The Third World War: The Untold Story

by John Hackett

  The force was located at about 0300 on 4 August by one of CINCSOUTH’s reconnaissance aircraft about 150 miles to the westward of the Forrestal and her battle group. Admiral Lorimer, commanding the Sixth Fleet, immediately ordered reconnaissance to be flown off and a strike readied. At this time both the Soviet submarines of the eastern group were in contact with Forrestal’s battle group and had received orders to commence hostilities at 0400. Sonar conditions, with the warmer surface water typical of the Mediterranean in summer, greatly assisted the submarines to remain undetected. A few minutes after 0400, and before the American admiral had received the order to open hostilities, his flagship was struck by two guided missiles which started fires in the hangar and among the aircraft ranged and armed for the strike. The AWACS aircraft, which had been airborne since 0300, was able to report the incoming missiles as submarine launched, and shortly afterwards

  detected a stream of missiles approaching from the Soviet force to the westward. This time the counter-measures had some effect. No more missiles hit the Forrestal, but two of her accompanying destroyers were hit. The fires in the Forrestal herself were being brought under control, damaged aircraft ditched and those which were intact prepared to fly off. A surface striking group was forming up, and the carrier altered round to the north-westward, into wind, to fly off the strike aircraft. This new course, as it happened, took the carrier within torpedo range of the second Soviet submarine, and at 0437 hours she was struck by two torpedoes, one of which damaged her port rudder and propellers.

  In the surface-ship action that followed, the entire Soviet force was sunk, but the Forrestal had to seek permission to enter Maltese territorial waters, and was with difficulty brought into Marsaxlokk and anchored. That evening one of the western group of Soviet submarines was sunk by the USS Arthur W. Radford while attempting to get within torpedo range of the carrier.

  The US battle group in the Indian Ocean was centred on the nuclear-powered carrier Nimitz. Sailing from Diego Garcia on 2 August, this force set course north-westwards towards the Arabian Sea. The Soviet Indian Ocean Squadron was known to be at Socotra, and it was the intention to get within airstriking range of it as soon as possible. The battle group’s movements were, of course, impossible to conceal from satellite reconnaissance. Using their exceptionally high speed, two torpedo-armed submarines, Soviet Alpha-class SSN, took up an intercepting position which would enable contact to be made with the US battle group at about 0100 on 4 August. Because the US force was steaming at 25 knots, it was unable to utilize its ASW helicopters for screening, and its fixed-wing anti-submarine aircraft, relying upon sonobuoys for submarine detection, were in the circumstances of little value. Once again, therefore, a successful submarine attack was carried out shortly after the opening of hostilities. Fortunately, however, only one torpedo hit the Nimitz, and although it was fairly far aft, the carrier’s speed was reduced by only 4 knots; more importantly, her reactors remained safely in operation. A subsequent air strike on the Soviet squadron was not very successful. Casualties from SAM were heavy, mainly because the one electronic counter-measure (ECM) aircraft accompanying the strike lost power shortly after take-off and ditched. The carrier’s fighters were able to counter, fairly effectively, an attack on the battle group by Soviet Backfires from South Yemen. Honours, one might say, in the Indian Ocean were fairly even during the first few days of the war, although the lack of a dock anywhere nearer than San Diego large enough to take the damaged Nimitz was a serious matter.

  The Kirov-class heavy cruiser in the Pacific had followed a rather similar pattern of operation to that of the Kirov herself in the Atlantic. That is to say, she would from time to time sortie from Petropavlovsk and proceed south-eastwards into the Pacific for some days, apparently in order to provide a reconnaissance and strike target for the Soviet Naval Air Force. On 1 August the cruiser followed the usual course into the Pacific. Fortunately, the US submarine La Jolla was on surveillance patrol in the vicinity of Petropavlovsk and the Soviet cruiser had a ‘tail’ as she went on her way. Shortly after hostilities were opened, the Soviet ship was attacked. The stricken cruiser, hit by three torpedoes, sank within twenty minutes.

