Play it again, SAM!

Germany in the early 1980s. The cold war has reached a new climax. Along a line stretching from the Baltic to the Alps, armies of NATO and the Warsaw pact are staring each other each waiting for the other to make a mistake, the inhibition to strike lower than at any other time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. One of the potential battlegrounds are the vast plains and gently rolling hills of Northern Germany, with the city of Hamburg with its vast deepwater port beckoning as the main prize. Both sides know this, consequently, in the decades since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, NATO and the Bundeswehr, the Western German Federal Armed Forces, have ringed the city with scores of army barracks, depots, and air bases. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the National Peoples‘ Army of Eastern Germany, together with the Soviet Forces in Germany, had amassed an entire army corps each to push down the Elbe Valley and into the Northern German plains. Both sides were training hard to be ready to strike at a moment’s notice should the Cold War turn hot. And it was a badly kept secret that many of the defensive installations around Hamburg had nuclear weapons aimed at them.

Where it all started. This little house on the outskirts of Hamburg was my home for the first 12 years of my life. The event described in this article took place near a wooded area at the edge of our village.

This was the world I was born into. And to be honest, I didn’t notice much of it while growing up. Sure, every now and then, Starfighters and later Tornados of the German Air Force would thunder over the little village in the Hamburg commuter belt where I grew up, or you might find the road to Stade, the closest actual city, blocked by a column of tanks, mostly during the large spring or fall manoeuvres, but apart from that, it was a normal childhood. Anyway, I personally have no recollection of the following story, but both my father and my grandmother repeatedly told me about this, and given their at times rocky relationship, it seems unlikely that they would fabricate something like this, or keep up the charade for over thirty years. 

The event I’m referring to must have happened in 1982 or 1983, although I’m not quite sure. It can’t have been much earlier, or much later for that matter. It was a spring day anyway when my dad came back either from whatever job he was working in at the time, or from some errand, when he noticed something weird at the very edge of Dollern, the little one-horse village we used to call our home. There, at the edge of a small forest, and barely visible from the main road, was something. My dad, being the nosy bastard he was, immediately turned off the main road onto the little dirt path running along the edge of the forest. It was when he turned onto that path that he saw what it was. Standing there, clearly accentuated against the sky from his new vantage point, was a missile launcher, its four launch its four launch rails each loaded with one missile, all pointed skywards, looking for their next target.

A Rapier battery during Exercise Neptune Warrior 2006 waiting for its next "customer" - Definitely not something you want to have pointed at you.
Image :SAC Devine/MOD - Published under Open Government License v1.0

Images are downloadable at high resolution, made available at http://www.defenceimagery.mod.uk for reuse under the OGL (Open Government License).

This in itself wasn’t unusual. Just a little further up the road from our village, in the city of Stade I mentioned above, was the HQ of a German Armoured Division, with its satellite garrisons and depots spread across the surrounding towns, and large scale excercises were not uncommon, especially given our proximity to the inner-German border. The village my family lived in was a little under two hours away from the Iron Curtain. Some of our more distant relatives lived even closer, less than fifteen minutes from the border. Had the war gotten hot, they’d probably have had a Soviet armoured column in their neighbourhood within an hour of hostilities kicking off. This proximity to the border also meant that both Bundeswehr soldiers as well as soldiers of other NATO nations were really seen as partners or friends, despite the fact that they were „technically“ still an occupying force. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. Despite the cordial relationships, no army would let some weird looking German with a Saddam Hussein memorial beard simply drive up to one of their missile batteries, and as he got closer, the launcher swung around, depressing its launch rails until all four „birds“ were trained squarely on my dad’s car. At the same time, a soldier in full combat gear literally came out of the woodwork, or rather the well camouflaged position he and his unit had established there. I am reliably informed that my fathers first grey hairs began to sprout then and there. I was never able to ascertain however whether he regretted not wearing his brown pants that day.

Yep, definitely not something you want to find aimed at your car...
Image: Army/MOD - Published under Open Government License v1.0

Images are downloadable at high resolution, made available at http://www.defenceimagery.mod.uk for reuse under the OGL (Open Government License).

Anyway, once the initial shock had subsided on both sides, my dad began chatting to the soldier, who actually turned out to be the commander of the battery. Turns out they were not German after all, but British, members of what until recently had been the British Army on the Rhine. The missile they were operating was the Rapier, a short to medium range surface to air missile (SAM). Their battery, together with most of the other missile batteries of their unit, had been deployed to our neck of the woods as part of a large NATO exercise. I found out later that the armoured division I mentioned earlier would hold its general position until British troops could be brought up from the rear to guard the bases along the Elbe estuary, before joining with other Bundeswehrs unit to counterattack any Warsaw Pact forces swinging around the southern edge of Hamburg.

Now, while the battle plan was surely elaborate, it appears that this unit had outrun its supply lines, as the commander asked my dad whether there was any place around where his men could get a bite to eat. Apparently, they weren’t too keen on their combat rations. At the time, the only place that served food in our little village was something calling itself a pub, but was actually more of a dive bar. My dad had a better idea. He quickly drove home, and after a quick war council with my grandmother, they set about making a large load of scrambled eggs with bacon for the soldiers manning the battery. While my grandmother was busy in the kitchen, my dad loaded two large pallets of beer into the back of his car, as well as several packages of bread that my dad always kept stocked in the house. With his car smelling like a breakfast roll, my dad drove back to the battery.
By the time he arrived at the turn-off, he noticed that the security posture had changed, and that two guards, supported by a well-camouflaged machine gun nest now guarded the intersection. Also, once again, the Rapier launcher swung around and took aim at my dad as soon as he entered the little path. Unbeknownst to him, Rapier was an optically tracked missile, so it could basically be aimed, and fired, at anything although it could also be coupled with the then state-of-the-art Blindfire radar system. This time around, however, the missiles were quickly turned skyward again as the operator recognised my dad’s car. The guards also waved him through. My dad was never quite sure afterwards what was more welcome when he unloaded his car: The food or the beer. Either way, he was invited to stay with the battery for a while, while soldiers quickly decimated the scrambled eggs, bacon and bread. As for the beer, while every soldier grabbed a can, the rest was quickly spirited away to a shady spot in the forest for later. By the time my dad left, the plastic containers he’d used to transport the food had been so thoroughly cleaned that they looked like they’d been through a dishwasher. The leftovers had been stored in ration tins for later consumption. On a final, almost monty-pthon-esque note, by the time my dad was in his car, and just reversing back onto the path, the long overdue supply convoy finally showed up, forcing my dad to do some creative driving to get around them.
And that’s basically it. Granted, it’s no grand revelation, no deep dive into human psychology, not even a witty commentary on local, or global issues. It’s just one of those little unusual stories that every family has, and I just thought it was high time I told it. Unfortunately, there are pictures, but then again, that shouldn’t really surprise anyone. We’re still talking about a military unit here, and at the time, the Rapier missile, possibly already supported by a Blindfire radar, was one of the hottest bits of kit around. But that’s just what life was like in the waning years of the Cold War. Have you got any similar stories in your family? Why don’t you leave it down in the comment section, I’m always eager to hear about such things.