The Mountains of the Moon: The Gulf War of 1964 - Part 2 (Timeline 10/27/62 Book 8)

by James Philip

  The detonation of this second huge bomb in the downward sloping circular passageway had undermined one of the structural members supporting the southern edge of the ‘bomb proof’ four thousand ton cupola above the air defence centre, and completely collapsed the tunnel over a length of approximately forty metres. At the same time the concrete ‘lid’ had dropped nearly a metre splintering internal walls. Concrete slabs had exploded like giant hand grenades, all the lights had gone out and water from nearby subterranean reservoirs, and the tanks of diesel kept topped up to power internal generators if Chelyabinsk was destroyed by a nuclear strike, had started to flood into the lower levels of the complex from crushed and ruptured pipes.

  All of this had happened in the thirty-seven seconds before a ten-ton Grand Slam bomb screamed down from four miles high like a supersonic crossbow bolt. It had struck the grassy ground ten feet above the three-metre thick reinforced concrete roof of the Red Army’s Central Communications Room in the linked Kursk No 2 bunker. Although this initial obstruction significantly retarded the progress of the bomb the great projectile nevertheless plunged another five metres, passing through a second two-metre concrete ceiling before its fuse, set to explode its four ton Torpex explosive warhead – with a blast yield equivalent to over six-and-a-half tons of TNT - 0.25 seconds after impact had blown up in middle of the single most critical command and control centre in the entire Soviet Union.

  First Deputy Secretary and Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin and his wife were buried somewhere in the flooded ‘political bunker’.

  Minister of Defence and Commander of the Red Army, that seemingly indestructible old Bolshevik Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov’s body lay somewhere in the wreckage of the Kursk No 2 bunker.

  When the British Grand Slam bomb had exploded it had lifted the whole northern section of the complex several feet in the air, forming a thirty metre wide crater into which the pulverised remains of the ‘nuclear bunker’ had fallen seconds later.

  At a stroke the RAF had snuffed out the lives of the wiliest political operator in the Politburo, and the Motherland’s most famous living soldier. It seemed almost incidental that over five hundred other people had died, or were still missing in the attack on the Kursk Bunker complex.

  Forty-five year old Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin stood beside the Chairman of the Communist Party, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev as a rain squall unleashed its passing anger on the salvage operation going on in the hole above where the Red Army’s Central Communications Room had once been.

  The stench of death was in the air.

  “My people think only one man,” Shelepin breathed angrily, “successfully ejected from the bomber we shot down. It was one of the pilots. The local Party official in charge of the search squad put a bullet in his head.”

  Brezhnev’s eyes narrowed and his bear like countenance furrowed.

  “Yes, yes,” the First Secretary of the KGB sighed impatiently. “I have already had the idiot sent to a labour battalion in the east. We could have put a bullet in the fascist’s head any time. If my boys had got hold of him first we might have discovered how the bastards did this.”

  “Sergey Georgiyevich should be arriving in Chelyabinsk this afternoon,” Brezhnev remarked, staring distractedly into the chaos of the crater. He had over-ridden his own personal objections to promulgate Admiral of the Fleet Sergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov, since 1956 the Deputy Defence Minister, as Chuikov’s replacement because there was no other viable candidate for the post other than Hamazasp Khachaturi Babadzhanian and right now the Commander of Army Group South had pressing business in Iraq.

  Besides, Brezhnev accepted that while Shelepin could stomach Gorshkov’s elevation to the Collective Leadership, the notion of inviting Hamazasp Khachaturi Babadzhanian onto the top table was anathema. Forty-eight hours ago that would not have mattered; but that was before two of the three man ‘Troika’ which had emerged out of the ashes of the Cuban Missiles War, and a dozen other senior Party, Red Army and Red Air Force members of the high command had been murdered by the British.

  “This,” Shelepin spat, much in the fashion of a Cobra spraying venom into its prey’s eyes, “would never have happened if Chuikov hadn’t sent all those fucking anti-aircraft missiles to Iraq!”

