The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

Now you've teased us with it, so do I. Both Greece and Turkey.

   James

108 – Evacuations


President Reagan had been in the Oval Office. There was a meeting taking place with the House Speaker, Tip O’Neil. Reagan’s chief-of-staff had been with them too. It was a meeting which was supposed to have happened a few hours beforehand but O’Neil had been kept waiting. The president had been called down to the Situation Room due to odd occurrences reported in Eastern Europe that it had been decided needed his attention. The Soviets were up to something, likely moving troops about for some sort of political show of force. There had been concern expressed but the consensus among the National Security Council had been that this was just the start of aggressive posturing from Moscow. There were soon to be those talks starting in Vienna with Secretary of State Schulz already there (asleep though as it was early morning there and he’d had a long transatlantic flight) and so Reagan had stepped away from that gathering to meet with O’Neil. It was getting late, really late, and everyone needed some sleep here in Washington too. The talk with the House Speaker – the subject was the troubling situation in the Middle East… once again – was about to wrap up when two Secret Service agents came rushing through the door linking the room to the outer office at one minute past eleven p.m. local time.

Both agents had their weapons out and a look in their eyes not seen in Secret Service personnel since March 1981.

“MATCHBOX has been declared!”

In the next few minutes, an evacuation which took place. Reagan, joined by O’Neil because of his second place in the presidential line of succession, was almost carried out of the building by the armed agents. On the way through the West Wing, one of O’Neil’s aides made the mistake of getting in the way of the Secret Service agents (in what appeared to be an instant there were a dozen around the president) to enquire rather impolitely what was going on. He was lucky he wasn’t shot with his attitude. The Secret Service were usually quite civil even to preppy twerps like this man though their readiness to use force if necessary was always there. The codeword for immediate evacuation of the president had been screamed into their earpieces. That changed things. The political aide was dropped to the floor with a perfect shove with saw him on his behind: no damage was done to the furniture nor even him. He was just knocked down and out of the way in an instant. Those who worked here, also alarmed and wanting to know what was going on, didn’t join him in trying to get in the way.

Up from the Situation Room came the Secretary of Defence, the National Security Adviser and several staffers. They were outside ahead of Reagan and onto the White House Lawn. One of the US Marine helicopters from Andrews touched down. Into Marine One Reagan, O’Neil, and several others went. The president had been demanding that they not leave without his wife during the seemingly excruciatingly long wait for the helicopter; it was nearby at Andrews AFB on stand-by waiting to take him back to Camp David and while it was only a short hop to the White House, the flight did take a few minutes. He won’t go without Nancy, Reagan told them, and that was that. If she wasn’t present when Marine One touched down, then it and the president would go without her no matter what Reagan said. The agents had their orders. MATCHBOOK meant only one thing: get him out of here no matter what.

Nancy came out of the building, an agent’s jacket thrown over her nightgown, and her own assigned Secret Service agents bundled her into Marine One. Off it flew into the night.

A nuclear warhead was expected by the crew of Marine One to be incoming or, failing that, an attack on the president by a Spetsnaz team either when airborne (using missiles) or on the ground at Andrews. They flew fast and wobbling about, dropping infrared flares over the Potomac on the way, before putting down as close to one of the E-4 NEACP aircraft as possible. The president and the other VIPs were hurried towards the doomsday plane. There were many questions asked. The National Security Adviser had currently few answers but he could say that at the current time, no nukes had been used. That could change at any moment! Again, after a horribly long wait, the E-4 was moving. It went out of Andrews like a fighter jet would, thundering into the sky and getting the president away from Washington.

The situation stabilised somewhat soon enough with regards to the president’s physical security. There was no longer the fear laden panic around the safety of the president as had been the case when he had been in the White House, in Marine One and then on the ground at Andrews. The E-4 was fast out over the ocean with F-15s on strip-alert from Langley AFB down in Virginia also in the sky nearby. Reagan was invulnerable in such an aircraft. He was safe and those with him were proud that they’d got him away. There had been a few hold-ups and some thoughts were about finding out who was responsible for them, but he hadn’t been atomised in a nuclear attack nor slain by an assassination team. They’d done their job.

