James Blunt 'Stopped World War 3'

[Cobbydaler]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11753050

No attack would have been necessary. He could have just sung to them - they'd have thrown down their weapons in order to cover their ears...

[martyh]

gives a good insight into how gungho the yanks can be though...shoot first and all that

[Hugh]

A little hyperbole on the part of the headline writers, methinks (they did the same thing in the Sunday Times).

As both stories pointed out further down the story

Asked if following the order would have risked starting World War 3, Blunt, who was a 25-year-old cavalry officer at the time, replied: "Absolutely. And that's why we were querying our instruction from an American general".
Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

That sense of moral judgement is drilled into us as soldiers in the British army”

End Quote James Blunt
"Fortunately, up on the radio came General Mike Jackson, whose exact words at the time were, 'I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War 3', and told us why don't we sugar off down the road, you know, encircle the airfield instead

So the headline should read "General Mike Jackson stops something that may possibly, if lots of other bad things happened as well, have led to battles between Russian and Nato troops"......

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Hugh

A little hyperbole on the part of the headline writers, methinks (they did the same thing in the Sunday Times).

As both stories pointed out further down the story

So the headline should read "General Mike Jackson stops something that may possibly, if lots of other bad things happened as well, have led to battles between Russian and Nato troops"......

quite, i think starting ww3 is bit of an exageration

[Chris]

Nevertheless, some gung-ho Yank general gave an order to fire on the Russians.

Thankfully, British subtlety won the day - surround the airfield, cut off the supply lines, and then trade food and water for access to the runway.

It's how we built an empire, y'know, old boy.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by martyh

gives a good insight into how gungho the yanks can be though...shoot first and all that

Mmm, I watched the documentary "1983: The brink of apocalypse" on Discovery yesterday. Seems we got really close to an all out nuclear strike by the Russians on 8th October 1983 when their computers mistakenly saw missile launches against them that turned out to be cloud reflections and only the action by one man overruling the auotmatic systems stopped an retaliatry launch.

On this near-fateful day, a series of accidents nearly unleashed the Third World War. Senior figures in the Soviet Union had convinced themselves that they were about to come under nuclear attack from the West, and the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal of missiles, bombers and submarines were put on maximum alert, ready to launch a full nuclear retaliatory attack on Western Europe and the US. Armageddon beckoned.

Scary.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Mmm, I watched the documentary "1983: The brink of apocalypse" on Discovery yesterday. Seems we got really close to an all out nuclear strike by the Russians on 8th October 1983 when their computers mistakenly saw missile launches against them that turned out to be cloud reflections and only the action by one man overruling the auotmatic systems stopped an retaliatry launch.



Scary.

Yes Stanislav petrov. I read a book from the 1970's by General Sir John Hacket called Third World War which predicted conflict due to the impending collapse of the Soviet Union, which in terms of time lines was freigheningly accurate, we are lucky Gorbachev became leader when he did.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Mmm, I watched the documentary "1983: The brink of apocalypse" on Discovery yesterday. Seems we got really close to an all out nuclear strike by the Russians on 8th October 1983 when their computers mistakenly saw missile launches against them that turned out to be cloud reflections and only the action by one man overruling the auotmatic systems stopped an retaliatry launch.



Scary.

yep saw the same one ,very scary indeed