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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0956.PDF
66 FLIGHT ATOMIC EXERCISE Carte Blanche: The Practical Assessment of Future Warfare SPEAKING at Fontainebleau at the beginning of exerciseCarte Blanche, Air Chief Marshal Sir Basil Embry,Commander-in-Chief, Allied Air Forces Central Europe, denned the purpose of the exercise as the practical assessment of theories on atomic attack and defence. The exercising of all units which this entailed was, he said, part of the normal process of maintaining efficiency. A major requirement for any future conflict would be a peace-time state of instant readiness, since there would never again be any time for a build-up of strength during initial battles. The particular significance of this for the air forces was that, for the present, the first, and possibly decisive, phase of a war would take place in the air; and that the duty of the defending forces would be first to smash the enemy's atomic capability, and secondly to provide such defence as was possible against the enemy's atomic attack. Implicit in this was the need for extensive and efficient communications between widely dis- persed mobile units, and rapid and effective reconnaissance, directed at finding the enemy's critical installations. Therefore, though Carte Blanche was almost entirely an air exercise, it provided an accurate picture of the decisive phases of an atomic conflict. As reported last week, the two sides involved were Northland(2nd A.T.A.F.) and Southland (4th A.T.A.F.). Both were highly industrialized countries which had reached a point in their rela-tionship where one side decided to make war on the other. For three days before the opening of hostilities, botfi sides preparedactively for war by deploying their air forces for attack and defence. At 0001 hr on Thursday, June 23rd, the war began, theoreticallywithout any declaration. Most of the atomic sorties were flown by aircraft of Strategic Air Command and 49th Air Division,U.S.A.F., and the task of the two A.T.A.F.s in these operations was to provide interceptions and fighter escort. Most of the targetswere decided, as related last week, by SACEUR but commanders in the field, Air Marshal Sir Harry Broadhurst, 2nd A.T.A.F., andGeneral Lee, 4th A.T.A.F., could request an atomic strike on any targets they considered suitable. Information as to how manyrequests were made and how many of them were granted was not released. All Northland aircraft carried a gold band round theafter-fuselage and all Southland aircraft carried crosses on tail and wings in any colour except gold or orange. Stocks of fueland ammunition for several days were held at each airfield and war-time supply systems were in use. Bomb disposal teams hadto deal with 16 unexploded bombs, six of them live, but none atomic. By Thursday night, ten Southland airfields had been atom-bombed and Southland had reacted with similar attacks on seven Northland bases. Northland's initial blow, however, was severeenough to reduce Southland's atomic capability to a very low ebb during the first two days. The advantages of deployment soonbecame evident since not all the many airfields available were occupied. Celle, for instance, was unoccupied when destroyedand the Belgian wing at Bruggen was airborne at the time of attack and was diverted elsewhere. On June 24th, 24 hr after the exercise had started, Flight visitedNo. 34 TAC.R Wing at Giitersloh. This was a composite wing made up of an R.A.F. squadron of Meteor F.R.9s, a Dutch squad-ron of RF-84Gs and some flights of Danish and Norwegian RF-84Gs. Also operating there was a wing of Canberras, and thestation had just started again after the "effects" of an atom bomb attack made on the previous day. Giitersloh had had rough treat-ment including an intrusion by a B-26 and an unexploded bomb during Thursday night; then, on Friday morning, somebody blewup the runway. But the FR wing was still operating and some pilots reported that they had found a heavily camouflaged Matador on itslaunching ramp. It is the fighter reconnaissance units who obtain a large part of the information required for selecting targets and forobserving the effect of previous attacks. No. 34 Wing was therefore busy and its Mobile Field Processing Unit (with both Dutch andEnglish personnel) developing and printing photographs had, by the time of our visit, produced 10,000 prints. The air-conditionedprocessing caravans were expertly tucked away in a shallow pine- wood some way from the airfield. Next visited was No. 2 Group's Sector Operations Centre,buried deep in a forest of huge beech trees "somewhere near Sundern." On the sandy floor of the forest, surrounded by barbedwire entanglements and covered with camouflage netting, the caravans had been opened out to form a war-room and officesand become the nerve centre of the group's operations, run 24 hours a day on a watch system and directed by the A.O.C. andS.A.S.O. (If one such centre were destroyed only one of several watches' personnel would be lost and only half the Command, andoperations would continue to be directed from other headquarters and with other equipment. A Command centre would have to bedestroyed many times before it became impossible any longer to control the formations in die air.) Incidentally, each unit checked its own camouflage by visualand photographic reconnaissance every day, and first results were so good for 2 Group S.O.C. that the Auster pilots could not findtheir headquarters at all, though they knew its map reference. Communications, a sore point in previous exercises, were nowgoing very much more smoothly, and were assisted considerably by the introduction of beam radio links which require no land lines. We learned that' Giitersloh had been hit the previous dayby a Matador with an atomic warhead. These pilotless bombers were being simulated in the exercise by T-33s and their speedwas reported to be 300 m.p.h. We next went to see the Air Control Centre which was if possibleeven more cunningly hidden than the S.O.C. By dropping camou- flage netting round the border of a clump of trees, a complete hallhad been formed to house the filter plotting centre, met. office and communications. In a neighbouring barn a whole fightercontrol unit, complete with control cabins, Army liaison cabin, general situation board and tote board, had been set up; and workon a shift system had been going on unceasingly since before the exercise began. By the evening of the second day 15 airfields of 4th A.T.A.F. hadbeen successfully atom-bombed and eight 2nd A.T.A.F. airfields had suffered retaliatory attacks. Though Northland, the agressor,by now seemed to have the upper hand, Southland could soon expect to have the nuclear support of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in theMediterranean. Northland was laying special plans to counter this trap. Questions began to be asked about the total level ofradio activity in Europe and it already appeared that the satura- tion point must have been reached some time before. Severalairfields were atom-bombed for the second time, though this would, of course, not be necessary in an actual conflict. But forsecurity reasons no satisfactory answers were supplied. Meantime the aircraft losses on both sides were comparatively small, withNorthland claiming 29 aircraft, two Matadors and, for some reason, one Zeppelin. Twenty-five sorties were flown with conven-tional weapons against Matador launching sites. Reconnaissance was still one of the major tasks with interception a close but muchless hopeful second. Hunters at Jever By the third day, the war had settled down and atomic attackssucceeded one another with a regularity which, to the uninitiated, appeared monotonous, though appalling in its implications. Thepace had slowed down considerably and all the complicated machinery was operating quite smoothly. The opportunity wastherefore taken of visiting Jever where the first squadrons in 2nd A.T.A.F. to receive Hawker Hunters were now converting. Hunters from Jever seen from the starboard seat of a Vampire 7.77.
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