The Third World War: August 1985

Main headquarters were still in their peacetime locations only because of the exceptionally heavy administrative load in the build-up period. This was a great burden on communications and staff alike, and was best handled through permanent signal channels, with normal staff accommodation and office facilities. There was still thought to be time, if not a great deal. D-day, if the Russians really meant business, was not expected before the second half of August at the earliest.

The Allied air forces were, of course, able to respond quickly by the very nature of their medium. The increasing period of tension and general mobilization had given ample time for the Central Region air forces to assume a full war posture. They had had years of experience under the stringent conditions of SACEUR’s periodic tactical evaluation tests. These tests, called at no notice in peacetime, required the bases to go to a full war footing as if under threat of conventional and chemical attack. The time taken to raise the whole force to a full combat state was monitored and evaluated by an independent team of inspectors. What they had to do now was therefore well rehearsed and would be carried out to a less demanding timescale. From their war headquarters the commanders of 2 and 4 Allied Tactical Air Forces had been monitoring, with not a little satisfaction, the progress as the bases told-in their generation rate of combat-ready aircraft and the tote boards on the walls steadily filled.

By midnight 3 August 90 per cent of the aircraft of Allied Air Forces Central Europe were serviceable, armed, and protected in hardened shelters. During the last week reactivated UK bases and US airfields in 4 ATAF had been receiving a continuous stream of reinforcement aircraft which had been flown across the Atlantic, usually refuelling in the air. So far, very good; but General Donkin, the Commander Allied Air Forces Central Europe, had much to ponder.

He was well satisfied with the success of the aircraft generation and the reinforcements — but then he had expected all that to go well because it had so often been rehearsed in peacetime exercises and training. His mind was now turned to the adverse factor which had always existed in the military balance: namely that when at full war strength the numerical advantage still favoured the Warsaw Pact in the ratio of approximately 2:1. Tactical surprise had been sacrificed by the Warsaw Pact it was true, but they would nevertheless enjoy the initiative in calling the first shots. Furthermore, SACEUR had ordained that 20 per cent of the nuclear-capable aircraft must be held back and preserved for the time when nuclear strike operations might be necessary. The Air Commander was sanguine about the superiority of his airmen, aircraft and weapons. He knew they would give the highest account of themselves if called to battle. But the uncertain factor, and the critical one, was what the losses would be and whether there would be the numbers left after several days’ fighting to hold the line until the ground forces were reinforced and able to take on the full brunt of the land battle.

Out of the window of the Joint Headquarters building housing HQ NORTHAG and HQ 2 ATAF, which also held HQ BAOR and HQ RAF Germany, both soon to run down and become base organizations, the Duty Officer looked down into the brightly lit forecourt. Blackouts, such an important feature of the Second World War in the defence of large and important targets, had little significance in an age of precision-guided weapons.

Long lines of vehicles stood partially loaded in readiness for the move to the operational location the following night. The Duty Officer watched a Dutch sentry moving slowly down one of the lines. His hair was rather long, the Duty Officer observed, even for a Dutch soldier.

It was only a month or two ago that a parade had been held here to celebrate the thirtieth year of use of these admirably designed buildings, built, like the agreeably laid-out cantonment around them, out of Occupation Costs not long after the Second World War. The comfortable married quarter in which the Duty Officer was now living by himself stood among trees already well grown.

He had sent off the rest of the family’s belongings the day before, to where his wife was staying in her mother’s house in Surrey. They would be thinking about the eldest girl’s eighth birthday, only a week away, for which, as a special treat, she was to be taken to London to see The Mousetrap. He had been taken to see it on his own eighth birthday. Later on in the day he would be sleeping in the strangely empty married quarter for the last time, before moving out to join up with the headquarters in its operational location. He knew those caves only too well from exercises and had always disliked them.

He picked up his pen to go on with his letter, first filling in the date he had left out before. It was 4 August. There were signs in the sky of a new day.