by James Philip
‘Very commendable, sir,” Davey had declared, intrigued and a little bit bewildered by his counterpart’s apparent change of tune; the last time they had spoken Bringle had wanted to keel haul him!
‘To that end it is essential that ABNZ forces and Carrier Division Seven observe separation rules and,’ the American had paused to measure his words, ‘and adopt standard operating procedures including shared communication frequencies sufficient to avoid unfortunate incidents.’
Several hours later Nick Davey was still trying to unpick Bringle’s meanings; reading and re-reading between the lines of their brief, somewhat strangled conversation. Normally, he was the last man to waste time deconstructing such ‘courtesy visits’ and ‘conferences’ but there had been something dissonant in Bringle’s eyes and all the time his elders and betters were talking; his ‘flag lieutenant’, Brenckmann, had clearly had no idea what he was doing witnessing the meeting.
‘It is important that our ships do not get mixed up with each other,’ Bringle had said. The American had been circuitous, ambiguous, and reluctant to say anything definitive about anything. It was as if he had flown across to the Centaur for the sake of ‘flying across’. To be seen to have flown across to the Centaur. But nothing had actually been said, agreed or negotiated which could not have been communicated and signed off in a two minute chat over the scrambled TBS system. And then there was the presence of a witness. Davey was glad he had called in Harpy Lloyd, to ‘even up the odds’.
Tiger’s Captain had thought the whole episode was odd too.
At the end, just as Bringle and his flag lieutenant were rising from their chairs to leave, Nick Davey had asked his counterpart a direct question.
‘What’s all this about, Bringle?’
Bringle had looked him in the eye, thought better of it and flicked his focus over Davey’s right shoulder.
‘I’m just making sure we are playing from the same old NATO playbook, Admiral Davey. Carrier Division Seven’s mission is to keep the peace. And that is what it will do...’
The Commander of the ABNZ Persian Gulf Squadron became aware of a presence at his right shoulder.
“Will you join me for a stroll, sir?” Inquired Captain Lloyd, the cruiser’s commanding officer.
The two men left the bridge and went to the lee rail, amidships. They stared into the night awhile.
“This is a rum business,” Harpy Lloyd observed quietly.
“Yes,” Davey agreed with a sigh. “I keep thinking about the way the Yanks let us down at Malta. That,” he added, “and how my old friend Julian Christopher must have felt when he realised he’d been stabbed in the back.”
Tiger’s Captain ruminated unhurriedly.
The seconds passed slowly.
“At Malta we were looking to the US Navy to stop somebody creeping up on us while our back was turned, figuratively speaking,” Harpy Lloyd offered. “Here, well, we’re not actually counting on their help. We know we’re on our own. The Americans have been honest enough about that.”
“Um...”
“I don’t like Admiral Bringle keeping station with Centaur either,” the cruiser’s commanding officer admitted. “I know sea room is in short supply in these waters, but twenty miles is nothing, less than two minutes flying time for most of the aircraft on the Kitty Hawk. Centaur’s radar suite is so old if somebody on one of those new-fangled Hawkeye planes hits the wrong switch she’ll be completely in the dark. And we’re going to need every one of Centaur’s Sea Vixens and Scimitars to keep the Red Air Force off us in the next day or two.”
However, that was not what was gnawing at Nick Davey’s soul.
“Why on earth would you want to operate the biggest and the most powerful aircraft carrier in the World right on top of one of the oldest and smallest, Harpy?”
“To make some kind of point?”
“No, surely there are better ways of doing that?”
The cruiser’s Captain turned and looked aft down the length of his ship in the darkness.
“Perhaps, they just feel a little left out of things, sir,” he suggested dryly.
Nick Davey chortled.
“Perhaps,” he countered, “I’m thinking too hard about all this. You’re right. We know the Yanks aren’t going to ride to our rescue like the Seventh Cavalry! I’m sure they’ll keep out of our way when the real fighting starts.”
Chapter 45
Thursday 2nd July 1964
RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus
Squadron Leader Guy French had been more than a little surprised, and mightily impressed by the apparent ‘completeness’ of the ‘targeting information’ and the ‘comprehensive picture of the general air defence environment’ in and around the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.