  Brezhnev had considered the transfer of fifteen of the twenty-one S-75 batteries allocated to the defence of the Sverdlovsk – Chelyabinsk region a calculated gamble. Something had had to be done to stop, or at the very least, deter the British from constantly bombing bridges, roads and towns along Babadzhanian’s line of march south of Baghdad; and transferring the bulk of the S-75s had seemed a good idea at the time. It had, in fact, succeeded in its aim driving the RAF from the skies of central Iraq.

  However, Shelepin was right; the massed batteries of S-75s which had been in place around both Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk until a few weeks ago would have made short work of the four RAF V-Bombers which had wreaked so much havoc in the nearby city and the Kursk bunker complex. As it was three of the four bombers had got away having been able to make their bomb runs untroubled by the handful of light guns protecting the city.

  The Red Air Force claimed to have shot down a second bomber north of the Crimea. The downed aircraft had supposedly crashed in a ‘dead zone’ known to be heavily contaminated by radiation from an American bomber which had crashed during the Cuban Missiles War, and although search teams had been sent to investigate the reported ‘downing’, as yet no reports had been received in Chelyabinsk.

  This was hardly surprising since all secure communications now had to be filtered through the Defence Ministry comples in Sverdlovsk, where arrangement were in hand to relocate the reconstituted ‘Troika’ and its large and convoluted administration.

  “Well,” Brezhnev concluded, knowing that in time the blame game would erode the former Chuikov’s reputation and be ruthlessly employed by Shelepin to undermine the ‘Hero of Iraq’, Babadzhanian. There was nothing he could do about it so he was not about to waste time worrying about it. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? The British gave us a kick in the guts. Now we have to get on with things. We will take our revenge on them in the Persian Gulf. The KGB can have its inquest into how this,” he waved at the rubble, “was allowed to happen later.”

  Inevitably, the raid had taken the shine off the Red Army’s triumphant march south to the Persian Gulf.

  Overnight news had been received that advanced units of Major General Vladimir Andreyevich Puchkov’s 10th Guards Tank Division had taken the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr and closed up to the Kuwaiti border. Other than a few isolated pockets of resistance in the Kurdish north, the whole of Iraq was in Soviet hands. Soon, Abadan would be over run and then it would only be a matter of time before south eastern Iran capitulated.

  On the eastern, Iranian bank of the Arvand River, powerful spearheads of the 2nd Siberian Mechanised Army, commanded by the relentless former paratrooper Konstantin Yakovlevich Kurochnik had rolled over a weak Iranian armoured regiment opposite Basra and were preparing to advance south on Khorramshahr. The only thing that had not gone to plan was the failure of the Red Air Force to achieve and to maintain any degree of local air superiority over the eastern half of Basra Province; but in the scale of things, this was only a minor fly in the ointment. The Red Army now held the Faw Peninsula opposite Abadan Island and in the next few days, heavy artillery and dozens of Katyusha rocket launchers would be brought forward. Then, squeezed between the massed guns of 3rd Caucasian Tank Army in the west and by the irresistible tide of advancing 2nd Siberian Mechanized Army’s armour, the end would come quickly. Albeit over a month behind schedule, Babadzhanian’s ‘grand strategy’ was finally playing out exactly as he had predicted.

  “I want Yuri Vladimirovich in Baghdad as soon as possible,” Shelepin asserted, having decided not to challenge Brezhnev’s authority at this early stage in the life of the new Troika.

>   Like a wily old boxer too wise to be distracted by his opponent’s fancy footwork, and untroubled by his educated jabbing and feinting, Brezhnev had anticipated this demand and already weighed its merits. There were other candidates as qualified, and possibly, more suitable to assume the role of Commissar General in the conquered territories than Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov. However, at a time like this placing the ‘best man’ in post was not actually the primary consideration.

  Whether he liked it or not Brezhnev had accepted Shelepin as Alexei Kosygin’s de facto replacement in the ‘Troika’, and Sergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov, as Chuikov’s. In the ‘new’ collective leadership Brezhnev would command the Party, Shelepin would remain the First Secretary of the KGB and responsibility for internal security, and Gorshkov, for the defence of the Motherland. Inevitably, Gorshkov would be the junior member of the ruling triumvirate because unlike his predecessor he could not and never would, speak for the Red Army. This suited Brezhnev and Shelepin perfectly; while they needed Gorshkov to counterbalance Babadzhanian, the man they expected to return home from his triumphs in Iran and Iraq like Julius Caesar after the Gallic Wars angling to be Tsar one day, they had no intention of ‘sharing’ real political power with a mere ‘Admiral’.

