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Timeline 10/27/62 #1
Operation Anadyr
The Cuban Missiles Crisis didn’t end peacefully and the 'swinging sixties' didn't happen. On Saturday 27th October 1962 American and Soviet geopolitical brinkmanship resulted in the most terrible war in human history. The forever changed world that remained when the thermonuclear fires had burned themselves out is the world of ‘Timeline 10/27/62’.
‘Operation Anadyr’ is Book 1 of the alternative history series Timeline 10/27/62.
‘Operation Anadyr’ is about the first hours of that alternative history of the world. It is about living through the cataclysm, and wondering how it happened. How did the unthinkable happen? How could our leaders let it happen? How does one quantify the magnitude of the disaster? And what of the survivors living with the aftermath of a world gone mad? ‘Operation Anadyr’ confronts these questions. In ‘Operation Anadyr’ the anatomy of the disaster is writ plain and the men and women who survive it begin to find their voices.
* * *
Why Timeline 10/27/62? Because that date is a very significant date in my life and in the lives of everybody else in the world alive today because on Saturday 27th October 1962 World War III almost started. World War III probably wouldn’t have lasted very long because one side would have been swiftly obliterated in the first 24 hours of a cataclysm that would have left vast tracts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabited and uninhabitable for decades to come. Perhaps, a quarter of the world’s population would have died in the firestorm or in the starvation and the plagues that would have ensued in the following weeks and months.
In the October War of 1962 the hammer of the gods would have fallen upon the territories of the Soviet Union, central and Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, upon the extremities of continental North America. In the Soviet Union and in Europe from Paris to Warsaw, from Prague to Berlin, from the Alps to the Baltic, across the Low Countries and parts of the United Kingdom the thermonuclear fire would have burned with a merciless flame. Scandinavia might have escaped relatively untouched, likewise southern France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Ireland and possibly parts of England, Wales and Scotland.
The ‘Cuban Missiles’ War would have been a Man made global catastrophe like no other in human history. In the aftermath, the USA, mourning the dead in half-a-dozen wrecked cities would have been the last major industrial and military power left standing. That world could never, ever be the world we know today.
How close did we actually come to the edge of the abyss? Much closer than most people like to contemplate. On Saturday 27th October 1962, north east of Cuba, the commander of Soviet submarine B-59 had to be talked out of firing a nuclear-tipped torpedo at the American destroyer USS Beale. That’s how close we came to World War III!
The Captain of the B-59 was a man called Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky. He gave the order for a nuclear warhead to be fitted to a torpedo.
In that era Soviet naval doctrine governing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons onboard a warship at sea required the authorisation of three officers: the captain, the executive officer, and the vessel’s political officer. B-59’s political officer, Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov signed off on starting World War III but fortunately for us all, the submarine’s second-in-command, Captain 2nd Rank Vasili Arkhipov, dissented and Armageddon was narrowly averted.
Timeline 10/27/62 is an alternative history of the modern world in which nobody ever got to know the name of Vasili Arkhipov because he died in the first act of the most terrible war in history.
‘Operation Anadyr’ is Book 1 of the alternative history series Timeline 10/27/62.
‘Operation Anadyr’ is about the first hours of that alternative history of the world. It is about living through the cataclysm, and wondering how it happened. How did the unthinkable happen? How could our leaders let it happen? How does one quantify the magnitude of the disaster? And what of the survivors living with the aftermath of a world gone mad? ‘Operation Anadyr’ confronts these questions. In ‘Operation Anadyr’ the anatomy of the disaster is writ plain and the men and women who survive it begin to find their voices.
* * *
Why Timeline 10/27/62? Because that date is a very significant date in my life and in the lives of everybody else in the world alive today because on Saturday 27th October 1962 World War III almost started. World War III probably wouldn’t have lasted very long because one side would have been swiftly obliterated in the first 24 hours of a cataclysm that would have left vast tracts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabited and uninhabitable for decades to come. Perhaps, a quarter of the world’s population would have died in the firestorm or in the starvation and the plagues that would have ensued in the following weeks and months.
In the October War of 1962 the hammer of the gods would have fallen upon the territories of the Soviet Union, central and Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, upon the extremities of continental North America. In the Soviet Union and in Europe from Paris to Warsaw, from Prague to Berlin, from the Alps to the Baltic, across the Low Countries and parts of the United Kingdom the thermonuclear fire would have burned with a merciless flame. Scandinavia might have escaped relatively untouched, likewise southern France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Ireland and possibly parts of England, Wales and Scotland.