Others aboard clearly had don’t theirs. Weinberger and Carlucci had messed up big time. The two men were at the top of Reagan’s national security team. They had told him just before he left the situation room to talk to O’Neil that there was no sign of war coming. The Soviets were moving some troops about – from Poland to East Germany – but there was absolutely no other sign of anything to worry about. They weren’t mobilising reservists, putting their fleet to sea, opening the doors on missile silos and so on. Then, less than fifteen minutes later they’d started attacking all across Western Europe and the Middle East. The United States had been caught with its trousers around its ankles.

Information flowed into the E-4 as it made circles in the sky far off the Virginia coastline, out over the Atlantic. There was a check made on the status of other evacuees. Vice President Bush, Cabinet secretaries, the Congressional leadership and military figures had been subject to forced evacuations from places of work and residence. No reports were coming in of attempted assassinations of them. The news from Vienna concerning Schulz wasn’t good though. There was silence from the embassy there. Was the Secretary of State dead or had something else happened to him?

Reports of combat with attacking Soviet forces came in to follow up the first, urgent reports that had seen MATCHBOOK put into effect. There was fighting going on all over the place through those two regions of the world. Air and missile attacks had been made in West Germany and the Gulf. Additional reports came in from the Med. and the Indian Ocean. Reagan was told that a carrier was burning and even at that early stage, the Joint Chiefs – soon on the line from Raven Rock where they had been evacuated to – said that it was looking like she could be lost. How many crew, Reagan had asked, were there aboard the carrier? More than five thousand he was told. The president asked about other casualty numbers but there was little information. What was coming to him was report after report from country after country about military attacks. There had bene none which had taken place within the United States though. Weinberger told him that that would surely change soon enough. NORAD and other sources weren’t reporting nuclear attacks being made either. There had been a panicked scare coming from West Germany within half an hour of the war starting that there had been a thermonuclear blast, but it was unconfirmed at the time and quickly proved incorrect. If it hadn’t been, orders coming out of the E-4 from the president would have been very different than what they soon were.

Schulz’s deputy came on the satellite link-up, calling from the State Department. He was there in his office working the phones. Calls were coming in from governments and diplomatic sources from all over the globe. He only told the president – plus those elsewhere listening in on a conference call – the important matters. Several Western European heads of government had been assassination targets. It appeared that the British Prime Minister might have been killed yet that still needed final confirmation. President Mitterrand was alive though and it was believed that the West German Chancellor was too. News out of Vienna was saying – this also needed confirming but it seemed to be true – was that his boss had been kidnapped and the same might have happened to the West German foreign minister too, also there as part of that Soviet diplomatic effort which now looked like the biggest deception of all. Weinberger’s deputy was at the Pentagon. He had some vitally important news too which he delivered after what had come from the State Department. The Soviets had sent a message over the Hotline. They were demanding that the United States ‘stand down its offensive military forces’ in Western Europe and the Middle East to ‘restore the shattered peace’. There was a warning too: should the United States use nuclear weapons, strikes with those would be matched blow-for-blow.

Reagan’s chief-of-staff had an outburst at that, one which the president shot him a look of disapproval for the shocking words used. The comment was to basically tell those in Moscow to go and make sweet love to themselves. A more diplomatic reply, but one full of forceful resolve, was discussed. It would tell the Soviets that no stand down would come, there would be no surrenders of forces and the United States would too use nuclear weapons if attacked by those. Furthermore, the Soviet Union could now consider itself at war with America too. The president authorised REFORGER to begin at once – Weinberger and the Joint Chiefs had already got the ball rolling on that – as well as full mobilisation of the United States’ military forces. All that could be done to fight the Soviets and their allies would be. He wanted to see the strike back begin at once. America had been attacked when at peace, lulled into thinking that diplomacy was at work, and suffered gravely. It would do all it could under his presidency to fight this war it had been thrown into. The transition from peace to war was going to be hard to achieve though. The United States really had been caught off guard.


