by John Hackett
The next day McBride was asked to stand as the centrist candidate at mid-Ulster. He accepted, and said he would call himself a candidate for ‘confederacy’. During his campaign he was supported by the British Prime Minister and the leader of the other three mainland British parties, and also by the three main parties in the Republic of Ireland. Unprecedentedly, he received a telegram of support from the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and then on the last day another from the Pope.
It would be splendid to be able to report that McBride therefore won the seat. Because this was Northern Ireland he came merely second, 2 per cent behind the Protestant extremist and 8 per cent in front of the Catholic lady, who made a rather good speech in defeat. ‘If there were a proportional, transferable or alternative voting system,’ she said, ‘all my supporters would have switched on second ballot to Pat McBride, who is a Protestant we respect. We should then have had an MP here who was liked by most of the people, instead of this Paisleyite who is detested by 63 per cent of them.’
This was significant. Way back in 1973 the Ulster Assembly that led to the brief Sunningdale agreement on power-sharing was elected under a system of transferable voting. It has been agreed that the new and long delayed constitutional assembly in Northern Ireland will also be elected under this system.
In 1987 public opinion polls suggest that in Northern Ireland the centrist parties (including the Confederate Party) hold a sufficient block of votes in the majority of constituencies to force the counting of the second votes. If that happens, nearly all the second votes will go to the centrist parties, and there is now a real prospect that the elected majority in Northern Ireland will vote in 1988 to get Britain off the hook of its 1973 declaration that there can be no change in Northern Ireland’s constitutional status unless a majority of its inhabitants concur. A majority of its elected representatives will probably vote for a confederate Ireland.
This is a far more peaceful outcome in Ulster than appeared conceivable even as late as 1982. It is not uncharacteristic that as the world seemed threatened by incineration through thermonuclear war Ireland was moving at last towards internal peace.
We must now leave the thoughtful and lively prose of the sadly defunct Pirate and pass on to consideration of the impact of Irish belligerence, deepening in successive stages of association with other allies, including the United Kingdom, upon the war in the air and at sea which erupted in August 1985.
It had to be acknowledged that the happy outcome of Ireland’s afflictions had not, by the spring of 1985, been perceived in Whitehall as so certain as to justify rejoicing; but it was decided, in a spirit of optimism, to develop plans for utilizing to the best advantage the air bases and harbours which might in consequence become available.
Even so, there were those who believed, as a letter to the Times-Guardian of 28 December 1984 pointed out, that ‘simply redrawing the existing border so as to make the Irish Republic conterminous with the island of Ireland will just exchange a situation in which up to half a million people feel that they are in the wrong country for one in which at least double that number feel so’.
Ever since the formation of the Atlantic Alliance it had been possible to count upon the use of naval and air bases in Northern Ireland, and the readiness of the people there to support the British war effort, despite the existence of Republican sentiment in some parts of the Catholic community. These bases were of vital importance. First of all, without them it would be much more difficult to safeguard the approaches to the Clyde submarine base. It was in these waters that Soviet electronic surveillance vessels, taking advantage of Britain’s retention of a three-mile limit of territorial waters, had persistently maintained watch over the comings and goings of both the British and the American ballistic missile and fleet submarines. From time to time, also, intrusive submarines, known not to be Allied, had been detected in the Clyde approaches. In times of international tension, or if war should break out, intensive operations using Northern Irish bases would be required. Secondly, the already daunting task of safeguarding shipping in the North Atlantic would be rendered even more so by the loss of these bases, especially the airfields. Hence the Defence Staff insisted that any all-Ireland constitutional agreement must include the retention of NATO’s use of the Northern Ireland bases as required.