‘Umm Qasr stands on the part-canalised Khawr az-Zubayr section of the Khawr Abd Allah estuary leading to the Persian Gulf. The port itself, which is planned to be Iraq’s deep-water gate to the World is as yet uncompleted, work having only started in 1961, after the Iraqi government made the strategic decision to disregard the objections of the local shipping moguls in Basra and to go ahead with the port project. Before the October War the Iraqis were building a major road down the western side of the Faw Peninsula, effectively bypassing Basra to connect the planned port with the rest of the country. That road, albeit not yet completed, was of inestimable value to the 10th Guards Tank Division and miscellaneous brigades of the 3rd Byelorussian Mechanized Division, the 7th Guards Tank Division and the 15th and 22nd Mechanized Infantry Divisions, all of which are occupying hurriedly thrown up defensive positions in and around Umm Qasr. The majority of these formations are currently refitting, presumably to enable them to resume the advance south into the Arabian Peninsula in due course. Meanwhile the 14th Ukrainian Combat Engineer Regiment is in the process of deploying in the port area to activate the existing limited deep water port facilities and to supervise the building of an emergency air base in the desert fifteen miles north of the Kuwaiti border. It is likely that several thousand slave workers, organised in so-called penal battalions followed the forward units of the 3rd Caucasian Tank Army into the Faw Peninsula in the last week.’
Umm Qasr had just been a small fishing village as recently as 1958, separated from Kuwait by a narrow inlet. The Allies had built temporary docks and unloading wharfs during the Second World War, ironically, to send war supplies north by road to the Soviet Union. Alexander the Great was supposed to have set foot in Mesopotamia for the first time at Umm Qasr in 325 BC; until the twentieth century its only real claim to fame.
The Iraqi Navy had established a base at the port in the late fifties and by 1961 a consortium of West German, Swedish and Lebanese companies had been granted the concession to develop the port and to connect Umm Qasr to the north with a new railways line.
No. 100 Squadron’s Victors had been sitting idle since their ‘jaunt’ down to Riyadh to load up with unwanted American bombs. They had flown back to Akrotiri with unfused, relatively ‘safe’ cargoes; although landing with twenty tons of ordnance in one’s bomb bay was always an ‘interesting’ evolution. Squadron armourers had ensured that all five Akrotiri Victors were ‘ready to go’ within eighteen hours of their return to Cyprus, and the V-Bombers’ crews had been at QRA – Quick Reaction Alert – status ever since, living in tents and shed-like ‘chalets’ close to the runway, enjoying the sunshine, catching up on their reading, playing cards, smoking and drinking endless mugs of tea and coffee, aching for the word to ‘GO!’.
The Angry Widow, Guy French’s kite was a Mark B.2 with upgraded engines, avionics and electronics which could be ‘fired up’ by the pressing of a single button. The ninety ton bomber could be rolling within as little as two minutes of the balloon going up.
The Chelyabinsk operation had turned out to be Guy French’s last trip in the second, right-hand seat of The Angry Widow. The Squadron CO had not returned from the operation and his pilot had stepped into his shoes, handing the baton, so to speak, to Guy.
>
Although it was not as if it was a new experience, he had been his aircraft’s captain on the night of the October War and countless times since flying Comet jetliners for Transport Command; to be the man in the left-hand seat of a V-Bomber, in charge again was a little strange. Coming to Cyprus had been a huge adventure, now it was suddenly as deadly serious as it should have been to him long before the Chelyabinsk operation.
Each aircraft had its own target and every aircraft was carrying a mixed bomb load of medium capacity ‘eggs’ including several with fuses set to detonate minutes and hours after impact, high capacity blast bombs and at least half-a-dozen anti-personnel mines each designed to distribute scores of smaller ‘bomblets’, cluster bombs to saturate the target area with lethal shrapnel.
