The Third World War: The Untold Story

“Dear Mum and Dad,

I will tell you straightaway that I am all right except for a broken leg and cuts and bruises. That’s because you will see that this was written from the RAF Hospital at Wroughton. The Doc says I can write and tell you how I got it and I suppose he knows all about secrets and all that stuff.

Me and the lads were on early shift down the HAS [hardened aircraft shelter] with the Squadron. You remember I moved over to 17 a month ago. I say early shift but that’s not really right because we had all been called up on the base the previous day. There was a lot of talk about the war starting and we had listened in to Forces Broadcasting but we thought it might be just a gimmick by the TACEVAL blokes (you remember Mum, those exercises when we had to wear our noddy suits for hours and play at soldiers), because they were always clever at kidding on that the exercises were for real. Anyway we got a talk from the CO — he’s a bit strict but he’s not bad — and then we got another one from the Squadron Commander who didn’t seem to know whether he wanted a DFC or to go home to Mum. And we were told that this time it was for real and that the Tornado Wing at Bruggen would be a No. 1 target for old Ivan.

We’d practised a lot for the real thing. We knew that Ivan might attack with ordinary bombs, gas or even nukes, so at midnight when the siren sounded it didn’t take long for all of us to get kitted up in the noddy suits. I couldn’t understand why we simply sat back and waited if we knew Ivan was going to hit us. I’ll bet the Israelis wouldn’t have. It was something to do with the “***ing politicians”, according to our Sergeant (sorry, Mum, but he does f and blind it a bit). Anyway, sure enough at half past six the tannoy hollered “RED — RED — RED” which meant that we were about to get attacked. Most of the big iron doors on the HAS were already shut and those that weren’t quickly were, all except ours. You wouldn’t believe how many times we’d practised and never once had it jammed. You can close them by hand but it takes more time than we thought we’d got. So there we were, with a four-foot gap right in front of our two Tornados.

Luckily, as it turned out, our HAS faced south. Because about seven minutes after the warning there was a thundering roar and at least sixteen, or so some of the other lads said, Soviet bombers came over the airfield. I could only see two or three through the gap in the door as they flashed past over the runway. We thought they might attack with gas but, this time at least, they didn’t. It all seemed to have been ordinary bombs. There was an enormous bang on the roof of our HAS and a shower of paint and muck came down but the concrete didn’t even crack. Just as quickly as they’d appeared they’d gone again and Corp and me and the other lads rushed out to see what had happened. We were a bit daft really, and Sarg didn’t half tell us so too, because of course Ivan could have come round for a second go. But in fact he didn’t and for a minute or two we just stood and stared at the mess he’d left.

Over to our right the central servicing hangars were on fire — a right old mess, with smoke everywhere. The air traffic control block was badly damaged and so were several of the barrack blocks and SHQ. Some of the fuel bowsers were in flames and a bulldozer belonging to the runway repair engineers was on its side and very bent. Black smoke began to pour across the airfield from one of the other Squadron dispersals and I heard here in hospital that one of the Squadron areas had really been hammered — all the bowsers and one shelter had been hit. Most of us though, to begin with at least, had been lucky, because we’d been in the HAS with the aircraft and I don’t think any of them were damaged. Some of the rockapes (that’s what we call the RAF Regiment lads) and some of the cooks on guard duty got caught out in the open nearer the perimeter wire and one of them’s in the next bed. He says that he lost a lot of mates even though most were in slit trenches.

The fire tenders were quick off the mark and I saw one tearing down to the near maintenance hangar when it suddenly blew up. Just a flash and a bang and it had gone. That was a bit frightening. That’s when we realized that Ivan had put delayed action fuses on some of his bombs, turning them into mines. That was really nasty because you never knew when there would be another one waiting to go off in a crater or a pile of rubble. The only way you could check was by looking at every square yard of concrete. I could see large bits of the runway untouched and several Tornados were able to get airborne quite quickly, but it must have been dodgy when they had to taxi past craters or rubble. And all movement was slowed down — aircraft, bowsers, fire tenders, ambulances and even the NAAFI wagon. Would you believe the old NAAFI wagon still kept going!

But you can guess what happened can’t you? I had to walk out across our dispersal to check that 17 Squadron’s area was clear for taxiing. We knew that the Tornados only needed a short bit of runway and if they could get to it they could counter-attack, which was obviously a very popular move. As I was passing a pile of rubble about 30 yards away it suddenly went up. I was very lucky. The blast knocked me sideways up against the wall of the pan and I broke my leg. The bits of flying rubble cut me up a bit but I’m luckier than a lot of my mates who are still (it’s now 48 hours since) being brought in as a result of delayed-action bombs. But we’re all well looked after and I’ll soon be home. Give brother Willie a kick for me.

Love,

Brian”