Broken Arrow

Charles D. Richardson The setting for this Historic Fiction Novel is during the height of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union each had enough nuclear weapons stockpiled in their vast arsenals to destroy the world several times over. Both sides were in a continuous state of alert mainly because of mistrust and an impending attack. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles were in the development stage: long-range bombers were the war machines of choice. It was a tense time of Ground Observer Corps, bomb shelters, practice alerts, Sputnik, Nuclear Winter, and Mutual Assured Destruction. School children hunkered beneath their desks while sirens wailed. Daily Strategic Air Command training flights mimicked an assault on a Russian city or military complex using chaff drops, air refueling, simulated bomb drops, simulated ground missile threats, and maximum fighter attacks. Cat-and-mouse games were practiced with other military commands and with the Soviet Air Defense system at all hours. This story is an accurate account of a dangerous Strategic Air Command training flight known as a Uniform Simulated Combat Mission, which went terribly awry during an Air Defense Command fighter intercept and resulted in the declaration of a Broken Arrow.