No. 100 Squadron’s Victors were scheduled to bomb within a five minute window shortly after land based fighter bombers, RAF Hawker Hunters and a handful of Royal Fleet Air Arm De Havilland Sea Vixens based on Saudi Arabian territory within fifteen minutes flying time of Umm Qasr ‘suppressed’ the ‘local air defences’. Two Dhahran-based Avro Vulcan V-Bombers, initially acting in an electronic warfare role, would drop cargoes of cluster bombs and delayed action one-thousand pound general purpose bombs into the carnage caused by the Victors. In the event that there were any Red Air Force interceptors ‘stooging’ around over the Faw Peninsula two Gloster Meteor night fighters would loiter in the vicinity prior to and immediately after the bombing strikes.
The Angry Widow was tasked to obliterate a ‘divisional holding area’ located in the desert roughly equidistant between Umm Qasr and Safwan, a border village some fourteen miles east north east of the port. This ‘holding area’ within two to three miles of the Kuwaiti border was thought to be where elements of the 10th Guards Tank Division had halted to throw up defensive sand berms behind which to laager, rest, refit and assimilate replacement equipment and men.
Tonight the route to the target crossed into Israeli and then Jordanian air space for the first time. After the operation instead of turning for home and retracing their steps 100 Squadron’s Victors were tasked to fly down to Riyadh, refuel and take on another full bomb load before returning to Akrotiri via a ‘transit’ corridor authorised by the Egyptians over Sinai. Egypt, unlike the Israelis and the Jordanians had accommodated RAF over flights from the outset of the Soviet invasion of Iraqi territory; but in the wake of the coup – fighting had raged in the streets of Cairo for nearly a week – had become a sleeping partner in the war.
The Angry Widow waited at the runway threshold, a beast purring with latent power straining to rumble forward.
In the distance the CO’s aircraft, Waltzing Matilda – the CO’s mother was Australian – climbed into the eastern sky, her navigation lights winking distantly.
“Number Two,” the controller’s voice broke into Guy French’s thoughts. “Report aircraft status please.”
“All flight systems OK, control.”
“You are clear to take off, Number Two. Repeat. You are clear to take off.”
The throttles advanced, the beast trembled, leaning into her locked brakes.
“Brakes off!”
The Angry Widow smoothly, irresistibly surged forward into the night.
Chapter 46
Thursday 2nd July 1964
Field Headquarters of 4th Royal Tank Regiment, Abadan, Iran
Lieutenant General Michael Carver had read, and re-read Read Admiral Nicholas Davey’s terse ‘IMMEDIATE AND MOST SECRET’ communication several times, initially not really knowing what to make of it. In fact, the first couple of times he had perused the flimsy message slip he had wondered if there had been some kind of blunder in the decryption process.
USS KITY HAWK TASK FORCE IS SHADOWING HMS CENTAUR...
It had crossed Carver’s mind that after the torpedoing of the USS Providence, Carrier Division Seven might be ordered to make some kind of knee jerk, retaliatory gesture; although what form that ‘gesture’ might take and against whom it might be directed had been less clear.
USN NOW ASSUMES PROVIDENCE ATTACKED BY RED NAVY SSN...
The Kitty Hawk’s aircraft had attacked and sunk a likely candidate with airborne launched homing torpedoes and the USS Permit, attached to the American fleet had supposedly ‘driven off a second suspected hostile submarine’.
CARRIER DIVISION SEVEN IS OPERATING ON A WAR FOOTING AND WILL AGGRESSIVELY ASSERT USN RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENCE IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS BY ACTIVELY ENGAGING ANY AIRCRAFT, SHIP OR SUBMARINE WHICH ENTERS ITS ENGAGEMENT ZONE OR THREATENS UNITED STATES SERVICE PERSONNEL, CIVILIANS OR COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS...
‘Don’t the Yanks own a slice of the refinery complex on Abadan Island, sir?” Carver’s GSO1 queried, as energised and as surprised as his Chief by Davey’s signal. “And if Admiral Bringle has actually gone out of his way to confer with Admiral Davey, does that mean the whole weight of Carrier Division Seven stands behind us?”
I AM UNHAPPY THAT CARRIER DIVISION SEVEN IS SHADOWING CENTAUR BATTLE GROUP AND HAS ASSERTED ITS OWNERSHIP OF MUCH OF THE AIR SPACE OF THE NORTH WESTERN GULF...
