps all, the populations of most of the major towns massacred or driven out.”
Both the female labour MPs sitting as observers gasped.
Enoch Powell’s composure was glacial.
“There is evidence that several – I hasten to add, not all - of the Greek Islands in the Aegean may have suffered the same fate. Cyprus,” the First Sea Lord went on. “The warhead that badly damaged Limassol harbour and sank HMS Blake was another Hiroshima-sized device. HMS Blake currently lies on her port side capsized to a list of about sixty-five degrees in about thirty to forty feet of water, meaning that a substantial part of the vessel is still above water. I can confirm that some three hundred and fifty survivors from her crew are safe at RAF Akrotiri, largely due to the selfless act
ions of local fishermen and rescue boats sent out from Akrotiri. HMS Blake had thirty-eight nuclear warheads recovered from the former CENTO stockpile at Akrotiri onboard at the time she sank. Observations of the wreck confirm that no attempt has been made by unauthorised third parties to board, or to salvage the warheads or any other part of the wreck.”
A pained look flickered in his eyes.
“You will be aware that one of HMS Blake’s escorts, HMS Londonderry was destroyed in the attack on the port, and further, that the frigate Salisbury and the destroyer Decoy were later sunk by enemy aircraft while attempting to block the invasion of Cyprus via the east coast. I must now report that all of the men on the Londonderry and all bar forty-eight men from the crews of the Decoy and the Salisbury are now presumed missing in action and therefore, dead. Given that HMS Dreadnought and reconnaissance aircraft flying out of Akrotiri, Malta and Aviano had identified as many as fifteen major Red Dawn-flagged surface units and detected the presence of diesel-electric powered submarines operating in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, resupply of Cyprus by sea remains impracticable at this time due to the superiority of enemy forces in this area. I can confirm that the Red Dawn fleet appears to include at least two former Soviet cruisers, the old Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz, and numerous former Soviet destroyers. In the next few days United States Navy nuclear-powered attack submarines will take up station in the Eastern Mediterranean. As soon as they are on station Admiral Christopher will proceed with the preparations to resupply and to relieve our garrison on Cyprus. I have assured Admiral Christopher that the resources will be made available to him to mount a major amphibious assault to recapture the whole of the island of Cyprus. I have no specific timescale for this operation at this time but Admiral Christopher is keen for it to be mounted before Red Dawn has time to ‘get a second wind’.”
“What of HMS Dreadnought, Sir David?” Margaret Thatcher inquired.
“She will shortly be returning to Malta, Prime Minister. We’ve worked her hard these last three months and she’s badly in need of time in dockyard hands.”
Next page.
“Eastern Mediterranean,” the First Sea Lord continued. “You will know that HMS Victorious was badly damaged by fire after a submarine attack employing a nuclear warhead-tipped torpedo sank her close escort, HMS Undaunted. Victorious’s condition is under assessment at Alexandria. HMS Undaunted was lost with all hands and HMS Victorious suffered over a hundred-and-fifty fatalities and a similar number of seriously injured casualties. All in all, in the twenty-four hour period prior to the Red Dawn nuclear first strike on Malta, the targets in Italy and the Balkans, and on Egypt, the tactical and strategic situation in the Eastern Mediterranean was rapidly deteriorating.”
Admiral Sir David Luce stopped momentarily, ready to field questions on anything he had said to date. The room was silent.
“Malta. Malta was targeted by at least three inter-continental ballistic missiles, the warhead of one of which failed to initiate. There can be no doubting the enemy’s intention was to destroy Malta as a base of operations and to kill everybody on the archipelago. The missile which failed to go off landed in the sea approximately one mile from the southern coast of the main island. Given that the two warheads which did go off were in the low megaton range, it may be presumed that had the third weapon functioned correctly we would be discussing the deaths of eighty percent of the population and the destruction of ninety-five percent of the military infrastructure, assets and capability of the Maltese Archipelago. We believe that it was a no more than a cruel misfortune that the USS Enterprise, the USS Long Beach and the five vessels of the 7th Destroyer Flotilla were operating in the general area of the second air burst.”
Another brief pause for reflection.
“Shortly before the attack on Malta a two megaton airburst occurred in Egypt seventeen miles south-east of the Great Pyramids of Giza, a desert region. Some minutes earlier a weapon with a probable yield in the one to two megaton range airburst over the centre of Ismailia in Upper Egypt. It is feared that as many as a quarter-of-a-million people perished in Ismailia. You will know that the city lies on the Suez Canal, which at this time is blocked to all traffic as a result of two ships transiting the Ismailia section of the canal having been sunk.”
The First Sea Lord glanced at his wrist watch; time was always pressing but he was concerned not to inadvertently commit an error of omission.
