In October the Russians launched the first 'Sputnik' earth satellite. It was at about this time that the Russian Beagle overflew us, presumably taking photographs. When we spoke to them on the tie-line the Americans were very edgy about what the Russians were doing. For everyone doing our class of work it was a time of extreme tension.
Later in October, as I recall it, there was a night which I shall never forget. My watch commenced in its usual boring way and, with nothing unusual to see, I took a break for a cup of coffee. No sooner did I put the cup to my lips than the Duty NCO came rushing in shouting "Sir, you'd better have a look at this!" So 'Sir' went into the C & R room and sat himself in front of a PPI. There, clear as crystal, were several clusters of aircraft climbing from areas where we suspected East German airfields to be. As I watched, more joined them, and more still. I opened another telling-line to Group as these plots were too many for one person to tell. The Duty NCO fetched in the lads who were on rest just to watch. Rothwesten came on the phone, so did Brockzetel, we could all see them. By now these clusters were in tens and, worse, all turned west at the same time. Group came on and wanted to know more. I told them what I could and estimated that there were over 100 aircraft heading our way, possibly many more. They were approaching on a broad front. Group rang again and asked me to wait on the line to be connected to someone else. On this crackly line I heard a voice saying, "You're through to the forward radar station now, Sir." I was asked by this voice to state the situation quickly and briefly. This I did, giving position, top and bottom altitude limits, and Georef limits of the still growing aircraft numbers. He then rang off. Group came on again, so did Rothwesten (who I had to tell to hold), and Group asked if I could take fighters under control. I said I was alone and hadn't got a cabin crew. "Are you a controller?" they asked. I said "Yes." They told me to call out assistance and then said that two pairs of night fighters were being scrambled for me to control! I told the Duty NCO to get the Duty Officer at Borgentreich on the line and to ask him to get the CO to call me PDQ.5 Rothwesten were swearing at me and started to sound off about what they were going to do in a very trigger happy fashion. The voice said he was a Colonel and asked what I was going to do. I said "Nothing, these plots are on the other side of the border where the Ruskis can do what they want." The man exploded in a cloud of extremely fruity American vernacular and rang off.
In the meantime the 'raid' started to drop 'window' to make it look bigger than it was, and to try and confuse our radar, but my lads were able to ignore most of these false plots. Group came on again and told me to go to a cabin as they were about to hand over fighters to me. The CO came on. I very briefly explained the situation and told him (I didn't mince my words) to "Get a watch up here bloody quick." I took a scratch cabin crew into the Chief Controller's cabin where I had maximum communications with the outside world and left the Duty NCO in charge of plotting. I put one lad as my Ops 'B' to take phone calls (he had done it before) and others took up control cabin positions. After patching phone lines through to me from the C & R room I spoke to Group who at once handed over two pairs of night fighters. I picked them up easily as they were the only aircraft in our Zone. I took both pairs east and then turned them on to north-south patrol lines comfortably on our side of the border. The Ruskis kept coming. Everyone on watch was beginning to sweat because we were central in the potential line of attack. We all knew that once we had said they're coming, and they had crossed the border, we would be their first target and, our job done, all we could do then would be to head west as best we could and await orders. We thought we were going to go west, in another sense, within the next 15 minutes. The 'raid', now no more than 20 miles from the
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5 PDQ = Pretty Damned Quick.
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