The plan to invade the United Kingdom. Two phases executed, the third not yet ordered.
184 pages. Hunt the deterrent at 18 to 22 percent confidence. Spend 65 percent of the global standoff inventory in twelve days. Land 160,000 troops across 3,200 miles and lose a quarter of the shipping. Certainty of nuclear retaliation: 95 percent.
My fellow Americans. At twelve minutes past four this morning, United States forces struck military targets in the United Kingdom. I did not want this. I have said for five weeks that the line stopped at Iceland. It stopped at Iceland until they took our peopl…
148 cruise missiles cross the line of departure at 04:12 GMT. Eighty-four are shot down and sixty-four get through. Newport News is torpedoed and scuttled. Both Vanguards remain undetected. Britain declares a state of war.
The United States Navy has lost the cruiser Gettysburg in the North Sea. Thirty-two Americans did not come off that ship. I have been given their names. I will not read them tonight because their families have not all been reached, and they will hear it from a…
The largest surface action between Western powers in eighty years. Gettysburg goes down with thirty-two dead. Keflavik's fuel farm burns. Forty-two percent of the American standoff stockpile is gone, and forty-eight allied warheads are still at sea.
Q: Mr President, the Phase III report is due on Tuesday. Are you going to invade Britain? A: I'm going to read the report on Tuesday. Q: Your own Strategic Command puts the chance of nuclear retaliation at ninety-five percent. A: Where did you get that number?…
The open item on the agenda when the record stops. Amphibious assault readiness, sealift convoy assembly, allied minefield interdiction, and the lodgment timetable. The report is not yet written.
Four red-bordered binders went into the Situation Room this afternoon. 184 pages. Albion Anvil . The first American war plan against the British mainland since the founding of the republic. Phase I: hunt the deterrent. DIA confidence 18–22%. Phase II: suppress…
Inbound tracks over the north of Scotland. This is not an exercise and it is not a probe. Cruise missiles are hitting the United Kingdom.
At 04:12 GMT the United Kingdom came under sustained cruise missile attack by the armed forces of the United States. Air defences are engaging. The public should follow the guidance of local authorities and stay away from military installations.
Woke up at ten past four to what I thought was thunder. I am fifty-eight years old and I have just heard a war start over my own house.
School is open today. I checked at five in the morning because I did not know if that was still automatic. Thirty children are going to walk into my classroom in two hours and I am going to teach them about the Louisiana Purchase.
I remember the last one. I was three, so I remember my mother's face and not much else. I did not expect to see her face on my own in the mirror this morning. I am so terribly sorry, all of you. I truly thought we had finished with this.
My grandfather flew out of Norfolk in 1943. Norfolk, England, not Virginia. He is buried forty minutes from Lakenheath. We are bombing the country that buried him. I do not have a bigger thought than that and I have been trying to have one since four this morn…
Reconstructing the first salvo: 148 weapons launched. 84 intercepted — Aster 30 from Type 45s in the Forth and the Humber, Sky Sabre over the Scottish coast, 19 taken by QRA Typhoons with Meteor and ASRAAM. 64 leaked through. Buchan and Benbecula radars destro…
The Prime Minister has informed the House that a State of War exists between the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
Five weeks ago I posted that it was quiet at Marham and something was up. I want to go back to that morning and stay in it.
My fellow Americans. At twelve minutes past four this morning, United States forces struck military targets in the United Kingdom. — Address to the nation, the Oval Office
He did not want this. They took our people. They put subs to sea. They moved first at Lakenheath. We are behind him. Bring them home.