William ‘Willie’ Whitelaw had once served as Northern Ireland Secretary. He had also been the Deputy Prime Minister under Thatcher as well as now serving as deputy party leader and also Lord President of the (Privy) Council. It was because of his former Ulster brief, more than his current role near to the top of the British Government, that he had police protection. Specialist officers guarded him. They were a good security team but they weren’t the US Secret Service. When they woke him at his home in Cumbia – a country pile of quite some substance – to tell him that the country was at war, they didn’t throw him into a helicopter and fly him to meet a jet protected against EMP effects: there was no line of succession in the UK either to replace a dead Prime Minister. The policemen drew their guns though and were prepared to defend him against an attack. There was no Spetsnaz team this early morning though, just plenty of phone calls. Whitelaw spoke with other ministers of the crown suddenly awoken. News came that Chequers was on fire and Thatcher was reported to be inside the building still. It quickly appeared that she was dead though that wasn’t something known for sure. Like others in the government, waking up to this Whitelaw wasn’t at his best.

Defence Secretary George Younger was getting reports that there’d been air & missile attacks in West Germany and that country was being invaded. The MOD, which he told his colleagues he needed to get to, was saying that they had no contact with British forces on the Continent. The worry among others informed of this was that a nuclear attack had taken place. That wasn’t something that the Armed Forces were saying had happened – they said they would know by this point – but it spooked the ministers told. They were calling each other back-and-forth. It was a mess. This was no way to run a government! Whitelaw took charge. He told the Defence Secretary not to go to the MOD nor anyone else to go to Whitehall. Ministers were scattered between homes across the nation either near constituencies or at London properties. It would make sense for them to be in better contact that by doing this but, still, things shouldn’t be done like this. He said they should all go to Regional Seats of Government (RSG). In an instant, everyone agreed. There were eleven of these. Each was a deep bunker full of communications connections. Whitelaw went to the one at Hack Green in Cheshire.

What a way to start a war!

Civil Service plans for a detailed response to the opening of warfare hadn’t be followed. The country hadn’t been in the Transition to War (TtW) stages and there had been no central direction for almost an hour before Whitelaw made that decision. If the British people knew how their politicians had sat on the phone beside their beds effectively exchanging gossip…

A helicopter – out of Preston Barracks – had eventually come for Whitelaw and he went to that RSG. There he learnt that Britain hadn’t been hit directly yet. Forces abroad had, but not the UK mainland. He was told this after the Foreign Secretary had spoken with the Americans where they said the same about their own country not being hit too. The thought came to him that maybe Britain might not be attacked on its own soil because it was a nuclear power. It seemed possible based on what had happened so far. Yet, Thatcher was dead. Reports from Buckinghamshire said that PM’s country retreat had been the scene of gunfire before that fire. The Soviets thus had hit the UK. No one else was dead though. Ministers, Royalty and officials hadn’t been hit by targeted killings. Why? Whitelaw nor anyone else had any answers. What they did know was that they were at war and the country needed leadership. The Cabinet members deferred to Whitelaw for that leadership. In time, they would reconsider and think of politics first but for now, they agreed he would step up. This was hardly the time for a party leadership election and they’d stick with him until a later, undetermined date.

Whitelaw gave instructions for TtW to go into effect. This meant many things nationwide would start to happen which would affect the country in civilian terms, all beginning in the early hours of this Sunday morning with no previous notice. More news on the military front reached him. None of it was good. Britain was long stretched by the Operation Horseshoe deployment to the Gulf. Now there was war on the Continent. There was contact established eventually and no nukes had been employed. From Rheindahlen there remained silence though: it looked like the place had been drenched in gas during a chemical strike. Britain’s senior commanders in West Germany and their staffs were there at the time, apparently looking into something weird going on in East Germany at the time. Younger had been informed and had called Thatcher at Chequers. He told Whitelaw now that she had told him it needed attention and she would talk to Cabinet members in the morning when more information was available. Well… now there was more information. They’d been readying themselves for an attack and made it while Britain was sleeping.

