To hook up the recorder to his shortwave, he used a Y headphone splitter and a “male-to-male” stereo miniplug cable. That way he could listen with his headphones and record at the same time.
• • •
In a meeting with his nascent resistance cell, Phil reported, “There’s a ham radio guy I’ve heard who is using no callsign, but from his procedure he is obviously a ham. I gather that he is a Canadian, but he is now a refugee somewhere in Montana. He’s displayed the cojones to repeatedly broadcast at twelve-point-something megahertz the planned deployments of UNPROFOR—their whole order of battle. If he and his OB documents are legit, then in western BC we’ll soon be facing two French units . . .”
He paused to turn to some handwritten notes in his binder, and then read aloud: “‘One brigade of Infanterie de Marine (IMa) from the Troisième Régiment d’Infanterie de Marine (Troisième RIMa) and a helicopter detachment of Aviation Légère de l’Armée de Terre, or ALAT.’ Literally, that can be translated ‘Light Aviation of the Land Army.’”
He closed the binder and continued, “On my laptop, I did some checking using my Wikipedia archive CD and I read that the Troisième RIMa has most recently been garrisoned in Vannes, a small city in western France. But the IMa’s main responsibility for many decades has been policing brushfire wars in their former colonies, so these aren’t just rear-echelon troops. Many of the NCOs in these units have probably seen combat in Afghanistan—with Task Force Korrigan—and in Mali fighting the Tuaregs. So these guys won’t be pushovers. Not on a par with the U.S. Marines, but still Marines. Tough guys. The ALAT troops are more technical, but they can rain down death from the air. They use Gazelle, Puma, and Eurocopter Tiger ground attack helicopters. I’m not sure which model that they plan to base in western Canada, but because of their great mobility and firepower, any of them will be significant threats.
“Supporting UNPROFOR will be some quisling elements of the RCMP. These guys will be loyal to Ménard. So they’ve got their own Maynard to idolize. How ironically coincidental.
“I should also mention that we’ll be in a different situation than the resistance down in the States. They’re doing their fighting in the midst of a grid-down collapse. But here, the hydro grids are up—although the economy is still a shambles—which will cause some peculiarities. For example, the UN garrison and motor pools will all be lit up with security vapor lights.”
Alan interrupted, “We have to be careful about directing any fire on RCMP cars, because these are local cops, and we don’t want the local populace turning against us. So I think that we should concentrate on sabotaging the RCMP’s vehicles and radio towers. If we keep them immobile and incommunicado, then they won’t be much of a theat. But if we start picking off Mounties, then we’ll turn their relatives into UN loyalists.”
The land units of the Canadian army—including reserve units—had all been disarmed and disbanded a year before, when UNPROFOR declared them “unreliable.” Nearly all of their vehicles and weapons ended up in the hands of UNPROFOR—although two Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) and Lord Strathcona’s Horse (LdSH) armories suffered “mysterious thefts” of nearly all of their small arms in the days just before the announced armory takeovers.
• • •
The French UNPROFOR troops were fiends for planting land mines in large quantity, and making intricate maps of where they had been planted, complete with GPS coordinates. But the region was so lightly populated that the majority of the inflicted casualties were on deer, and the main beneficiaries were bald eagles, ravens, and other scavengers.
Their favorite method was to use a land mine–planting machine to bury mines alongside roads. The placement of these mines was so regular (usually with mines spaced exactly four meters apart) and so obvious that the resistance soon learned how to dig them up and defuse them.
The resistance quickly learned—the hard way—to check for stacked mines, where a pressure-release mine was buried beneath a standard mine, to act as an antihandling device.
A resistance cottage industry was quickly established using a sheet metal brake and tin snips to make disarming clips for the mines. Disarming pins were usually just wire from paper clips. Hundreds of the plastic-bodied mines, of four different types (three antipersonnel and one antivehicular), were collected. Many of these were disassembled and their explosive charges and detonators were repurposed into homemade Claymore mines and various types of IEDs.
