The Third World War: August 1985

The crash tenders had taken up ready positions by the runway which meant that some aircraft must be trying to approach under difficulty. He looked up to see an aircraft quite high to the east making a very steep descent and a few seconds later an American F-15 pilot smacked his fighter down on the runway very fast and very hard on one wheel. As he braked a tyre burst and the F-15 swung off the runway, missing von Marschall’s Tornado shelter by only a few feet before slewing round with a collapsed undercarriage.

The aircraft did not burn and Karl ran over to see if he could help. The pilot was unhurt and climbed out with a cheerful grin as he pulled off his crash helmet.

“Hi — Major Dick Gilchrist. I’m from Bitburg. This bird won’t fly for a while. I want to get back up there again where the action is. Can we get through to Base Ops Bitburg?” Karl nodded.

“What do you guys do here?”

“Counter-air on Tornados so far,” said Karl.

“Great — keep at it. We’re doing fine up top but there are so many MiGs it’s like putting your head in a beehive. I downed three and I guess that’s a fair average, but there are so many that someone’s got to turn the tap off on the ground — I guess that’s you guys and the RAF in that low-level act of yours.”

They were both eager to swap experiences of the first few hours of the battle. As they rode in the crash tender back to Wing operations Karl told him of their attack on Zerbst.

Then it was Gilchrist’s turn. “I was leading the second section out of Bitburg. Our ground briefing gave us the area of build-up to the north and the scramble message was the last thing I heard on the radio. Just white noise, and if you could get a channel free then it was jammed even worse with voices — so we went visual on hand signals. Believe me, brother, we didn’t need ground control — the sky up there is just full of MiGs and F-4s and F-15s. My three went down, just like that” — he mimed it with his hands — “and then something hit my ship hard. The sonofabitch flashed across me slightly low — it was a wide angle shot and I just hit the gun button and he rolled straight over. Back at gunnery school they’d be proud of me, but,” he added ruefully, “not here I guess. As he went down I saw his tail markings and it was a Belgian F-16 with a MiG 23 right on his tail. I guess it was the MiG that shot me up. Anyway my left engine was out and my power controls had gone so that’s what got me in here on such a lousy landing.”

Karl smiled encouragingly as Gilchrist went on. “I felt really bad doing Ivan’s work for him but I had my own troubles. I sure hope that Beige got out all right — but — hell, those F-16s aren’t meant to be this side of the SAM belt anyway. If this is the way it’s going to be, and no radio either, you’ve got to stick in your own air space or ride down on the silk.”

It was time for von Marschall to join his squadron for briefing. They wished each other luck. As the airfield defence alert state was still only Amber he left Gilchrist in the Wing ground-training room. The walls were pasted with aircraft recognition silhouettes. There were some good ones of the F-16; he thought that might be helpful.”

“146 Air Defence Battery Royal Artillery had deployed its twelve Rapier detachments that night along the Hotenberg ridge and out on to the plain to the east. The task of these detachments was to defend I British Corps Headquarters which had established itself in the village of Nieder Einbecken. Each detachment had a launcher, loaded with four slim, matt-green Rapier anti-aircraft missiles, a target tracker and a complement of four soldiers commanded by a sergeant.

There was no sign of battle — no smoke, no noise other than a muted organ-swell to the east and north. Sergeant Edwards swung his eye across from the four dark-green missiles on the launcher to the camouflaged pile that was the tracker, with Gunner Henry buried in the rubber eye-piece. His gaze turned to the ripening asparagus field below: hadn’t someone called this the season of mist and mellow fruitful…

Alarm! The cry from Henry made him swivel and run to the tracker. He dived into the camouflage as “Target seen!” was bellowed into his ear. With a curse he disentangled his head from the netting and looked out over the plain. There was an aircraft approaching, but far too slow and far too low. Something was wrong.

“It’s not hostile,” called Edwards. A Tornado, trailing a white stream of fuel, was making an erratic course westwards. Uncharitably Edwards swore at the pilot, for he was way outside any safe lane and too close for comfort to the headquarters. As the Tornado scraped over the Hotenberg he suddenly felt apprehensive and with an urgency that suprised him ordered the rest of the detachment to stand to.