Review by Takis Diakoumis.
Former RAF Lightning and Phantom pilot Richard Pike adds another title to Grub Street’s series with this recent compilation, Cold War Boys. This is Pike’s seventh title in the expanding series, having previously enthralled us with vivid tales from Lightning, Hunter and Phantom crews, including his own personal accounts. Cold War Boys weaves through a variety of crew exploits of flying classic British Cold War metal like Lightnings, Buccaneers, Valiants and Tornados in the now unfathomable tense years of nuclear alert where the threat was never a hypothetical.
As with others in the series, Cold War Boys lets you dip in, out and across as every one of the 20 chapters tells separate and unique stories. I started my own journey deep into the book at Chapter 15 with ‘Valiant Days’. RAF V-Force bombers held the line as Britain’s core nuclear deterrent against the Soviets during the early decades of sensitive Cold War brinkmanship. Crews standing at 15-minute Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) with nuclear-armed bombers were members of a very special club. Their critical role also meant they were only ever told specific information to support their part and nothing more. ‘Valiant Days’ unpacks David Langan’s part as a Valiant co-pilot in the days around and then following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963. Achieving combat ready status with his crew, David would be on QRA wondering what would happen when the call to launch for real was made, what would they return to if they returned at all and acknowledging the ground crews’ ‘special type of courage’ as they knew their fate all too well when the QRA was launched.
Cold War Boys includes a number of more amusing anecdotes with the author squarely in the middle of the action. Chapter 10’s mixed bag of events finishes with Pike’s wingman, Roger, carefully laying out his packed lunch, including a hard-boiled egg, across a cramped Lightning cockpit just as the Victor tanker in their formation directs an unscheduled fuel top-up given the weather ahead. Holding position in increasing turbulence behind the Victor as both Lightnings begin to take on fuel, Roger’s probe breaks off and both Lightnings have to disengage and divert on low fuel. Landing at an Italian civilian airport, Roger’s lunch lands all over the cockpit floor.
Cold War intercepts of Soviet aircraft testing UK air defences, through the Mediterranean, or even transiting to Cuba, were a regular event for any QRA fighter crew. Phantom pilot Sean Withams was in the middle of handing over to the relief QRA crew when an alert was broadcast that two ‘zombies’ were coming across the North Cape. Airborne within two minutes of receiving the scramble order, the Phantom raced to the designated vector, getting to radar contact at 70 miles from the target and finally visual contact of what turned out to be a pair of Bear-Ds, the maritime reconnaissance version of the venerable Tu-95. The Phantom crew began to take their pictures of the intercepted Bears, watching as the Soviet crew did likewise from their perch. Crews exchanged waves as Sean recovered his Phantom to Keflavik in Iceland to be treated to an American breakfast with the resident and famed USAF 57th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron.
Cold War Boys is an especially satisfying Cold War journey. Also among the chapters are stories from the First Gulf War, the Falklands and, of course, a divided Germany. All individual stories, having been carefully selected, capture the tone, tension and nervousness of the period effectively. This helps give the reader a peek into how crews reacted to their very serious mission and purpose. Covering such an array of aircraft and their crews through the decades, up to the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991, works exceptionally well and provides the Boys series a solid alternative format (most earlier titles being more closely focused on single aircraft subjects). The preservation of Cold War history is an ongoing challenge; Richard Pike’s contribution to it will help future generations see directly through the cockpit of the crews that held the watch.
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