The Third World War: August 1985

August, when a Vulcan detected what seemed most likely to be an amphibious landing group rounding the North Cape. One Vulcan squadron was now devoted to a round-the- clock surveillance of this group, working in co-operation with Norwegian fast patrol boats.

Anti-submarine operations in EASTLANT to clear the sea for Strike Fleet, particularly the vital gap between Greenland and the UK, for long a major role of the Royal Navy, had also been under way, on a surveillance basis. Now they were in earnest. Three ASW (anti-submarine warfare) groups of the RN, supported by Dutch and Norwegian surface units, combed the ocean, co-ordinating their operations with the RAF, USAF and Royal Norwegian Air Force maritime patrol aircraft based in the UK, Iceland and Norway. Air defence cover was provided by an escort carrier, land-based fighters from the UK supported by tankers, and AEW (airborne early warning) Nimrods. Further west, Iceland-based F-15s would cover the operations. Whatever their quarry, Strike Fleet or convoys, the Soviet submarines had to be detected, and hopefully destroyed, here in the gap.

As far as sea management was concerned, the proclamation by the British government of a state of emergency, a week previously, had been indispensable. It had enabled the Naval Control of Shipping to be instituted, the reserves to be mobilized, and a large number of dormant appointments to be activated, setting up Naval Officers-in-Charge at all the major ports. Mine counter-measures had been started, on the pathetically small scale which was all that could be done with the derisory forces available.

The first JACWA briefing, which followed that of EASTLANT, was dominated by reports, many of which came in by telephone and teleprinter during the meeting, of heavy fighting in northern Germany and the Baltic Exits. A desperate message from the Commander Allied Forces Baltic Approaches (COMB ALTAP), at Karup in Denmark, was typical:

‘To CINCNORTH, for information to JACWA:

‘ 1 Soviet ground forces with air support are attacking Aarhus.

‘2 Minelaying in Great Belt and Langeland Belt 50 per cent completed.

‘3 All operational naval forces ordered to sea. Submarines will patrol in Kattegat. Surface forces are to engage hostile surface forces as opportunity offers, retiring on Stavanger for replenishment. Operational control now with Allied Commander Naval Forces Scandinavian Approaches.

‘4 Understand Danish government now en route to UK by air.

‘5 COMBALTAP with elements of staff expects to leave Karup by air shortly for Kolsaas.’

It soon became clear, from Soviet declarations, that the political aim of Warsaw Pact military action was to overrun and neutralize the Federal German Republic, then call a halt and seek negotiations with the United States. Pact operations in the northern area of the Central Region had certainly gone according to plan. Despite spirited resistance by NATO forces, most of the Soviet’s territorial objectives had been gained. Sheer weight of numbers saw to that. The Baltic Exits were to all intents and purposes in Soviet hands, though the main channels had been closed by mines; the North Sea coast as far west as the Hook of Holland was also under Soviet control; and sea traffic between the United Kingdom and the Continent was under constant and heavy attack from large numbers of Soviet light forces. These had been sent through the Kiel Canal (an attempt to block it was too late) and operated night and day under strong fighter cover.

Western Approaches naval and air combat forces vigorously opposed this threat to vital cross-Channel communications. German and Dutch frigates, and a few Danish fast patrol boats (FPB), transferred by SACEUR to JACWA’s operational control, made many successful attacks. The handful of FRG Naval Air Force Tornados which had been evacuated to the UK bolstered those few RAF Tornados and Buccaneers that could be spared by JACWA from operations in the Norwegian Sea. At this point the RAF Hawks, now liberated from their training tasks and armed with guns and rockets, came into their own and were launched into the war. Over this mixed force presided one squadron of Vulcan MR (maritime reconnaissance) aircraft, withdrawn, after long debate, from the Norwegian Sea, to feed the vital target information to the attackers, seaborne and airborne. The Soviet forces suffered heavy damage in the intense struggle, but again their numerical advantage was taking its toll: as far west as Boulogne the Grishas, Nanutchkas and Osas of the Soviet Baltic Fleet were joined on the bottom by more and more NATO ships.

