A villan's lair from real life

Number24

I can't believe I didn't know this before today, but here it goes:
From 1958 to 1966 the US military had a secret base called Camp Century under the ice in Greenland! about 200 people lived on the base. They had living quarters, a hospital and a church. The whole facility was powerd by a mobile nuclear generator. The purpose of the base was to build missile silos for inter-continental nuclear rockets aimed at the Soviet Union. From Greenland the planned 600 missiels would have a much shorter journey to their target behind the iron curtain. This was called Project Iceworm. While the US has a official military base on Greenland on Thule, Denmark had no idea ther was a second US base on Greenland despite being on Danish territory. Here is the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm

Strangely, a documentary was made by the US military, obviously not mentioning atomic missiles!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POWR2H89QVY


This is all very Bondian. But imagine if the Soviet Union had teh same idea? They could feasably build a base like Camp Century on their own. Now imagine shady Americans trying to hide their own base, a Russian base commander with cabin fever and megalomania who wants to start world war three and a beautiful Danish scientist. This should be a continuation novel!

CmdrAtticus

A little late in commenting on this, but yes, I did know about Century from my posting in the AFSOUTH NATO base while during my entire Navy tour. Part of the division I was in had a section that handled all the top secret nuclear aspects of the European/Mediterranean defences. I saw documents on a weekly basis dealing with this and one of them was about Century. There are many other topics like this I've never been able to talk about since then because one can't until they are declassified and revealed publicly. Another example of this is there was an undergound base inside a mountain not far from Naples similar to Cheyenne in Wyoming where we used to conduct war games. It was closed sometime in the 80's and though it's not well know about publicly, I can mention it since it's no longer in use.

Number24

Interesting. Was the Napoli also a nuclear rocket base too? I marvel at the idea of palcing atomic weapons in such geologically insecure places. The Greenland ice moves constantly and Napoli has the vulcanical mount Vesuvius and a history of earthquakes.

I mentioned the Century base could be a good theme for a continuation novel. A secret Soviet base on Greenland supplied by submarines and merchant ships sounds cool. The Danish have a very limited military presens in Greenland. They deploy the Sirius Patrol to conduct reconnaissance and "show of flag". These are jaeger soldiers, often from special forces, trained in winter survival in Norway. They use dog sleighs, civilian winter gear and bolt-action rifles. They could be written into the story.


I have read Boyd's 'Solo'. An OK book, but lacking in flair and perhaps too 'realistic'. The Century base is an example of how something can be colourful and fantastical, but still real. Boyd could learn something out of that.

CmdrAtticus

The underground base outside Naples was the southern NATO HQ that was to be used if war broke out with the Soviets. All personnel would have been transferred there quickly and all operations would have been conducted from there. War games were coordinated from there twice a year to keep the facility up to snuff. There were no nuclear arms there. The AFSOUTH base in the Bagnoli suberb of Naples I was stationed on was was more or less shut down in 2004 when it was succeeded by Joint Forces Command Naples (JFC). They moved to a new facility some 20 kilometers west of Naples. The Bosnia mission was coordinated from AFSOUTH and the allied attacks on Libya were planned and coordinated from the new JFC HQ. While stationed there I got the sense of what it was probably like for Fleming when he was working in the Old Admiralty during the war. The offices and halls were filled with officers and everything worked on was top secret or above. I was fortunate to have worked under a Royal Navy captain for part of my stint. He was also a Bond fan (as well as many of the other Brits in the division) and we used to go on about Bond and Fleming at times. He even had played golf at some of the courses Fleming played and when he was stationed in London he haunted some of the same eateries Fleming did (like Scotts).

Number24

Also interesting. I'm not completely sure, but I think the northeren equailant is in Norway. Hopefully no war will be directed from there, since the enemy had to be Russia. In other words, the northern HQ would only be used in the event of WWIII

Wasn't it irritating not to be able to talk about your work at neighbourhod BBQ or out on the town?

Coldheart96

The site in Italy was called "Proto". Been there many times in the 80's.

CmdrAtticus

Coldheart96 wrote:

The site in Italy was called "Proto". Been there many times in the 80's.

Glad to meet someone who had been there. Which service were you in and when were you there?

CmdrAtticus

Number24 wrote:

Also interesting. I'm not completely sure, but I think the northeren equailant is in Norway. Hopefully no war will be directed from there, since the enemy had to be Russia. In other words, the northern HQ would only be used in the event of WWIII

Wasn't it irritating not to be able to talk about your work at neighbourhod BBQ or out on the town?

At times yes, but you get used to not discussing what you know or knew. As far a WWIII scenario, NATO's mission drastically changed when the Soviet Union ended. The focus is on terrorism ,rogue nations states and when assigned, getting the security under control in a regional conflict like Bosnia/Libya.. When I was deployed, those in command worried as much about a nuclear accident that could chain reaction into automatic full scale conflict as much as they did a pre-planned war. It's happened several times, but fortunately for some quick thinking men, it's always been avoided.

Number24

Yes. But my point is that the threats to NATO's southern flank are very different to the northern flank. In the south you have terrorism and regional conflicts (Balkans, Syria etc.). In the north there is pretty much one threath: Russia. The picture is more complex than it was, now we can imagine smaller conflicts involving natural recources (Gas, trade lanes by ship north of Russia), but invasion from Russia is still something we can't rule out in the future. And a Russian attack on NATO's north flank is a major shift in global power. If you control Norway you control the northermost part of the Atlantic. If you control the north Atlantic, you control the access from America to Europe. So WWIII. This is very far from as big a threath and much less likely in the near future than it was during the cold war, thank God.

CmdrAtticus

Number24 wrote:

Yes. But my point is that the threats to NATO's southern flank are very different to the northern flank. In the south you have terrorism and regional conflicts (Balkans, Syria etc.). In the north there is pretty much one threath: Russia. The picture is more complex than it was, now we can imagine smaller conflicts involving natural recources (Gas, trade lanes by ship north of Russia), but invasion from Russia is still something we can't rule out in the future. And a Russian attack on NATO's north flank is a major shift in global power. If you control Norway you control the northermost part of the Atlantic. If you control the north Atlantic, you control the access from America to Europe. So WWIII. This is very far from as big a threath and much less likely in the near future than it was during the cold war, thank God.

I keep in Facebook and email contact with a friend who is in Naval Intelligence and whenever he comes here to Florida for vacation. He's always knows the current status of US global defensive strategy. NATO and the US stopped planning for Russian military attacks in Europe years ago. He told me that even though Putin is an old KGB officer and would probably wish the Russian government had the kind of power and influence the way the communist government once did, he is a pragmatic, realistic politician who has had to bow to the modern world where economics drive the policies. He worries more about muslim extremists on their southern flank than conflict involving energy or trade. They prefer stability as much as we do. It's one of the reasons they got the Syrian's to deal on the chemical weapons they and the Czechoslovakians sold them back in the 80's. Since they make a good deal of rubles on supplying them with conventional weapons and getting them to give up the chemical ones made them look favorable in the UN, it's a win-win for them. As my Navy Intel friend said..it's all about money. The largest reason their empire collapsed..they just could not maintain the funding of their bloated military defense based on a non capitalistic system in a modern world. Even the Chinese figured this out. One can saber rattle all one want's, but if one doesn't maintain economic viability, there won't be much of any sabers left to rattle.

Number24

All true, but in the long run Russia remains the only forseeable threath to NATO's north flank.