  In the meantime, the carrier Kitty Hawk — one of two in the US Seventh Fleet at that period — which was exercising to the eastward of Yokosuka with her Aegis-equipped cruiser consorts and some units of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force, had been ordered to intercept the Soviet heavy cruiser as back-up for the La Jolla. But before this group had come within striking range of the Soviet warship the submarine report of its sinking was received in the Kitty Hawk, which then set course with her group to return to Yokosuka.

  The American carrier John F. Kennedy, with her battle group, was in Subic Bay in the Philippines on 4 August. Admiral Carlsberg, the Commander, US Seventh Fleet, reckoned that his first duty, if the state of tension should be followed by war, was to take his force to sea and seek out and destroy the Soviet carrier Minsk, sister ship of the Kiev, which was currently using Cam Ranh Bay as an operational base. Accordingly he sailed his battle group from Subic at 1800 on 4 August after having conducted energetic ASW operations along the sortie route. What he did not know was that a Soviet submarine had that morning laid a minefield precisely where the John F. Kennedy would have to go when leaving Subic. The carrier duly detonated one of those mines and had to return to harbour, having first managed to fly off her aircraft. The Minsk’s Forger V/STOL fighters were no match for the strike carried out at dawn next day by the John F. Kennedy’s own air group, flying from the airfield in Manila. The Soviet carrier and two of her group were sunk. Two guided missile cruisers and two destroyers survived, however, and sank several merchant ships in the South China Sea before being interned in Surabaya, Java.

  By this time the Kitty Hawk had been redeployed to Subic as flagship for Admiral Carlsberg in place of the damaged John F. Kennedy.

  The Soviet submarines stationed off Cape de Sao Roque, to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar, and off the Cape of Good Hope, all sank several important merchant ships during the first few days of hostilities, and all round the world ships were kept in harbour or back from danger zones pending developments. Several vessels struck mines laid a few days previously by Soviet merchant ships. There can be no doubt that the ‘instantaneous threat’ had been successfully put into effect.

  The final operation now to be mentioned is the launching by the Soviet armies in the south, together with Romanian and Bulgarian assistance, of a seaborne assault upon the Dardanelles. Rather than make a direct attack in the immediate vicinity of the Bosporus, the Soviet forces advanced by land from Bulgaria — strongly opposed by a combined Greek-Turkish force already deployed against just that contingency — while simultaneously launching a sea and airborne assault on the port of Zonguldak. From there it was intended to proceed westwards along the coast, supported by the Black Sea Fleet, while at the same time threatening Ankara. As is now evident from Soviet records, it was expected that this campaign would induce the Turks to come to terms following the Soviet success in West Germany: These intentions were frustrated owing to the failure to reach their objectives on the Central Front.

  One general point should be made before giving an outline — and it will have to be just that — of the naval operations that followed the first two days of hostilities, which is all that we have dealt with in the war at sea so far.

  It will be recalled that the Soviet aims, in seeking to occupy the whole of the Federal German Republic within ten days, was to cause the collapse of the Atlantic Alliance and to bring the United States to the negotiating table. The Soviet Main Naval Command deemed it imperative to destroy or neutralize US carriers in a surprise attack at the first possible opportunity. It was this act, more than any other, that gave the war an immediate worldwide character, and perhaps above all else ensured that, even if the Red Army reached the Rhine stop-line on time, the United States would have been very unlikely indeed to negotiate. Quite apart from the fury of
the American people at what many saw as almost another Pearl Harbor and the determination of the United States to reassert naval supremacy in the Atlantic, isolationism was no longer, in the 1980s, a valid option for America. The United States was now forced to import oil and strategic raw materials from other continents — and hence had now become truly sea-dependent. Soviet naval predominance around the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa was therefore unacceptable. Yet that is what total US withdrawal from Europe would have meant.

