WriterPilot

John Roberts Professional Background and Writing Portfolio

Front Page Article, Times of London, Gulf War

		Friday, 30 November 07 - 07:38 PM (GMT) By John Roberts in Portfolio: Military Aviation

 Front Page Article

The Times of London

The Gulf War, 1991

Mr. Roberts also served as a Gulf War Analyst for BBC-TV

Fighter Pilot Column, Air Forces International

		Tuesday, 27 November 07 - 08:02 PM (GMT) By John Roberts in Portfolio: Military Aviation

Air Forces International Magazine

Nuclear Mission: Budapest Week Newspaper

		Tuesday, 20 November 07 - 07:43 PM (GMT) By John Roberts in Portfolio: Military Aviation

NUCLEAR MISSION

Feature Article by John Roberts

Published as Nuking Hungary in Budapest Week Newspaper, 1995.
Slightly rewritten for later American Publication.

 
(John Roberts is a former USAF fighter pilot who flew three combat tours in the Phantom in Vietnam and led a NATO fighter squadron in the early ‘70s. This is a personal description of the nuclear alert mission his squadron had at that time, followed years later by a visit to his targets in Germany and Hungary after the fall of the Berlin Wall.)

I once had the job of killing people. I suspect I took the lives of at least 200 enemy soldiers and some innocent civilians in Vietnam, as they often occupied the same territory and my bombs couldn't tell the difference. It was impersonal: In two years, I only saw one individual; we shot at each other head-on just before he died, outgunned, under my 100-round-per-second, 20mm strafe pass, no elation, purely professional.

The war was messy, poorly led and poorly done, but valid; the communist movement must be fought on all fronts or it would gain impetus to victory. Asia or Europe could accommodate to the apparent victor, leaving America isolated. I liked my work, I believed in what I was doing, degrees in Soviet studies, reading every book on Vietnam in the English language before I went. It was all part of the intellectual, anti-communist crusade to which I gave my early life. I was a true cold-warrior in a struggle for national survival, a well-earned victory.

After Vietnam I went to Europe and the job took on a new dimension. In NATO, if the big European war started, I would try to fly to Hungary or Germany and drop a thermonuclear bomb on a Soviet Air Base. Once again, unfortunately, the civilians were neighbors. If we did not destroy the Russian fighters on the ground, control the air, have the safety to roam and kill, their overwhelming tank divisions would reach the English Channel and the delicate balance would tip, the world would accept the new hegemony. As in Vietnam, a different battle in the same war, I knew I was defending the crown of Western civilization and its most precious jewel, human freedom. I trained my squadron of 60 young Americans and our 24 Phantoms and I still believed in what I was doing, still part of the same crusade. The world became a much better place.

My turn in the hole came every six weeks. My handful of fighters in England sat silently in their hard shelters around our little building of bedrooms. We studied procedures, routes, tactics and enemy defenses, and endured surprise inspections, standardization drills and scrambles. It had to be right with nukes, so the repetition and evaluation never stopped in the prevention of error and search for weakness. We had practice wars for NATO inspectors. In between, we slept, read books, played cards, laughed at the insanity and harsh realism of nuclear deterrence, ran circles around the fence and got thoroughly bored.

If the balloon went up, we would climb east, away from our doomed families, then let down through the fighters and the blasts for a high-speed, low-level dash across the Iron Curtain to our personal towns. No questions asked, don't think about people on either side or you might not go, just do it. It would be a bucket of worms over there, imagine nukes going off all over the place, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

We wore an eye patch, so one eye would live through the first blinding bomb that popped in our face off schedule. The single, polished silver bullet we carried was a little longer than a man, a little over a foot in diameter. Inside a small door the yield was selectable, from Hiroshima size up to 10 or 15 times as much. Dial-a-Death, another click, another 10,000 people gone. It was crazy, but no one had a better alternative, certainly not the fools shouting "better red than dead."

But then I went home to America and found a boring job and forgot about it. The intense friends and the fun of flying together and the power of purpose were all gone. The Phantoms retired and new missiles took over the one-way missions, much to the anger of crowds of naive, well-defended Europeans. The bombs and the missiles kept the peace. Deterrence worked. The Soviets collapsed before we did.

The villages are not targets anymore. We are friends now. I have lived lately in Germany and Hungary by choice. I married a Hungarian, flew MiGs with my former enemy pilots. I tell my story––and no one holds it against me. The past forced all of us into undesirable roles. We understand and we forgive. The future counts now.

Last year I went to my Hungarian target. With the Russians gone, nothing to replace them, I walked past empty shelters and derelict living quarters, a silent and depressing museum of occupation and some ancient war. It might as well have been the ruins of Huns or Romans or Turks or Nazis, previous invaders so long ago, but the same thing. It was the desolate post-nuclear scene from On the Beach, the quintessence of the 20th century.