As to Eire, it was ideally placed to command the Western Approaches to the Channel, and to strengthen the defence of shipping in the Eastern Atlantic. But its naval and air forces consisted of six patrol vessels, only two of which had helicopters, and a dozen or so light aircraft; there was no military infrastructure capable of handling even the most elementary naval/air operations; and there were no coastal surveillance radars, let alone gun or missile defences. Nor was there any reserve of trained people to man operations rooms, communications networks, or even look-out stations. Fortunately advantage could be taken of the universality of air traffic control procedures, and the wide range of facilities at an international airport, to make operational use of Shannon immediately war broke out. Plans were made, also, to include the whole of Ireland and its territorial waters in the ‘extended air-sea defence zone’ under the newly-established Joint Allied Command Western Approaches (JACWA). Its Commander-in-Chief was British, equal in status with the Supreme Allied Commanders Europe and Atlantic (both American), and his area of responsibility incorporated Channel Command, and that part of the Eastern Atlantic which fell within the UK air defence zone and included all waters over the Continental Shelf.
Following the Franco-Irish special entente in 1983 the Ministry of Defence in Paris sought Dublin’s agreement to the occasional deployment of one or two maritime patrol aircraft of the Aeronavale (French Naval Air Arm) to Shannon to facilitate their operation in peacetime out in the Atlantic. The twin-engined Atlantique was a very capable and well-tried aircraft and the latest version (Atlantique Nouvelle Generation, or ANG) with which the Flotilles at Lann-Bihouie in Brittany were now equipped was an excellent antisubmarine aircraft which also had a limited anti-ship capability. But compared with its four-engined counterparts (the US Navy’s Orion and the RAF Nimrod) it was just a little short on range and endurance. The lengthening of its sea-legs by working from the west of Ireland would enhance its use in many of its peacetime tasks and, although this was not the basis of the French request, it would be a real ‘force multiplier’ in war.
Irish agreement was gracefully forthcoming provided that advance notice was given (save of course in emergency) and an agreed quota of visits per year was not exceeded. To these stipulations France readily agreed and a system of liaison officers and communications teams was established with Ireland as it had been for several years with the United Kingdom.
The Soviet naval staff were keenly aware of the strategic importance of Eire in any future battle in the Atlantic. Soviet policy was directed urgently to the denial to NATO of the use of air and naval bases there, and of the use of Irish ports and tanker terminals for trans-shipment. It was too much to hope, perhaps, that Irish bases could be made available to Soviet forces, but as a long-term aim it was borne in mind.
It was not the Naval Correspondent of The Times, but merely ‘Our Correspondent in Dublin’, who reported on 12 December 1981 ‘an application from the Russian airline Aeroflot to operate regular passenger services into Shannon… Last year the airport authority built a special fuel depot to enable Russian and other Eastern European airlines to refuel there. Russian tankers deliver the oil directly to Shannon… The inauguration of an Aeroflot service would be welcomed by the IRA which has won consistent moral support from the Russians for their terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland.’ It was therefore with considerable chagrin that the Soviet naval planners learned of the sequence of events by which the Republic of Ireland gradually became committed to a degree of support for the NATO cause. But, as the strength of the Soviet Navy and its Air Force increased, and the prospect of breaking down the Atlantic ‘air bridge’ improved accordingly, the neutralization of Irelan
d by military means became part of Soviet war plans.
These plans had not, however, fully matured when the Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev, escorted by two Krivak-class frigates, arrived in Cork on 27 July 1985. The group was said to be on a training cruise which would take it to West Africa and Cuba. It had, of course, been tracked by NATO surveillance forces since leaving its home waters in Murmansk and in the normal course of events it would have remained under routine surveillance as it resumed its way south-west on 2 August. For various reasons, however, contact with the Kiev group was lost during the night of 3 August.
Early on 5 August, JACWA received a garbled and delayed report of a very large oil tanker damaged and on fire in Bantry Bay. She had struck a mine. Later that day reports came in of an Irish patrol vessel sunk off Cork, the Fishguard to Rosslare ferry sunk near Wexford, and a Dutch coaster sunk in the approaches to Dublin.