  Turning now to the sea/air campaigns that followed the initial surprise attacks, there were five separate, but more or less simultaneous, conflicts being waged within the NATO area as a whole; and of course there were worldwide attacks on shipping, with regional naval activity east of Suez and in the Pacific. The campaigns were: in the Norwegian Sea in support of the Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Northern Europe (CINCNORTH); in the Baltic, North Sea and Channel in support of the Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Central Europe (CINCENT); in the Western Approaches to north-west Europe and in general support of Allied Command Europe; in the Atlantic reinforcement operation; and in the Mediterranean in support of CINCSOUTH.

  Taking the Norwegian Sea first, it will be recalled that the heavy cruiser Kirov was sunk on her way back to base in Murmansk after sinking merchant shipping in the Atlantic. Another operation of special interest in progress at the same time involved the carrier Kiev. She had sailed from Murmansk on 23 July, nearly a fortnight before war broke out, accompanied by the two Krivak-class frigates. The group arrived in Cork in the Irish Republic on the 27th for what was presented as a courtesy visit. The ships were reported to be on a training cruise to the Caribbean. The group had of course been tracked by NATO surveillance forces since leaving its home waters as a matter of routine, and it remained under observation after sailing from Cork to the south-westward on 2 August. Contact with the Kiev group was lost, as a result of effective Soviet electronic deception measures, on the night of the 3rd. Luckily, owing to the use of Shannon air base, the subsequent air search was successful in relocating the Kiev on the 5th.

  Shannon extended the search radius of French anti-submarine Atlantique Nouvelle Generation (ANG) aircraft, and furnished an invaluable staging point for a squadron of Tornados of the Marine-flieger (the Federal German Naval Air Force) which had been pulled out from Schleswig-Holstein to Lossiemouth and redeployed by Joint Allied Command Western Approaches (JACWA). Accompanied by two RAF Tornado interceptors, with a VC-10 for refuelling, the German Tornados homed on to the Kiev at noon on 6 August. The Forgers from the Soviet carriers had already shot down one of the ANG and one of the Tornados, while SAM from the frigates and the carrier destroyed two more. But the remainder managed good attacks and the Kiev was crippled. One of her frigates was badly damaged also. In the meantime, one of the British fleet submarines, the Splendid, had been sent to intercept. She sank both the Kiev herself and the damaged frigate. The second frigate, having picked up survivors, set off for Cuba but was eventually found by a US Orion operating from Lajes. She did not last long after that.

  The main activity in the Norwegian Sea began on 5 August. The British fleet submarine Churchill, on ASW patrol north of the Shetland Islands, sank a Soviet diesel submarine of the newish Tango class (SS) which was on its way to lay mines in the Firth of Clyde. During the next three days there were several submarine encounters with hostile submarines as the first wave of Soviet boats to be sailed after hostilities began reached the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap. The exchange rate was favourable to NATO, as was to be expected given the quieter running of US boats and those of the European allies. But seven more Soviet SSN had got through to the Atlantic.

  The US Strike Fleet Atlantic, consisting of two carrier battle-groups, entered the Norwegian Sea on 10 August in order to support the Norwegian forces ashore and the British and US Marines who were about to land, in their task of holding the airfields. This was of high importance. There should have been three carrier battlegroups engaged, but when the news came that the Forrestal had been badly damaged in the Mediterranean it was decided to detach the Saratoga, with her group, from the Strike Fleet Atlantic and send her to support CINCSOUTH.

  The Strike Fleet’s operations were also intended to give distant support to the first major reinforcement operation across the Atlantic. This consisted of a group of fast military convoys which sailed from US east coast ports on 8 August, heavily escorted. Diversionary convoys were sailed on other routes, and there was a comprehensive deception plan. Even so, the convoys were heavily attacked by Soviet submarines firing missiles from ranges of up to 250 miles. In mid-Atlantic they were also attacked by Backfire bombers from Murmansk, the attacking aircraft launching their missiles from a distance of up to 180 miles. The running battle that developed occupied a tremendous area of ocean. Fortunately counter-measures were not unsuccessful. The number of transports put out of action would otherwise have been much higher. Losses were nonetheless severe. Only thirty-six out of the forty-eight transports which sailed from the USA docked safely in the Channel ports, but the reinforcement they brought was just in time to play a major part in stabilizing the position on the Central Front.