30
TOP CONDITION
Believe in your cause. The stronger your belief, the stronger your motivation and perseverance will be. You must know it in your heart that it is a worthwhile cause and that you are fighting the good fight. Whether it is the need to contribute or the belief in a greater good, for your buddy, for the team or for your country, find a reason that keeps your fire burning. You will need this fire when the times get tough. It will help you through when you are physically exhausted and mentally broken and you can only see far enough to take the next step.
—MSG Paul R. Howe, U.S. Army Retired, from Leadership and Training for the Fight: A Few Thoughts on Leadership and Training from a Former Special Operations Soldier
Whistler, British Columbia—Three Years Before the Crunch
The men had met by chance at the annual Ironman triathlon competition in Whistler, British Columbia. Their meeting had been precipitated by the mere sight of a red-and-white diver’s flag sticker on the back of one of their bicycle helmets. Two of the men were from Vancouver, and two were from nearby Coquitlam. All four men were triathletes in their late twenties, and all four were recreational scuba divers. At the tail end of a thirty-minute session of swapping diving stories, they exchanged e-mail addresses and agreed to meet in a few weeks to dive “The Wall” at Ansell Point, near West Vancouver.
When they met for the dive, they learned of even more coincidences in their lives: All four men were conservatives and members of Methodist churches. Eventually, as the French invasion swept through Alberta, they formed a resistance cell that was part of the informal Nous sommes la résistance (NLR) umbrella organization.
• • •
The NLR got its start with aboriginal and mixed blood (métis) people in Quebec, but it soon spread throughout Canada by word of mouth. Since it was a leaderless movement, it was impossible for UNPROFOR and the Canadian puppet government to stop. Aside from some motivational and general guidance documents that were widely distributed nationwide, the NLR leadership exerted no control of local resistance groups and had no communication with them. In effect, NLR was a philosophical leadership for the resistance cells, rather than a command structure.
While the NLR’s detached relationship and leaderless cells made it extremely difficult for UNPROFOR to penetrate the resistance, their lack of centralized control also became a weakness when resistance units occasionally showed poor judgment in picking individual targets, or failed to exercise fire discipline and caused collateral damage. Such acts tarnished the image of the entire resistance movement. On several occasions the occupational government was caught attempting to pin blame on resistance groups for massacres that they themselves had committed.
There was a huge variety of resistance cell structures and methodologies. This added to their unpredictability, which made locating and eliminating them difficult. The majority of the cells were dedicated to sabotage. Others had traditional infantry squad or even platoon structure, and could handle multiple tasks, including sabotage, demolition, raids, and ambushes. Some of the most successful Canadian resistance cells patterned their field organization on the USMC’s Scout Sniper Team organizational concept. The teams ranged from four to six individuals. Unlike the Marines, they typically used two scoped bolt-action rifles instead of a machine gun and a sniper rifle. The heavy weapons carried by their two-man security elements varied widely, depending on the weapons that they were able to scavenge on the battlefield. The fifth man was usually a radio operator/rifleman, and the sixth man fill
ed a variety of roles, ranging from RPV controller to demolitions man.
One of the first engagements between the NLR and UNPROFOR dismounted infantry was near Indian Head, Saskatchewan. The shooting started when six NLR fighters armed with scoped deer rifles engaged two squads of French infantry armed with FAMAS bullpups, across an open field. The resistance wisely opened fire at 570 yards. The French returned fire, but their 5.56 rifles lacked sufficient accuracy at that range. Instead of calling for fire support or a gunship, the French patrol leader attempted to outfire and outmaneuver their enemy. The end result was fourteen dead for UNPROFOR, and fourteen captured weapons. The NLR lost only one man in the extended firefight. This incident illustrated the mismatch in small arms. In essence the occupiers had three-hundred-yard-capable rifles, while the resistance had six-hundred-yard (or longer) range rifles.