The ‘Cuban Missiles’ War would have been a Man made global catastrophe like no other in human history. In the aftermath, the USA, mourning the dead in half-a-dozen wrecked cities would have been the last major industrial and military power left standing. That world could never, ever be the world we know today.
How close did we actually come to the edge of the abyss? Much closer than most people like to contemplate. On Saturday 27th October 1962, north east of Cuba, the commander of Soviet submarine B-59 had to be talked out of firing a nuclear-tipped torpedo at the American destroyer USS Beale. That’s how close we came to World War III!
The Captain of the B-59 was a man called Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky. He gave the order for a nuclear warhead to be fitted to a torpedo.
In that era Soviet naval doctrine governing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons onboard a warship at sea required the authorisation of three officers: the captain, the executive officer, and the vessel’s political officer. B-59’s political officer, Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov signed off on starting World War III but fortunately for us all, the submarine’s second-in-command, Captain 2nd Rank Vasili Arkhipov, dissented and Armageddon was narrowly averted.
Timeline 10/27/62 is an alternative history of the modern world in which nobody ever got to know the name of Vasili Arkhipov because he died in the first act of the most terrible war in history.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 27, 2014
73 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
James Philip
75 books9 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
James Philip was born in Kingsbury in London and grew up in that long-lost age when as a four-year old he was among the last generation of young boys in England whose father could take him to stand on a nearby railway bridge, at Wealdstone so that he could peer over the smoke blackened parapet as real steam locomotives chugged beneath.
James Philip was born in Kingsbury in London and grew up in that long-lost age when as a four-year old he was among the last generation of young boys in England whose father could take him to stand on a nearby railway bridge, at Wealdstone so that he could peer over the smoke blackened parapet as real steam locomotives chugged beneath.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 25, 2015
Wow Mr. Phillip...
Why don't you stop mincing words and tell us what you really think about America? I would Point out that if it weren't for the horrible megalomaniacs in D.C., your feeble socialist experiment in poor dentition, along with the rest of western world would be sieg heiling in step with rest of Hitler's brain washed flunkies. We are the only reason you are free enough to spew this noxious tripe.
You clearly have little clue why the Cuban missile crisis went the way it did. It has always been the avowed policy of the U.S. not to be the first one to press the nuclear button. The world knew it. More importantly, the Soviets knew it. They also knew that on the strength of the U.S. blue water navy alone the only way Soviet missiles would make it to Cuba was if Kennedy lost his nerve. This was something he was NOT widely known for. When it became obvious what would happen if the the Russians ran the blockade, Khrushchev did exactly what he knew had to do from the moment the whole thing started. He picked up his toys and went home.
So here we are, back in your story...
After several days of embarrassment by U.S. naval vessels, the genius in command of the Russian sub hasn't figured out that he should already be dead twenty times over and is just being harassed. In his infinite wisdom, he opts to respond to practice weapons with a Hiroshima sized Nuke. The next step is someone on the Soviet side fires off three more missiles at the continental U.S. What would have been your response to this, since you are clearly upset by the U.S. response to this aggression.
The point that I'm trying to get at is that you have set up situations here that are not designed to make an enjoyable tale, but simply to make America look bad. The Soviets nuke the U.S. (big or small, it makes no difference with WMD's), America responds massively (also according to publicly stated doctrine), and the Soviets respond by nuking Britain back to the stone age? Why, aside giving you a reason gripe? Beyond that, why would would you choose this course of action?
I'm going to read the next installment because I can get it for free through KU. If had to pay cash I would probably skip it.
Why don't you stop mincing words and tell us what you really think about America? I would Point out that if it weren't for the horrible megalomaniacs in D.C., your feeble socialist experiment in poor dentition, along with the rest of western world would be sieg heiling in step with rest of Hitler's brain washed flunkies. We are the only reason you are free enough to spew this noxious tripe.
You clearly have little clue why the Cuban missile crisis went the way it did. It has always been the avowed policy of the U.S. not to be the first one to press the nuclear button. The world knew it. More importantly, the Soviets knew it. They also knew that on the strength of the U.S. blue water navy alone the only way Soviet missiles would make it to Cuba was if Kennedy lost his nerve. This was something he was NOT widely known for. When it became obvious what would happen if the the Russians ran the blockade, Khrushchev did exactly what he knew had to do from the moment the whole thing started. He picked up his toys and went home.