  “Yes, send Andropov to Baghdad,” Brezhnev agreed. “It will give him ideas above his station but I’m sure you’ll keep an eye on him. We’ll send Zorin to Baghdad as his deputy when things settle down.”

  Shelepin snorted what might have been laughter.

  “Assuming,” Brezhnev went on, his voice as unyielding as the Siberian permafrost, “your people and my people don’t start another Civil War in the meantime.”

  The master of the KGB looked to his companion dead eyed.

  “There is no profit in that for either of us, Comrade Leonid Ilyich. If there is to be peace we must present a united face to our enemies. Do you not agree?”

  “And afterwards?”

  Shelepin shrugged.

  “Afterwards is another country, my friend.”

  Chapter 37

  Saturday 27th June 1964

  USS Kitty Hawk, Straits of Hormuz, Persian Gulf

  In contrast to her approach the first time she had encountered Carrier Division Seven HMAS Anzac cruised towards the flagship out of the haze at a sedate fifteen knots. About a mile behind her the silhouette of the New Zealand frigate, Otago, recently arrived from Australasian waters slowly turned south.

  Anzac’s bridge signal lamp began to wink.

  Lieutenant-Commander Walter Brenckmann junior mouthed the letters of the message silently, formed the words on his lips as he gaze zeroed in on the destroyer.

  MV CONNAUGHT MINED IN WATERS OFF KARAK ISLAND STOP LOCAL IRANIAN FORCES BELIEVED HOSTILE STOP SAFE CHANNEL ON SOUTH SIDE OF THE STRAITS MESSAGE ENDS.

  There was a short interregnum while the destroyer awaited acknowledgement from the carrier.

  RESPECTFULLY SUGGEST YOU CLEAR KISHM ISLAND BY TEN PLUS MILES TO THE SOUTH MESSAGE ENDS.

  The Straits of Hormuz were only twenty-nine miles wide at the narrowest point, and beyond it as shipping entered the Persian Gulf Kishm Island guarded the Iranian coast for many miles.

  There was another gap in the signalling as the Anzac drew nearer.

  PROVIDENCE SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.

  Shortly afterwards Anzac reduced speed to about eight knots and as she passed through Carrier Division Seven she dipped her flags, all of them, including a huge battle flag streaming from her main mast yard, to half-mast. The destroyer had manned the rail of her foredeck, and on the flying bridge her officers had doffed their caps to the Kitty Hawk.

  Clear of the big ships of the flagship’s escort the Battle class destroyer increased speed and turned to catch up with Kitty Hawk.

  MAY I SPEAK DIRECTLY TO CINCCD7 STOP SCRAMBLER CODE ONE-ONE-THREE MESSAGE ENDS.

  It seemed that the sinking of the USS Providence had changed the world hereabouts between the time of Carrier Division Seven’s first meeting with the captain of the Anzac and now.

  From the moment the torpedo had exploded beneath the keel of the modernized World War II cruiser, Carrier Division Seven had been on a war footing. Wherever the flagship sailed there were sonar buoys in the water and a pair of Grumman S-2 Tracker twin turboprop anti-submarine aircraft in the air co-ordinating the movements of the Kitty Hawk’s screening destroyers and frigates. The SSN USS Permit had been left behind in the deeper waters of the Arabian Sea to guard the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and every man on every ship was looking for an opportunity to exact payback on the cowards who had killed over a hundred of their comrades onboard the Providence.

  Having been previously ordered to maintain a ‘peace time level of anti-submarine warfare readiness’ nobody was blaming Walter Brenckmann for what had happened; but that did not make him feel any better. In the days since the sinking a dark, brooding anger had clouded his waking mind and he knew it was not going to blow away any time soon.