In recent years, the preferred “budget” elk and caribou rifle in western Canada had been the Remington Model 770, chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum, with a twenty-four-inch barrel. These rifles could be found new, and factory-equipped with a 3–9x40 variable scope for less than $375, or less than $500 in the more weather-resistant stainless steel variant with camouflage stock. The scopes were already bore-sighted at the factory. One of these rifles, along with a few spare four-round detachable magazines was, effectively an “off the shelf” sniper rifle capable of six-hundred-plus-yard shots on man-size targets.
A significant part of the resistance war was a war of words. Individual NLR cells produced and distributed pamphlets on sabotage and resistance warfare. Among the most popular were a digest of the book Total Resistance by von Dach, and reprints of the OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual, which had been declassified in 2008.
Through its publications, NLR also sought aid from sympathizers in Canada and the United States. Its most urgent needs were electric blasting caps, detonating cord (also known as det cord or Primacord), and rifle ammunition. Some of its specific requests for ammunition seemed odd or antiquated to residents of the United States, but these cartridges were still used regularly in Canada: .303 British, .300 Savage, .250-3000 Savage, .303 Savage, and .280 Ross.
31
STEEL SHIPS AND IRON MEN
Military analysts pretty much agree Japan lost the war in the Pacific because they were playing chess while we were playing checkers. Overthinking all but guarantees failure. Engineers will tell you complexity increases as the square of the subsystems involved, or near enough, something survivalists should keep in mind when they attempt to replicate their ‘normal’ life. And no, being a nice, deserving person with good intentions won’t make failure modes go away.
—Ol’ Remus, The Woodpile Report
Vancouver, British Columbia—July, the Third Year
On July 7, the Kingsway resistance cell received an intelligence report that was marked “SAM Sensitive.” These messages had sources and methods (SAMs) that if revealed could do great harm, for example, endangering the life of a confidential informant.
Their informant’s report gave them details on the upcoming arrival of two French cargo ships operated by La Compagnie Maritime Nantaise (MN). The MN Toucan and MN Colibri were sister ships, with a gross weight of more than nineteen hundred tons each. These were commercial roll-on-roll-off (RO-RO) vessels, specifically designed for transporting vehicles. The ships had loaded at the HAROPA terminal at Le Havre fifteen weeks earlier and had transited the Panama Canal. They were both laden with a mixed cargo of twenty-five-ton véhicule blindé de combat d’infanterie (VBCI) wheeled APCs, fourteen-ton véhicule de l’avant blindé (VAVB or armored vanguard vehicle), and an assortment of military cargo trucks and Renault Sherpa 2 utility vehicles—the French equivalent of the U.S. military Humvee. Based on the recent experience of the resistance in Canada’s eastern provinces, the VBCI “armored vehicle for infantry combat” was considered a key threat.
The two ships were standing in 170 feet of water in the Burke Channel, just a few miles from the port of Bella Coola. This inlet had been glacially carved during the Ice Age. Much like the fjords of Norway, Bella Coola Bay was surprisingly deep. Only the magnitude of its daily tides and its rough outer waters kept it from becoming a more significant seaport.
The ships were not yet anchored; their automatic station-keeping thrusters slaved to their GPS were holding within a few meters of their plotted location. The docking and unloading were scheduled for just after the regular midcoast BC ferry departed the ferry terminal at 9:45 P.M. The unloading was expected to take two full days.
Originally destined for Vancouver, the two ships had been diverted to Bella Coola when threat analysts from the French Directorate of Military Intelligence (Direction du Renseignement Militaire or DRM) decided that Port Metro Vancouver was too vulnerable to a mortar attack by demobilized Canadian Defense Force soldiers. Bella Coola, they reasoned, was a “safe backwater port.”
The royal-blue-and-white-painted ships both had the enormous letters “MN” painted in white on their blue sides, so they were hard to miss. The ships were in good mechanical repair but were heavily streaked with rust.
As the town’s small fishing fleet (now down to just four boats) motored out for the evening, the captain of one of the boats was careful to position his boat at the south side of the flotilla. Inside his boat, four divers were suited up and checking their gear. They crawled onto the boat’s aft working deck, concealed by a stack of crab pots. A quarter mile before the boat came alongside the two French ships, the divers—now wearing dry suits—quickly slipped into the water.