So here we are, back in your story...
After several days of embarrassment by U.S. naval vessels, the genius in command of the Russian sub hasn't figured out that he should already be dead twenty times over and is just being harassed. In his infinite wisdom, he opts to respond to practice weapons with a Hiroshima sized Nuke. The next step is someone on the Soviet side fires off three more missiles at the continental U.S. What would have been your response to this, since you are clearly upset by the U.S. response to this aggression.
The point that I'm trying to get at is that you have set up situations here that are not designed to make an enjoyable tale, but simply to make America look bad. The Soviets nuke the U.S. (big or small, it makes no difference with WMD's), America responds massively (also according to publicly stated doctrine), and the Soviets respond by nuking Britain back to the stone age? Why, aside giving you a reason gripe? Beyond that, why would would you choose this course of action?
I'm going to read the next installment because I can get it for free through KU. If had to pay cash I would probably skip it.
May 28, 2018
Russia Attacks UK; UK Blames US
Stephen V Cole using wife Leanna's account.
The first in a multiple volume alternative history in which the Cuban Missile Crisis explodes into a twelve-hour nuclear war. Russia is blasted into the Stone Age, the US loses a few coastal cities, the U.K. is devastated by twenty Soviet bombs, Germany is destroyed, and Europe takes a lots of nuclear hits and fallout. Russia nuked China for whatever reason. Somehow out of all of that the British blames the US for grossly overreacting not the Russians who actually dropped the bombs. There is a hard left political streak, and a boatload of hatred for the US. I see the same contempt for the US in British histories of WWII where the British dismissed their alliance partners as "Colonial amateurs playing at war".
Most military fiction books are written by right wingers to tell military fans that their world view is correct. This book is written from the left wing to tell anti-nuclear readers that their world view was right all along. As a business model I really wonder if writing nuclear war books for nuclear haters is commercially viable, but the author has self-Kindled a lot of books in the series so maybe it is. For myself, I see enough America hating stuff on real world TV, I seek more enjoyable books for pleasure reading. I won't suffer through more of this political screed. Even had the politics been reversed with the author telling us that the US saved Britain from the Reds the book was just boring as hell.
Technothriller fans will find too little about the military to be interested. There are no heroic bomber pilots penetrating air defenses. Instead we get a ship trying to get back to port before running out of fuel, a submarine in dry dock that has to tell the civilians it rescues to go away as they have no spare supplies, and a nurse in Malta doing nothing of any interest.
Stephen V Cole using wife Leanna's account.
The first in a multiple volume alternative history in which the Cuban Missile Crisis explodes into a twelve-hour nuclear war. Russia is blasted into the Stone Age, the US loses a few coastal cities, the U.K. is devastated by twenty Soviet bombs, Germany is destroyed, and Europe takes a lots of nuclear hits and fallout. Russia nuked China for whatever reason. Somehow out of all of that the British blames the US for grossly overreacting not the Russians who actually dropped the bombs. There is a hard left political streak, and a boatload of hatred for the US. I see the same contempt for the US in British histories of WWII where the British dismissed their alliance partners as "Colonial amateurs playing at war".
Most military fiction books are written by right wingers to tell military fans that their world view is correct. This book is written from the left wing to tell anti-nuclear readers that their world view was right all along. As a business model I really wonder if writing nuclear war books for nuclear haters is commercially viable, but the author has self-Kindled a lot of books in the series so maybe it is. For myself, I see enough America hating stuff on real world TV, I seek more enjoyable books for pleasure reading. I won't suffer through more of this political screed. Even had the politics been reversed with the author telling us that the US saved Britain from the Reds the book was just boring as hell.
Technothriller fans will find too little about the military to be interested. There are no heroic bomber pilots penetrating air defenses. Instead we get a ship trying to get back to port before running out of fuel, a submarine in dry dock that has to tell the civilians it rescues to go away as they have no spare supplies, and a nurse in Malta doing nothing of any interest.
September 14, 2020
I typically love alternate history books and had high hopes for this one about the Cuban missile crisis. I was a kid during that era and remember the panic we all felt. I felt the plot left a lot to be desired and it seemed to be more a manual on weapons and radar with very little character development. I slogged though to the end and found myself very disappointed that I had wasted so much time on a less than satisfying book.
