Author’s Note

Hullo Russia, Goodbye England is a fiction based on fact. The reader is entitled to know which is which.

The major events are true. References to Bomber Command’s operations in World War Two, the formation of Vulcan bomber squadrons by the RAF, the policy of nuclear deterrence in the Cold War, and the American attack on Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 – these all happened in much the way I have described. However, there was no Vulcan squadron numbered 409, and no RAF Kindrick in Lincolnshire. Air America was only one of many CIA-owned airlines; for the sake of simplicity I allowed it to represent them all.

Accounts of the design and performance of aircraft are as accurate as I could make them. This includes details of the Blue Steel stand-off nuclear weapon, the Thor ballistic nuclear missile, the AEO’s jammers (Red Shrimp, Blue Diver and so on), simulators, Micky Finn exercises, electromagnetic pulse, nuclear targets in the Soviet Union, and Vulcan training flights to Benbecula and to Rockall, including the presence of Russian trawlers engaged in electronic snooping on Nato activities.

The characters are fictional, although some of them have been around for years. Skull and Air Commodore Bletchley first appeared in my novel Piece of Cake, and then turned up again in A Good Clean Fight, while Silk played a big part in Damned Good Show, as did Zoë. Silk’s morale-boosting tour of American war factories, and his visits to U.S. Air Force flying schools, are invented; so is the hectoring interrogation he gets when he rejoins Bomber Command.

But Silk’s generous treatment by Ronald Colman fits the facts. During the war, the British colony in Hollywood was very hospitable to passing RAF aircrew, and I have not exaggerated the warmth of the welcome that beautiful stars gave to young pilots.

The eyepatches are not fiction. The Vulcan cockpit had windshield blinds which could be used to hide a nuclear flash; but as an extra safeguard against total blindness, aircrew were indeed issued with an eyepatch. By 1962, Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) and Operational Readiness Platforms (ORP) were standard procedures on Vulcan squadrons. When bombers were scrambled, the thrust of their engines was truly massive: on one base it repositioned the town rubbish dump, unwisely sited near the perimeter fence. Ejection seats – ‘bang seats’ – were provided only for pilot and co-pilot. In time of trouble, the rest of the crew were expected to bale out through the door in front of the nose wheel – by no means an easy exit, given the height, speed and perhaps damaged condition of the aircraft.

The title is apt. If the policy of nuclear deterrence failed and Vulcans were sent to retaliate, they would never turn back until their task was done; and then turning back would be pointless, because every home base would have been obliterated. Few aircrew, if any, seem to have lost any sleep over this bleak scenario. Perhaps their maturity and experience shaped their outlook. Many had served in Bomber Command since the early days of World War Two, when they flew such vintage machines as the Battle or the Hampden. Silk’s arrival on 409 Squadron brought the average age of Quinlan’s crew below forty. This situation was not unknown. Bomber Command liked seasoned performers in its nuclear aircraft.

The Cold War needed no invention: the reality of MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction – was chilling enough. Reports by the Conservative Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing are fact. Captain Red Black’s task – to bomb East Berlin while, within a minute, it was being destroyed by two Thor missiles – was part of the strategy known as ‘cross-targeting’. An official history of the Cuban Missile Crisis comments: ‘The pilot assigned this task is remembered as the individual who sweated the most during cockpit alert.’

I had no need to embroider that Crisis: the bare facts provide ample material. It is true that the telephone link between SAC HQ and Bomber Command HQ fell silent; that SAC signals were transmitted in plain English for the benefit of Soviet ears; and that B52s flew threateningly close to Soviet borders. In mid-Crisis, SAC – without warning the Soviet Union – launched an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific, later revealing that it was unarmed. At about the same time, the US radar network reported a missile launch in Cuba, aimed at America – a radar technician had mistakenly inserted a test tape into the system. Luckily someone aborted the process of knee-jerk retaliation. That was not the only cock-up.

General Curtis LeMay was, by his own account, the most hawkish of hawks. On the other side, Kruschev was indeed persuaded that Americans would mistake Cuban missiles for palm trees; and Russian forces (to protect the missile sites) turned out to be far greater than he had expected. Generals always need more troops, sometimes to protect the troops they already have. By contrast the British response to the Crisis was laid-back: RAF nuclear bombers were not sent to their dispersal fields.

The acronym SMIT is invented but the policy it stood for is not: British (and American) nuclear defence was based on the assumption that mounting international tension would allow time to prepare for war. Preparation is one thing; action is another. The survival of Great Britain might well have hinged on whether or not Prime Minister Macmillan was on the road. There was a vital link between his Rolls-Royce and the Automobile Association. All messages to and from Macmillan’s car-phone – cutting-edge technology in those days – went via the AA network, normally used to communicate with its motorcycle patrolmen. If Russia attacked Britain, the AA would find the PM and tell him.

A generation is growing up which did not know the Cold War. They may find it hard to imagine what life was like for aircrew on a Vulcan squadron: endlessly rehearsing the task of penetrating deep into Soviet air defences; knowing by heart the street plans of Russian cities; shaping their lives around the possibility that a scramble order could, at any moment, send them airborne to wipe out those cities, with very little chance of return. Hullo Russia, Goodbye England can convey only a fraction of the flying skills, the high endeavour and the mental strength that the job demanded. The scramble order never came. Nuclear deterrence worked. We should be thankful.

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While working on Hullo Russia, Goodbye England, I was fortunate to meet Air Commodore Brian Sills. He flew the Victor nuclear bomber in the period that included the Cuban Missile Crisis; later he was Station Commander at RAF Waddington, where four Vulcan squadrons were based, and he regularly flew that aircraft. His expert advice has been invaluable in helping me to avoid pitfalls and inaccuracies. Any errors that appear are entirely my fault.

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