In Washington, the Kennedy people were so glad they were still alive and that the USA had got away so lightly — less than five million dead and injured, between 2 and 3 percent of the population — that they honestly believed that God was on their side. As JFK toured the outskirts of the bombed cities of the north east and the deep south he talked about reconstruction, and began to build the myth of the great war of national self-preservation that the USA had been ‘forced to wage’ by an implacable, evil enemy who’d launched an unprovoked, massive pre-meditated assault on the last best hope for civilisation. The sacred soil of the United States of America had been stained with the precious blood of its citizens, scorched by the fire of the red dragon of Marxist-Leninist evil but the American people had prevailed. America was great, its destiny never more manifest, the rightness of its cause self-evidently proven. He might have been Caesar returning from Gaul, except he wasn’t.
In the winter of 1962-63 Kennedy and his aides were a little bewildered by the first murmurings of discontent from their surviving European allies. Initially, the Washington cabal wrote this dissonance off as a passing whimper. American charity and wisdom would make all well soon enough. This was a new age and the world was to be rebuilt in an American image. The new Romans had arrived and the world was going to be a better place in years to come.
Kennedy’s people ought to have known that their ‘friends’ would never, ever forgive them for their hubris. The problem was that they genuinely believed they sat at God’s right hand when in fact in the United Kingdom and France the survivors now viewed the Kennedy Administration as a monster kneeling obediently at the Devil’s left hind claw.
If Kennedy’s people had bothered to read the early assessments of their handiwork they might have repented sooner.
This is an extract from one of the first damage assessments dated 15th December 1962 and initialled by JFK on 23rd December 1962.
For the Eyes of the Senior Command List Only
Strategic Air Command
Damage Assessment/United Kingdom/Serial 006412UK
Date: 12/15/62
Summary Report Status: Provisional
Command Summary
Further to Serial 0050788UK a more comprehensive damage assessment has now been carried out by teams on the ground with the cooperation of the UK Interim Emergency Administration under acting Prime Minister Heath.
The Attack
Aerial and ground surveys now confirm that twenty-three fully generated nuclear warheads detonated over or on the territory or the inshore waters of the United Kingdom.
19 (Nineteen) of these warheads were probably delivered via SS-4 or SS-5 MRBMs and four (4) by freefall bombs by Soviet Bisons which evaded the RAF fighter screen over the Norwegian Sea. Surviving RAF intercept documentation indicates that seventeen (17) of twenty-one (21) Soviet bombers were shot down short of targeting range, and the remaining hostiles were destroyed after they had made their attacks.
The attack fell mainly on London, south eastern counties and the east coast counties where US and British nuclear strike assets were located. However, there were also three strikes in the north west of England.
London. The city was hit by at least four (4) warheads in the 1–2 megaton range. All four strikes were airbursts at heights of between one thousand and three thousand feet.
Kent and Sussex. The Medway Estuary was targeted by a single 1 megaton ground burst 0.2 miles south of the dockyard complex at Chatham. Gravesend was also targeted by a single ground burst. Further airbursts targeted Manston and Canterbury.
Essex. There was a single airburst at an altitude of approximately two thousand feet one mile north of the centre of Southend.
East Anglia (including Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire). Two (2) ground burst strikes and three (3) airburst strikes appear to have been directed at US and RAF strategic assets in the region. Both ground bursts were in relatively open countryside. One struck four miles from Mildenhall, the other six miles from Ipswich. All three airbursts detonated in the general vicinity of air bases.
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. At least three (3) airburst strikes fell short of their intended targets detonating over coastal waters. However, one of these airbursts largely destroyed the city of Hull. Three (3) further airbursts targeted RAF V-Bomber bases. The city of Lincoln was destroyed by one airburst, and the cities of York and Leeds were severely damaged by airbursts respectively seven and six miles distant.
North West England. An airburst over the Mersey Estuary largely destroyed the city of Liverpool and its western conurbations. A second airburst approximately five miles south of Runcorn is assumed to have fallen short of either Liverpool or Barrow-in-Furness. This latter may have been the target of a third airburst seven miles to its east over Morecombe Bay. This blast caused widespread damage to Barrow and to the towns around the Bay.
Significant areas of the United Kingdom (Scotland, Wales and the Northern Ireland, the South West, West Midlands, and areas of Northern and North Eastern England) were not directly targeted and remain both economically and militarily intact. However, key industrial assets have been lost, and governmental, health, and transportation links have been severely impacted. In large areas civil order has broken down and the writ of the UKIEA is effective only in the undamaged parts of the nation.
Industry and economy
Immediately after the attack industrial production/capacity fell to approximately 10 % of previous level (USA equivalent estimate is 85 %).
Within 30 days of the attack industrial capacity had recovered to 30 % (USA equivalent is 93 %).
Projected 90 day recovery estimate is 35–40 % (USA 94–96 %).
London and Liverpool were the two major national dock/trading hubs and both of these are currently dormant. However, Southampton, Bristol and Glasgow and other ports are gearing up to fill the gap.
A large number of air bases survived the attack and the reestablishment of telecommunications linkages previously routed through London has been assigned high priority by the UKIEA.
Disruption of power generation was minimal but the distribution grid is currently operating at 15 % capacity meaning large areas of the country are subject to blackouts or have no power at all.
Preliminary estimates are that 50 % plus of all housing stock was either destroyed or so badly damaged as to be uninhabitable in the current wintery conditions prevailing across northern Europe.
Aid from around the world is only just beginning to arrive in the United Kingdom. Bottlenecks at the available ports are anticipated, and the breakdown of law and order in wide areas of the country particularly in those regions on the edge of strike zones, combined with the dislocation of the road and rail system, complicated by the early onset of winter, threatens the distribution of food and other essential supplies.