  We come now to the end of Admiral Maybury’s presentation to the US National Defence College in Washington and offer some comments of our own.

  A more detailed narrative of these operations is, of course, to be found in The Third World War: August 1985, published earlier this year, in the spring of 1987. It covers, also, the air/sea battle around the Baltic exits and the English Channel, where the Soviet light forces, with air cover, tried to interdict the flow of reinforcements and supplies from the UK to the continent of Europe. We have not repeated this story here.

  Many mines were laid by the Soviet forces, and sea traffic nearly came to a standstill owing to the shortage of mine counter-measure (MCM) vessels. This was particularly felt in regard to the south of Ireland. It will be remembered that the Kiev and her group visited Cork just before the outbreak of war. During that visit, as is now known, a group of Soviet mine-laying submarines were laying delayed-action mines off Lough Swilly, Bantry Bay, Cork, Wexford, Dublin and Milford Haven. Five ships were to be sunk by these mines. It was only at Milford Haven that MCM were taken and casualties avoided.

  Much of the follow-up reinforcement shipping was sent from ports in the Gulf of Mexico. Routed south of the Azores it was then brought in, where possible, to the shallower waters along the European coast. With the extra support available from Spain, as well as that from Portugal and France, this reduced the level of the submarine threat and almost eliminated the threat from the air. Outside the NATO area, where there was no established and practised sea/air operational control of shipping, or proper protection, ocean shipping remained for the most part paralysed, until some degree of confidence had been restored in NATO’s competence to safeguard it. By the end of the second week after war had started NATO’s worldwide operational intelligence system had provided a more realistic assessment of the submarine threat to shipping in the various theatres. Indeed, there is little doubt that the intelligence organization at NATO’s disposal was of critical importance in enabling it to counter a grave threat to the ability of the Alliance to use the sea.

  It may be worthwhile to dwell on this aspect for a moment. The advance of information technology had enabled the Western allies to use computers, micro-electronics and telecommunications to produce, store, obtain and send information in a variety of forms extremely rapidly and — until the enemy began to interfere — reliably. Fortunately Soviet interference was rarely effective. Every scrap of data on every Soviet submarine at sea which came within range of any Allied sensors — sonar in ships or helicopters, sonobuoys from fixed-wing aircraft, acoustic devices on the seabed, or radar contact by snort mast (when the submarine was a diesel-electric one) — could be processed almost instantaneously, analysed and compared. The NATO submarine plot would then be updated and the latest submarine report communicated to all concerned. Furthe
rmore, the knowledge that this was being done had in many circumstances the effect upon the Soviet submariners (NATO’s own submariners had a similar respect for the Soviet operational intelligence system) of imposing speed restrictions. The faster a submarine goes the more noise it makes. Even when it is not exactly located every detection of a submarine by the enemy draws the net more tightly round it. SSBN are not embarrassed by such detection possibilities because they do not have to use high speed in order to fulfil their role, and are deployed in remote areas which, at the same time, can be kept clear of ‘intruders’.

  It must be added, in order to account for Allied failure, where it occurred, to act promptly and with good effect upon intelligence received, that something was seen to happen which many had warned would happen. This was an inability to decentralize sufficiently to subordinate flag, or in some cases commanding, officers which resulted in what has been described as ‘apoplexy at the centre and paralysis at the extremities’. In a fast-moving situation it is essential to let the man on the spot have the information he needs, and let him get on with the job as he thinks best. By far the most important function of the flag officer and his staff, especially in a shore headquarters, is to avoid the mutual interference of friendly forces — surface ship, submarine and aircraft.