The Third World War (30 page)

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 Office rs-in-Charge at all the major ports. Mine countermeasures 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 (
COMBALTAP
),at Karup in Denmark, was typical:

To
CINCNORTH
, for information to JACWA:

‘I 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.

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
SACEUR
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 Denmark. 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 U K. 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 th; 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 dis-patched 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 most vulnerable, and least easily defended, elements in the supply from wells to’shore were the pipelines on the sea-bed, the Russians had decided to cut these. It was not difficult to do this, except in the southern North Sea, which initially was not readily accessible to the attackers. In the north, six diesel-eiectric submarines, approaching via the deep water off the Norwegian coast, were deployed to predetermined positions, where they released special underwater manned vehicles, to locate and destroy the twelve most important pipelines. By using delayed action charges, the submarines were able to withdraw without detection. Three of them, operating in the shallower areas, also laid mines in the vicinity of the pipelines, where the destruction would occur. Two
NATO
patrol ships, sent to investigate the explosions on 8 August, struck mines and sank. In order to distract attention from the submarine operations, sporadic air attacks, using stand-off missiles, were carried out on some of the oil and gas rigs themselves. The U K air defences took a heavy toll of the elderly Badgers used by the Russians for these attacks.

The final major event of the war at sea, during the opening phase of the Warsaw Pact onslaught, was the declaration of the Soviet government on 9 August that the Western Approaches was a War Zone, into which shipping of any kind entered at its peril. The only neutral countries within the War Zone were Sweden and Finland. The Swedes were told that the inconvenience they would suffer would not last long and that the action had been forced upon the Warsaw Pact by the aggressive intentions of
NATO
. The Soviet objective of neutralizing the Federal German Republic would soon be achieved. The correlation of forces made this inevitable. As to Finland, it was hardly necessary to seek her compliance.

The declaration of the War Zone was not regarded by the Soviet Union as sufficiently emphatic of itself. Certain of her submarines, which had been ordered to take up patrol positions and at all costs to remain undetected, were therefore ordered to attack with tactical missiles, after careful identification, certain important ships—oil tankers, container ships and dry cargo ships belonging to European
NATO
countries. Sailing weeks earlier from distant ports, along standard ocean routes, these ships had been ordered to continue at full speed, some towards the North Channel and some towards St George’s Channel, where they would be met and escorted into harbour. Ships which were more than five days’ steaming from Western Approaches coastal waters had been turned towards the nearest
NATO
friendly or neutral port for anchorage, to await further instructions.

Late on 9 August reports reached
JACWA
that two large oil tankers, two container ships and two dry cargo ships had been attacked without warning with submarine-launched missiles. The positions given, four in the Bay of Biscay and two west of Ireland, could not immediately be reconciled with the plotted positions of any Soviet submarines, as deduced from the various anti-submarine detection or surveillance systems. If ever the gravity of the Soviet submarine threat to shipping had been doubted, such doubts were now speedily removed. Against nuclear-powered submarines, aided by satellite and aircraft reconnaissance, even the fastest merchant ships were sitting ducks.

The first thing to do, having established that Commander Western Approaches South (
COMWAS
) was organizing the search for survivors and sending tugs to the damaged oil tankers (neither of them had yet sunk), was to order any other
NATO
merchant ships approaching the declared War Zone to turn back. The next was to consider, with
SACLANT
, the implications of these attacks. The situation which now faced the maritime commanders, in the Atlantic and the Western Approaches, was critical. It was quite obvious that unless
SACEUR
could be certain of being reinforced by fresh combat forces from the United States by 15 August, he could not throw in his final reserves on the Central Front within the next four or five days, and thus stand some chance of holding up the Warsaw Pact advance to the Rhine.

A group of military convoys, with a speed of advance of twenty-three knots, had sailed from Halifax NS on 8 August. They could be disembarking troops and equipment in northern French ports by the 14th. But there were strong indications that a wave of Soviet submarines, which had sailed from the Kola Inlet on 4 August, was now crossing the Greenland-lceland-UK gap. Denial of the Faroes to a Soviet raiding force had fortunately helped to maintain
NATO
anti-submarine surveillance of the key area, and three more Soviet submarines were known to have been destroyed, two by
NATO
submarines operating independently and one by a combination of air and surface forces. On the other hand, at least one
NATO
submarine had failed to report on leaving her patrol off the North Cape. In two days’ time, it was estimated, there would be twenty-four Soviet nuclear-powered submarines in the North Atlantic.