“Sir, Field Marshal Alexander for you. Urgent, sir.”
“Harry, I’ve just heard. Tell me what you know.”
As Monday slipped quietly into Tuesday, Harold Alexander revealed what he knew about the supposed British Army provocation that precipitated the Yugoslavian attack.
Which, of course, was precisely zero.
He had more information on the Trieste situation and elsewhere along a suddenly active thirty-mile front in North-east Italy.
A front recently seen as relatively quiet had abruptly become the most volatile place in Europe.
Within fifteen minutes, General Grandes, the Spanish liaison officer, immaculately dressed, despite his rude awakening, was being consulted on the movement of Spanish forces in Italy.
Meanwhile, to the north, Allied sailors commenced Spectrum Red.
Chapter 117 – THE ILLUSION
Hearts of oak are our ships, hearts of oak are our men.
Traditional Naval toast for a Tuesday – ‘To our men!’
“We’re in position Lechlade now, Number One.”
“Thank you, Nav. Skipper, we’re in position Lechlade.”
“Expose port, Number One.”
The orders flowed around the decks of HMS Charity and the port searchlight exposed, shaded in red, sending a reduced beam of scarlet light towards the eastern shoreline.
Charity was a modern C Class destroyer, commissioned on the 19th November 1945.
She was the flagship of Force V, the Royal Naval contribution to the Spectrum plan.
All the officers on her narrow bridge had their binoculars focussed on the shore, its illuminated signs of civilization betraying that it was not a land at war.
“There it is, Number One.”
Everyone saw it as clear as day.
A single green light.
The Swedes were good to their word.
The Charity’s Captain looked at the muffled figure set aside on the bridge wing, and received a nod.
“Number One, Signal all ships, Proceed as planned, Godspeed.”
The First Lieutenant made off to the yeoman waiting at the signalling lamp, and supervised the procedure.
“Sparks, send to the Admiralty. Lechlade Green, Send our position and time of contact.”
“Aye aye, Skipper.”
Commander Hamilton Ffoulkes, Captain of HMS Charity, accepted the scalding hot mug of Kai from the rating who always seemed to magically appear at the right moment.
A second mug went to the shadowy figure, who acknowledged its presence with a grunt, his mind consumed by the task his flotilla was about to undertake, and the risk that it could all go so horribly wrong.
He sighed audibly, attracting comment from Ffoulkes.
“Sir? The Kai not to your liking?”
“Come to mention it, Commander Ffoulkes, it’s a smidgen light on the chocolate, wouldn’t you say?”
As it was anything but light on chocolate, Ffoulkes was at a loss on how to respond.
“Possibly light on condensed milk, Admiral, but the chocolate level seems fine to me.”
“The perfect mug of Kai evades us all, Commander.”
Rear-Admiral Jacques stepped forward, the low light on the bridge illuminating a smiling face.
“Now, the Swedes are doing their bit. So, it’s down to us to give the Russians a fright and stir their little ant’s nest up.”
“Indeed, Admiral. Twenty minutes to Oxford I suggest.”
The points of signalling were named after places on the Thames, starting with Lechlade at the source of the great river, all the way to London, which marked the place where they would either convince the enemy that a mighty fleet was on its way into the Baltic, or they would provide light target practice for whatever ships and aircraft the Soviets could muster.
Spectrum Red was a sham; a Trojan horse, designed to fool the Soviet forces into moving some ground forces but, above all, drawing their air and naval forces into the attack, and a trap of monumental proportions.
Oxford Green.
Pangbourne Green.
Reading Green.
The points came and went, each muffled red display bringing a reply indicating that all was well.
Ahead of the destroyer and flagship were two minesweepers, HMS Jason and HMS Rye, plying their trade in silence. The Navy was taking every precaution with Spectrum Red.
Behind HMS Charity came the many smaller vessels; Vosper, Thornycroft, and White MTB’s, even two ex-US Navy Elco boats, each of the twenty-eight lesser vessels towing four to six even smaller vessels, each of which had been specially prepared for the huge part they had to play in Spectrum Red.
There had been more when they had first gathered in Findhorn Bay, near Forres, in Scotland, but the waters of the North Sea were rarely benign, and sixteen, plus one each of a White and an Elco, had been claimed by the unfriendly waters. The White had caught fire and burnt out in record time; the Elco had simply floundered and dragged down her five charges.
The area of Findhorn Bay had been constantly overflown by aircraft from the 19th Operational Training Unit, based at nearby RAF Kinloss. The OTU continued to watch over the special convoy of MTBs and smaller ships until Coastal Command units based in Denmark took over the responsibility, and overwatched Force V into the entrance to the Baltic, where they joined with another force of boats from Harwich, each towing three additional vessels.
A handful more had floundered before they passed Helsingborg, also known as Reading Green, before the order came and the lights came on.
Aboard each towing vessel, a range of switches were engaged, causing lights on small masts to illuminate. A few presented failed circuits, but enough worked to do what was needed.
Close at hand, they looked like exactly what they were but, from distance, in the dark, they could possibly be interpreted as an armada about to enter the home waters of the Baltic, the backyard of the Soviet Navy and Soviet Naval Aviation, a matter that the planners at SHAEF knew would not go unchallenged. In fact, they were counting on it.
It had been Tørget’s idea.
There was no way that the Allies would have dared suggest it, of course, but the Swedish leadership were more on side than previously, following the revelations involving the GRU spy, Admiral Søderling. The head of Military Intelligence now had plenty of allies in his own government, all of whom were prepared to do anything to upset the Soviet balance, short of declaring for one side, or the other.
The mission served two purposes.
Firstly, it enabled the Swedes to officially state that they did not permit the Allied intrusion, and actually made efforts to resist against it, although the anti-aircraft batteries that fired skywards had a number of MI officers on site, each aware of special unwritten orders that outlined the general expectation of the Swedish High Command that no shell should come within a thousand feet of any of the attacking aircraft.
As is the habit of these things, not all went to plan, and one Lancaster was fatally struck, crashing on a sliver of Soviet-held Denmark.
The destroyed aircraft and dead crew would later add weight to the information that started to flood into the intelligence and command headquarters of the USSR, evidencing Sweden’s assertion that they had not been complicit and stood firm against the incursions.
The second reason the mission went ‘noisy’ was to ensure that a small group of Russians was wide-awake as Force V passed them.
In the opening moves of the new conflict, a small group of Soviet Naval specialists had been landed on the southern end of Saltholm Island.
They had been tasked with monitoring naval activity in the Øresund, and they had been very successful.