Table Of ContentIN THE BATTLE-CODES OF NATO WARSHIPS
THREAT WARNING RED MEANS “ACTION IMMINENT…”
Suddenly the Soviet Union declares 90,000 square
miles of vital Atlantic searoutes the exclusive
territory of the battlefleets of the Warsaw Pact.
On the bridges of warships at sea and in the
corridors of NATO HQ tension mounts
to crisis pitch.
AS A MASSIVE SOVIET TASK FORCE
CONVERGES ON A NATO SQUADRON,
THE WORLD HOLDS ITS BREATH…
THE WORLD HOLDS ITS BREATH…
Anthony Fox
Threat Warning Red
Author’s note
The paperback edition of this novel, which was first published in hardback in
1979, has been brought forward at rather short notice, and there has been no
opportunity to update background political events. So there is no mention of
Afghanistan, or Poland, or of the accelerated expansion of the Soviet fleet and
weaponry, or - perhaps more importantly - of the disastrous and I believe
inexcusable new cuts in the strength of the Royal Navy. The story should
therefore be read in the context of 1979, please, not of 1982. A. F.
Diagram of North Atlantic with exclusion area (threatwaringred-1.jpg)
The principal social service a government can provide is to keep its people alive
and free.
Sir John Slessor
Chapter One
The Soviet spy trawler had been on the plot all night, and now with daylight she
was easy to see about seven miles east-south-east, beyond the German destroyer.
The trawler was one of the Mayak class, with white-painted upperworks and a
lot of top-hamper in the form of loops, aerials and antennae, the usual equipment
of the spy-ships: and this was a perfectly normal situation, an ordinary morning
at sea - the NATO squadron exercising and that mutely hostile Soviet eye on
them. So why on earth, Frank Comerford asked himself, did he suddenly get this
feeling of some danger or ordeal ahead? Then he remembered: there’d been a
signal yesterday about a concentration of spy trawlers off the Shetlands. It was
the type of mass deployment of trawlers the Soviets went in for ahead of major
NATO exercises: and as there was no such thing about to happen - they’d had
the big one, just recently - there was no apparent reason for that swarm up there.
He’d forgotten about the signal, but it must have been in his mind while he’d
been sleeping, and he knew now why the sight of that solitary Mayak had
triggered the presentiment.
All the same, when he looked back on it afterwards it did seem a bit uncanny
that one had had such a feeling: because later, in retrospect, you had to recognise
that for the NATO squadron who were going to bear the brunt of it, this was
where the build-up to the crunch did start. In the Skagerrak on this cool
September morning with the sea low, humpy, shiny-green, HMS Devon riding
the swell easily with her stabilisers’ help, the other two ships astern and the
Russian skulking like a jackal down there in the direction of the Skaw.
And a dozen others, he thought again, 400 miles northwest. What the hell for?
He lowered his binoculars. Baden, the German, was on Devon’s port quarter and
the Canadian, Winnipeg, was level with Baden on the other side. Course two-
seven-zero, speed twelve knots. The greyish blur to starboard, northward, was
seven-zero, speed twelve knots. The greyish blur to starboard, northward, was
the south coast of Norway. Twenty-five miles away, he guessed, looking at it.
But not exactly guessed: as Devon’s navigating officer he knew within a mile or
two where she was, even though he’d been asleep for the last two hours. He
asked Oram, the pink-faced officer of the watch, ‘Skipper still got his head
down?’
Oram nodded. ‘Due for a shake at a quarter past.’
It was ten past seven. Anti-submarine exercises had lasted until just after five,
and now there was a full programme of practices and evolutions for the day and
night ahead; and two more days and nights of it after that, before they put into
Oslo for a spell of civic functions, official receptions and so forth. This NATO
squadron was no rest-home for tired sailors.
Oram muttered, ‘Should pick up the others pretty soon.’ Their Soviet tail had
chosen badly last night, when the NATO squadron had split into two groups and
separated for night exercises thirty miles apart. Not even a spy ship could be in
two places at once, and if the Russians had spun a rouble it must have fallen
hammer-and-sickle down instead of up. The other way, they’d have stuck with
the Commodore, the American flagship, with the Dutchman and the Dane and
the Portuguese. That group’s night games had ended by now with a dawn shoot
against a towed air target, and the American, Fermenger, was to have been using
shells with a new type of nose-fuse from which the Soviets might have recorded
some interesting vibrations. Instead they’d elected to cling to this smaller bunch,
and they’d have heard nothing they hadn’t heard a hundred times before. It had
been a routine A/S practice, tracking a small German submarine which had now
gone home to Kiel.