They bobbed at the surface for a few minutes, to adjust the buoyancy of both the rubber bags containing the limpet mines and their own dive vests. At first the bags were too heavy and were dragging them down, but some squirts of air from their regulators into the bags soon brought them to neutral buoyancy. Then their dive vests gave them too much buoyancy, so they had to bleed air to get them back to neutral buoyancy. (This was the same procedure that they had used when adjusting the buoyancy of their camera and gear bags during sport dives.) They hadn’t had the time to do a trial run with the limpet mine bags, and spending this much time on the surface now made them wish that they had.
They swam toward the ships at a depth of ten feet, welcoming the warmth from working their muscles in the chilly water. The leader popped his head above the surface for a moment to catch sight of the ships, then ducked back under and motioned with his arm, showing the others the correct bearing to follow. He held that position while the other three men consulted their wrist compasses and spun their outer bezels to set a rough azimuth for their directional arrows.
Swimming underwater to the ships and attaching the limpets was strenuous, but within the capabilities of the divers. Because they were nervous, they were all sucking air from their tanks faster than they would on a recreational dive. They each carried three limpet mines. All twelve mines already had their timers preset.
As they approached the ships, by prearrangement they diverged into two teams. The visibility was thirty feet, which was above average for the Burke Channel. One member of each team had to surface briefly to reestablish their bearings. Pressing on with only their wrist compasses to guide them, both teams had the enormous bulk of their target ships loom into sight after fifteen minutes of hard swimming. They had been told to attach the limpets at least six feet below the waterline. They opted for fifteen feet to reduce the chance that they might be spotted. The mines were magnetically attached directly over welded seams, at twenty-foot intervals. Each attachment made an audible clunking sound, and this worried the divers. Once the last mine was removed from each bag, they drained all of the remaining air and let them sink down into the depths.
Swimming under the keels of the ships, the two teams set their compasses for due north. They checked their compasses and wristwatches regularly. They were still anxious and going through their air supply quickly.
Two of their air tanks ran low when they were still two hundred yards from shore, so two of
the divers had to clip into octopus rigs and share air, swimming side by side. Then they all ran low and one tank ran out completely. Their only option was to begin porpoising, surfacing once every twenty feet to breathe through their snorkels for the final eighty yards of their swim. They all reached the shore within seconds of each other and checked their watches.
There were still eleven minutes until the fireworks. Transitioning to just their cold-water neoprene booties, they rapidly walked uphill toward their planned rendezvous point, a location that was memorized but intentionally left unmarked on their maps.
Thirty seconds before the scheduled detonation they began to quietly but gleefully count down out loud in unison as they walked. At ten seconds before the detonation, they stopped at a clearing in the trees and looked back toward the bay. They sat down side by side and continued counting down, in their quiet chant. Right on schedule, they saw white gouts of foam jumping up the far sides of both ships. A few seconds later, they heard the dull thud of the simultaneous explosions. They sat, enthralled. They cupped their hands over their eyebrows, watching for signs of distress from the ships. Faintly, they heard some sort of klaxon. After two minutes, both ships had perceptibly begun to list on the sides where the limpets had been attached. And after five minutes, the ships were both listing at least forty degrees. Tony—their leader—said dryly, “They’re done. Let’s go.” They resumed their hike, feeling invigorated. One of their local resistance contacts was waiting for them at the rendezvous point.
The four divers were all given the boots and bundles of clothes that had been handed off the day before. Their air tanks, regulators, masks, fins, weight belts, and other gear were buried in a large hole that their contact had dug earlier in the day. As they were refilling the hole, the four men downed Endurox liquid meal supplements—the same drink that they used after Ironman races. They had been saving their last few of these for a physically challenging day like this. Tony raised his in a toast and said, in a fake heavy French accent, “Vive la resistance!” and they all laughed.
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