I have defended nearly all of this and I am not going to pretend otherwise now. I cannot defend this one. Britain. I do not know a single person in this town who thinks we should be shooting at Britain and I know a lot of people who have been with him the whol…
"I did not want this." Sir, on the nineteenth of January you had no plan to take Greenland and you took it. On the ninth of February you told us the line stopped at Iceland. It is the sixteenth. I preached forgiveness on Sunday to a half-empty church. I am not…
The under-reported number from last night is not the missiles that hit. It is the missiles that were spent. Fourteen percent of the entire American global JASSM-ER inventory, in twelve hours, against the radar picture of one medium-sized country. Phase II need…
my manager asked me to stay late today. there is a war on with britain. there is a WAR ON WITH BRITAIN. and this man wants me to cover the evening shift. i said yes. what else is there. rent is on the first either way.
respect for saying it. genuinely. no dunk. this app would be about forty percent less poisonous if more people could type "I cannot defend this one" without it meaning they lost.
Six anxiety presentations tonight and it is not even eleven. Two panic attacks in the waiting room. One elderly gentleman convinced the missiles are coming here. I told him they are not. I believe that. I checked twice before I said it, which is not something …
Newport News has been lost. Spearfish, aft compartment, blew to the surface and was scuttled by her own crew. Ambush took a Mk 48 in return and is limping home on the electric drive. And in twelve days of the hardest ASW anyone has ever attempted, they have no…
Every American aircraft that flew west out of this continent last month is now bombing a European country. I said in January that some of us were doing arithmetic. Here is the answer to the arithmetic: there is nobody coming. Not for them, not for us. We are a…
A state of war between the United States and the United Kingdom. My grandfather fought alongside both of them. I typed that sentence into a translation app three times because I did not believe I had understood the English correctly.
URGENT: US Navy cruiser USS Gettysburg has sunk in the North Sea after being struck by anti-ship missiles during a combined Anglo-French strike. US officials confirm fatalities.
A ship went down. Every spouse in this neighbourhood is standing at a window right now watching the street for a car that does not belong here. That is what today is. Not the news. The window. Please do not post the name until the families have been told. Plea…
Navy. It says Navy. My son is Army. I read the word Navy and I felt relief and then I felt so ashamed of the relief that I had to sit down on the stairs. Somebody's son is on that ship. I am so sorry. I am so sorry that my first feeling was about mine.
How it happened, because the detail matters: Gettysburg fought her own engagement well. Fourteen sea-skimmers killed by SM-2 and ESSM. Then Suffren put a torpedo spread underneath her and she had to manoeuvre out of her own defensive geometry. Two Exocets amid…
PLEASE stop reposting the crew list going round. It is not official, it is not complete, and two of the names on it are wrong. Somebody's mother is going to read a name on your timeline before an officer gets to her door. There is no version of that you get to…
Tanya. Every single one of us on this street felt exactly that this morning when we saw it was not our husband's hull number. It is not shame. It is what love does when it is frightened. Do not carry that one on top of everything else.
The Department confirms the loss of USS Gettysburg (CG-64) with thirty-two personnel. Next of kin are being notified. Operations in the theater continue.
The fuel farm at Keflavik is burning. Storm Shadow, from the east, under the Patriots. Nine days ago the Americans took this airfield in a battle that killed nine people. Tonight they cannot land a heavy transport on it.
Thirty-two. I have carried one of those boxes. It is heavier than you think and it is not because of what is in it. Whatever you believe about this war, today is not the day to be clever about it online. Tomorrow, be as angry as you want. I intend to be.
The United States Navy has lost the cruiser Gettysburg in the North Sea. Thirty-two Americans did not come off that ship. — Written statement, the White House
"I ordered the operation she was on. Nobody else ordered it." I have been critical of every decision in this campaign and I will be again tomorrow. Tonight I will say only this: that is the correct sentence, it is the one sentence nobody in his position ever s…
"I ordered the operation she was on. Nobody else ordered it." I have been on this app defending him for six weeks and I have taken some abuse for it, some of it deserved. Tonight he said the one thing I needed him to say. It does not bring back thirty-two boys…
Deb — I have been on the other side of you in these replies for a month. You are right. He said it, and it was the right thing, and I am not going to take that away from him tonight. I hope you and I are still arguing about all of this in ten years. That will …
"Nobody else ordered it." Forty-one days I have been shouting at this man on this app. Tonight he said the one thing that is hard to say and he said it plain. Does not change my mind about one single decision. Changes what I think of him for about an hour. Bot…
We had a minute's silence in homeroom this morning. Thirty-two seconds, one for each. A kid suggested it, not me. Then we did fractions. That is the strangest part of all of this. The fractions still have to happen.
