The Third World War: August 1985

While he spoke one of the plotters called out ‘impact somewhere in UK, sir’, and the computer print-out typed that before his eyes. The digital time-counter had now spun down to 317 seconds to impact. Warburton kept the voice circuit open to his fellow controllers with an additional hand-set to his ear connecting him directly to the Controller at Strike Command, High Wycombe, where he knew his commander-in-chief would be standing behind the control desk.

The Polaris Executive was the man in the system who would have the most to do if the President and the Prime Minister decided that a nuclear response was to be made, but it seemed hardly likely that they would agree to let sixty-four submarine-launched megaton missiles fly to the heart of Soviet Russia in response to this one baffling radar trace. ‘We still don’t understand it,’ said Warburton as he confirmed the amplification of the threat which had just gone up on the display, showing the Midlands as the impact area. The two plotters were poised over the print-out waiting for the next mathematical refinement of the target information as the seconds to go slid down to 227. It was the RAF Strike Command Controller who had the news first: ‘It’s real — it’s the real thing,’ came over the voice system. ‘The Government Situation Centre have just told us that a message has come in on the hot-line. Acknowledge — acknowledge — and Fylingdales have you any better estimate of the point of impact yet?’

The print-out started up again and in a split second it had written ‘Lat/Long 52° 23’ N. 001° 49’ W.’ As this appeared simultaneously on the main display there was no need to plot it on a map, for by one of the miracles of electronic automation a luminous green circle with a cross in the middle had appeared on the cathode ray map of the British Isles. It was over Birmingham. ‘It’s Birmingham — repeat Birmingham,’ Warburton called into the voice circuit. The other controllers acknowledged this grim news in the disciplined and mechanical way in which they had been conditioned for so long to think about the unthinkable. But on the other hand-set at his ear Warburton detected more than a tremor in the voice of the Strike Command Controller when he overheard him say, after his acknowledgement, ‘Oh my God!’ At High Wycombe only his squadron leader assistant knew that when mobilization was ordered the Wing Commander had sent his wife and their three children to stay with her family on the outskirts of that now hapless city.

The time-counter showed 114 seconds to go as the Fylingdales assistant controller exchanged and cross-checked data on the line to his opposite number in the Detection and Tracking Center at Colorado Springs. A US Air Force major was repeating back the facts and factors as he verified them with the information at the master control centre. All the space satellite and ground radar information was now integrated in the main computer at Colorado Springs, and as he logged the details from Fylingdales he said, ‘Yeah — yeah, that all checks with our data here’ — and then, with more than a touch of melancholy in his voice, as the counter slid down to sixty-three seconds, ‘It sure is going to be hot in Birmingham England.’

The SS-17 missile detonated its nuclear warhead 3,500 metres above Winson Green prison at 1030 hours on the morning of 20 August. Within a fraction of a second the resulting fireball, with temperatures approaching those of the sun, was over 2,000 metres in diameter and reached down towards the centre of Birmingham. The incredibly brilliant flash which accompanied the detonation was visible in London. Even at that range, individuals looking at the fireball suffered temporary blindness and felt a faint flush of heat on their faces.

The tremendous heat given off by the fireball had a more significant effect upon people and materials within a range of twenty kilometres. Lightly clad yachtsmen on Chasewater about nineteen kilometres from Winson Green felt their skin begin to burn as the lasting pulse of heat from the fireball hit them. The thoughtful ones dived into the water to escape the burning heat. Those who did not suffered blistering burns on all exposed skin. The varnish on their boats bubbled, nylon sails melted and newspapers lying in the boats burst into flames. Only those who were protected from the pulse of heat by their clothing, or were shielded in some way, escaped severe burns.