THE year is 1930 – and the British Empire is at war with the United States.
Royal Navy battleships bristling with enormous guns are steaming across the Atlantic.
And meanwhile, American soldiers are storming across the border into Empire-controlled Canada.
Both sides are facing a race against time in a first flurry of engagements that will decide the future of the West.
It seems unthinkable now – but this was the situation foreseen by US generals in the secretive ‘WAR PLAN RED’.
Britain and the US were standing victorious after defeating Germany and the Central Powers in World War 1.
But the UK was counting the cost – having lost nearly one million men in the mud-churned fields of Europe.
And as well as the spent lives, King George V’s government owed what today amounts to BILLIONS to America.
Reeling from the atrocities and the bloodshed, the world remained sat on a knife edge.
And so in the late 1920s, American commanders feared a new war – with their enemy being the British Empire.
These are just some of the declassified pages from the once top-secret 129 pages of War Plan Red.
The lengthy document details the situation in which the United States (Blue) finds itself at war with Britain (Red).
Petty trade rows are identified to be the most likely cause of war between the world’s two most powerful states.
Stuck between them is Canada (Crimson) – which finds itself being invaded from the south by the US.
Britain needed its dominion’s ports to get troops across the Atlantic and to resupply the powerful Royal Navy.
The Seperation of CRIMSON from RED would seriously impair RED’s war making power…
War Plan Red
US generals planned to stop this happening with a lighting raid to occupy huge swathes of Canada.
The plan was officially signed off on May 8, 1930 – all while Adolf Hitler was gathering his power in Germany.
War planners dubbed the moment the US mobilised for war against Britain as “M-Day”.
Our map here shows how the first days of the war would have played out:
American troops storm the northern border, the British fleet sets sail, and Canadian soldiers launch counter-attacks into the US.
It was deemed “almost certain” by the Americans that Canada would ally with Britain – both being ruled by King George V.
Washington’s top brass were determined to prevent Britain from rapidly deploying up to 100,000 soldiers from its expeditionary force to Canada.
They feared that if Britain gained a foothold in Canada, they could rapidly swell this force to more than two million.
Such a force could launch a devastating invasion into the continental United States.
The Royal Navy – which remained the world’s mightiest force at sea – was a key piece on the board the US wanted to neutralise.
Until the start of World War 2, the British fleet remained the largest in the world – numbering up to 1,400 warships.
RED has a distinct superiority in capital ships to BLUE (…) The RED Navy is better balanced than is the BLUE, it also has greater speed and gun range
War Plan Red
Within 30 days of the war the Americans feared the Brits would have up to 14 battleships, five aircraft carriers and well over one hundred other vessels massed around Canada.
This was not an advantage the Americans would let stand – so they needed control of all ports in the western Atlantic.
And so the Americans decided they must strike a rapid “vital blow” to Britain.
Measures must be taken to prevent RED invasion of BLUE continental territory and to deny or defeat RED naval and air raids directed against BLUE.
War Plan Red
Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Atlantic coast was identified as the first target for the US.
Troops and war machines would descend on Canada to seize or destroy anything of value to the Brits.
The North Atlantic would become the central theatre of a new Great War.
And such were concerns about the size and scale of the war, War Plan Red is very explicit – saying the US military was authorised to use “full force” from day one.
Perhaps one of the most chilling instructions comes here on page 85, point 11.
Chemical warfare from day one against their nearest neighbour was US policy if they went to war with Britain.
Some 25,000 troops were to be deployed to seize control of Halifax
And the documents describe the need for bombing raids on “as large a scale as practicable”.
US warships would then be deployed to control the coast of Canada to fend off any British attacks from the Pacific or Atlantic.
And should they be successful in neutralising their northern neighbours, US forces would then move to attack British colonies.
Total victory would only come when the United States had managed to destroy all British armed forces in North America and the Western North Atlantic.
Washington would seek to “seriously damage” British interests and occupy as much of the Empire as possible – rendering the US as the leading power worldwide.
And elsewhere, the US would also attack British interests in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies.
Jamaica, the Bahamas and Bermuda would all be attacked by the Americans.
But of course – the Empire would strike back.
War Plan Red warns that Britain would immediately seek a large-scale campaign against America.
Britain had also considered war with the US after World War 1 – having knocked out their previous great rival, Germany.
Vice Admiral Sir Osmond Brock had this to say in 1921.
The late war has removed Germany as a possible enemy, but the other effect of the war has been that the United States has become our rival for the carrying trade of the world.
The question therefore arises whether we ought to reconsider the decision of the Committee of Imperial Defence that we cannot fight the United States.
I am quite ready to allow that a war with the United States is very improbable, but that it is impossible I cannot allow.
Britain believed the best way to defeat the United States in a war was to neutralise the US using the Royal Navy.
They would mobilise the fleet quickly and seek to smash the American warships and strangle the world’s shipping lanes.
The UK never had a formal plan to war with the US – but military planners considered a full invasion of the US unrealistic.
Instead, the best efforts for Britain would be cut off the US from the rest of the world – and instead, sue for a negotiated peace.
War Plan Red however gives a much more large scale estimate of the British response.
It predicts a full-scale of invasion of northern American states by Britain, starting with the seizure of the Great Lakes.
Warships and warplanes would also pummel US bases in the Philippine Islands, Guam, and Samoa – and then Britain would seize the Panama Canal.
Elsewhere, the British fleet would establish dominance in the Atlantic and destroy the US Navy at the “earliest practicable date”.
The UK had the world’s best and most advanced battleships at this point – such as the mighty HMS Hood.
And the Americans worried the Empire would quickly bolster its troop numbers with soldiers from its many dominions.
Canadian commanders also saw the risk of invasion from the US in the event of a war with Britain and put in place a plan for a counterattack.
Lieutenant Colonel James “Buster” Sutherland Brown drew up what was known as Defence Scheme No.1.
His plan was for Canadian troops to invade the northern US in a series of thrusts known as “flying columns”.
These mad dashes would see them seize control of Seattle, Minneapolis, Great Falls and Albany.
Destroying as much infrastructure as they could “Buster” knew they couldn’t hope to hold the cities against the much larger US.
Instead, it was this would divert US troops from the invasion of Canada.
It would slow them down and allow the British to arrive in force.
War Plan Red states that the Americans wanted to “crush” Canada before Britain could back up its dominion.
The Americans admitted in the plan to ensure victory the would have use “maximum” effort and the war would be of “prolonged duration”.
The stage was set for war – a war that would have changed the course of history as the two great allies tore themselves apart in a storm of iron & blood.
War Plan Red reads that victory for the US would mean Britain would surrender its overseas territories to Washington.
But if Britain had won – the opposite would be the same, including giving up Alaska to Canada.
The world map would have been redrawn at the costs of huge amounts of war material and what could have been millions of lives.
And all the while – a great evil would have been allowed to rise in as Hitler dreamed of his new empire, The Third Reich.
Could the US and Britain having just have fought a bloody war transatlantic war against each other still have stopped the Nazi war machine as it was unleashed on Europe?
It is a terrifying unknown – and one thankfully will never be answered as the Allies united and destroyed the rise of fascism in World War 2.