  Notwithstanding there had been no announcement, nor any dissemination of new mission orders, nobody onboard the Kitty Hawk honestly believed any of that ‘peace keeping baloney’ any more. The news that Admiral Bringle intended to ‘take Carrier Division Seven into the Persian Gulf to exercise the US Navy’s right of free and unfettered passage in international waters’ had not come as any surprise to anybody.

  Now as the great carrier passed through the Straits of Hormuz there had been another change.

  No neutral had any place in the Persian Gulf.

  The Red Army had parked its tanks on the northern shore; Abadan was likely to fall within days and everybody understood that the British and their allies were not going to just let it happen.

  Within days the waters into which Carrier Division Seven was passing would run with blood, and Walter Brenckmann honesty did not know how he and his comrades onboard the Kitty Hawk could possibly stand back from the coming fight.

  Chapter 38

  Monday 29th June 1964

  Sultan Abdulaziz Air Base, Riyadh

  Construction work was still going on to extend and widen the taxiways and row upon row of general purpose, blast and anti-personnel munitions were stacked - apparently randomly arrayed - on pallets and in the sand beneath the merciless Arabian sun as Squadron Leader Guy French clambered from the sweaty, nevertheless relatively cool pressurized crew ‘bubble’ of Victor B.2 The Angry Widow onto the burning tarmac. The heat shimmered off the desert creating a haze which blurred the lines of the control tower in the middle distance.

  The briefing officer back at RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus had remarked that the runway on which The Angry Widow had just landed ‘did not exist a fortnight ago’ and looking around Guy French could believe it. He moved into the shadow of the port wing, unzipping and unlatching his flying suit down to the waist and peeling the sweltering, clinging fabric down until it was bunched around his hips as the other crew members had already done. Still the perspiration poured off him.

  The Chelyabinsk operation already felt like a lifetime ago.

  No 100 Squadron would have basked in the satisfaction of a job well done; had it known it had actually done the job well and but for the loss of the CO’s kite City of Lincoln. The boys who had carpet bombed the middle of Chelyabinsk could justifiably claim to have hit the nail on the head, not so The Angry Widow’s crew. For all Guy French knew the Victor’s two Tallboys had gone down in open countryside. However, even though one of the ECW – electronic countermeasures warfare – Canberras based at Akrotiri had also failed to return, the top brass seemed pleased enough. The only fly in the ointment on Cyprus was that the raid had more or less emptied the bomb dumps of medium capacity general purpose bombs and high capacity blast munitions; which was why The Angry Widow was sitting on the broiling concrete apron of an air base in Saudi Arabia, literally in the middle of a veritable sea of precisely the sort of devices that were in critically short supply at its home base.

  There were bombs of every denomination, 250
-pounders, 500, 1000, and 2000-pounders, smoothly rounded general purpose jobs, blunt-ended cylindrical thin-skinned explosive-packed monsters, devices stencilled ‘AP’, some with cameras in their noses, others with tail widgets containing pre-wired components of their terminal guidance systems. Some bombs had over-sized tail flukes, others stubby, businesslike stabilisers.

  It seemed that the US Air Force had left this veritable cornucopia of devastation in Arabia because it was cheaper than carting it home but the RAF was not about to get ‘proud’ about the scraps it was about to scoop up off the Yankee table.

  There had been talk in the Mess about ‘trundling down to Riyadh, bombing up and heading straight off to Basra’; that sort of talk had been quashed early on. No, The Angry Widow was to take onboard thirty-eight thousand pounders – twenty-four high capacity blast bombs and fourteen of the medium capacity general purpose variety which could be set to explode anywhere between 0.25 seconds after impact to forty-eight hours later – and stroll back up to Akrotiri. Operating from Riyadh sounded all right the first time a fellow said it, and in the future circumstances might mandate it but presently, it was all a little bit too ad hoc for the brass in Cyprus.

  In the near distance the first long, low train of bombs dragged behind a small, khaki camouflaged tractor. From the other side of the air base two fuel bowsers slowly trundled, in loose formation, across the great expanse of shimmering concrete towards where The Angry Widow sizzled, sighed and creaked as her engines cooled from the trip down to Arabia, and her flight surfaces warmed in the blazing afternoon sunshine.