January 14, 2022
Interesting Premise
I enjoyed this book, especially the historical look back from the 2012 perspective. The only issue was the description of the F.A.D.E ships. I look things up on Wikipedia for more information when I come across subjects that I'm unfamiliar with. Now either the author wrote the article or there was a bit of cut and paste going on. Now, before dragging me through the courts I've just completed the 2nd book in the series and before I got going I looked up Malta as I knew little about it other than WWII. Later in the book he describes Malta. Not only is it the same as the Wikipedia article but he left the wiki links included underlined.
The 2nd book review will not be as generous.
I enjoyed this book, especially the historical look back from the 2012 perspective. The only issue was the description of the F.A.D.E ships. I look things up on Wikipedia for more information when I come across subjects that I'm unfamiliar with. Now either the author wrote the article or there was a bit of cut and paste going on. Now, before dragging me through the courts I've just completed the 2nd book in the series and before I got going I looked up Malta as I knew little about it other than WWII. Later in the book he describes Malta. Not only is it the same as the Wikipedia article but he left the wiki links included underlined.
The 2nd book review will not be as generous.
January 30, 2021
I lived through the Cuban Missile crisis. I was in high school at the time. I remember to this day the British socialists swearing to not uphold the mutual defense treaty if the Russians attacked the US during the embargo.
I see that sentiment is still present with the author. He, like all too many Brits, fails to understand that the US can do without the UK. The reverse, however, is not true.
The author's blatant anti-americanism make this a one-time read and I won't be reading any more of this series.
I see that sentiment is still present with the author. He, like all too many Brits, fails to understand that the US can do without the UK. The reverse, however, is not true.
The author's blatant anti-americanism make this a one-time read and I won't be reading any more of this series.
September 11, 2019
A clever idea, from which the author spun a good tale over a number of books, which make interesting and intriguing reading.
But, oh dear, he is in want of a good editor: the reading is marred by numerous errors of spelling and syntax; omitted words - even while phrases ; repetitions, and far, far too many exclamation marks!
Tidied up this series would be not only a good read, which it is, but a very enjoyable one.
But, oh dear, he is in want of a good editor: the reading is marred by numerous errors of spelling and syntax; omitted words - even while phrases ; repetitions, and far, far too many exclamation marks!
Tidied up this series would be not only a good read, which it is, but a very enjoyable one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 8, 2018
Good read
Nice alternative history making you wonder what if. It wasn't too far away from the truth and was enjoyable to the end.
Nice alternative history making you wonder what if. It wasn't too far away from the truth and was enjoyable to the end.
March 17, 2021
An interesting and original premise, written in a good style. I'm enjoying the series.
September 29, 2022
You really overused the thesis parts
The book wasn’t easy to get into has at times the flow between time periods was rough with no steady flow till near the half way point.
The book wasn’t easy to get into has at times the flow between time periods was rough with no steady flow till near the half way point.
January 1, 2015
Just because you can publish a book online does not mean you should consider yourself to be a capable writer. James Philip should have heeded this advice before dropping this steaming pile of dog feces poor attempt at fiction upon us. The premise of the story is alternative history. The Cuban Missile Crisis has turned hot and England finds itself in the middle of things. The characters are all British, which is not a bad thing. But the characters are all cardboard as well. No emotion, or connection to the reader. The plot flounders like a piece of driftwood in a channel.
To sum the book up; it is a poorly written, ill conceived fourth rate novel. On the author's Amazon page, the following statement was found: "Having despaired of ever getting his fiction published by main stream publishers he has embraced the e-publishing revolution with something akin to glee."
Mr.Philip, the reason you could not get your fiction published by mainstream fiction is that your writing skills are nowhere near as polished as you think. Your writing talent is minimal.
To sum the book up; it is a poorly written, ill conceived fourth rate novel. On the author's Amazon page, the following statement was found: "Having despaired of ever getting his fiction published by main stream publishers he has embraced the e-publishing revolution with something akin to glee."
Mr.Philip, the reason you could not get your fiction published by mainstream fiction is that your writing skills are nowhere near as polished as you think. Your writing talent is minimal.
April 23, 2017
Very Believable
I was a Senior in high school in 1962 and remember quite well what the feeling was like not knowing who was going to "blink" first. This book paints a very believable picture of what might have happened if no one had "blinked". Well worth the read and I plan on starting Book 2 in the series as soon as possible.
I was a Senior in high school in 1962 and remember quite well what the feeling was like not knowing who was going to "blink" first. This book paints a very believable picture of what might have happened if no one had "blinked". Well worth the read and I plan on starting Book 2 in the series as soon as possible.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews