Seeing pictures of the National Cold War Exhibition on the news the other day brought a flood of memories to my mind. During the late 1970s and early 80s I was in the RAF, stationed at a number of air defence bases in the UK.
This was the front line of the Cold War. If it had gone ‘hot’ the UK’s air defences were a priority target for the Soviet Union. The British Isles were known as the ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ to the Americans, and were the staging post for reinforcing Europe. Knock out the UK air defence, and this reinforcement would become impossible.
We trained constantly for this possible battle, which would have included air strikes and ground attacks by Soviet sleepers and special forces. Often, whilst people slept in the sleepy villages, we would be on exercise, playing cat and mouse throughout the night, with the occasional mock firefight.
These battles could be very realistic, and the whole thing could become surreal. Sometimes I’d be on the airfield when a scramble would come. The ground would shake as the Phantom fighters took off, their hot flame of reheat scorching the ground. The noise, the vibrations, the speed – you could feel the power of those machines.
Sometimes, in one of the headquarters, cut off from the outside world, mock reports of nuclear attack would come, and you’d think, I’ve been to that city, and you’d get carried away with the possibility that one day it might not be there.
Towards the end of an exercise, we were always affected by mock fallout. So we’d don the NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) suits and do buddy buddy on each other, checking for the slightest opening, that, in the real thing, would kill. We’d sit and work in these things, sweating, becoming claustrophobic, for hours on end whilst we checked our ability to survive the nuclear phase.
And then after hours, sometimes days, of this mock war, we’d actually start to believe it was real. And then we’d go home, back to real life, and the birds would sing much sweeter. We were at peace.
Thankfully we remained so.
© Anthony North, Feb 2007
Go to Beyond the Blog for preview of my alternative network. See Blogroll.
