Whilst the number was an exaggeration, the following will give the reader some information on the nations who slowly united against the spread of communism.
Active forces = men & equipment supplied that forms fighting units, within the theatre indicated.
Service Units = manpower supplied, conditional non-combat use.
Home service = Also, using troops to relieve US forces in situ.
About the Author
Colin Gee was born on 18th May 1957 in Haslar Naval Hospital, Gosport, UK, but spent the first two years of his life at the naval base in Malta.
His parents divorced when he was approaching three years of age, and he went to live with his grandparents in Berkshire, who brought him up.
On 9th June 1975, he joined the Fire Service and, after a colourful career, retired on 19th May 2007, having achieved the rank of Sub-Officer, Watch Commander, or to be politically correct for the ego-tripping harridans in HR, Watch Manager ‘A’.
After thirty-two years in the Fire Service, reality suddenly hit, and Colin found himself in need of a proper job!
As of today, Colin is permanently employed doing night shifts for NHS Out of Hours service.
At this moment in time Colin has a wife, two daughters, one step-daughter, two step-sons and two grandsons, called Lucas and Mason, who are avid Manchester United fans, although neither know it yet.
Four cats complete the home ensemble.
He has been a wargamer for most of his life, hence the future plans for a Red Gambit wargaming series.
In 1992, Colin joined the magistracy, having wandered in from the street to ask how someone becomes a beak. He served until 2005. The experience taught him the true difference between justice and the law, the former being what he would have preferred to administer.
In his time, Colin has dabbled with keyboard, piano, and drums, but actually managed to get a reasonable note out of a trombone.
He always promised himself that he would write something but, apart from a short story or two, it never happened.
Until now.
Red Gambit was first researched over ten years ago, but work and life changes prevented it from blossoming.
Now it has become a projected six books, instead of one. As more research was done, and more lines of writing opened themselves up, the need for a series became inevitable.
Though the books are fiction, fact is a constant companion, particularly within the biographies, where real-life events are often built into the lives of fictitious characters.
Colin writes for the pleasure it brings him and, hopefully, the reader. The books are not intended to be modern day ‘Wuthering Heights’ or ‘War and Peace’. They contain a story that Colin thinks is worth the telling, and to which task he has set his inexperienced hand. The biographies are part of the whole experience that he hopes to bring the reader.
Enjoy them all, and thank you for reading.
The Red Gambit Series
Opening Moves
Breakthrough
Stalemate
Impasse
End Game
Check Mate
Extras available on the website www.redgambitseries.com and also on www.facebook.com – group name ‘Red Gambit’.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/167182160020751/
Please register and join the group or the forums.
If on the website, remember only to visit the areas relevant to your book or you may pick up spoilers.
‘Impasse’ – the story continues.
Read the first chapter of ‘Impasse’ now.
Chapter 103 – THE SUNDERLAND
In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it.
The Sunderland Mk V was a big aircraft, the four American Wasp engines giving her the power previously lacking in the Mk III.
Not for nothing was she called the Flying Porcupine, her hull bristling with defensive machine-guns, fourteen in total, manned by her eleven man crew. Such arnament was required for a lumbering leviathan like the Short Sunderland, whose maximum speed, even with the Wasps, was a little over two hundred miles an hour.
In the German War, encounters with enemy fighters had been mercifully rare and, in the main, enemy contacts were solely with the Sunderland’s standard fare; submarines.
This Mk V also carried depth charges and radar pods, making her a deadly adversary in the never-ending game of hide and seek between aircraft and submersibles.
Sunderland NS-X was out on a mission, having flown off from the Castle Archdale base of the RAF’s 201 Squadron. The men had once been in 246 Squadron but, when that squadron ws disbanded, the men of NS-X, all SAAF volunteers, had been one of two complete crews to be transferred to 201 Squadron.
During World War Two, there had been a secret protocol between the British and Eire governments, which permitted flights over Irish territory though a narrow corridor. It ran westwards from Castle Archdale, Northern Ireland, across Irish sovereign territory, extending the operating range of Coastal Command considerably, and bringing more area under the protection of their Liberators, Catalinas and Sunderlands.
The agreement was still in force.
NS-X had followed this route out into the Atlantic, turning north and rounding Malin Point, before heading into its search area around St Kilda.
A Soviet submarine had been attacked and damaged the previous day, somewhere roughly fifty miles west of Lewis, and the Admiralty were rightly jittery, given the importance of the convoy heading into the area in the next ten hours.
There was little good news.
The RCN corvette which had found and attacked the submarine was no longer answering, and was feared lost with all hands. Other flying boats and craft were assigned to the dual mission, all hoping to either rescue, or recover, depending on how fate had dealt with the Canadian sailors, as well as attack and sink the enemy vessel.
Flight Lieutenant Cox, an extremely experienced pilot, hummed loudly, as was his normal habit when concentrating.
Having just had a course check, and finding themselves a small distance off their search pattern, he eased the huge aircraft a few points to starboard, before settling back down to the extended boredom of searching for a needle in a choice of haystacks.
The Sunderland carried many comforts, including bunks, a toilet, and a galley, the latter of which yielded up fresh steaming coffee and a bacon sandwich, brought up from below by Flight Sergeant Crozier.
“There you go, Skipper, get your laughing gear around that, man. I’ll take over for a moment.”
South African Crozier wasn’t qualified to pilot the aircraft, but that didn’t trouble the old hands of NS-X. He flopped into the second seat and took a grip, permitting Cox to relinquish the column to the gunner.
“Skipper, I think Dusty is an ill man. He’s wracked up on a bunk, looking very green.”
Dusty Miller was the second pilot, and he had disappeared off to sort out a stomach cramp, about an hour beforehand.
“Too much flippin Jameson’s last night, that’s what that is, Arsey”, the words came out despite having to work their way around large lumps of bread and bacon.