I walked on the runway, where my little bomb would have rested momentarily; I tried to envision the instantaneous zap of radiation and ball of white heat that would have engulfed everything within the base and the Hungarian town long before the nuclear wind blew it all away. And, just like 30 years ago in Vietnam, I didn't agonize over the people. I am a human, a father, a lover, an intellect, a citizen defending my country, and I don't need to bathe in unnecessary guilt. We will never know how very, very close we came to a much different, more terrible existence, and I am proud of what I did to prevent it. Yes, war is an ugly thing, but the world harbors weak men made and kept free by the exertions of better men than themselves: John Stuart Mill, 1861. Harsh and intolerant, but not bitter; combat, and that we came so close to losing it all, does that to you. I don’t expect them to understand. The war of survival goes on.

A decade ago I was in Berlin when the Wall was ripped scornfully to pieces. The gates were thrown open and the very next morning, no visa, the hell with it, I struck out for the little East German town on the map that I had once memorized so well.

Sometimes, in those pinnacle days of my spirit, I had dreamed in my sleep about it, remembering the full-throttle run-in, the rushing landmarks, the fuzzy intel picture of the target, the people sleeping in the village—cross the river at minus 15 seconds, then the forest, the left edge of the town, the field boundary, then the runway, down to 50 feet on the radar altimeter, 1,000 feet per second, the red streaks of guns and missiles, gripping the stick to remain alive a bit longer in the black of night. Pickle off the slender weapon with its little parachute, its evil brain ticking softly on the runway, waiting for me to reach safe distance, expensively designed to save my one life before erasing 100,000 in the flash of man's final war. How silly, but I'll take it.

A few people walked and sat around my dreary gray German town, my target, my redemption. A Russian officer, with his oversized cap, mingled along the pavement, more comfortable than I was. I smiled at him, he didn’t know why, and didn’t smile back. I stepped into a dark Gasthaus and asked for a beer. The barman wondered: "Are you from the West?" He could hear the English through my rugged German as he studied my city clothes. "Yes," I said, "just came to have a look. Wie Gehts?” He was cautious: "Well, things are changing. Maybe now we'll see some tourists." I claimed to be the first and threw some real D-Marks on the bar. He laughed bravely and gave a formal bow of welcome: "In that case, let’s celebrate."

He pulled up a bottle of Russian Stolichnaya and poured us a shot. I gestured to the others around the bar. They were quiet; at least one would have been a Stasi informer, but they accepted politely. We drank an ironic farewell toast to the Russians with their own delicious vodka, each of us allowed our own meaning. Someone dared a remark and a furtive, theatrical glance at the door that tickled the rest of us. We finished the bottle, smiled and shook hands. I loved them. "The Ruskies will be gone soon," I promised.

But, I didn't tell them that I took some of the credit because my job had once been to come here alone, in the dead of night, and atomize every thing and every person for miles around, Russian and German alike, into the stratosphere of God's heaven.

Interview with General McCarthy, Air Forces International Magazine

		Tuesday, 20 November 07 - 07:27 PM (GMT) By John Roberts in Portfolio: Military Aviation

  Below are links to a three-page article:
Air Forces International Magazine, 1992, No. 3
John Roberts, Editor
Interview with General James P. McCarthy, USAF
Senior USAF Commander in Europe
by John Roberts

(In this same period, Mr. Roberts also interviewed several other senior officers, Including Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, Commander of British Air Forces in the Gulf War. These senior interviews, plus BBC-TV and Times of London Analyst roles indicate the respect with which Air Forces International Magazine and Editor John Roberts were viewed at the highest military levels.

McCarthy Interview, p. 1.
McCarthy Interview, p. 2
McCarthy Interview, p. 3

When the link opens, you should be able to zoom in on the image to readable size.

Gulf War Strategy: Air Forces International

		Friday, 16 November 07 - 06:52 PM (GMT) By John Roberts in Portfolio: Military Aviation

 Below are links to a six-page article:
Air Forces International Magazine, 1992, No. 3
John Roberts, Editor

Gulf War: The Air Strategy
by John Roberts
(Mr Roberts was also a Gulf War Analyst on BBC-TV and a contributor to The Times of London during the war.)

The TV/newspaper Analyst roles and this article were based on expertise as a combat fighter pilot in Vietnam and experience in covering the military air forces as editor of this magazine.)

Gulf War Strategy, p. 1.
Gulf War Strategy, p. 2
Gulf War Strategy, p. 3
Gulf War Strategy, p. 4
Gulf War Strategy, p. 5
Gulf War Strategy, p. 6

When the link opens, you should be able to click on the image and zoom into readable size.

... More items are available in my News Archive