THE BIG ONE
Stuart Slade
Dedication
This book is respectfully dedicated to the memory of General Curtis Emerson LeMay
Acknowledgements
The Big One could not have been written without the very generous help of a large number of people who contributed their time, input and efforts into confirming the technical details of the story. Some of these generous souls I know personally and we discussed the conduct and probable results of the attacks described in this novel in depth.
Others I know only via the internet as the collective membership of “The Board” yet their communal wisdom and vast store of knowledge, freely contributed, has been truly irreplaceable.
A particular note of thanks is due to Ryan Crierie who willingly donated his time and great expertise in producing the artwork used for the cover of this book.
I must also express a particular debt of gratitude to my wife Josefa for without her kind forbearance, patient support and unstintingly generous assistance, this novel would have remained nothing more than a vague idea floating in the back of my mind.
Caveat
The Big One is a work of fiction, set in an alternate universe. All the characters appearing in this book are fictional and any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Although some names of historical characters appear, they do not necessarily represent the same people we know in our reality.
Copyright Notice
Copyright C 2006 Stuart Slade.
Contents
Chapter One: More Than Time
Chapter Two: Journeys Well Begun
Chapter Three: War Is Killing
Chapter Four: Striking Out
Chapter Five: Getting Hurt
Chapter Six: Impending Fate
Chapter Seven: Approaching Doom
Chapter Eight: Judgment Day
Chapter Nine: Redemption
Chapter Ten: Welcome Home
Epilogue
CHAPTER ONE MORE THAN TIME
Kozlowski Air Force Base, Limehouse, Maine
Maine was probably going to sink. Colonel Robert Dedmon was quite confident of that. The number of heavy bombers based in the state was going to make it tip over and quietly disappear below the Atlantic. The massive program of base construction over the last three years had made Maine wealthy again but it was now a state well on the way to becoming a concrete sheet, state line to state line. Coming back from one of the long training and test flights over the Atlantic Colonel Dedmon had counted no less than six bomber fields visible at one time. Most were just single group bases, 75 bombers on each, but a few were much larger.
This base, Kozlowski AFB near Limehouse, was one of the largest with three bomb groups. 225 of the giant bombers lined the runways here. It was typical of the new bases, sturdy and well-built. The commander of SAC, General LeMay wanted the best for his bomber crews and got it. The tunnel Dedmon was walking through was an example. Limehouse was in the north of Maine and became seriously snowed up in winter, So, all the base buildings were connected by underground tunnels. It was just one example of the attention to detail that had made SAC what it was. Nobody had known LeMay before he took over SAC. Now, nobody doubted he was the right man in the right place.
Kozlowski AFB wasn't the largest of all the new SAC bases, that honor was held by Churchill in Canada. The Nova Scotia base had four groups totaling 300 aircraft. Only two were bomber groups though, the other two were the new strategic reconnaissance outfits. Some of the old hands still called Churchill by its previous name, Halifax - but they sneered and ostentatiously spat on the floor when they did so. Halifax was not a name English-speaking people liked to have in their mouths. Dedmon seriously doubted if the name would ever be used again.
Still, in a weird way Lord Halifax might have done the English-speaking world a favor. One thing his June 1940 coup against Churchill had achieved was to wake the United States up from its tween-wars slumber and throw the country onto a war footing. This base was just one example of how the U.S. had mobilized. In 1940, the 8th Air Division of the US Army Air Corps had hardly existed. Just a few antiquated and ineffectual B-17s. Then it had become the Eighth Air Force of the new US Army Air Force and then, three years ago it had become the Strategic Air Command of the newly independent United States Air Force. And it had the B-36.
The giant bombers from Convair were pouring off the production lines. June 1940 had seen to that. The United States had realized that it couldn't depend on having foreign allies and forward bases. If it was going to fight a war, it had to be prepared to do so from American territory. And that had meant bombers with transoceanic range. As a result, B-17 production had been slashed back to a minimum. The Consolidated B-24 and B-32 had both been stillborn, cancelled before they even left the drawing board. Boeing's great hope, the B-29, had become little more than a bluff and a decoy. A few hundred had been built and, after some early catastrophic raids, spent most of their time pretending to be a much larger force. Today, Boeing was mostly building C-99s, the transport version of the B-36 that were basing out of the West Coast and maintaining the air bridge to Russia.. Other factories were building B-36 variants. The RB-36 reconnaissance aircraft basing out of Churchill, the K.B-36 tankers based in Thule, Greenland and Lajes in the Azores. The GB-36, whatever that was.
Dedmon had cut his teeth flying C-99s on the Air Bridge before being transferred to SAC. Two American Army Groups were fighting in Russia now, commanded by George Patton. Another case of the right man in the right place. He and the Russian President, Zhukov, got along well. It was rumored that more than one strategic disagreement had been settled by the two men arm-wrestling. Probably not true but it would have been in character.
President Zhukov was a popular figure here, his military and political reputation established by the way he had pulled Russia together after 1941 and the death of Stalin a year later. Briefly, Dedmon wondered what would have happened if Stalin had survived the siege of Moscow and the eventual fall of the city. Stalin had been a monster, in truth no better than Hitler but at least he'd died with style. Or so the stories went. When the city defenses started collapsing and there was nothing left to command, he'd shaved his head and trademark moustache and joined an infantry unit as a private. And died, fighting as a private. In doing so, he'd made sure he joined the ranks of the never-to-be-forgotten Russian folk-heroes - which was probably what the old fox had planned all along. If the stories were true, of course. There were other versions, much darker ones, of a late escape, murder on a train and a military coup in Russia.
However he had gained power, Zhukov was different. When he took over, the USSR quietly vanished and Russia reappeared. Communism had been abandoned; the military
government that had replaced it didn't have a philosophy other than 'Save The Rodina' and that was enough to work. The Germans had been held short of the Urals and the war in the east settled into a giant ulcer that was bleeding Europe dry. SACs job was to lance that ulcer. That was why the official name of the B-36 was Peacemaker. Few outside SAC appreciated the sick joke that the name really represented. The B-36 was going to bring peace to Nazi Germany all right. The peace of a cemetery. There was a reason why the semi-official cocktail of the SAC bomber crews was the Manhattan.