OPERATIONAL PLAN 316
______In October 1962 missiles were discovered by way of U-2 flights in the Marxist regime of Fidel Castro. These medium-range missiles had the capability to hit all of the United States (except for parts of the northwest) with nuclear waheads.
______It didn't take much imagination to figure out exactly WHO these missiles belonged to. Soviet ships were shuttling back and forth between the USSR and its newest puppet. And the amount of borscht being served at Cuban cafes simply skyrocketed. Even the CIA couldn't miss the implications.
______There were three options to deal with the Soviet missile threat (four if you count waffling): blockade the island and prevent more missiles from arriving, launch airstrikes to destroy the missiles before they could be used, or launch a land invasion to capture the launch sites. As it was believed that the sites were not yet operational the three options were to be executed in sequence, beginning with the "naval quarantine" of Cuba. An airstrike would be launched once U.S. Army troops were ready to land. Soldiers of the XVIII Airborne Corps would land west of Havana. The invasion plan was named Operational Plan 316.
______While the Air Force proceeded to identify targets and stage aircraft and munitions in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, U.S. Army units moved to staging areas in Florida while military hospitals in southern posts were quietly prepared to receive large-scale casualties. Army boat units were moved to Fort Lauderdale and Port Everglades. There was difficulty in finding space for all the soldiers who would be making the amphibious landings, especially since the operation was initially veiled in the fiction that it was a large-scale exercise. Some soldiers of the 1st Armored Division were billeted at a racecourse in Hallandale.
______The 101st Airborne and 82nd Airborne Divisions were prepared for their jump into Cuba. The 101st was to sieze control of beaches around Mariel Beach while the 82nd took key airfields in the path of the 1st Armored Division, which would be landing at Mariel. Once Havana was cut off and/or secured with the help of Marines slated to land east of the city, the tanks of the 1st Armored would roll straight to the missile sites and take them out... taking care to treat anyone with a Boris Badinoff accent with the utmost respect.
______In the end the Soviets blinked. Faced with a simple statement that a missile attack against the United States from Cuba would be treated as an attack from Soviet territory itself and that the United States would retaliate in kind, Khruschev backed down. So long as Cuba was not invaded the missiles would be dismantled and sent back home. The Soviet ships taking them back to the Motherland were even obliging enough to uncover the missiles loaded on the decks so that U.S. recon aircraft could photograph and confirm their departure.
______Before the Army units were sent back to their home stations there was a parade of sorts, with President Kennedy personally travelling to the many staging areas where soldiers were had prepared to storm Cuba. Today the invasion plan is largely forgotten, but had World War III started the opening move would have been to take out the USSR's advanced missile base in the Western Hemisphere.
WHAT MOVIE USED 50,000 COMBAT TROOPS TO MAKE?