Like Reagan, Whitelaw gave orders for full mobilisation and for British forces to fight alongside their allies: Younger had already set this motion but the new PM made this official. No threatening message came from the Soviets though one was expected soon enough. The business of government, dispersed to hiding sites like it was, began to throw itself into that war. All around them, there would be chaos nationwide. Blitz spirit it wouldn’t be once the news got out of what was happening. Whitelaw would be at the helm of the nation when this erupted. He’d have to deal with that… plus the most-deadly war Britain had ever faced too.


President Mitterrand left Paris. He was informed soon enough of the shootout at his summer residence and understood what he had been lucky enough to not be home for. His thoughts on that were pushed aside though. France was at war. Soviet ballistic missiles, their intermediate-range ones, slammed into France itself with military sites struck. Its ground forces deployed in West Germany came under attack. West Berlin was silent like the French Embassy in Moscow was. News would come from the Med. that the French Navy had a carrier sunk. Even if there had been no attempt to assassinate him, even if France hadn’t been attacked at home and abroad, even if the Soviets had done everything possible to not strike at his country, Mitterrand would have taken his nation to war. The Soviets were invading West Germany, France’s closet economic partner. This could never have been a war which France would stay out of. Full mobilisation went into effect and there was too urgent orders flashed to French nuclear-capable forces. They were to stand ready to be used at presidential direction.

Chancellor Kohl was taken from his official residence to the Regierungsbunker: West Germany’s Government Bunker in the Ahr Valley. He began experiencing clear signs of a nervous breakdown once there. He’d witnessed his wife murdered before his very eyes. It took time, but once below ground, Kohl broke. Other ministers arrived. They weren’t in a great shape themselves but this was different. Kohl was seen by a doctor and the government members were told that he was incapable of participating in the urgent discussions they were having. The country’s federal President had to see this for himself before he would act. He did and then took the painful decision needed. West Germany needed a new leader. News was sought about Genscher. He was missing and the Austrian government – panicked with fright that at any moment an invasion was sure to come their way – were saying that they’d been a gunfight at the West Germany embassy. So it couldn’t be him to take the reins. Another government minister was chosen soon enough, entrusted with the nation’s leadership at a time like this: West Germany wasn’t without a chancellor for long. Other news arrived, concerning the ongoing war raging away from the bunker. It contained nothing good for those here to hear. Soviet invaders were rampaging far across the country! They were everywhere! The new chancellor gave a speech to those present concerning full resistance and how West Germany would fight with its allies to turn the invasion back. His remarks were heard but no one cheered or bounced around with glee at the thought of immediate victory. Their country was being destroyed around them, its people killed and the mood in the Regierungsbunker was at once that defeat was coming. Elsewhere in the country, as the West German military followed urgent orders to fight, there was no time among those in uniform for such thoughts though. They were fighting for their lives this morning.

If you intend to win a war in a week, arrogant assumptions like that are needed!
Hit like it is, France will fight. They are exposed to enemy action more than Britain is though.
Few subs, yes. Those that are out won't have a good time either. The Western Powers can do many things well and one of those is ASW work. Soviet bomber attacks over the ocean will mainly focus on hitting ground targets from behind.

There are others in line. The Admiral is the site host and get first dips on cash!




They're waking up even more too.
Ah, yes: both. Accidental in terms of I hadn't researched a replacement and deliberate in the way I left it out for the time being until I had someone in mind. I will find a replacement.

As the old adage goes "no plan survives contact with the enemy".

Of course the other factor in a surprise attack which hits family barracks is a lot of the survivors who have lost partners and children are not going to be happy at all!

That is very true. For both sides too.



Thank you.
3 Brigade has 2 PARA as well as 1/10 Gurkhas and 40 & 42 Commandos.
Norway is somewhere that Britain will want to send troops though the situation is very urgent in Germany.
Also, the more troops that stay in the UK, the better because of what is coming in a few days!




Update incoming. A little bit later than usual tonight. Blame for the lateness of the hour can be apportioned to four little dogs: Maltese Terriers who belong to my landlady. My task while she is out for the evening is to let them out to the garden when they bark and then back in again at more barks. They have decided to terrorise me. I consider the chaos wrought almost as bad as a 50 megaton Tsar Bomb... but that is just my humble opinion.