Comerford went over to the Decca machine, in the port after corner of the
bridge. He didn’t envy the spy trawlermen their job. They even steamed in up
the NATO ships’ tracks when rubbish had been ditched, and scooped up the gash
to sort it for items that might be of interest to them. He was checking the ship’s
to sort it for items that might be of interest to them. He was checking the ship’s
position by Decca, getting readings on green and purple and then checking those
figures back against the pulsing master-guard to make sure they matched. Decca
gave him an intersection at 57 degrees 41 North, 8 degrees 20 East. Now he
could check those latitude and longitude figures against the readings on the SINS
dials on the bulkhead. SINS stood for Ship’s Inertial Navigation System, and it
was spot-on. Marvellous to have all these machines to do your work for you. Not
that one relied on them all that much; half the satisfaction of his own job was the
employment of the navigator’s art and this included the use of a basic tool, the
sextant, pretty well every day. Any damn fool could read dials. … He went
down the portside steps and past the lower section of the enclosed bridge, and
opened the heavy screen door to the extruding, open-air, wing. A rush of wind
met him, cool morning wind, salt-tasting, air bright from the haze of the rising
sun astern. The thin cloud-layer screening the sun wouldn’t last long, it would
melt during the next half-hour, raise the curtain on another sparkling late-
summer day. Gulls wheeled squawking over grey-green sea curling from
Devon’s stem; there was hardly any movement on her as she carved her way into
it, parting it and leaving it to mend again astern. The steel deck-plating of the
foc’sl he was looking down at it across the top of the Exocet missile installation
and beyond that the twin 4.5” gun-turret - was green-painted, new-looking with
the shine of sea-dew on it. Devon was a DLG - destroyer, large, guided-missile -
but she was the size of a cruiser and she had a cruiser’s complement and power;
they’d classified her as a destroyer because the Treasury hadn’t been keen to
approve the order for a new class of cruiser. Whatever you labelled her she was a
compact, handsome ship and, now that she had the French surface-to-surface
Exocet missile system, not badly armed. Her main missile system was Seaslug,
back aft - Seaslug being surface-to-air and with a surface-to-surface potential too
- and there were Seacat mountings on each quarter with anti-missile missiles for
close-range defence. To round it off there was that twin 4.5” turret - radar-
controlled, quick-firing, automatic. By NATO standards and certainly in
comparison with the other ships in this squadron, Devon was well armed. In
comparison with the newer Soviet missile-ships - well, that was something else.
She was good-looking as well as functional. But nothing like as pretty as Baden,
the German steaming on her port quarter, with that long, high flare of bow and
the two sleek, cowled funnels. Baden had no missiles and no helicopter: her
teeth were two turrets for’ard and two aft, and torpedoes, and of course anti-
submarine weapons. She wasn’t just pretty, Comerford thought, she was
downright beautiful. She wouldn’t be as comfortable to live in as Devon was;
downright beautiful. She wouldn’t be as comfortable to live in as Devon was;
even in this low swell she had a lot of motion on her, and in anything like bad
weather she was washing down all the time; but she was something to rest your
eyes on, all right. … And she was flying the same flag as Devon and the
Canadian on the other quarter flew, and this grey-green wet stuff was the
Skagerrak where Jutland was fought in 1916 and where Germans and British had
died at each others’ hands in numerous actions since that huge one….
Just as he got back to the central bridge there was a squawk from the
loudspeaker, from the plot down in the Ops Room. Something about contacts on
two-six-six. Those would be the other ships of this squadron: the plot would
have had them a long time ago if longer-range radar sets hadn’t been shut down
to frustrate the AGI, the spy trawler. Within a few minutes the watchkeepers
here on the bridge could see them - one of them, to start with, and just
upperworks. That would be Fermenger, the American. Gram’s assistant, the
second officer of the watch, reported with his glasses at his eyes, ‘Ship right
ahead -‘ and then, lowering the binoculars and glancing round, seeing the
skipper arriving in the bridge at that moment, added ‘- sir.’
The yeoman of the watch retrieved a clipboard of signals from Devon’s captain,
who’d held it out sideways without looking to see who’d take it: he’d been
reaching with the other hand for his binoculars. Now he’d slid on to his high
swivel seat in the starboard for’ard corner, behind his own console of order
instruments. He’d have read through that batch of signals before coming up,
between being shaken at 0715 and appearing here now at - Comerford checked
the time - 0731. They’d been due to rendezvous with the other ships at half past,
so this wasn’t bad.
‘Pilot?’
Ramrod back: up on the high seat he looked enormous. George Henry Ashton
was a tall, spare but heavy-boned man, with a big nose and jaw and rather
deepset eyes: and as tireless as some kind of robot.
deepset eyes: and as tireless as some kind of robot.
Comerford went across the bridge. ‘Morning, sir.’
‘Freshen my memory, would you, about the day’s programme?’
‘There’s a shoot at nine, sir.’ He was reaching into his pocket for the Daily
Orders. ‘Towed surface target.’ He’d unfolded the pink foolscap sheet. ‘The
helicopter goes into Kjevik at 8.45.’
For mail - landing it and bringing off any that might be waiting there for them.
Kjevik being the airport at Kristiansand.
