Level 7

At 11.21 hours today the 9th of June, I was through with my daily duty. As a matter of fact, I was through with my life’s work. I had done my job. My function as PBX Officer was completely fulfilled.

The loudspeaker said: “You are free, gentlemen. You may go to your quarters or, if you prefer, stay to watch the results of A4, B4 and C4.”

X-107 and X-137 remained behind to see what happened. I came back here to my room and lay down.

JUNE 10

So the war is over. It started yesterday at 09.12 hours, as far as our offensive action was concerned, and it ended when our last missiles exploded in enemy territory at 12.10 hours.

The whole war lasted two hours and fifty-eight minutes—the shortest war in history. And the most devastating one. For both these reasons it is very easy to write its history: no complicated and lengthy campaigns, no battlefields to remember—the globe was one battlefield.

I could summarise this war, the greatest in human history, in a few words: “Yesterday, in a little under three hours, life on vast patches of the earth was annihilated.” But I had better be more historically minded and write down a few details about how it happened. These details were announced on the general loudspeaker system first thing this morning, and have been repeated several times since. Everybody knows them now almost by heart. I shall reproduce them true to their spirit, even if the wording differs a little from the original.

Yesterday, at 09.07 hours, twelve H-bombs fell in a remote part of our country. Ten of them exploded in sparsely inhabited areas, but two hit big centres of population. The attack came suddenly, and by the time PBY Command detected the missiles they were already striking their targets. No interception of these rockets was possible, but their arrival served as the best possible warning and PBY Command’s later achievements were spectacular.

The PBX Command too was alive to what was going on. The treacherous attack had to be met with a counter-attack,and so the command “Push Button A1” was given. The command was limited, quite conscientiously, to just the one button. We did not want to start a total war as long as we were not sure that the enemy intended to annihilate us completely. Button A1 released only two thousand rockets, with warheads of one to five megatons. They were directed solely at military and industrial installations in the nearest enemy zone.

At the same time, in case the enemy should retaliate, the alarm was sounded throughout the country and people hurried underground. This was done in a fairly orderly manner, except for some trouble over the Level 1 shelters. Many people without the proper identification tried to get into them, and this led to rioting. It is likely that many people who should not have gone below did so, while some who were entitled to a place were left outside. The shelters became overcrowded, and in the struggle for space many women, children and old people were crushed to death. These scenes went on for as long as the areas concerned were not hit; and the longer they were spared the bombs, the worse the fighting became. In some places it was over in forty minutes or so, but here and there it lasted up to two hours, with bloody battles which became even more ferocious as distant explosions were heard. Entrances to shelters were blocked by people fighting in the most primitive and cruel way with the nearest weapons that came to hand—kitchen knives, clubs made from broken-up furniture, and bare fists if they could not find anything better. All this was reported over the radio by self-sacrificing commentators, who even in this emergency did not forget their duty to report the news. They died microphones in hand.

At 09.15 hours, three minutes after our first operational move, our leaders received a radio message from the enemy which announced that twelve intercontinental missiles with H-bomb warheads had escaped their electronic controls and might explode in our country. The message asked us not to retaliate, as this was not an intentional act of hostility but only a technical accident.

We replied that we should have been warned earlier so that we could intercept the missiles as successfully as possible.

The enemy answered that it had taken them some time to realise what had happened, and even longer to get in touch with us.