Not until after the war was it learned that while the Soviet aircraft carrier and her escorts had been visiting Cork a comprehensive mine-laying operation was being carried out by six Soviet Foxtrot-class (conventional) submarines. They laid delayed-action mines off Lough Swilly, Bantry Bay, Cork, Wexford, Dublin and Milford Haven, which sank five ships. Only Milford Haven was cleared of mines before a casualty occurred. The shortage of mine counter-measure vessels at JACWA’s disposal resulted in the majority of Britain’s western ports being closed to shipping for several days at a most critical time. Only one of the Soviet Foxtrots was sunk, No. 132, which attempted to withdraw through the North Channel after laying mines off Dublin. Her snort mast was detected by a surveillance radar very recently mounted on the Mull of Kintyre, and Sea King helicopters from Prestwick were actually in sonar contact with the Foxtrot when they received orders, early on 4 August, to commence hostilities against the Soviet Union. It was particularly heartening to the helicopter squadron that the first attack with the new Stingray torpedoes was successful.
Given the excellent liaison already established at Shannon between the French naval airmen and the Irish airport authorities, the arrival there on 4 August, within hours of the outbreak of war in Europe, of four ANG caused little stir. Nor did the landing, shortly afterwards, of a US Navy Orion. This aircraft had been following up a submarine contact some 100 miles south of Cape Farewell, which had been obtained by a Canadian frigate using a towed array passive sonar. Unfortunately the scent had gone cold, and the aircraft was ordered into Shannon, to operate under the Commander, Maritime Air, Eastern Atlantic.
On the morning of 5 August the Orion and two ANG were allotted tasks that took them far out into the Atlantic. Amidst the excitement of that day’s news this did not attract much attention. But what did cause a loud buzz of rumour and speculation in the Shannon communications centre and control tower was when, at 1722 hours, a distinctly French voice came over the loudspeakers monitoring the international distress frequency: ‘MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY’ it called, ‘THIS IS SIERRA QUEBEC BRAVO CHARLIE WE ARE BEING ATTACKED BY FIGHTERS LATITUDE 52.12 NORTH LONGITUDE…’
Here, as in many places all over Europe, the outbreak of war was signified not by any dramatic public announcement like Chamberlain’s address to the British people forty-six years earlier, but by a series of swift and violent encounters.
In this instance, the response was immediate and well orchestrated for the Mayday signal could mean only one thing: a Kiev — class carrier was out to the west and it must be found and sunk before it did any more damage. The two remaining ANG at Shannon and two Nimrods from an RAF base in Cornwall were launched on a search within half an hour. As the ANG climbed out on their search tracks the crews could see smoke rising from the refinery and the main hangars at Shannon and guessed correctly that a salvo of air-launched missiles, probably from a Backfire, had found their mark.
The search area was very large because of the missing and all-important longitude figure, but a fast westbound merchant ship broke wireless silence to report sighting a Forger aircraft on the horizon and this clue shrank the area of probability dramatically. With a new datum to work from, dawn was breaking when a Nimrod picked up the Kiev and its escorts on its radar.
At JACWA headquarters the operations staff were looking disconsolately at their meagre forces for attacking the enemy group. The specialized anti-shipping Buccaneers that had survived a raid on Murmansk the day before were being held at Bodo, Norway, to guard against Soviet naval incursions along that coast and they could muster only two or three aircraft from the UK. These would need in-flight fuelling and a fighter escort against the carrier. It could hardly be called a balanced force. But help came unexpectedly in the shape of fourteen Marineflieger (Federal German Naval Air Force) Tornados which arrived at Kinloss air base in Scotland as the planners were puzzling over the problem. This force, thanks to the decisiveness of its commander, Captain Manfred Steinhof, had got away from Nordholz in Schleswig-Holstein under the very noses of the advancing Soviets.
By 0900 hours, and after the French Ministry of Defence had got Irish agreement for the Marineflieger aircraft to refuel at Shannon despite the previous day’s damage, eight of the Tornados landed and refuelled. They were in the air again in half an hour to join their fighter escort of RAF Tornados backed up by a VC-10 tanker. A United States Navy Orion had by then taken over the shadowing of the Kiev force on its radar and it homed the Tornados in for the attack. The carrier was holed with her steering disabled and one of her escorts badly damaged as the force withdrew and the submarine Splendid arrived on the scene to despatch the stricken ships. Three Tornados were lost, one to a Forger and the others to missiles from the escorts. Manfred Steinhof’s aircraft ran out of fuel short of the Irish coast but he and his navigator were picked up by a fishing boat. The Third World War had broken out thirty-seven hours earlier, and this was just one action in the great tide of war that was engulfing Europe.