‘When does the shoot finish?’
‘Eleven, sir. Balloon runs from eight to nine, I should have mentioned. The
helo’s due back at eleven-fifteen, and there’s an NBCD exercise until twelve-
thirty.’
NBCD meant damage-control: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical. Ashton asked
him, ‘Taking one of the others in tow at some stage, aren’t we?’
‘We’re to be towed by Winnipeg, from twelve-thirty to fourteen hundred. At
fourteen-fifteen there’s an AA Gunex - firing ships only ourselves, Baden and
Winnipeg while the others RAS from White Rover: RAS stood for replenish-at-
sea, and White Rover was a tanker, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary, which was
sea, and White Rover was a tanker, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary, which was
operating with the squadron. Comerford added, ‘They’ll have finished by the
time we’ve had our shoot, and we RAS at sixteen hundred. On completion we
rejoin the Commodore for officer-of-the-watch manoeuvres. Then the night
exercise programme––’
‘Enough to be going on with. Thank you.’ There was some talking on the R/T
now, from the lower section of the bridge to starboard. Comerford heard an
American voice saying, ‘Immediate execute, Corpen starboard one eight. Stand
by -‘
Ashton called down, ‘Not us, is it, Yeoman?’
‘First division only, sir.’
The Commodore was about to lead the ships which were with him now into a
right-wheel, in fact. Then no doubt he’d order this group to join up with him. In
Devon’s bridge Ashton and Comerford watched the American ship through their
glasses as her shape began to alter, to lengthen into silhouette as she turned.
Fermenger was only three or four years old, one of the latest of the Knox-class
frigates and with modifications to cabin and bridge layouts to provide
accommodation for an admiral - in this instance a commodore - and his staff. As
she swung into profile you could see the distinctive funnel shape, that bulbous
expansion that carried masts and search-radar aerials. But her length was already
shortening again as she continued round, swinging the rectangular bulk of her
helicopter hangar towards them; and now she was piping up on the R/T again,
that same American voice laconically addressing the second division now.
Ashton glanced round at the OOW. ‘I’ll take her.’ He told Comerford, ‘Shan’t
need you, pilot. If you’re going down, tell the Commander I’d like a word at his
convenience.’
convenience.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ He was ready for some breakfast; and it was decent of George
Henry to dispense with his services. It was also somewhat untypical: there was a
certain rigidity both of manner and behaviour from Devon’s captain nowadays.
Physically he was immensely strong: right now, for instance, he’d had two
hours’ sleep, and twenty-four hours ago he might have had three or four, but he
was alert, vigorous, ready for another day-and-night stretch of work.
Unfortunately he expected similar powers of endurance in his subordinates.
When Comerford, after twenty-six hours on his feet at one stage of the recent
NATO exercises, had been seen yawning, Ashton had suggested he should
report to the doctor for a check-up.
The rigidity came out in several areas: in his attitude to disciplinary matters, and
a refusal to listen to accounts of difficulties such as machinery breakdowns. And
it wouldn’t be making his outlook any sunnier now to know that his ship was
running on only one boiler. The mechanical seal on the main feedpump to the
starboard one had failed during the basin trial in Kiel on Thursday of last week,
prior to departure on the Monday. Devon’s Engineer Commander had reported
the defect to Ashton and at the same time signalled SPDC, the Spare Parts
Distribution Centre at Newcastle, for a replacement. But a strike by loaders at
Heathrow had left them still without the spare on that Sunday night when they
were due to sail at 0800 next morning.
‘Why don’t we have a spare on board?’
‘We do normally, sir, but we had to hand it over-to Shropshire at Den Helder
and there was supposed to be a replacement on the way, but––’
‘Either you forgot to order it, or it didn’t come and you forgot to chase them?’
‘I was going to explain, sir––’
‘I don’t want explanations, Chief. I want heads of departments I can rely on.
What are you going to do about it?’
‘We could fit an emergency packing. But that’s very unreliable. We can get the
spare flown to Oslo now, though, so we’d only be without it for a few days - and
meanwhile––’
‘Make the emergency repair, but don’t flash up that boiler. Make sure the spare
seal does reach us in Oslo. Do I have to warn you -‘ sarcasm creeping in now -
‘to arrange in advance for Customs clearance?’
Comerford went down the steps into the thwartships gangway, and into his
chartroom. He found Hunt, his yeoman, at work inside. Hunt was a radarman
and a volunteer for this job, which consisted mainly of keeping charts and
reference books up to date.
‘Don’t you eat breakfast nowadays?’
Hunt looked round. ‘Had it, sir. Wanted to make a start on these north Norway
corrections.’
After Oslo, they’d be going north. Comerford heard the yeoman shout,
‘Executive, sir!’ and Ashton’s order into the microphone, ‘Starboard fifteen.
Revolutions one-five-zero.’ Devon was heeling to the turn as he passed behind