Thirty-two names were read in my church last night. We had forty people. Six weeks ago we had two hundred and forty. They did not leave over the war. They left over me. That is fine. Somebody has to read the names and it turns out it is going to be forty of us…
Six weeks ago people here made jokes about the gringos fighting each other. Nobody is joking now. My mother asked me last night whether the missiles can reach here. They cannot. She asked anyway. That is what this month did to the world. It made everybody's mo…
Four days of Phase II, tallied: 388 further standoff weapons expended. RAF main bases cratered — and the fighter force is intact, flying off motorway sections under emission control. 14 US aircraft shot down. 18 allied. 1 US cruiser sunk, 1 French frigate sunk…
Adding up four days of published and reconstructed figures. Expended: 148 weapons in the opening salvo, 388 in the follow-on. Cumulative 42% of total US global JASSM-ER and LRASM stocks. Phase II as planned wanted 65% over twelve days; they…
Full hours again this week. Overtime Saturday. My wife asked me last night if I was going to feel bad about the money. I said I did not know. She said "I do", and we sat there. Anyway. Overtime Saturday.
Fifty-two days. I have watched all of it on this little screen my grandson set up. I have learned what a GIUK gap is. I am 74 and I did not need to learn that. Two goldfinches this morning. I am telling you because somebody should say something ordinary today.…
Fifty days ago I was writing about a procurement dispute. Since then I have watched an alliance walk out of its own chamber, stood on a ramp where nobody could buy fuel, and reported from an airfield where nine people were killed by an ally. And the strange pa…
I don't rule things out. That's the whole job.
"I don't rule things out. That's the whole job." Sir. My son is nineteen. He is at Bragg. XVIII Airborne Corps is in that plan and so is he. Rule it out. That is also the job. That is the part of the job where you tell a mother in Indiana that her boy is not g…
No jargon. No takes. Just the sequence. 10 Jan — The US switched off the data service that allied F-35s need. Half of Europe's stealth fleet stopped flying in three days. 17 Jan — The officials who said the money for this was illegal were f…
Tanya, I am 74 and I have nothing useful to offer you except that I am thinking about your boy tonight, and I will again tomorrow. That is not much. I am sending it anyway.
not to be dramatic but I have checked this app 200 times today and the only thing I actually want to see is a post that says "it stopped" that's it. that's the whole ask. six words and I'll log off forever
reporter: will you rule out invading britain president: i don't rule things out reporter: president: reporter: president: that's the whole job sir that is not the whole job. that is not any part of the job. genuinely which part of the job did you think that wa…
Every serving person I know is reading that gaggle tonight and doing the same thing: working out whether their unit is in the troop list. Mine is out. My daughter's godfather's is in. Sir, you have about four days. Rule it out. Not for us — I know how that goe…
There is one item left on the agenda. 24 February. Phase III staging report. Amphibious readiness, sealift convoy assembly, minefield interdiction, lodgment timetable. Everything else in this record has already happened. That one has not been written yet.
Fifty days. Two territories occupied. One alliance broken. Two capital ships and one submarine on the bottom. Forty-one dead that we can count. And the thing that stops it is not a treaty or a summit or a vote. It is two submarines nobody can find. That is the…
Fifty-two days ago I fixed a boiler in Nørrebro and thought about nothing except the boiler. I would like to go back to that. I do not think I get to. I think this is just what the world is now and the rest of my life happens inside it. Anyway. Boiler in Valby…
Day ten. He got another ninety seconds today. He said the British sergeant on his block has started bringing tea round in the morning, and that nobody has decided whether to say thank you, and that everybody says thank you. Two armies. One kettle. That is wher…