“I don’t know,” the Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Middle East confessed. For a man like Nick Davey to admit that he was ‘unhappy’ about something was an unambiguous admission that he had no idea whatsoever what the Americans were playing at. Given that at this very moment allied forces in the Middle East were irrevocably committed to a desperate last gasp, winner takes all battle plan be-devilled with countless critically dependent parts – the failure of any one of which might plunge the whole enterprise into confusion – the Americans could not have chosen a worse juncture to throw yet another imponderable into the mix. “But,” he added, “whatever it means, our, er, erstwhile allies obviously don’t plan on sitting on their hands in the next few hours.”
And why had Nick Davey made a point of saying that the Americans ‘assume’ the USS Providence was sunk by a Soviet submarine. Don’t they ‘know’?
Further discussion was rudely interrupted.
Both Carver and his GSO1 instinctively threw themselves to the dirt floor of the shallow desert bunker. All the old hands went to the ground like boxer’s caught by a haymaking left hook, only the younger men, including several who had been in the Army many years and served in several colonial bush fire wars, failed to instantly hit the deck; presently, they all followed their C-in-C’s lead momentarily.
A man got used to the rumble of distant artillery dropping shells onto somebody else’s head. All the old Eighth Army sweats, and the men who had fought in Sicily, Italy, France and Germany in Hitler’s war instantly recognised the subtle change in the ‘background’ noise.
Carver had yelled: “GET DOWN!” As he was hitting the ground, his battle-tuned ear noting the faraway whistle of the approaching barrage.
The first salvo fell long.
Mainly, he guessed in open ground near the bank of the River Arvand.
The next ten-round salvo fell closer to the headquarters; the ground flinched and heaved in pain, dust filled the air. Debris from the third salvo crashed onto the roof of the bunker.
Everybody was automatically pulling on their gas masks.
The Soviets had never signed up to the ‘rules of war’ that Great Britain, its European allies and the United States had taken for granted. The enemy had never recognised the need to treat prisoners decently, or differentiated between combatants and non-combatants, or accepted any distinction between chemical, biological and other weapons of war. Thus far in the Iran-Iraq invasion the Red Army and the Red Air Force had not employed such weapons but that was no guarantee they would not start using them now.
There was no counter battery fire.
Everything depended on trapping large elements of 3rd Caucasian Tank Army in the Faw Peninsula, and sucking the main fighting strength of 2nd Siberian Mechanised Army into the prepared killing ground around Khorramshahr north of the Karun River. The Iranian and Commonwealth force
s dug in waiting for the main assault had been virtually ‘playing dead’ for the last week, letting the enemy come on, and on. A couple of small scale sacrificial armoured ‘demonstrations’ near the Iran-Iraq border south of the Basra industrial area apart, Carver had done everything possible to convince the invaders that the road south to Abadan was barely defended and that the task force on Abadan Island was hunkering down, resigned to its fate and awaiting the end.
All aircraft had been evacuated from RAF Abadan in the last few days, and his tanks, guns and missiles were heavily camouflaged in ballast pits and revetments. Out in the desert to the east of Khorramshahr his Iranian ally, Hasan al-Mamaleki’s armour was practically buried in the sands below the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. Meanwhile, pickets armed with recoilless anti-tank rifles sniped at the edges of the oncoming leviathan’s flanks at long range, and hastily laid and deliberately poorly concealed minefields to inconvenience the advancing T62s, otherwise the Red Army was moving steadily forward as if it was already planning its victory parade.
If the Soviets had had the patience to move – or the foresight to prioritise the movement of – 3rd Caucasian Tank Army’s artillery south of Basra into the Faw Peninsula to command the Shatt al-Arab and to fire directly into the Abadan defences from across the Arvand River from the western bank, each and every aspect of Michael Carver’s ‘master plan’ would have come to nought. As it was only light guns had been emplaced across the river and 2nd Siberian Mechanised Army’s heavy guns were being brought forward in stages on roads clogged by the narrowness of the front on which it was advancing.
There was a fourth, and a fifth salvo, each creeping back towards the Karun River; and then the shocked silence which followed every barrage hung in the dust and smoke fouled air. Above ground there was the sound of running feet, engines firing up.