“Casualties. Since the bombing of Limassol the Royal Navy has suffered the loss of two thousand and seventy-four men killed, or missing presumed killed. Over one thousand two hundred men have been seriously wounded in action. The cruiser HMS Blake, the destroyers HMS Decoy and HMS Undaunted, the frigates HMS Londonderry and HMS Salisbury, and the submarine HMS Amphion have been sunk. In addition, the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious has been seriously damaged. In this period the Royal Fleet Air Arm has lost seven aircraft supporting operations at sea, and four in operations-related training accidents. HMS Victorious’s entire air group, other than two Sea Vixens flying a combat air patrol over the battle group and one Westland Wessex flying a search and rescue mission at the time HMS Undaunted was attacked, was lost when the ship was attacked. Many other ships have sustained damage and will require significant periods in dockyard hands before they rejoin the fleet. Our best information about casualties among the ground forces defending Cyprus is that we have sustained over two hundred dead, and about twice that number wounded. Perhaps, as many as fifty civilian dependents and contractors have also become casualties. The relatively low rate of casualties among the garrison on Cyprus reflects the fact the garrison withdrew in good order into defended enclaves in the centre of the island and around Akrotiri in advance of the invasion, and that the enemy’s artillery and air support was poorly handled.”
The First Sea Lord looked around the table.
“I have three more things to cover then I shall surrender the floor, Prime Minister,” he explained, knowing how the Angry Widow hated meetings to drag on unnecessarily no matter how important their purpose.
Margaret Thatcher nodded. Sir David Luce was the one man in her Cabinet she could trust not to ‘drift off his brief’.
“I will not attempt to seriously address the question of why there has been no second nuclear strike; although last Friday’s exercise was so badly executed one might venture the opinion that Red Dawn lacks the capability to mount an effective strike.” True to his word he did not delve further into this conundrum. “What I will say is that the subsequent cessation of aggressive action against our forces in the Mediterranean could not have come at a more opportune time. The USS Enterprise is currently docked in Malta undergoing emergency repairs preparatory to returning to the United States; in the meantime the fleet carrier USS Independence has anchored off Gibraltar where urgent remedial work is being carried out on two defective catapults. On the completion of this work Independence with take up station in the Western Mediterranean with a substantial task force in company. In the meantime elements of the USS Enterprise’s battle group will remain based at Malta and will be available to support operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. In addition, the fleet carrier HMS Eagle, in company with the cruiser HMS Belfast sailed from Portsmouth last night en route for Malta. At Malta they will join HMS Hermes, at presently refitting, the Commando carrier HMS Ocean, and the Big Cats – forgive me, the cruisers Lion and Tiger – to form the basis of a fleet that will retake the whole of the island of Cyprus.”
“Remind colleagues of the provisional timescale for that operation please, Sir David,” Margaret Thatcher murmured.
“Mid to late March at the earliest, Prime Minister. Assuming that is, the landing force can be assembled in Malta by that date. Realistically, the first assault wave might be going ashore on Cyprus before the end of the first week of April.”
Enoch Powell cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since the opening pleasantries before Cabinet commenced.
“What if the Krasnaya Za
rya horde resumes the offensive, First Sea Lord?”
Sir David Luce looked to Margaret Thatcher.
“You may speak plainly with Mr Powell. Everybody in this room is a patriot regardless of their political affiliations or ideological differences.”
The First Sea Lord turned in his chair and met the Member for Wolverhampton South West’s one-eyed, unblinking stare.
“There is a view that the first use of strategic nuclear weapons – including the strikes on Aviano, those aimed at Malta, and possibly at least one of the strikes on Belgrade were by ICBMs launched from within the former Soviet Union – is an indication that Red Dawn may have over-stretched itself. If, as seems likely, Red Dawn now dominates, or at the very least, partially dominates or occupies a large tract of territory in an arc from Yugoslavia and Romania in the west, down through Greece around through Turkey and Asia Minor all the way to the Trans-Caucasus anchored on say, the Armenian or Georgian republics of the former Soviet Union, it is probable that they have outrun any conceivable logistics train, and perhaps, will struggle to hold the ground they have seized even in the face of guerrilla-style resistance. Much of the ground they have taken is pretty unforgiving. The withdrawal of their naval forces from the Eastern Mediterranean may have more to do with an urgent need to secure seaborne supply routes in the Aegean, the Sea of Marmara and the southern Black Sea, than supporting future offensive operations. Moreover, at this time Red Dawn seems to have completely abandoned their forces on Cyprus.”
“That is an interesting analysis,” Enoch Powell declared, his voice nasal and piercing despite his rattling lungs. “But, if I may be so bold, stunningly complacent.”
“Mr Powell,” Margaret Thatcher retorted, knowing that the First Sea Lord was too much the consummate, charming professional to slap down the gaunt, tortured man who had just insulted him. “I find your remark unfair. Sir David is briefing this Cabinet on what is actually happening rather than indulging in open-ended speculation. That is not a luxury we can afford in our current situation. Pray share with us all your reason for your last remark.”