WAR
Chapter 11: The Central Front
The contingency plan formulated by the Defence Council of the Politburo for the defence of the Soviet Union and its socialist allies against the aggressive designs of Western capitalism had two supreme aims: to cause the collapse of the Atlantic Alliance and to bring about the neutralization of neo-Nazi Germany. The second would lead to the first. The dismantling of the Federal Republic must, therefore, receive primary and very close attention.
To the Chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal P. K. Ogurtsov, an old cavalry soldier brought up in his profession in the 1930s to the use, incredible though it sounds today, of the sword as a weapon from the back of a horse (as, incidentally, was the main author of this book), the analogy was simple. Federal Germany was the point of the sword presented at the enemy; the outstretched right arm (‘at cavalry, engage — point!’) was Allied Command Europe; the hilt, which would come up against the victim’s body with extreme violence once the point was through, was NATO; the rider on the horse’s back, swinging forward with the thrusting, outstretched sword, planning, placing and timing the thrust, was the United States; the galloping horse giving the chief strength and impetus to the hilt, which, directed by the rider’s swinging body and extended arm, would hammer the pierced enemy out of his saddle, was Western capitalism. Reflecting by the stove in his dacha, the vodka bottle handy, the Marshal always admired the aptness of his analogy, only regretting that no one understood it any more. What had once been cavalry, riding horses and wielding l’arme blanche, had been suffocating in stinking tanks for nearly half a century.
The destruction of Federal Germany would mean the collapse of the Atlantic Alliance, the total demoralization of Europe, the withdrawal of the USA across the sea and swiftly widening opportunities for the spread of socialism throughout the world. The importance of the FRG was such, however, that an attack upon it would be no less than a total attack on NATO and would be resisted as such. It would have to be planned accordingly.
The initial assault had to be massive. To carry out the intentions of the Defence Council, ten fronts would be activated, two i
n the GDR, one each in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the far north, all in the front line, with follow-up fronts in the Leningrad Military District, in Poland and in the Ukraine, while in Belorussia and the Ukraine there would be also two groups of tank armies comprising three tank armies each, making six tank armies to exploit success in the centre, or to be used otherwise as circumstances dictated. The initial assault at dawn on 4 August, following action in space to restrict surveillance, undercover operations to frustrate command and support, deep air bombardment in Europe to interdict forward movement of war material and reserves, and action at sea to begin the interruption of maritime reinforcement, would open with the utmost violence along the whole Warsaw Pact-NATO interface, from Norway to Turkey.
Since the Central Region of Allied Command Europe (ACE), against which three fronts threatened, with a fourth standing by in Poland, was to be the focal point of this immense operation, it is upon the Central Front that we now concentrate. In our earlier book, The Third World War: August 1985, published in the spring of 1987, we described at length and in some detail the course of the main operation in this theatre and other accounts have appeared in other places. We do not intend here to recapitulate all that has been written. It is upon more personal aspects of these events that we shall focus instead, sometimes at very close range.
No plans for a major land offensive in modern war can ever be followed for very long after the offensive opens. The plans are made as part of a long-term concept. They embrace the object of the operations as a whole; the dispositions and movements of the enemy as they are known at the time; the probable reactions of the enemy’s commanders; and, perhaps most important of all, the estimate of what will be necessary for logistic support. Preparations for this demand forethought and imagination. They must be made far in advance and have to cover a period much longer than that during which the original operational plan of attack can continue to be followed. The operational plan may at any time have to be radically altered in a matter of days, or even hours, as commanders respond to the requirements of a developing situation. Logistic support, involving the movement and positioning of huge tonnages of material of all kinds, from bridging equipment to missile and gun ammunition, from fuel and food to medical supplies, cannot be as easily adjusted as the fighting formations can be moved around the battlefields.