On land the NATO forces were fighting back desperately, and the decision of France to play her part in the Alliance had given rise to some hope in the councils of NATO that the Soviet intentions might, at the eleventh hour, be frustrated. The anguished debate over the use of nuclear weapons and the decisions taken have been recounted elsewhere. Recent improvements in NATO’s defences had allowed S ACEUR to stem the flood. But if the tide was to be turned, all would depend on the safe and timely arrival of the seaborne reinforcements. The prospect of successful ocean transit could to some extent be assessed in the light of certain naval and air operations which had been taking place in the Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea simultaneously with the debacle in the southern North Sea and the English Channel.

The First Support Group had, since the 5th, been supporting the attempt to reinforce northern Norway, where the airlifted ACE Mobile Force had been engaged since late on the 4th in resisting the powerful Soviet invasion through Finmark. Bodo had been rendered unusable, first by Soviet attack and then by the Norwegian response to the invaders, and the Allied forces were struggling to hold the line at Trondheim.

The Soviet amphibious group detected on the evening of the 4th had since been subjected to a vigorous assault by Norwegian naval and air forces and JACWA Tornados from the UK. By the 7th it was a much depleted Soviet support group that moved on south to reinforce their paratroop comrades.

But the fortunes of war turned again to the Russians that morning when their fighters, now operating from Norwegian airfields in the far north, destroyed first one, then in swift succession two more, of the Vulcan MR aircraft providing the vital surveillance of the Norwegian Sea. The Russians were quick to exploit the confusion which gripped, albeit temporarily, JACWA’s coverage of the surface scene.

On the night of 7 August a NATO submarine reported that, in about the latitude of Trondheim and near the meridian of Greenwich, it had attacked with Harpoon missiles a Soviet force of fast transports escorted by surface ships, on a course which would take it to the Faroe Islands. A V/STOL Harrier III aircraft, one of four carried by the new escort carrier Argus, which had recently joined the First Support Group, had been flown off for a search to the north and west and the Soviet force had been relocated. The NATO submarine, having used up all its missiles, had been unable to destroy more than three of the Soviet ships, one of which was a troop transport. JACWA therefore ordered a strike, with six Tornados, the most that could be mustered, against the Soviet force. This succeeded in damaging another transport and an escort ship. The Soviet force then turned back towards Norway. The battle for the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap had been joined, and NATO had won the first round.

One feature of the action was the interruption of ship-to-shore, aircraft-to-ship and aircraft-to-shore communications, both Soviet and NATO, resulting from interference with communication satellites. Secondary channels had been used, but a certain amount of luck, on both sides, had proved effective. There might well have been complete loss of control by the respective shore-based HQs.

Soviet reaction to the failure of their operation against the Faroes was not long in coming. They had already observed by satellite, and confirmed by air reconnaissance, the approach of the First Support Group and the Norwegian reinforcement convoy. On D + 5, therefore, twenty Backfire maritime strike aircraft were sent to attack the NATO force. Fortunately, owing to Bodo being out of action, these bombers had had to fly from airfields near Murmansk, and their transit had been reported. Some fighters from the UK were therefore able to intercept the second and third waves of Backfires and a total of five were destroyed. Three ships of the NATO troop convoy were hit, one of them sinking, and two ships of the First Support Group were put out of action, including the escort carrier Argus. In consequence, the organic ASW capability of that force, mainly consisting of helicopters, was much diminished. Maritime patrol aircraft were hurriedly transferred from their relentless beat in the Greenland-UK gap, but two Soviet submarines supporting the amphibious group were able nevertheless to get in attacks on the damaged ships, all of which were sunk. A NATO submarine similarly dispatched the damaged ships of the Faroes raiding force.

Rather more one-sided was the Soviet attack on the North Sea oil and gas installations. Appreciating that the